Kinshuk (kinshuk@ieee.org)
Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:33:18 +0100
From: "Kinshuk" <kinshuk@ieee.org> Subject: [ifets] Second attempt: Summary of discussion Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:33:18 +0100
Dear colleagues
Apologies for not being able to send the summary in
correct shape last time. I hope this time it reaches
to you in a readable form.
Regards.
Kinshuk.
---------------------------------------
Summary of Discussion:
Adult Learner Behaviors in Workplace vs. Educational
Environments
Moderator: Nora Carrol
Summarizers: Mary Harrsch and Karen Kaminski
Discussion of this topic began Monday, January 11,
1999. Nora Carrol, discussion moderator, asked us to
consider the following:
* differences that may emanate from motivation (i.e.,
what motivates someone to attend formal courses may
or may not be the same as what motivates them to
learn at work)
* differences between voluntary and involuntary
participation in learning
* differences between learning that is tangibly
rewarded via credit, CEU's or certification, and
learning that is not tangibly rewarded
* differences that result from the learning
evaluation and measuring methods used
* differences that result from the instructional
delivery systems, physical and virtual
** Adult Learner Characteristics **
A common thread that has been raised by a number of
those posting comments centers on the recognition
that adult learners bring a variety of experiences,
cultural differences, personality types, attitudes
towards the learning experience, technical literacy,
and motivations to the learning environment. All of
these variables impact their preferred learning
style and the learning modalities that need to be
considered by the instructors.
John Eklund recalled a student who experienced
frustration because she could not connect a
demonstration to a prior experience. I really had
difficulty trying to convince some of [the] students
in the class that the best way to achieve a
satisfactory outcome in the course was by thinking
from the top down.
Adult learners are defined by the roles that they
play. Adults return to education because of a need
that they have identified. These needs can vary
widely. Adults have more years of experience than the
traditional student does, that they bring to the
educational setting. They also bring more specific
expectations.
** Intelligent Tutoring with Variety **
Chris Eliot pointed out one of the primary
assumptions of the intelligent tutoring community is
that there are great differences among individual
students. "It is also the reason why computer
scientists think that effective tutoring systems
require complex reasoning mechanisms: you have to
have multiple ways of teaching the same thing, and
you need to `diagnose' what kind of student you are
working with, and you must then select the best
available way of teaching to match each individual
student," he stated.
Jack Ring reminded us of Ashby's principle of
`requisite variety' that tells us that any `learning
environment' must exhibit an even greater spectrum of
learning modalities. He also mentioned that learning
styles are very significant as put forth by Isachsen
and Behrens in `Working Together' in
which they correlate Meyers-Briggs personality styles
and individual learning styles to show that some
people like to learn by isolated study but others
need to be in group with high interaction. Jack
thinks that when the challenge is to learn how to do,
adults learn more, faster from peers and power
figures who are directly involved in the activity
than they do from teachers, mentors, coaches, and
researchers. When the challenge is to learn what a
student does not know then `the guru is necessary'.
Tom said there needs to be a wider reference to the
characteristics of the individual. He points out
that educational institutions structure learning
environments as a means to regulate and manage the
instructional and learning experience. "In the work
place," he says, "you can institutionalize learning
through professional and vocational qualifications."
But, he asks, "How do you enhance such learning and
identify
common problems, create effective learning resources
and support individual learning needs?" He reports
that he is working on a project to help people in
small and medium sized enterprises improve their
performance by examining their order fulfillment
processes. "The uniqueness of individual experience,
the business characteristics, and the markets they
serve make prescriptive instruction almost
impossible," he states. "Under these circumstances
the assumptions of educators and designers need a
radical rethink about the purpose and approach to
learning."
Jack Ring suggests presenting the material in
multiple ways and let the student select the mix that
they like. Chris Eliot agrees with this alternative
when it works. He warns us of 'hidden problems'.
