C H A P T E R 6
Learning and Teaching
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The Characteristics of Effective Learning: A Distillation
A useful concise overview of our contemporary understanding how students learn is provided by a discussion paper published by the Scottish Consultative Council on Curriculum. It is important to note that learning in different ages is not fundamentally different. When focusing on the learning of primary and secondary students, their way to succeed is not so different from how the reader of this book learns. Another preliminary note is about the “what works in learning” nature of the following characteristics. The more we will learn about learning, the less we can guarantee that the following underlying assumptions for teaching and the organization of learning will prove themselves valid.
The relevant features of learning are the following (Scottish CCC 1996):
• Intelligence is not fixed. We all have much greater potential for learning than is commonly recognized.
• There is no such thing as a single, general intelligence, which we all possess to a greater or lesser degree.
• Learning involves developing our emotions and feelings along with our ability to think and act.
• We are more likely to learn when we are motivated to do so. Young people who feel good about themselves are much more likely to be highly motivated to learn.
• We learn more effectively when we think things through for ourselves.
• Learning is messy. We rarely learn anything by proceeding along a single path to predetermined outcomes.
• Most learning involves other people.
• Self-awareness, including awareness of ourselves as learners, helps us to learn more effectively.
• We can learn how to learn by developing skills that help us to think, feel, and act more effectively.
Apart from these characteristics of learning, there were four shifts in our under-standing of how learning occurs, with major consequences to teaching during the last two decades (NEA 2006).
• Learning as active engagement. The concept of learning as the passive absorption of information has shifted to a concept of learning as active engagement. Learn-ers are attempting to make sense of incoming information by interpretation on
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the basis of their prior knowledge and by questioning. Learning as an active, constructive process plays a critical role in transforming information into usable knowledge.
• Learning as social. Learning in the classroom is traditionally an individual activ-ity; students were expected to learn by listening to the teacher and working on their own. (Most classrooms are even furnished in a way that allows students to watch each other’s back only. Also, “cooperation among students in order to help each other is very often punished because it distracts attention from the teacher.”) In our contemporary understanding of effective learning, however, social interactions such as discussion, debate, and joint work are essential.
• Learner differences as resources. The education systems of the South Eastern Euro-pean region tend to be oriented to minimize pupil differences in the classrooms because they are considered obstacles to teaching. (To a certain extent, this is the reason for the high selection pressure in the education systems, for example, from which Roma students suffer.) Due to the growing differences in student backgrounds, it is not a sustainable approach anymore. There is a great deal of pedagogical know-how already accumulated elsewhere on how to use student differences as a resource and how to build teaching strategies into them.
• Knowing what, how, and why. It is, in fact, the previously outlined shift from acquiring information and the procedures of a discipline to learning that helps to understand facts and ideas on the basis of factual knowledge within the context of conceptual frameworks and allows for organizing knowledge in ways that facilitate their retrieval and application.
The Forms of Learning
The three forms of learning are formal, non-formal, and informal learning. The distinc-tion between the different forms of learning is a little artificial. Although in different ages there might be dominant ones, the three forms of learning are not separated, sequential settings; most of the time, they occur parallel to one another. Success in one form leads to success in other forms, while the lack of basic conditions in relation to one form leads to failures in the others. For example, a positive attitude towards learning is the precondition of any forms of learning in any kind of setting.
• Formal learning takes place in hierarchical structures and the levels of learning are built according to a chronological logic; completion of a certain level is the admission criterion for the next one. Participation is mandatory to a certain age, and the content is determined by a state approved curricula. Teachers and
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trainers in formal education are selected by official qualification requirements and are typically public employees. Participation in formal education ends with a state approved qualification (i.e., a certificate or diploma issued on the basis of the state’s authorization).
• Non-formal learning is any organized learning experienced outside of the formal system that is directed towards any specific goal. It may occur along with formal learning but does not always end with formal diplomas. Participation in non-formal learning is voluntary and, most of the time, takes a much shorter time.
The typical non-formal learning opportunities are offered in order to supple-ment formal learning in educational institutions or provided in the workplace as human resource management instruments or by labor agencies as active labor market intervention tools. These learning programs are also delivered by pro-fessional educators and trainers and are based on a curriculum, although they are typically much more flexible. In most cases there are no formal admission criteria in non-formal learning and the participation is certified at the end.
• Informal learning—in its broadest sense—is identical to the perpetual lifelong processes, through which the attitudes, values, and skills of the individuals are evolving or transforming. The most important feature of informal learning is that it occurs outside of the curriculum of any formal institutions. It is important to emphasize that we are not talking here about education; informal learning occurs during formal learning and parallel to the declared goals of formal learn-ing, too. In terms of its impact, it might even conflict with the goals of formal learning. Therefore, informal learning can also be interpreted as a different layer of the same learning experience. Though this understanding of informal learn-ing is a little bit diffuse from a governance point of view, it is worth maklearn-ing distinctions among the various cases, according to the extent to which learning is intended and conscious. According to these criteria, the first type of informal learning is self-instructed, autodidactic learning that is intended, conscious, and for which the learner determines its time, methods, and sources. (For example, learning how to build a sailboat in a glass jug.) The second type is accidental or spontaneous learning that may happen through observation, social interactions, or by solving a problem. These cases (such as learning that the new teacher does not like certain patterns of behavior by making mistakes during the class) are not intended but conscious. This type of learning is considered to be the most effective one by many; it is situation-bound, contextual, and social. Learning that is not intended and not conscious (socialization) is typically out of the focus of educational policy (OPEK 2005).
