These sorts of enviroments are a fascinating phenomenon to me, not necessarily from the standpoint of the environments themselves, or the experiences they help facilitate, but with the degree of engagement, dedication and time investment that people willingly and independently put into them.

Just minutes ago in fact I echoed a similar sentiment regarding my indulgence in D&D growing up, and single-player role playing games years later. Perhaps it’s the sensation or practice of becoming someone else that pulls people in so much; the process of exploring and discovering who the character is, where they fit within their environment; how they interact and engage with the people, places and things around them; how they react to adversity and challenges – both intellectual, physical, even life-threatening – when there is absolutely no risk of injury or repercussion to them in real life.

Educators often introduce role-playing exercises into the classroom and call it a learning activity. Why is opening a virtual amory to sell plate mail, joining a war party to conduct a raid, or working collaboratively in an army to fend off an orc attack any different to this?

Remember, I’m posing these questions for my own benefit as much as I’m trying to inspire discussion around it.

I’ve yet to run across it just yet (as I said before, I’m still a n00b), but I’m told there is a vibrant unschooling community in World of Warcraft who even have their own guild where parents and children participate together. Likewise there are staff in formal educational institutions who also advocate gaming and virtual worlds as a way to foster engagement and empower the learning process by making it fun.

So why the obsession with delineating where learning stops and open-ended fun begins? Why must there be a distiction?

Certaily the dynamic is different between a controlled classroom environment and one in which social boundaries have disappeared – or rather have been re-written by a virtual socio-political realm in which real world stuctures, relationships and demographies do not exist. Then again, perhaps that’s the point.

Perhaps the real issue critics or skeptics have (realised or not) is not a lack of learning, or learning outcomes, but rather the complete divergence from existing structures and ways of managing and controlling the learning processes that virtual environments and MMORPGs entails.

Maybe that’s why so many educational “games” feel so contrived. They’re designed upon traditional pedagogies where instructors dictate learning outcomes, rather that letting them emerge through serendipity as a natural process of engagement in a meandering process that individuals themselves control

Posted via email from Mike Bogle

Certainly this model isn’t an original idea of mine.  It is well and truly established in the open web already, with many educators, courses, and even cohorts of students taking to the Internet to engage and participate in an open fashion.  My point in exploring this model is to outline its capacity to fuel more sustainable architectures of sharing and reuse than those that seek to provide self-contained repositories, and which I therefore feel are more delineated from practice.

Dangerous Assumptions

In continuing to contemplate this idea further though I’ve realised there are areas that need to be resolved.  In particular, in the last section of my last post I indicated: “The point of this is that the model slots in with existing practice.”  The thought has since occurred to me that I’ve included a gaping assumption in that statement -  that instructors and students will already have decided to publish their course materials, reflections and assignments in spaces that are publicly visible and indeed under open licenses. Both factors are critical for this model; even if information is publicly visible, you can’t share or reuse it without it being accompanied by an open license.

Furthermore, not only is such an assumption unwise, it also runs inherently against the current publishing ethos and work-habits of much of academia – including attitudes about intellectual property, as well as what I consider to be a paranoid obsession about student protection (and school liability) that has lead to excessive controls over access to sites and services.  In effect, it isn’t existing practice.

Broad Implications, Fundamental Challenges

While the question of “Why should I share” is certainly a recurring obstacle to the release of materials, information and other sources of educational content, factors such as accessibility (in the broad sense), internet filters, constraints and boundaries on student learning freedoms, and a defacto view of learning management systems as the default framework of choice in online learning pose an even greater barrier to the implementation of such a model because they are founded in a fundamental belief system of what education is, and what it looks like.

So really, what is required before we can even begin to explore an open, distributed model is for the culture of education to begin to consider and except alternative models of learning and teaching – in effect, a fundamental rethinking of the roles of institutions, classrooms, teachers, students, and indeed the purpose of formal education itself.

Herein lay one of the criticisms I have with the approaches of the open courseware movement – they focus almost exclusively on opening up content, while holding virtually everything else equal – including models of instruction and the role of the student.  Not only do I think this is not as effective an approach as it could be; it also fails to push for any real reform to the educational system, nor challenge the traditional instructivist model of the classroom that places the teacher at the top.

