Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: Re-visioning the learning environment

I have developed a keen interest in thinking about what an effective e-learning course might look like.

As I review the literature surrounding effective learning (i.e., acquiring expertise) and learning design, the ability to extend what is learned in one context to a new context (transfer) can be improved by helping learners become more aware of themselves as learners (Bransford et al., 2000 p. 67). Perhaps it might be useful to examine how and why self-awareness is important in terms of teaching and learning design.

The idea of self-awareness is an ancient one most notably attributed to Aristotle (i.e., “know thyself”). To know one’s self means to be cognitively aware of your desires, motivations, strengths and weaknesses. This form of metacognition has a significant impact on a learner’s ability to transfer knowledge from context to context.

Research (Schraw 2002) suggests that self awareness (metacognitive regulation) improves learning performance in the following ways:
• Better use of attention
• Better use of existing strategies
• A greater awareness of comprehension breakdowns

Learner’s who posses a sense of self-knowledge are able to focus their time and attention on a task, choose and evaluate strategies and techniques to comprehend and apply new or existing knowledge, and monitor their ability to understand and use or not use new information (i.e., actively check for feedback).

Therefore, as learning designers, we might ask: How can learning environment designers and instructors build courses that foster learner expertise and self-awareness?

According to Bransford et al (2000, p.77), learners are motivated to spend time learning complex subjects and solve problems they find interesting. If the learner perceives what he/she is being asked to do is important to him/her, then the more likely he/she will be motivated to actively engage in the learning process (Kaplan, 2003). Bransford et al. (2000, p.78) also suggests that frequent feedback is critical for learners to monitor their understanding and actively evaluate their learning strategies as well as their current levels of comprehension.

Therefore, we might say learning designers needs to consider creating “guideposts” for learning, not simply prescribing one particular path over another. Learning designers must be able to construct environments that give learners options that address their own self-interests as well as allowing for learner’s to participate in the process of setting their own learning objectives.

In his essay entitled “Learning Development Cycle: Bridging Learning Design and Modern Knowledge Needs” George Siemens (2004) suggests that to better reflect the central role of learners, learning designers need to create environments that permit learners to form their own connections, which, in essence, is more reflective of how learning functions in real life. Siemens suggests that “informal and life-experience learning are such a significant aspect of an individual’s learning that they cannot be left to chance.” He goes on to state, “instead of seeing instruction as the only object of design, a designer’s perspective can be enlarged by seeing the environment, availability of resources, and learner capacity for reflection, as potential objects of a design process and methodology.”

New technologies make possible new kinds of relationships and interactions that affect not just individuals, but the entire reach of civilization. The promise and challenge of education is to invent a pedagogy that moves from an instructor-centered construct into a format that is more indicative of today’s work environment. Many courses that exist in learning institutions largely seek to convey what an instructor believes a learner should know. Learner-centered design concentrates on providing the learner the ability to determine what he/she feels is most important and relevant. This design approach is more reflective of the types of scenarios individuals will encounter when learning through experience and other informal, “real life” situations (e.g. reciprocal teaching, situated and problem-based learning). Self-knowledge, or knowledge of our surroundings, our needs and our abilities, is an important feature in our ability to acquire expertise and apply it directly.

Clay Shirky notes that, “In the real world, we are usually operating with partial, inconclusive or context-sensitive information. When we have to make a decision based on this information, we guess, extrapolate, intuit, we do what we did last time, we do what we think our friends would do or what Jesus or Joan Jett would have done, we do all of those things and more, but we almost never use actual deductive logic.” As learning designers we need to keep these comments in mind and center our design environments on pragmatic, practical applications for learning and knowledge transfer.


References:

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Mind, brain, experience and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Shirky, C. Comments retrieved from Jay Cross’ Internet Time Blog. Retrieved 11 September 2005 from http://metatime.blogspot.com/2005/09/another-way-of-looking-at.html


Kaplan, Diane S., 2003. Self awareness of past learning and development as motivation for continued learning: the application of a general model to specific categories of literacy learning for preservice reading teachers. Reading Psychology 24 (1) pgs 1-24. Retrieved on 11 September 2005 from http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/app/home/content.asp?wasp=e184a2a934324


Schraw, G. (2002). Promoting general metacognitive awareness. Metacognition. In J.H. Hartman (Ed.), Learning and Instruction (p.3-4). Springer. Retrieved 11 September 2005 from http://print.google.com/print?id=l7tWaKaIUcQC&lpg=PA3&pg=PA4&si


Siemens, G. (2004) Learning Development Cycle:
Bridging Learning Design and Modern Knowledge Needs. Retrieved 02 August 2005 from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ldc.htm.