Towards Active Learning

1
Making Learning Happen
Phil Race BSc PhD PGCE FCIPD ILTM Senior Academic
Staff Development Officer (part-time), University
of Leeds Tuesday, 19 May 2015
2
Intended learning outcomes

• In this interactive plenary, and the group
  exercises which follow, I hope you will become
  able to
• Take a fresh look at learning, based on your own
  lifes experience
• Leave behind some out-of-date (and downright
  wrong) ideas about learning!
• Identify five factors which underpin successful
  learning
• Address these factors towards the cause of
  making learning happen in post-compulsory
  education and beyond
• Move that diamond down and right even better
  success for LSBU.

3
Origins of these ideas

• Asking questions to tens of thousands of people
  about how they learn (and didnt learn)for the
  last 20 years or so
• All ages 16 to over-80s
• All levels - PVCs upwards
• Learners, teachers, trainers professionals,
  doctors, lawyers, soldiers, clergypersons
• All across UK and Ireland
• Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
  several parts of Europe.
• The common factor human beings.

4
Well worth a read

• Knight, P and Yorke, M (2003) Assessment,
  learning and employability Maidenhead, UK
  SRHE/Open University Press.
• Bowl, M (2003) Non-traditional entrants to higher
  education they talk about people like me Stoke
  on Trent, UK, Trentham Books.
• Peelo, M and Wareham, T (eds.) (2002) Failing
  Students in higher education Buckingham, UK,
  SRHE/Open University Press.
• Northedge, A (2003) Enabling participation in
  academic discourse Teaching in higher education
  8, 2 169-80 (Carfax)

5
Telling the story

• The open learning handbook Kogan Page, 1989 and
  1995
• Who Learns Wins Penguin, 1995
• Various journal articles in the training field
  1990 to 2004
• Chapter 1 of The Lecturers Toolkit 2001
• Effective Online Learning the Trainers
  Toolkit (with David Anderson), Fenman, 2002.
• Making learning happen in post-compulsory
  education (Sage, 2005, in press, due out
  November).

6
Context

• Too many of the models we use to think about
  learning have been designed in ivory towers, and
  relate to people who aren't just ordinary
  learners on education and training programmes.
• The real problem, I believe, is that we tend to
  end up using complex sophisticated language about
  learning, and yet learning is something that
  everyone does every day. In this mini workshop,
  I'll get you thinking about how YOU learn best -
  and how you don't learn well too.
• This helps us to keep thinking about how our
  learners are learning in our own workshops and
  teaching sessions.

7
Mind our language?

• Everyone learns. Not just students, not just
  trainees, or trainers, or teachers, not just
  professors, not just writers
• And we talk of 50 participation in higher
  education alone students are no longer just an
  elite cross section of the population.
• Yet the language we use to describe learning has
  got silly in the last fifty years or so.
• Its become remote, cold, psychological,
  exclusive, elitist not a sensible way of
  talking about something everyone does.
• My mission is to get back to using language about
  learning which everyone can relate to.

8
Time to change - radically

• The Tomlinson Report has highlighted that
  traditional unseen written exams are no longer
  fit for purpose exams fail a generation of
  pupils (Feb.2004).
• The Burgess Committee Report (Measuring and
  Recording Achievement, Nov. 2004, download from
  SCOP or UUK) shows that the present UK Degree
  classification system is no longer fit for
  purpose e.g. 90 of Oxbridge graduates have 1st
  or 2.1s and 50 nationally.
• So were (at last) going to have to change
  assessment, and link it productively to learning.
• But were going to have to think again about how
  learning happens best.

9
And another problem

• Too much of the literature on learning has been
  based on flimsy indeed slippery theories or
  models, not underpinned by relevant research or
  validated by widespread piloting, testing and
  debate.
• The Education curriculum has held on to some old
  approaches till well after their use before
  date.
• The climate has changed irreversibly, theres
  been global warming among learners, and the
  time has come to take a fresh look at how
  learning really happens and at what we can do
  to cause it to happen.