"You are assuming that the student can understand the
choices and know enough about their own learning
style to make the right choice," Eliot observes. He
feels you can only give students a small number of
choices which are completely distinct.
Bob Leamnson tells us that the problem with learning
styles is that once we know what they are, we don't
know what to do with the information. There is no
consensus to how many learning styles there are. To
which Abdul-Karim replies that in definition,
learning styles go beyond audio, visual, and
kinesthetic. He refers us to Kolb's model of
experiential learning. Learn through doing, through
watching, through thinking, and through trying. Each
preference has strengths associated with them.
In Karen Kaminiski's experience with teaching adults,
she has found that they don't need to be tested to
determine their learning style. "Although they may
not understand what learning styles are, most adults
know whether they would prefer to read a book, watch
a video, listen to a tape, work one-on-one with
someone, work alone, work in groups, etc.," she
states. She proposes that we should not always allow
people to learn the way they do best but to challenge
them to learn in various modes. "Certainly, you can
provide alternatives but in 'real life' there may not
be alternatives. How can we prepare adult learners
for better jobs, new skills, and the like if we do
not challenge them?" she asks.
Martin Owen agrees with the value of Kolb's model of
experiential learning to an extent but points out
that the assumption that professional communities
constitute a "reified" body of professional practice
into which one can become inducted is a weakness. He
states that an "individualist" approach places too
much emphasis on individual "learning styles". "We
need to emphasize learning as a collaborative goal,"
he says. He points out that the advantage of
'collaborative/group' learning is that each learner
type contributes to the discussion and the discussion
is enriched by each strength.
John Bottomley pointed out that there is little hard
evidence supporting the view that taking student
learning styles into account leads to positive
learning outcomes. He mentioned a counter view
discussed by David Brooks in his text 'Web Teaching:
A Guide to Designing Interactive Teaching for the
World Wide Web'. Brooks says the best outcome for
students is to expose them to many kinds of learning
experiences ultimately enabling students to learn
under a wide range of situations and circumstances.
Chris O'Hagan raised the issue that students should
be enabled to see "broader horizons and why certain
learning activities are important." He described a
successful experience in which a colleague prepared
videotapes of a lecture on 'Learning To Learn' which
were offered to first year students. The tapes were
very successful because they created an environment
where the instructors had to engage the topic and
learned as much about how students learn as the
students did.
He also mentioned a personal experience that
illustrated the difficulty of trying to adapt a large
system to individual learning styles. As a faculty
member of a tutorial college where he tutored six
different students per hour he discovered that a
single textbook did not provide explanations that
were successful with every student. "I suspect that
even with the level of knowledge of have today, I
still would not have been able to predict which
explanation would work with a particular student."
>From his own experience, he supports providing a lot
of different ways to learn the same thing, support
for students who are have real difficulty, and in
larger institutions particularly, educating students
in learning "so they *know* when they are having
difficulty and have the confidence to admit ignorance
and ask."
As a personal reflection on points made by Karen
Kaminski in her previous summary, Mary Harrsch said
we should distinguish between the "media" and the
"message". "Whether an adult prefers a book, a video,
or a group project is not as important as whether the
desired instructional message is being delivered in a
way that is clearly understood by the majority of
students," she points out. "A process animation can
often demonstrate a concept visually that is very
difficult to grasp using words. A simulation in
which the interactive forces are clearly defined can
result in understanding cause and effect as each
variable is manipulated by the student. A dramatic
reading accompanied by images and music of the period
may reveal social differences that may have
influenced the author of the piece. Hyperlinks to
word definitions or graphics provide "just in time"
knowledge to students attempting to understand a
complex discourse. These strategies would be as
successful with adult learners as with younger
students. The key difference with adult learners is
that they usually have enough life experience and
self esteem to question the results rather than
accept them at face value. Instructors must be
willing to explore alternatives and, like Chris
O'Hagan observed, they may find they learn as much as
the students."