Opening Up

In my view reuse and sharing of information; digital literacy and citizenship; freedom to learn, engage and participate; educational reform and cultural change must all be tightly interwoven within one another.  I simply do not see any way to successfully devolve the discussion into its constituent parts/topics in a lasting way.  In striving for openness in sharing and reuse we must also strive for openness and autonomy in learning, more opportunities for student exploration, and recognition of the fact that learning happens everywhere, not just within the physical boundaries of the classroom.

Contemplation, Reflection, Blogging
Contemplation and reflection play a tremendous role in the way I approached learning, and blogs for me are a key way through which I reflect and contemplate.  The act of sharing these reflections publicly serves to help me focus my attention.  Somehow the idea that my thoughts will be read by others inspires me to dedicate even greater attention and energy to establishing and discovering what I truly think, feel and understand.

I’ve found that I come to conclusions through the act of writing at-length. Discussion does come into play in how I grow to understand a subject, but for me discussion only comes into play after reflection and contemplation. I need to feel confident and comfortable with what I think before I’m able to articulate it in a discussion with others – and particularly before I am able to explain it or debate about it.

Self-Directed, Solitary Learning

Following on this, I’ve realised over time that I am a fairly solitary learner.  I tend to have trouble brainstorming and learning through discussion.  So blogs and leaving quiet time to think and contemplate are very important to my learning style.  Blogs are very appropriate to me because I don’t need discussion with others to really explore ideas.  Indeed part of contemplation for me is constant questioning of the conclusions I’m exploring – it’s very much an internal dialogue with myself where I ask questions, internally debate points, and look at topics from multiple angles.

This perhaps makes me a poor commenter on the posts of others, since so much of my mental energy goes into realising and articulating the ideas that I’m exploring. That said I do find I greatly benefit from the comments that people leave on my posts, since they emerged in the wake of a train of thought I’d already explored and enabled me to pursue an idea even further through tangential discussions.

Conceptual Connections

From a Connectivism standpoint connections are not limited to interacting/engagement with people; they can and do include neural and/or conceptual/theoretical connections as well. For me the latter is where the bulk of my learning processes begin, typically through making a connection between new concepts or ideas and others that are already understood.

In my case the initial phases of grappling with an idea and establishing patterns and frameworks for sense-making is a very internal process where I do a lot of thinking, questioning, and comparing it with existing areas of understanding (e.g. “How does this new topic relate to things I already know?”). Eventually this leads to initial conceptual connections, and I can start to recognise patterns and similarities with other ideas.

This stage is typically where blogging comes into play. In many ways constructing posts is externalising around knowledge for me, since the way I naturally write is fairly systematic and analytical (a leads to b, which leads to c). Putting my thoughts to paper enables me to map out a conceptual exploration in a way that can be referenced later, reviewed, critiqued, challenged, and built upon.

As a result I’ve found over time that the act of writing enables me to draw additional conclusions and establish new connections that had not previously occurred to me – both through the writing process itself, as well as recognising trends in my posts over time.

The enormous benefit of blogging to me is that this very personal act of cognitive exploration then becomes the seeds from which discussion with others may emerge, since people are largely able to follow the exact train of thought I had pursued when drawing my initial conclusions.

This point tends to lead into/facilitate the development of social/external connections – through commenting, Twitter discussions, and face-to-face conversations – which in turn can inspire the whole process to begin again as people inject new ideas into the mix and I’m brought to reconsider existing perspectives on things.

Artifacts as references or dialogue?

One question I haven’t quite resolved yet though is where artifacts sit in the process. For example, are journal articles, papers, blog posts, YouTube clips, Wikipedia articles and the like considered to be social/external interaction, or are they somehow different to this?

In other words, when does a reference resource or artifact become a form of dialogue?

I have traditionally considered these items to be somehow different to asynchronous dialogue, since I frequently do not interact with the producer/creator of the artifact. Commonly I’ll watch YouTube clips, read blog posts and Wikipedia articles without ever leaving a comment for the author – so effectively they have no way of knowing I have engaged with their creation, let alone what my interpretation on the matter was. Yet I rely greatly on them as reference resources in order to address areas of confusion during the early reflective/contemplative stages.