10
Three landmarks

• Task jot down who you think (guess) is the
  source of the following quotation
• Everything should be made as simple as possible,
• but not simpler.
• (Albert Einstein, 1879-1955).
• Also
• Knowledge is experience, everything else is just
  information.
• And
• Never stop asking questions.

11
Training

• Other peoples knowledge is just information.
• Teaching is helping people to turn information
  into knowledge
• by getting them to do things with the
  information
• and giving them feedback about their attempts.

12
Information and communication?

• Information can be communicated, in large
  amounts, in books and articles,
• or right to our computers, and downloaded onto
  our hard discs.
• But its not knowledge till we do things with it
• Apply it, extend it, interrogate it, analyse it,
  disagree with it, compare and contrast it, and so
  on.

13
Learning a natural human process
You can download a version of the slides which
follow from my website www.Phil-Race.net
14
Please take four post-its
15
Four straightforward questions about how you
learn(ed)

• Each question is in two parts.
• Just think about part 1.
• Then jot down your headline response to part 2 in
  no more than half-a-dozen words or so.

16
1 How do you learn well?

• Think (dont write anything yet) of something
  that youre good at, something that you know you
  do well.
• How did you become good at it? Write a few words
  on the yellow post-it.

17
Most peoples views...

• Practice.
• Trial and error.
• Having a go.
• Repetition.
• Experimenting.

18
A world famous view...

• One must learn by doing the thing though you
  think you know it, you have no certainty until
  you try.

19
A world famous view...

• One must learn by doing the thing though you
  think you know it, you have no certainty until
  you try.
• (Sophocles, 495-406 BC)

20
Another...

• An expert is a man who has made all the
  mistakes,
• which can be made,
• in a very narrow field.
• (Niels Bohr, 1885-1962)
• Therefore we need to allow trainees to make
  mistakes, and help them to gain feedback in a
  constructive environment, to help them towards
  becoming experts.

21
But sometimes we really need trainers

• Someone who already knows
• Someone who already understands
• Someone who has already learned by getting it
  wrong at first
• And can help us to do the same
• Sometimes without saying a word

22
2 What makes you feel good?

• Think of something about yourself that you feel
  good about.
• How you can tell that you feel good about this?
  Whats your evidence to support this feeling?
  Write a few words on your green post-it.

23
Most peoples views...

• Feedback.
• Other peoples reactions.
• Praise.
• Seeing the results.

24
3 What can go wrong?

• Think of something that youre not good at,
  perhaps as a result of a bad learning experience.
• What went wrong, and whose (if anyones) fault
  may it have been? Write a few words on your blue
  post-it.

25
Most peoples views...

• Did not really want to learn it.
• Could not see the point.
• It did my head in.
• Bad teaching.
• Could not make sense of it.

26
4 What kept you going?

• Think of something that you did learn
  successfully, but at the time you didnt want to
  learn it.
• What kept you going, so that you did indeed
  succeed in learning it? Write a few words on your
  pink post-it.

27
Most peoples views...

• Strong support and encouragement.
• Did not want to be seen not able to do it.
• Needed to do it for what I wanted next.

28
Five factors underpinning successful learning

• learning by doing
• learning from feedback
• wanting to learn
• needing to learn
• making sense - digesting

29
Traditional views...

• active experimentation
• concrete experience
• reflective observation
• abstract conceptualisation

30
Is it a cycle?
Active Experimentation
Concrete Experience
Abstract Conceptualisation
Reflective Observation
31
Coffield et al on Kolb (2004)

• Finally, it may be asked if too much is being
  expected of a relatively simple test which
  consists of nine (1976) or 12 (1985 and 1999)
  sets of four words to choose from. What is
  indisputable is that such simplicity has
  generated complexity, controversy and an enduring
  and frustrating lack of clarity.
• Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16
  learning a systematic and critical review Frank
  Coffield, David Moseley, Elaine Hall and Kathryn
  Ecclestone, www.LSRC.ac.uk, 2004.

