Theorizing.
Coming to terms with learning theory and theories.
The deeper I go into the woods of learning theory, the more disoriented I become. The thick growth starts to block out the sun; the forest becomes darker; the undergrowth to my left is indistinguishable from the undergrowth on my right. Even though I can sort of tell you the difference between the different trees - how behaviourism has broader leaves, cognitivism deeper roots, constructivism rougher bark - I eventually get overwhelmed, and when I finally reach connectivism, well, I’m lost.
From Teaching in a Digital Age (Second Edition) by Tony Bates.
How lost can be seen in this handy chart that lays out all of connectivism’s connections. I doubt any learning theory would be able to explain how this chart helps anyone understand anything. I look at it and my eyes glaze over, a little headache forming just above my eyes if I stare at it too long.
My philistinism shouldn’t be understood as a lack of appreciation for learning theories. The complexity of learning intrigues me. And I like the standard chronology used to teach the evolution of learning theory where we move from behaviourism’s mechanistic urges through cognitivism and constructivism’s more agency-oriented understanding of the learners all the way to that point where agency is replaced by or subsumed under the weight of the multitudinous networks of learning that now exist.
If learning theories do span a spectrum, those theories closest to the poles - behaviourism and connectivism - seem the least interested in the learners themselves. The former sees them as empty vessels waiting to be filled, the latter little more than nodes through which information passes. Of course this is too simplistic a description and of course it does neither theory justice. But I can’t shake the impression that the theories closer to the middle - cognitivism and constructivism - offer a more compelling take on the role of the learner in learning.
Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash
What I find most valuable about learning theories is that they can help me understand why we do certain things when we teach, or why we’re disappointed when students don’t learn the way we expect them to. it’s not an attitude I can easily shake. The theories themselves help me span my activity as an educator and the reception of that activity by the learner.
Where I find the theories lacking is the way they ignore relationships. Learning in higher education often centres on relationships - the relationship between the instructor and the student, or between the student and the content, or nowadays, especially in the age of COVID, between the student and the media used to relay that content (though connectivism would come closest there). Understanding these relationships can make it easier for educators to know when they might want to insert themselves in the learning process, and when they might want to hold back on doing so. This edges us closer to the more pedestrian topic of learning management, something eschewed by theorists. But it speaks to the practical matters at play when we work as educators.
For Fall Term 2020 this blog will be exploring issues informing education during a pandemic. It is appearing as part of a graduate seminar on online teaching and learning. You can read more about the seminar or see the other posts.
Post 6/60.