However if these items are considered to be a form of asynchronous dialogue, then I may not be as solitary a learner as I’d previously thought.

[Image: cc licensed flickr photo shared by Izzard]

A comment Sinikka left this morning on my last post has really lead me to thinking. She comments that her experiences with fostering self-direction amongst students have been challenging in some respects, as there seems to be a lack of understanding or comfort with what self-directed learning is and how you actually pursue it. Moreover she points out that the nature of classroom structures, and the many-to-few ratio of students versus teachers, makes it quite difficult to give each individual sufficient attention and assistance.

My personal view on all this (which I hope to research properly at some point), is that self-directed learning is alive and well amongst students, but they perhaps don’t recognise it as such. The issue as I see it, is the tendency to differentiate the learning that occurs within classrooms and schools from that which occurs outside of them. Adding to this the constraints, conditions and requirements inherent in the system – and particularly the view that learning in schools is somehow more productive than learning elsewhere – serves to establish an environment that is distinctly different and less individualised from other social dynamics where learning occurs.

It is this environment, I think, that causes the confusion, reluctance or inability to self-direct. Its foundations are built on the idea of one person leading a large group through a standardised curriculum, and assessing how they perform relative to predetermined benchmarks. The role of the learner in this structure is to align with central objectives and policies, not determine their own.

The institution of schooling is very much an artificial construct. Yes this system is intended to help people learn, but the process through which this is sought is inherently centralised and disempowering for the individual. The demarcation between non-school learning and school-based learning has become so rigid in fact that school-based learning is no longer referred to as such, and has instead become “education.” So rather than students having trouble with the general idea of self-directed learning, I think what is really happening is they’re having trouble with the idea of self-directed learning in an institutional context where the focal point has always been on what the teacher says. This is a very different matter.

What is learning?

At a basic level, learning to me is the process of becoming more aware, more proficient, more knowledgeable, more cognisant, better equipped or more effective at a chosen task or idea than you were previously. While the conditions and context within which this occurs are important in framing the experience, it isn’t necessarily what makes it learning.

Formal educational structures, however, attempt to qualify what learning is and what it’s not, externally and qualitatively assess and evaluate the abilities and progress of the learners, and ultimately establish goal posts and gateways for the learning process that imply a beginning, middle and end.

In the context of self-directed learning, these constraints and conditions establish a unique set of criteria that do not exist outside of the classroom – at least not the the same degree. The result is a shift in the focal point of the learner, from the subject or concept being explored to the requirements imposed by the system. In effect what they are actually learning becomes more and more about navigating and meeting the requirements, and less and less about exploring and embracing the experiences.

By the time students reach high school and later, the delineation has become firmly established, and school has become a place where one type of learning occurs – now simply called education – and students are reliant on the constraints and approval of external forces.  Meanwhile learning outside of school continues, free of constraints where individuals explore what they want, when they want, how they want, however the fact it’s still learning isn’t necessarily considered.  Activities like socialising, music, painting, sports, tinkering on cars or computers, fixing bicycles, playing computer games, watching television, or reading result in the acquisition of new skills, knowledge or abilities – and yet are seen as different to the learning that earns a mark in school.

I should mention here that I’m not attempting to suggest that one environment is better or worse than the other, but rather to highlight the significant differences between the two and start to discuss the implications they have for the learning process – especially in terms of the prospect of fostering and empowering self-direction.

It is little surprise to me that students balk at the idea of self-directed learning once they reach high school and university – it’s been conditioned out of them to the degree that they are now accustomed to being told what they’re going to be studying.

De-schooling

While I’m still contemplating this whole train of thought, I think one of the key areas of significance in fostering self-direction is shedding the mental constraints on learning that are borne from a life spent in the culture of institutionalised schooling. Note this is not the same as doing away with schooling completely (though some people certainly choose alternative methods of learning, such as homeschooling), but rather changing our perspectives about what school is relative to learning, and particularly what the roles of students and teachers are relative in the learning process.

As Sinikka’s experiences demonstrate, it’s important to recognise that the prospect of self-direction requires change and growth on the part of both teachers and students alike. In some regards the highest walls are those we set for ourselves, so increasing student self-direction in schools is likely to take time to evolve.

