by Sven Åke Bjørke

Universities traditionally educate less than ten percent of the population. The target group of students used to be an elite of the most academically gifted. They have as a rule been able to take care of themselves and learn what they were supposed to, regardless of the quality of the education delivered. When half or more of the population wants college or university education, the basic premises for tertiary education change.  It seems, more often than not, that universities remain to discover this.

The traditional university lecturer has his main focus on research, not on teaching.  He is rewarded for what he publishes, not for how he teaches. If he fails to publish, he risks being “punished” by being given more classes to teach. If he publishes a lot, the reward is more time for research, less teaching.

The traditional university lecturer has a high academic degree in his subject. As a rule he has little or no pedagogical training. He will most likely teach the same way as his favorite lecturer did when he was a student himself.  His favorite way of communicating with his students will be one-way lecturing for one or two hours, and otherwise make himself as little available to the students as possible. In other words: the world is changing fast, while the universities deliver education that is static and as if we still were in the 20^th century. The prevailing model of education was designed for the industrial age:  the student is working alone, in competition with peers for the best grades,  and is expected to absorb the information given by the teacher and reproduce it for the exam. From a comedian’s perspective, the conclusion is “The five minute university”. This does not work for the Net Gen mind in the information age.

MSc DM students busy searching for information – and discussing it online

We have fairly good ideas about what factors are needed for quality education in the Information Age. It is not enough to focus on one or two of these. All the factors are needed to achieve synergy in a holistic learning environment. The most important are listed below:

1. Engaged teachers with broad and deep subject knowledge combined with pedagogical skills
“Teachers need to be actively engaged in, and passionate about, teaching and learning”…(and) “provide students with multiple opportunities and alternatives for developing learning strategies based on the surface and deep levels of learning leading to students building constructions of this learning” (Hattie, 2009, p.36). Whether on campus or online, this is always the case.  The Teacher Is Not The Most Important Factor When It Comes To Learning..  The entire learning environment is. An engaged teacher will in many cases also engage the students. Rather than remaining as passive receivers of information, they will become interested and active learners, and a crucial part of that learning environment.

5. A learning centered more than teacher centered approach
“It is what the teacher get the students to do in the class that emerged as the strongest component of the accomplished teacher’s repertoire, rather than what the teacher, specifically, does”  (Hattie, 2009, p.35) “It is not the knowledge or ideas, but the learner’s construction of knowledge and ideas that is critical”…So often learners become passive recipients of teachers’ lessons…but the aim is to make students active in the learning process – through actions by the teachers and others – until the students reach the stage where they become their own teachers” (Hattie, 2009, p.37).

John Hattie’s findings indicate as decisive: “the teacher’s ability to identify essential representations of the subject; guide learning through classroom interactions; monitor learning and provide feedback; attend to affective attributes; and influence student outcomes, which includes students view of the teaching quality.

To achieve active learning in class, there are seven steps:

1. define learning intentions;
2. ensure awareness of and know success criteria of performance;
3. build commitment and engagement in the learning task;
4. presentation of the lesson;
5. guided practice (work is marked and corrective work);
6. closure; and
7. independent practice.”

Students’ work is marked in class and they may do corrective work. The teacher should combine direct instruction with strategy instruction with extended, deliberate practice. There should be emphasis on meta-cognition.

It is important for the teacher to communicate the intention of the lesson and the notion of what success means for these intentions. It is also important  to teach cognitive strategies intended to lead to improved learning outcomes. Emphasis must be put on teachers enabling students to learn and use strategies such as summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.

Dialogue between teacher and students around text must be encouraged. Students may take turns as teacher and lead dialogue to bring meaning to the written word with assistance to learn to monitor their own learning and thinking. The teacher may also consider a form of demonstrating to students what success looks like; typically consist of a problem statement and the appropriate steps to a solution.

Three steps: introductory phase, acquisition/training phase, test phase (assess learning). This may reduce cognitive load for students such that they concentrate on the processes that lead to the correct answer and not just providing an answer
(Research and proven practices by dr John Hattie).. 

6. Students are trained to attribute success or failure to factors such as effort rather than ability
This is crucial for motivation. If a student is a “performer” rather than a “learner”, she will tend to attribute success or failure to factors outside her control. A “learner” will tend to attribute success or failure to level of own effort  (Bjørke and Øysæd, 2010, p.6.5).

7. A learning environment ensuring that “errors” are welcomed, as they are key levers for enhancing learning (Hattie, 2009, p.4).  “Teaching needs to be more related to choosing appropriately challenging learning intentions and success criteria, enabling the students to attain these goals by monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness …, and creating a safe  and cooperative climate to make and learn from errors, from each other (teacher, students and peers), and optimize feedback” (Hattie, 2009, p.113)..

