A fine balance

Who leads the learning in your institution? Is it the teachers, or students - or do both contribute equally to ensure the best possible conditions for learning? It's a fine balance.

Carl Rogers championed student centred learning, while John Dewey emphasised the importance of learner participation. Seymour Papert strongly believed that the best learning takes place when learners take charge. The Progressive Education movement holds that education is not something that should be imposed upon students, but instead should be a conscious consensual process with which each learner is actively engaged. Education is not done to us. Education is something we do. Education is at its strongest when learners are at the centre of the process, and can exercise their choices about what happens.

For students, education should be about taking control of learning, while for teachers it should be focused on letting go. But that can be a difficult proposition for some teachers, because we tend to teach in the same way we were taught. Perhaps the biggest objection traditional educators have about learners taking control is the argument that students don't really now what they want, so can't effectively direct their own learning. Progressives respond by pointing out that the most powerful learning occurs when it has personal meaning, and only the student can construct that.

The middle ground is that students can be given freedom to learn while they are scaffolded by experts within prescribed knowledge sets. What students learn is important, but so is the manner in which they learn. The big question all educators must answer in the coming years is how we create a fine balance where students have control of their own learning, and teachers provide the best possible support. One important movement will be from passive reception to active engagement. It will require effective management of expectations - of both students and teachers.

In Experience and Education, John Dewey highlighted the importance of students leading their own learning through active engagement: “There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his [sic] activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.” Unfortunately, students will be unable to do this if the school regime forbids a student voice in favour of teacher dominated pedagogy. We need to get the balance right. 

The last word should go to Paulo Freire: “The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” 

References
Dewey, J. (1983) Experience and Education. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith Publishing.
Horton, M and Freire, P. (1990) We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Rogers, C. R. (1983) Freedom to Learn. New York: Prentice Hall. 

Photo from the National Photo Company Collection via Flickr


A fine balance by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Selfie number 3

In this series of short posts, I'm writing about my top ten selfies (including elsies and photobombs) with people who have inspired me or have influenced my thinking. Previous selfie posts can also be viewed on this blog.

This is me with Sugata Mitra in Oslo, in 2013, just after I had interviewed him for the EDEN Conference television channel. I first heard him speak at Online Educa in Berlin, Germany about 10 years ago. There, he presented his seminal (and many would say controversial) work on minimally invasive education. He set up computers with tracker balls in holes in walls in the slums of India and observed how the children taught themselves in small groups, in what became known as the 'Hole in the Wall' project. The results of this research led to his belief that children can learn independently of adults or experts if they have a) the tools, b) the support of peers, and c) the motivation.

At the time, when I first heard about this project, I was quite excited by the idea that education does not have to be content led, or expert led, but that learners can lead their own learning. This chimed with the work of a number of theorists I had studied during my teacher training, including Carl Rogers, Paulo Freire and John Dewey. But Sugata's approach added technology into the equation, and located self directed learning within a digital context, which interested me the most. Several questions entered my mind. Could the pedagogical role of the educator be redefined? How could school be transformed into a minimally invasive environment? What role might technology play in the future to support autodidacticism?

I have subsequently worked alongside Sugata in many contexts, and am fascinated by his concept of the 'School in the Cloud' where retired people who have some spare time can connect remotely through video tools to children in place where teachers cannot, or will not go. Sugata Mitra has been criticised and praised in equal measure and his ideas polarise the education community. He has received the brickbats as well as the bouquets. Some are quite vehement in their attacks on his reputation and work, and conversely, others are equally aggressive in their defence of his ideas. Many a heated exchange has been observed in recent years on social media and in the mainstream press about this controversial and catalytic academic. Just like many influential scientists in the past, he has upset the applecart, and now everyone has an opinion about his work, his premises, his conclusions. He certainly has us all talking.

I have to say on a personal note that whatever you think about Sugata Mitra or conclude about his research, I have found he is genuinely open and approachable, always has plenty of time for people, and he has inspired me to think differently about education, learning and technology.

Photo courtesy of the European Distance and E-learning Network


Selfie number 3 by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.