More on this later as I explore the idea further…

So, why is this important?

The reason I bring this up is I feel it’s a critical component to self-directed learning – both in its capacity to enlighten, but also to motivate and educate. From experience, there is a tremendous amount of value in re-reading our own blog contributions – but more than that, in reviewing our own work in general.

As I’ve said before, an annual event I engage in every year is go back through every post I’ve written during the course of the year and identify common themes and how they relate to one another. From this I’m able to uncover conceptual connections that were previously ellusive because I was busy exploring the concepts themselves at the time, rather than how they related to one another.

To do this I’ll identify the themes in each post and assign them a descriptor, and then enter them all in a concept mapping program. From here it’s a matter of identifying and analysing the commonalities that exist between topics and then exploring the progression from one to another – as well as the relationships between them.

For example…

Last year I spent a great deal of time exploring open source software. However what seemed like a whole lot of superficial, yet nonetheless interesting tinkering at the time was in fact a gradual progression from one focal point to another. Looking at the bigger picture, I realised that what began as a technical investigation lead to an examination of the culture and philosophy of the open source community. I started to explore the reasons why people would devote so much energy towards developing software they were going to give away for free. Rather than just looking at what was produced, I started to look at why it was shared.

When recognising that I had also begun to research learning theory, I realised these two threads merged to inspire an exploration of open educational resources, and in turn to greater flexibility for learning and learners.

So what had seemed like a collection of unrelated posts during the course of the year has becomes a roadmap. As the saying goes: “In order to know where you’re going you have to know where you’ve been.” Armed with an increased awareness of what I’m learning, and how, I’ve found the next indicated step becomes clearly identifiable.

In terms of reflection acting as a motivator, the fact I can now clearly recognise when a new topic relates to those I’ve already explored establishes an immediate relevance and value to me, which inspires me to devote attention and energy to exploring it fully and ultimately helps me retain the knowledge that much more effectively.

The implications

For educators I think this notion has some important implications. Firstly, that it’s less important whether a topic or activity is important to the teacher, and more important whether it’s important to the learner. When I hear students openly question “why do I need to know this,” I see a subject that has not yet established its relevance to the individual – or worse still, something that has no relevance to the individual. In both cases the likelihood for long term retention is pretty slim.

This also highlights the notion that learning is subjective, and that – at most – a curriculum can only establish a beginning framework upon which the learners themselves begin to build, adapt and make meaning. The topics that are introduced in the classroom are only one part of the equation – the perspectives and previous experiences of the learner are of equal importance, if not more so.

Therefore it seems to me that helping students explore and identify how they personally learn the most effectively is the greatest role that education can play – it’s cross-disciplinary, personally relevant and perhaps most importantly, it emphasises the notion that the capacity to learn and the right to learn is inherent to the individual. It’s independent of any insitution, requires no degree or pre-requisites, and can never be taken away.

With time at a premium these days I’m finding it more and more difficult to carve out opportunities for slow blogging, and yet research opportunities and significant works continue to emerge seemingly daily. So I’m attempting to find ways to stay on top of my never ending stream of thoughts and ideas. Today is particularly frantic, so I’m opting for a video blog post in the first instance with the intent of returning to the subject in a more considered way once time permits.

I’m in the midst of reading a white paper titled “Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project” and have been struck by some significance of the findings of the study. The results point to a dynamic and complex ecosystem of interaction amongst young people that I believe we would do well to consider in discussions on elearning and new media – and in particular the manner with which education should seek to foster engagement and lifelong learning amidst young people.

According to the document:

“This white paper summarizes the results of a three-year ethnographic study, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, examining young people’s participation in the new media ecology…The study was motivated by two primary research questions: How are new media being integrated into youth practices and agendas? How do these practices change the dynamics of youth-adult negotiations over literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge?”

In reading the 58-page paper I’ve found myself continuously struck by the levels of engagement, depth and complexity that occur amidst young people in the absence of interference from formal organisations. The paper highlights a few key areas of participation amidst digital youths, characterised by both “friendship-driven” and “interest-driven” networks, and “genres of participation” that range from the largely social “hanging around”, to the more interest-driven “messing around” to the extremely engaged “geeking out.”