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The discourse on non-formal and informal learning is very much preoccupied by issues related to adult learning and by the development of qualification systems that are able to recognize the results of learning outside the formal system. Thus, these two forms often are regarded as much less relevant for formal learning that takes place in the classrooms of schools. However, in order to ensure the organic unity of learning supported by teachers and schools, they should be incorporated into the view of educa-tors and deliberately built upon. This is the condition to eliminate the isolation of rich non-formal learning opportunities—what most schools in the South Eastern European region provide by various extracurricular activities—from the mainstream teaching and learning process. This “deliberation” may also contribute to better connecting formal learning with any kind of informal learning experiences of the students outside of the schools. The potential of building on the “alternative” forms of learning has not really been explored.
The Conditions for Successful Learning
All of the characteristics and forms of learning that have been outlined so far can be interpreted by teachers in order to develop teaching strategies and make choices among their teaching methods. The question is: how will it become relevant for policymakers and the managers of education? A possible answer is determining those conditions of successful learning and successful learning pathways from the point of view of individual learners that educational service provisions should guarantee. A public policy report from the Center for Educational Policy Analysis in Hungary (OPEK 2005) identified five conditions for successful learning: access, motivation, information, the return of learning, and the culture of learning. Although these conditions are analyzed by the report for the entire human life cycle within a lifelong learning framework, this reading focuses only on those aspects that are relevant to primary and secondary education.
• Access to learning opportunities. Access to educational provisions has already been touched upon in relation to educational outcomes. The most obvious obstacle to access is paucity of available service capacities, that is, the disparity between demand and supply. However, there are several other constraints that create bottlenecks for certain pathways. In relation to the conditions of learning, the question is the choice of various learning opportunities that different schools are offering or that are available within one single school. The availability of learning opportunities can be constrained by distance, the price of the services, or by the fact that consecutive programs do not accommodate their students properly. Also, constraints to smooth progression within formal schooling can be regarded as obstacles to access. In addition to all these, failures during the
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period of primary and secondary education are serious obstacles to access at later stages. Access can be coerced by another feature of the education systems of South Eastern Europe: the widespread practice of overt and hidden forms of discrimination.
• Motivation to learn. Motivation is the primary condition of engagement in learning. Without being motivated, individuals do not make efforts to learn.
Motivation can be the result of interest or challenge, but also of a general posi-tive attitude towards learning. Especially in primary and secondary education, motivation is not an independent factor that education is unable to influence.
How teachers can generate interiorized (e.g., sense of duty), intrinsic (e.g., thirst for knowledge), and extrinsic (e.g., recognition by parents or teachers or avoiding bad results), or prestige motives is part of the methodological reper-toire of teachers. The actual type of motivation may depend very much on the personality of the student and the circumstances of learning. Nevertheless, in most cases internal (interiorized and intrinsic) motives are more sustainable and stronger drives than the external ones.
• Information for learning related decisions and on the results of learning. Develop-ing individual learnDevelop-ing strategies, considerDevelop-ing options about education, and making decisions—regardless of whether made by parents or learners them-selves—requires information. Of course, the most important information on the achievement of students is provided by the daily assessment practices of teachers.
It is important to note here that the marks given to children are not objective measures of student achievement; it is not even necessarily the purpose. Parents and students also need information on the programs being offered at the schools and guidance to support their decisions on which schools to attend. Keeping parents well informed may reduce the large role that informal channels play in orienting these decisions, leaving less-informed parents at a disadvantage.
• The individual return of learning efforts. While educational policy focuses on the public, economic, and social return of education, learners make decisions on the basis of the individual return of their efforts. Although it is not very relevant for primary education, in secondary, and especially in vocational secondary education, the prospective employment opportunities and salaries matter very much. The individual return of educational attainment at different levels and in different parts of education is very different from country to country. It very much depends on the structure and dynamics of the labor market, as well as the structure of education. However, in general, the individual return rate of primary education is typically declining, while that of secondary education is increasing.
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• The culture of learning. The environment of learning created by teachers and schools is essential to inspiring and inciting students to learn. Also, the norms of students’ friends and parents are integral parts of this environment. Another aspect of the culture of learning is the learning strategies of students, rather directed to find a strong connection between various learning strategies and high performance. For example, cooperative and competitive learning strategies may lead to good results. Nevertheless, it can be said, that those who consciously control their own learning and advancement generally perform better. In primary education strengthening the foundations of learning (i.e., learning competencies and motivation) has a great impact on the culture of learning during later stages.
Figure 6.1
A Framework for Analyzing Learning10