32
Is it a cycle?
Wanting/Needing
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
33
Ripples on a pond
Wanting/ Needing
34
Ripples on a pond
Wanting/ Needing
Doing
35
Ripples on a pond
Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Digesting
36
Ripples on a pond
Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
37
But what if theres no want or not even a
need?
38
But what if theres no want or not even a
need?
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
39
Ripples on a pond.
Teaching?
Assessing?
Wanting/ Needing
Understanding?
Doing
Digesting
Feedback
40
Designing teaching and training to maximise
learningbutterfly wing to tornado

• We can each address these five factors in our
  teaching.
• We can try to get our learners to want to learn.
• We can help them see the point, and take
  ownership of the need to learn.
• We can keep them busy, learning by doing,
  practice, trial and error, repetition.
• We can help them to make sense of what they are
  learning
• particularly by making sure that they get
  feedback on what they are doing and thinking.

41
Beyond learning styles

• Coffield et al (2004) were very critical of most
  of whats been written about learning styles.
• I have long been worried that most of the
  instruments pigeon-hole learners, rather than
  liberate them.
• I hate the idea of a hidden agenda with scores
  revealing something mystical about peoples
  minds.
• I believe in getting people to think about what
  drives their learning.

42
Worries about questionnaires

• I am concerned that some of the learning styles
  stuff has never really been published, but
  marketed by its owners.
• I believe that yes/no or true/false are too
  simplistic.
• Thats why Im publishing later this year a
  questionnaire with no hidden agendas, and with
  four choices for each statement not two.
• Its in your pack.

43
Making learning happen in particular contexts

1. Lectures with large groups (gt100)
2. Whole-class sessions with smaller groups (lt30)
3. Tutorials
4. Practical work
5. Online learning
6. Self- and peer-assessment
7. Through formative feedback
8. Other?

44
Finding out what makes learning happen

• Lets explore how we can use small-group teaching
  to maximise the learning payoff for our students
  in each of the learning contexts.

45
What do students actually do in your chosen
learning context?

• Privately, please jot down a list of things which
  your students do in your chosen learning context.
• Make them all ing words or phrases.
• Then write each of the main ing words or
  phrases on separate post-its.
• Next, please stick your post-its onto a
  flipchart, in order of learning payoff for
  students, in diamond-9 formation (but you can
  have more than 9).

46
What students do, in order of learning payoff
Most productive in students learning
1
2
3
5
6
4
8
7
Less productive
9
47
What students do to make learning happen, and
factors underpinning successful learning
Wanting Needing Doing Feedback Making sense
Enthusing learners, empowering them, giving them
things they enjoy doing.
Please annotate your post-its showing which
factors underpinning successful learning are
involved in each of the activities youve
chosen. Some activities will have more than one
of D ,F, W, N, M. Use a 3-point scale, e.g. WWW
for a great deal of wanting effect, WW and
W.
Giving learners ownership of the need, showing
them what they need to become able to achieve,
helping them to see the point of it all.
Getting them going and keeping them going, giving
learners practice, learning through mistakes,
repetition, avoiding logjams or blocks.
Making sure that learners get feedback on-line,
and from us, and from each other, and from all
the rest of their learning environment. Making
the feedback friendly.
Helping learners to get their heads round ideas
and concepts, digesting information to add to
their knowledge, increasing their understanding.
48
Back to our intended outcomes

• How well do you now feel enabled to
• (2 hands very much better, one hand somewhat
  better, no hands no better)
• Take a fresh look at learning, based on your own
  lifes experience
• Leave behind some out-of-date (and downright
  wrong) ideas about learning!
• Identify five factors which underpin successful
  learning
• Address these factors towards the cause of
  making learning happen in post-compulsory
  education and beyond.
• Move that diamond down and right even better
  success for LSBU.