In particular, the by-products and examples of “geeking out” cited in the paper draw into question some of the criticisms of open-ended experimentation as “a waste of time.” It may be the case that such organically developing exploration does not fit neatly within time-sensitive curricula, however the results of several of the examples in the document are nonetheless very tangible, very significant learning outcomes.

The paper can be downloaded in PDF form from: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/

Today I attended the Learning Technology Research Symposium at
the Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo) at Sydney University.

A lot of fascinating topics were covered, but in particular I’ve been thinking about three themes:

• self-regulated learning
• cultivating a sense of ownership in learning
• assessment of blog reflections

This clip is a reflection on these themes.  I’d wanted to devote a more well-considered text-based post to it, but my son is sick at the moment and my hands were full at the time

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
– Bob Dylan (“The Times They Are A-Changin‘”)

The Glee Club
When I was in primary school I decided to join the Glee Club, which was an extra curricular activity for students interested in singing. I hadn’t ever sang before and had no idea whether I could or not; I didn’t even know if I’d like it. I just had an interest in trying out the experience and thought it would be fun.

Unfortunately the instructor ruined the experience. She was strict, highly authoritarian and in the end sucked all the enjoyment out of something that is meant to be inherently filled with passion, joy and emotion. The objectives became paramount, and the means through which the objectives were achieved, clearly dictated by the instructor. It became clear that the “club” was her instrument to be played; we were not individuals with interests or hopes in our own right. We were students to be kept in line.

Once, when we were performing for an assembly she grew upset about something we were doing – I can’t remember what – and stopped right in the middle of a song, as if to make an example of us and make it clear who was in charge. It was a truly mortifying and embarassing experience.

So I quit. Worse still, I came out of the experience hating music, and thinking I had no musical abilities; and this notion stuck with me for nearly 15 years.

Rediscovering Music
Then in my early 20s I found myself watching a documentary on the 1960s and was blown away by the energy and passion in the music and community idealism of the era. In particular I was drawn to Bob Dylan and the acoustic guitar. The fact his singing style was unconventional and not as honed as others I’d heard was inspiring to me. I realised that, if he could do it, so could I. Despite my experiences in primary school I decided to give it a try.

I had no overarching objectives in mind; no learning outcomes, no curriculum; no expertise, no existing knowledge; no network of any kind – just a desire to learn and to experience playing for the sake of doing so.

For quite some time it was a slow and exruciatingly unproductive experience. I didn’t read music and didn’t understand tablature; when playing, my fingers would ache; I couldn’t hear music of any kind in what I was doing, and would end each session feeling like I’d accomplished nothing – but I had a vested interest and sense of ownership in continuing to try and was thoroughly enjoying the journey. Where I ended up wasn’t a concern.

Eventually I realised I could actually hear a coherent song emerging from what my fingers were doing. More significantly I could even recognise patterns developing. I realised many songs used the same chords, and eventually saw and heard destinct recurring structures in music. This lead to connections with concepts and ideas that in turn lead to others.

The personal ownership I had in the learning experience led me through the difficult beginnings until I gained an appreciation – or cognition – of how seemingly disparate musical concepts tied together, and importantly began to see progress and improvement in my abilities. Thus began an entirely different chapter – I started exploring areas where I’d not been interested before – and in particular musical theory. There was no agenda in doing this, it was just an interest that I explored; once again without any specific outcomes in mind. But what it did was enhance contribute to my overall understanding of what I was doing.

Outcomes

Today I have one of the best musical ears and musical memory of anyone I know and can figure out how to play entire songs without being told the key – just by ear. I still can’t read music though; and still doubt my abilities.

Whereas my experiences with the glee club – and especially the instructor who lead it – was one of the more scarring experiences of my youth, the self-led exploration of music that began in my 20s has been – and continues to be – one of the most fufilling and personal experiences thus far. The realisation that I could direct my own learning and follow whatever path I chose was instrumental in empowering my exploration of the musical landscape.

And yet I still can’t help but wonder where I would be today if the instructor had taken a different tact with the students – encouraged empowered exploration rather than self-doubt; fostered a culture of passion, enthusiasm and encouragement rather than one of passive obedience; and above all treated students as unique individuals rather than subjects to be ruled over.

