Chris O'Hagan (C.M.Ohagan@derby.ac.uk)
Wed, 20 Jan 1999 11:15:00 +0000
From: "Chris O'Hagan" <C.M.Ohagan@derby.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 11:15:00 +0000 Subject: [ifets] Re:Learning styles
Thanks to William Terrell for pointing out an ambiguity in my recent
comments.
Indeed my point was precisely that *teachers* should know a lot more
about how students learn and different 'styles' (if these exist in
discrete ways beyond the convenience of research conclusions, rather
than as a unique collection of habits a student has acquired both
explicitly and tacitly from experience and strategies adopted for
passing tests - though 'styles' may be a useful abstract inventory to
help teachers think more deeply about how students learn.) My
concern was that any instrumental approach to trying to identify an
individual student's style would be more likely to hinder student
development than the opposite. Much better to help students
adopt a range of different approaches to learning, by helping them to
be reflective on their own learning processes, and providing
different kinds of learning opportunity. This is where knowledge of
how adult's learn can help teachers provide and hone those different
learning opportunities. And as Eric says and found, most teachers
find this knowledge deeply rewarding for their work with students. It
is a case of them not knowing what they don't know if they have never
been educated or trained in this.
Whilst I am a believer in the utility of interactive learning,
experiential learning etc, and research in this has provided some
useful arguments (propaganda?) against the elitists and
traditionalists, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Students simply cannot be interactive all day long, it would be
exhausting. Variety is the spice of life - learning cannot take
place at a constant speed. That is why I think 'engaged' is a useful
word for describing some mental activity in whatever the student is
doing, such as reading a book. I do not think that 'interactive'
avoids the problems Eric Flescher finds with the word 'engaged'. It
is possible to be interactive with a computer, even with a tutorial
group and just run through the motions without actually *engaging*
with the learning - I am reminded here of two expressions that have
stuck in my mind which are applicable to this kind of interactivity:
a state of 'entropic mindlessness' is one description of a student in
computer hyperspace, and 'fatuous euphoria' was once used to describe
a group under the effects of hashish, but I suspect is applicable to
sober ones on some occasions ;-] If we could solve this problem
easily, most of the discussion on this list would be redundant,
including the insights of Kolb et al. Heaven forbid!
Chris O'Hagan
============================================
Christopher O'Hagan
Dean of Learning Development
Centre for Educational Development and Media
University of Derby
Kedleston Road
DERBY, DE22 1DA
England
Tel: +44 (0)1332 622262 (direct)
Fax: +44 (0)1332 622772
Email: c.m.ohagan@derby.ac.uk
WWW: http://www.derby.ac.uk/cedm/welcome.html
I am always seeking book proposals for SEDA Publications:
http://www.seda.demon.co.uk/pubsmenu.html
and article proposals for the webzine The Technology Source:
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS
There is a crack - a crack in everything:
That's how the light gets in. L.Cohen, 'Anthem'
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