At the same time that we are shifting from the campus classroom to the web classroom, there is significant discussion within higher education encouraging institutions to shift from a teaching paradigm to a learning paradigm. A primary assumption behind this movement appears to be that our institutions in the past focused not on our students, or on learning outcomes, but on teaching.
While I applaud the thinking, and am excited by what is happening as a result of this movement, it also causes me concern as it may cause us to overcorrect our environments. My concern about this statement is twofold. First, what evidence supports that notion that our institutions really have focused on teaching? Do they reflect a focus on teaching and excellence in teaching? Do we have curricula whose design reflects a dedication to the art and science of teaching? Do we have a system that supports faculty too much? I don't think so.
The teaching processes in our institutions look very much the way they did decades, and even centuries ago. The major difference is in how we store information–whether it is stored on a slate, on a blackboard, on a book or on a computer. The second part of my concern is that we may overlook the importance of the conditions of learning–the larger infrastructure that we now need.
So, I worry. (I tend to be a worrier. That comes with raising four children, and now I can't change.) I worry that a "shift to learning form teaching" will cause a shift away from a focus on effective teaching just at the time we need it most.
Let's explore this idea further. I strongly support our somewhat belated acknowledgement of the importance of a focus on the learning process and thus, on our learners. Our students, particularly in higher education, have often been the equivalent of campus stepchildren–tolerated, but only because the campus, the research, knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination might not have been supported without the students. How many times have we heard the comment, wry though it was said, that the campus would be a great place to work if it were not for the students?
So, I strongly support the shift to a learning paradigm and am delighted to be seeing the design of learning colleges and institutions—provided we do it with balance. The current push for a shift to a focus on students as learners, as consumers, and as active participants in the learning process is not only good, but essential. We need educated and knowledgeable people more than ever. But what about this emerging dogma about the importance of a shift from teaching to learning?
A shift to the learning paradigm will only trip us up if it means a shift away from the teaching paradigm. Teaching and learning are essential each to the other. Can there be knowledge to be learned without a creator, a framer, a planner, and shaper of that knowledge? How does one have a learner without a teacher, or something or someone that supports the learning?
Lev Vygotsky, a modern cognitive psychologist, specifies three components of the educational process: the learner, the teacher, and "something" that the learner needs to know. By extension this also means that there must be the knowledge that the learner needs to know. This knowledge is often somewhere physical–a book, a computer program, in someone's head, in an experience to help in the learner acquiring that knowledge.
In today's environments, the teacher component is diversifying and becoming more complex. In computer-based education, for example, where is the teacher? The teacher is not gone. The teacher is there, but has been captured in silicon–often at great expense and intellectual effort. So, we have teachers embedded in the content resources–the book, the CD, the video, and the web. These teachers are now captured in silicon; let's call them "embedded teachers". We also have the "mentoring teacher", who serves as the guide through the resources, as the manager of a learner or group of learners.
In the development of content resources, and the design of courses the same unbundling applies. A teacher/writer/ developer offers learners the following: expertise in a field of knowledge, its structure, and in communicating it to others. As embedded teachers, they select a subset of the knowledge and identify core concepts and principles, then design recommended activities and experiences that can assist the learner in the learning. The mentoring teacher takes the works of the embedded teachers–and based on who the students are–does the following tasks. They observe the conditions of the learners and the environment; they frame the content to be learned by selecting the resources; they determine an approximate order, or sequence for the use of the embedded teachers; and they continually adjust and shape the resources and experiences as the learners grow. And learners do grow in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. This is hard work and needs to be supported.
Just as space exploration caused a shift in human perception when we saw our earth home as one place, we need to step back, and look at the teaching and learning infrastructure as a whole. We need to create and sustain a balanced teaching and learning infrastructure. A shift to a learning paradigm is good–as one element of an effective fully functioning teaching and learning infrastructure.
One of the best outcomes that I suspect may result from this shift from a teaching paradigm to a learning paradigm is a thoughtful reexamination of the environment that needs to be designed to support both effective learning and effective teaching in our institutions. This means looking within our institutions at the processes by which people become and remain successful students. It means a look at the physical and silicon buildings that provide the environments for learning. And it means a closer look at the continued development of embedded and mentoring teachers.
We also need to look beyond our institutions to the full infrastructure for teaching and learning. The global network is now part of our learning infrastructure. The design and development of varied communication tools, the design and development of well structured content resources, and design and development of effective, flexible, comprehensive well structured, accessible knowledge databases are part of this infrastructure.
So, as we adopt the learning paradigm, let us strive for balance. Let us support the learner who is doing the work of learning–by ensuring access, tools, learning support and time that is needed for growing the student from wherever they are. Let us also ensure support for the teacher who is responsible for the framing of the instruction, for the anticipating, for the adapting the content to the student. Let us support the infrastructure that provides the environment for effective learning and effective teaching–freeing the student and the teacher for the task and joy of learning.
For our institutions to be strong and flexible and effective, adoption of a learning paradigm must include support of the learner, the teacher (both embedded and mentoring), and the environment.
Note: I am indebted to John Dewey and his chapter on the Aims of Education in Democracy and Education (1916) for some of the ideas in this column. He is still good reading, by the way.