I attended a Research Showcase yesterday in which one of the topics covered was Threshold Concepts.  This notion is a new one to me, and to be honest I don’t know much about it; however based on the definition I’ve just uncovered online, a threshold concept is defined as having five characteristics:

1. First, they should be transformative, in that once acquired they should shift perception of the subject.
2. Second, they should be irreversible. Once an individual has begun to perceive the world in terms of a threshold concept it should be inconceivable that they would return to viewing it in a more primitive way.
3. Third, a threshold concept is integrative. Meyer and Land describe this as the capacity of a concept to expose the previously hidden interrelatedness of something.
4. Fourth a threshold concept is bounded. That is, it helps to define the boundaries of a subject area.
5. Fifth, a threshold concept may be counter-intuitive, or lead to knowledge that is inherently counter-intuitive. In grasping a threshold concept a student moves from common sense understanding to an understanding which may conflict with perceptions that have previously seemed self-evidently true.

This has led me to think that perhaps self-directed learning is a Threshold Concept.

Personal Experiences

At least in my own experience, the transformation from a reliance on learning through directed instruction to experiential learning through self-directed exploration took me through all 5 of the above characteristics.

I came to UNSW from a very small, micromanaged private sector company, and had experienced university as a student in a firmly entrenched instructivist model.  I studied Economics at a university of 40,000 people and attended mass lectures in which overhead slides were frequently used, the instructor spoke and students listened.

So when I began at UNSW I was accustomed to being told exactly what I was supposed to do, the way I was meant to do it, when it needed to be completed, and assessed on whether my work was adequate.  The environment I found when I arrived though was diametrically different to this.  There was no instruction, minimal feedback, and an incredible amount of flexibility on what I did, when, and how.

For some time I found this positively excruciating, since I was conditioned to look outside of myself for validation of my work.  When I didn’t receive this information I had a tremendous amount of difficulty knowing what to do next.  In hindsight it was an incredibly difficult period.

According to the Threshold Concepts 2008 Conference website, my experiences characterised the idea of “liminality”:

“Meyer and Land suggest that difficulty in understanding threshold concepts may leave the learner in a state of ‘liminality’, a suspended state or ‘stuck place’…”

In the absence of a management structure I was accustomed to, I was in a state of liminality for a number of years.  It was only after making a conscious decision that it was up to me to sort myself out did I start to feel comfortable with what I was doing.  In time this led to a sense of empowerment that has only grown over time.  Now I can’t imagine doing it differently; but it was a very difficult transition.

The Implications for Higher Education

Assuming for a moment that self-directed learning is indeed a threshold concept, in light of my own experiences it would seem that this represents a critical need that higher education could address.

As mentioned earlier though, given the devolved nature of this learning model it would require a much different approach to education as well as a fundamental shift in role from instructor to that of facilitator or moderator, since the student would be informing the instructor on what they would be learning, and how; rather than the other way around.

Given weeks 4 & 5 of my Facilitating Online Communities course is slated to cover facilitating, moderating or teaching I’m hopeful there will be some insightful conversations that might be applicable to this train of thought.

In the meantime if you have thoughts on this idea please jump in and leave a comment – or elaborate on your own blog and link back here so I know where to go for your input.

In “Downes on Learning and Web 2.0“, Diego Leal reflects on the following video in which Stephen Downes argues 3 key points:

1. You are at the center of your own personal learning network;
2. To gain from self-directed learning you must be self-directed;
3. These principles should guide how we teach as well as how we learn.

Leal’s thoughts on the video are worth a read, so I recommend you visit his blog for the full run-down.

To a fair degree Downes position flies directly in the face of the traditional model, characterised by a push of information, rather than a pull.  Here mass lectures enable instructors to disseminate information to large quantities of students, with minimal concurrent reciprocal opportunities for them.  The flow of information is largely singular, and is based on the instructors opinions about what students need to or should know, rather than the students’ opinions themselves.

In my opinion, this serves to disempower the learner by placing control of their learning in someone else’s hands, and relegating the student to the role of an information consumer rather than the architect of their own destiny.