Chris O'Hagan emphasized his point that teachers
should know a lot more about how students learn and
different styles. He is concerned that an
instrumental approach to identifying a student's
learning style may hinder student development and
that it is much better to help them adopt a range of
different approaches.
Karen Kaminiski expressed her belief that most
educators are aware of different learning styles.
"What they don't have is the skills to incorporate
strategies targeted to different learning styles into
their content delivery. She also suspects that part
of this is a time and comfort issue. "How many
people teach the way they are most comfortable
learning themselves?" she asks.
Chris continued, reminding us that variety is the
spice of life. This is why he thinks 'engaged' is a
useful word for describing the mental activity taking
place. He goes on to differentiate between being
engaged and being interactive when learning with a
computer. Karen agrees, "We can all remember
having conversations where we were interacting with
the other party while our minds were engaged with
other matters. " She also agrees with Mary Harrsch's
observations. "The technology used is just the
medium to deliver the message. It is the relevance
of the message that will engage the students in the
learning process," Karen states.
Nora Carrol remarked that education-as-regurgitation
may still exist in primary learning but is certainly
not dominant in adult learning. "Adult learners
are the 'market' that has pushed both institutional
and workplace learning toward an applications focus,"
Nora said. Martin Owen pointed out engagement does
not come from the computer "... but from the
individual and the social group."
"One of the advantages of learning in a traditional
classroom is the social contact with fellow students,
" Martin continued. "Distance programs using cohort
groups are showing more success than those that offer
open registration to randomly sequenced courses."
** Cultural Differences **
Mary Harrsch pointed out that cultural differences
may influence particular adults or groups to approach
distance education differently. Elaine Winters
agreed referencing her articles that focus on
Gardner's work with learning styles:
http://www.bena.com/ewinters/articles.html
"Some societies, specifically those characterized as
high context, place great emphasis on ambiance,
decorum, status of the participants, and manner of
delivery; low context cultures ignore these events--
emphasizing content in a communication - sometimes
expressed as 'cut to the chase'."
Martin Owen just returned from a conference where
Nonaka Ikujiro delivered a presentation on "Knowledge
Creating Companies" and the concept of physical,
virtual and mental spaces for knowledge interchange
referred to as "Ba". Martin says ICT can make a clear
contribution to this activity by facilitating
knowledge acquisition through sharing information
with fellow professionals and mutual problem solving.
However, he also mentions that there has been some
discussion of discrepancy between Asian and North
American cultures. Nonaka San suggested that in
creating Ba there is a need for humor, including
irony. "This may be problematic for some," Nonaka
acknowledges.
David Bird disagrees with the Western approach of
setting the teacher above the student stating that on
the contrary it is eastern cultures that set a
respectful tone for the notion of a 'teacher'. He
uses Sensei in Japan as an example. Instead David
suggests we distinguish between pedagogical learning
based around the ideas of reinforcement, and adult
learning which is based around notions of adults
identifying their own needs.
Bob Leamnson also acknowledged the impact of student
diversity. "We still don't know quite what to do with
that fact. It is a situation that is not restricted
to adult groups, or groups of mixed ethnic/cultural
background."
Raymond Lewis tells us that he believes that the
significant difference between Asian learners is not
culture but learning styles and the climate created
in the classroom. The key issue is for the
educator to meet the needs of the learners in their
classroom by providing a variety of approaches.
Technology may be a useful tool to achieve this.
Martin Owen expresses his opinion that the
characterization of Asian students as passive and
unquestioning does not square with the dynamic and
reflective ways in which workplaces have developed in
some Asian economies. Clearly there are areas
within the cultures of Asian workplaces where active,
mutual dialogical learning takes place. He suggests
it may be a more Western approach to place the
teacher "above" the students that revokes the
"respectful" response from the Asian students.
-------
End
---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/
Email address for sending message to everyone on the list ifets@gmd.de
Forum's contact person ifets-info@gmd.de
Join/Leave Digest or Normal List http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Fri 29 Jan 1999 - 15:04:17 MET