While
my approach to pedagogy, both in the classroom and in a digital context,
incorporates many conventional theories of learning including, behaviourism,
cognitive theory, constructivism, etc., my own teaching philosophy could best
be described as neoConfucian:
不闻不若闻之，闻之不若见之，见之不若知之，知之不若行之；学至于行之而止矣
I hear and I forget;
I see and I remember; I do and I understand.*
This
quote by the Confucian philosopher Xunzi (荀子,
312–230 BCE)
reflects a very early appreciation of the direct relationship between
comprehension and retention, and levels of engagement. Today’s digital tools
provide learners with so many possibilities beyond the traditional ‘industrial
model’ of education. My own current passions with regard to the use of
technological tools allow for engaging and interacting through digitally simulated
or enhanced learning environments.
To give this philosophy a more current analogy, I prefer to describe it as culminating ‘dedicated practice’ on the road to mastery. This
term, ‘dedicated practice’, normally appears in language regarding athletics
and is applicable to all areas that involve the development of competence.
Furthering
this sports analogy of the learner as athlete, today’s teachers should play
roles more akin to coaches than dictators of knowledge. This represents a
departure from a foie-gras approach
of ‘stuffing’ learners with information. Through the addition of new and
emerging technology as learning and teaching tools, ‘dedicated practice’
represents enormous potential for guided and self-directed learning that
requires ongoing and constant exploration and development.
Beginning
with an analysis of the students and the subject matter being taught, teachers assist individual learners in establishing
educational goals in terms of specific and identifiable learning objectives.
Instructor/coaches can create learning solutions for each objective and arrange
these constructively, if not always in a linear fashion, to meet the
educational goals of the learners. Many of the features of dedicated practice
are intrinsic to eLearning in general and game-based learning can sometimes
even make it fun! These features include, and are reinforced by, repetition of
tasks that replicate and simulate situations with immediate feedback and
auto-recording of progress to both assess the efficacy of learners and to
evaluate the course itself.
Hannah
Arendt once wrote, “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them”.
At first glance, this reads like a paradox but through the effective use of eLearning and specifically through simulations, we see how it would be very possible, by today’s technological standards, to allow someone to practice in a safe learning environment, before having to practice in a ‘real-world’ setting. Being able to craft and deliver ever-increasing levels of contextualized pedagogy, to me, is the promise of our age offering vast improvements in the potential for learning and instruction.
At first glance, this reads like a paradox but through the effective use of eLearning and specifically through simulations, we see how it would be very possible, by today’s technological standards, to allow someone to practice in a safe learning environment, before having to practice in a ‘real-world’ setting. Being able to craft and deliver ever-increasing levels of contextualized pedagogy, to me, is the promise of our age offering vast improvements in the potential for learning and instruction.
* This is a common and familiar translation but it is not a very accurate one. A more accurate translation would read: "Not listening is not as goos as listening. Listening is not as good as seeing. Seeing is not as good as knowing. Knowing is not as good as doing."