8. Appropriate use of technology
 Computers are used effectively
“a) when there is a diversity of teaching strategies;
b) when there is  a pretraining in the use of computers as a teaching and learning tool;
c) when there are multiple opportunities for learning;
d) when the student, not teacher, is in “control” of learning;
e) when peer learning is optimized; and
f) when feedback is optimized” (Hattie, 2009, p.221-233).

MSc DM students busy searching for information – and discussing it online

We cannot just throw technology into a classroom and hope it will work well. The pedagogy must change. Emphasis must be on customised, collaborative learning. Cut back on lecturing. Broadcast learning does not go well with the Net Gen students. Students must be empowered to collaborate. Students are collaborators, not competitors.
The Online Learning Charade: No Buildings, No School Yards, No Education

Technology can be important when appropriately used but is very unlikely – ever – to replace the teacher. “This technology will revolutionise education”  is a statement that we have heard repeatedly. Technology will of course impact on how education is delivered. However, what’s important after all is what takes place in each student’s brain.

Emphasis is not on Technology. Technology is just a question of tools.  The question is. how do you activate the students using the tools? Encourage the students to access subject matter experts available on the internet. Emphasis must be on life-long learning rather than learning for tests. Focus on how to learn, unlearn and relearn. Schools are places to learn rather than teach. Net Geners need to learn “Information literacy”: how to search for information, analyze and synthesise it and critically assess it. Education for the mass production- and industrial age was about absorbing content and reproduce it. Education for the information age is more about active engagement, critical assessment, solve real problems, navigating in the digital world,  how to search, find and assess and what do with the information found. The inquiry method is increasingly relevant. Students explore in groups. The teacher is more mentor than lecturer (but that as well!).

The teacher should use the technology to get to know each student, and assist in customising the learning environment. Ideally, the learning environment should offer choice, customisation, transparency, integrity, collaboration, fun, speed and innovation.

MSc DM students busy searching for information – and discussing it online

We do not have to uncritically accept all John Hattie’s findings. However, it is probably wise to consider his points when experimenting with building new learning environments, and ask ourselves questions about what actually does work or not. Whatever teaching approach we want to use, it should be fairly obvious that there is a mismatch between the traditional university and the demands from a “postmodern” education. The good old lecture might not be appropriate any more.

Many universities invest heavily in computers and infrastructure for transmitting lectures synchronously to students outside campus. These investments are expensive, and nevertheless tend not to function without problems.  There is always the risk of electricity failure or broadband failure. The sound or picture quality might not be good enough. An excellent on-campus lecturer might not quite perform on a computer screen.  Much of the experience of synchronous education indicate too much waiting, waste of time,  low quality transmission and low learning outcomes. The quality of a lecture may improve if just taped and made available as a learning resource asynchronously. The quality and flexibility clearly increase. Examples are the TED lectures. http://www.ted.com/

Otherwise the rule is to make taped lectures short and focused. Just taping an ordinary on-campus lecture is difficult to make worthwhile listening to.  The key question in post-modern education is probably whether or not the traditional lecture really is that important for a good learning environment.  Considering the eight points mentioned above, there are probably other learning activities that are more decisive to good learning outcomes.

Photos. Å. Bjørke

Literature:

Pedagogical approaches in online education

E-learning pedagogy

Transformative pedagogy

Bjørke, S.Å, and Øysæd, H. (2011)  Study strategies and study techniques, PULS, UIA, E-book

A solution for bad teaching (NYT, 2014)

Gibbs, G. (1981) Twenty terrible reasons for lecturing. SCED Occasional Paper No. 8, Birmingham. 1981. [online]. Available from: http://shop.brookes.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?prodid=1174

Hattie, J. (2009) Visible learning. A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, Routledge

Hattie, J. () Influences on students’ learning

Mazur, E. (2012) ‘The scientific approach to teaching: research as a basis for course design.’ YouTube. [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYiI2Hvg5LE

Wiggins, G. (2012) What works in education – Hattie’s list of the greatest effects and why it matters

Barshay, J. (2015) Kids Who Use Computers Heavily in School Have Lower Test Scores, Major Worldwide Study Finds, In top performing nations, teachers, not students, use technology, Alternet, Education http://www.alternet.org/education/kids-who-use-computers-heavily-school-have-lower-test-scores-major-worldwide-study-finds 

• More Evidence That Active Learning Trumps Lecturing
• Active Learning: In Need of Deeper Exploration
• Two giants of online learning discuss the future of education (TED)
• The eLearning Dilemma: Engaged vs Unengaged Learners
• The Eight-Minute Lecture Keeps Students Engaged
• 5 Keys to Great Nonverbal Communication
• Why Are We So Slow to Change the Way We Teach?
• 8 stratégies d’enseignement efficaces selon Hattie et Marzano
• Changing educational paradigms (TED-talk)
• No more physics and maths, Finland to stop teaching individual subjects
  The future is all about learning by topic, not subject.