Five factors underpinning successful student learning

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Five factorsunderpinning successfulstudentlear
ning

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Mind our language?

• Everyone learns. Not just students, not just
  teachers, not just professors, not just writers
• Yet the language we use to describe learning has
  got silly in the last fifty years or so.
• Its become remote, cold, psychological,
  exclusive, elitist not a sensible way of
  talking about something everyone does.
• My mission is to get back to using language about
  learning which everyone can relate to.

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Keeping it simple?

• Everything should be made as simple as possible,
• but not simpler.
• (Albert Einstein, 1879-1955).
• Also
• Knowledge is experience, everything else is just
  information.
• And
• Never stop asking questions.

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Teaching

• Other peoples knowledge is just information.
• Teaching is helping people to turn information
  into knowledge
• by getting them to do things with the
  information
• and giving them feedback about their attempts.

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Information and communication?

• Information can be communicated, in large
  amounts, in books and articles,
• or right to our computers, and downloaded onto
  our hard discs.
• But its not knowledge till we do things with it
• Apply it, extend it, interrogate it, analyse it,
  disagree with it, compare and contrast it, and so
  on.

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Learning a natural human process
You can download a version of the slides which
follow from my website www.Phil-Race.net
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Learning at school
Learning at university
Learning at home early learning
Five factors underpinning all forms of learning
Learning to be old
Learning with the Internet
Learning at work
Vocational Training
Distance learning
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Factors underpinning successful learning

• Im going to ask you four questions about how you
  learn

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Please make a grid with four boxes.
Prepare to jot down your answers to the second
parts of each of four questions no more than
six words or so.
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1
4
3
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1 How do you learn well?

• Think (dont write anything yet) of something
  that youre good at, something that you know you
  do well.
• How did you become good at it? Write a few words
  in box 1.

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Most peoples views...

• practice
• trial and error
• having a go
• repetition
• experimenting

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A world famous view...

• One must learn by doing the thing though you
  think you know it, you have no certainty until
  you try.

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A world famous view...
One must learn by doing the thing though you
think you know it, you have no certainty until
you try. (Sophocles, 495-406 BC)
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Another...

• An expert is a man who has made all the
  mistakes,
• which can be made,
• in a very narrow field.
• (Niels Bohr, 1885-1962)
• Therefore we need to allow learners to make
  mistakes, and help them to gain feedback in a
  constructive environment, to help them towards
  becoming experts.

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But sometimes we really need teachers

• Someone who already knows
• Someone who already understands
• Someone who has already learned by getting it
  wrong at first
• And can help us to do the same
• Sometimes without saying a word

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2 What makes you feel good?

• Think of something about yourself that you feel
  good about.
• How you can tell that you feel good about this?
  Whats your evidence to support this feeling?
  Write a few words in box 2.

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Most peoples views...

• feedback
• other peoples reactions
• praise
• seeing the results

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3 What can go wrong?

• Think of something that youre not good at,
  perhaps as a result of a bad learning experience.
• What went wrong, and whose (if anyones) fault it
  may have been? Write a few words in box 3.

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Most peoples views...

• did not really want to learn it
• could not see the point
• bad teaching
• could not make sense of it

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4 And if there isnt a want?

• Think of something that you did learn
  successfully, but at the time you didnt want to
  learn it.
• What kept you going, so that you did indeed
  succeed in learning it? Write a few words in box
  4.

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Most peoples views...

• strong support and encouragement
• did not want to be seen not able to do it
• needed to do it for what I wanted next

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Five factors for successful learning

• learning by doing
• learning from feedback
• wanting to learn
• needing to learn
• making sense - digesting,assimilating

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Traditional views...

• active experimentation
• concrete experience
• reflective observation
• abstract conceptualisation

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Is it a cycle?
Active Experimentation
Concrete Experience
Abstract Conceptualisation
Reflective Observation
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Coffield et al on Kolb

• Kolb clearly believes that learning takes place
  in a cycle and that learners should use all four
  phases of that cycle to become effective. Popular
  adaptations of his theory (for which he is not,
  of course, responsible) claim, however, that all
  four phases should be tackled and in order. The
  manual for the third version of the LSI is
  explicit on this point You may begin a learning
  process in any of the four phases of the learning
  cycle. Ideally, using a well-rounded learning
  process, you would cycle through all the four
  phases. However, you may find that you sometimes
  skip a phase in the cycle or focus primarily on
  just one (Kolb 1999, 4). But if Wierstra and de
  Jongs (2002) analysis, which reduces Kolbs
  model to a one-dimensional bipolar structure of
  reflection versus doing, proves to be accurate,
  then the notion of a learning cycle may be
  seriously flawed.

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Coffield et al on Kolb (2004)

• Finally, it may be asked if too much is being
  expected of a relatively simple test which
  consists of nine (1976) or 12 (1985 and 1999)
  sets of four words to choose from. What is
  indisputable is that such simplicity has
  generated complexity, controversy and an enduring
  and frustrating lack of clarity.
• Frank Coffield, David Moseley, Elaine Hall and
  Kathryn Ecclestone 2004, Learning styles and
  pedagogy in post-16 learning a systematic and
  critical review London, Learning Skills Research
  Centre, www.LSRC.ac.uk

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Is it a cycle?
Wanting/Needing
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
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Ripples on a pond.
Wanting/ Needing
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Ripples on a pond.
Wanting/ Needing
Doing
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Ripples on a pond.
Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Digesting
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Ripples on a pond.
Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
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But what if theres no want or not even a
need?
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
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Ripples on a pond.
Teaching?
Serenity
Assessing?
Wanting/ Needing
Understanding?
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
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And how do we measure learning? Evidence of
achievement of the intended learning outcomes?
But what about the emergent ones?
including
And what are we measuring? The evidence of
doing? The evidence of the achievement of the
outcomes? Evidence of understanding?
Learning outcomes
Understanding?
Evidence
Assessment
Feedback