To a degree smaller class sizes will afford students more input into the discussion.  Nonetheless, the model still ultimately puts the instructor at the top of the heirarchy, with the lecturer controlling much/most/all of the learning that takes place via established learning outcomes.

This model is not cause for a tremendous sense of ownership in the learning process by the learners themselves, since by definition they rely on the objectives of an external party – in this case the instructor.

The logic behind this learning landscape might be attributed to university accountabilities on accreditation (who they award degrees to), the logistical challenge of facilitating the learning journey of large numbers of people, assumptions regarding student expectations, even liability concerns for workplace competency (for example in the medical field); however the irony in this – at least from my perspective – is that the learning model that is so widely used to educate students is not the one that is used by the staff themselves.

Downes argues that “these principles [on self-directed learning] should guide how we teach as well as how we learn.”  In light of these inconsistencies it seems clear that this just isn’t happening.

This is a generalisation, I admit, however based on my experiences there is a fair amount of validity to it.  Particularly in the research field, much of the work my colleagues and I do amounts to self-directed learning.  In a field where there are many unknowns, there is not necessarily an established, well-worn path.

As a member of the Grateful Dead once said “When you’re on the avante garde, you don’t really know what you’re doing anyway.  You just make it up as you go.”

This analogy is perhaps not a perfect fit, since there are core methodologies used in the research process; but the fact remains that the learning process is largely an exploratory, experiential one in which the outcomes are uncertain.  You cast your net wide and constantly reflect on and evaluate the available information, and in doing so determine the next appropriate step.  You don’t ultimately know whether something will work or not; but that’s where much of the learning process occurs.

Conflict in Generational Paradigms

Innovations in web technology over the last few years have in fact exacerbated the inconsistencies between how we learn and the educational model that higher education and its underlying culture insists on using.

Downes’ video is a good overview in this sense.  Web technologies are now an empowering force in which people can establish or join their own networks and communities – and effectively take an active role in guiding their own learning processes.  These technologies are also extremely collaborative in nature, placing large masses of users at equivalent levels, regardless of existing knowledge or experience.  For all intensive purposes new media (Web 2.0) has dispelled instructivist heirarchies and replaced it with connective learning networks.

It is perhaps not surprising then, that uptake of these new technologies has been slow in higher education.  As I discussed the other day, many of these technologies are inherently out of phase with the current university culture.  So instead of technologies that empower learners such as blogs, wikis and experiential virtual environments, we continue to see use of systems that seek to manage or control learning.  The latter is arguably concerned more with the needs of the instructor and administrators than the learners.

From the standpoint of the existing culture I can understand the concerns and reservation.  The new paradigm brings the entire notion and purpose of instructors and indeed institutions in to question.

As George Siemens wrote yesterday (“Explaining Leads to Information“):

“At one point, we thought content was the value point of universities. Wrong. MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative changed that. Ok, then the interaction with faculty is the value point. And wrong again. Open communication and collaboration in online environments with networks of peers and experts gave us control over our interactions. Fine. Then the value point is accreditation. Yes, for now. Our ability to rate, review, comment, and provide feedback has increased with the development of the read/write web. I’m not sure how long we can build education’s value on the concept of accreditation. As I’ve frequently suggested, we can glean much insight from a field that has spent more time journeying down the path of shifting value from content to something else: the news/journalism/media industry.”

Personally I don’t feel that universities, educators and facilitators will become obsolete anytime soon.  I do think, though, that it’s critical that this new paradigm be accepted and recognised by the existing culture and that plans be made and implemented that seek to understand and engage with the new methods of learning.  If we are to remain effective in facilitating the learning journeys of university students we must understand where they are coming from both philosophically and pedagogically.

Ultimately the same motives and methods that drive and inform research must be applied to the learning and teaching culture as well.  In research objectivity is key; a theory that is biased towards an outcome jeopardises the entire model.  Assumptions are therefore questioned, tested and retested against new information or circumstances in order to confirm or disprove their accuracy and relevance.  The importance is on realising the true reality, not necessarily the desired one.

Reference:

Stephen Downes’ video is embedded below.  You can also access it directly on Google Video:

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5431152345344515009[/googlevideo]