Learning Theory

1
Learning Theory

• From Womens Ways of Knowing
• MF Belenky, B. Clinchy, N. Goldberger, J. Tarule

2
The Study

• Began in late 1970s (absence of women in
  studies)
• Perry studies phases of mens ethical
  development Five positions
• Gilligan and Lyons Gender differences in
  development of moral perspective and identity
  development
• Five concepts of knowing

3
Method

• How do we know things? How do we learn?
• What is truth, authority, evidence? How do I know
  what I know?
• Interviewed 135 women, variety of backgrounds

4
Five categories

• Silence
• Received Knowledge
• Subjective knowledge
• Procedural Knowledge
• Constructed knowledge

5
Theory

• Not exhaustive, fixed or universal categories
• Abstract and not complex (doesnt reflect unique
  person)
• Similar categories in mens thinking
• Other ways to categorize thinking
• Interaction of thinking and identity

6
Silence

• Feeling Deaf and Dumb because no one had ever
  listened to them
• Assume that they cannot learn and are voiceless
• we foundthere were no indications of dialogue
  with the self. There were no words that
  suggested an awareness of mental acts,
  consciousness or introspection. p. 25

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Silence 2

• Literacy does not automatically lead to abstract
  thought. P. 25
• Because of limits to representational thought
  (not imaginary or metaphor), are limited to the
  present, concrete, specific and enacted (not the
  motives behind)
• Limited sense of we
• Authority is all powerful, unpredictable
• Dont ask Why.

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Silence 3

• Maintain Sex roles- passive, subdued and
  subordinate
• Self description based on geography--I am a
  person who likes to stay home
• No vantage point outside themselves to reflect
• Seen but not heard

9
Received Knowledge

• Learning by listening
• Truth comes from others
• Receiving, retaining and returning the words of
  others
• Why are professors always right? They have
  books to look at. Things you look up in a book,
  you normally get the right answer. p. 39.

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Received 2

• Intolerant of ambiguity
• Literal-- cant read between the lines, there is
  no between (!)
• Grades should be like hourly wages, the longer
  you work, the higher the wage.
• No effort to understand. It is or it isnt
• What if two studies disagree with one another?
  I dont know. p. 41

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Received Knowledge 3

• Facts are true
• Reproduces material on demand, without any
  transformation
• Feel confident to absorb and learn material
• Can be successful in schools that do not require
  reflection

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Received knowledge

• Others define you
• Social expectations, roles
• Doing the right thing
• Should, ought
• Leader or follower
• Right or wrong
• Gender differences wrt Authority
• Men more often identify with authority
• Women tend to listen, men lecture (at this stage)

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Subjective Knowledge Inner Voice

• Shift out of dualism from assumptions of truth
  from others to belief in the multiplicity of
  truths
• May be intensely subjective p. 66
• May become intensely private, rebellious
• Unwilling to accept others views, anti-authority
• I just know.

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Subjective 3

• Truth is instinctive and intuitive
• Truth is unique to each individual
• Ideas and thinking are for men, feelings for
  women
• I think that what one person sees to be a fact
  is not necessarily a fact in the eyes of another,
  so I tend to weigh anything in light of how I
  feel about it. I am only searching for what is
  valid to me. p. 70

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Subjective 4

• Abstract thought math, science, analysis seems
  impersonal
• Antinationalist attitudes
• Interpretations of poetry, art are personal
• May have a tendency to isolate because of their
  commitment to their personal views- become
  oppositional

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Procedural Knowledge Reason

• Necessity to understand
• Need for formal instruction or knowledgeable
  tutors
• Use of objective criteria
• Justify responses to objects in non-personal
  terms
• Intuition can deceive, need to check out gut
  reactions

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Procedural Knowledge 2

• Deliberate, systematic analysis
• Things are not always what they seem
• Complexity
• The need to know how finding a system or theory
• Methodolatry the correct process
• Not just what you think, but how you arrived at
  the conclusion

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Procedural 3

• Separate
• What are the standards used to analyze?
• How They want us to think
• Impersonal justice
• Critical thinking doubting everything

• Connected Knowing
• What does this mean to me
• Morality based on personal reasons, connections
• Empathetic learning
• Why did he say that?
• Nonjudgmental

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Constructed Knowledge

• Is the chair real? I would say yes the chair
  is sitting there. I can see it. I can touch it.
  I can feel it. Yea, its real. But when you
  move beyond and start thinking about the world
  philosophically rather than physically, it gets
  very complex. What is fact? What is not? It
  certainly changes things. Its very exciting to
  methinking that wayit opens up a whole new
  thing. It really makes the world of the mind
  become infinite. p. 131.

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Constructed 2

• Integration of thoughts and feelings
• High tolerance for ambiguity and internal
  contradiction
• Learn to live with conflict
• All knowledge is constructed and the knower is
  an intimate part of the known. P. 137

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Constructed 3

• Truth is related to context
• Theories are models
• Ask who is asking the question, why they are
  asking and how the answers are derived
• Investigator for truth, seek synergy, innovation,
  complexity

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Constructed 4

• Passion!
• Seek to stretch the boundaries of their
  consciousnessby making the unconscious
  conscious, by consulting and listening to the
  self, by voicing the unsaid, by listening to
  others and staying alert to all the currents and
  undercurrents of life all around them. p. 141

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Construct 5

• Weaving complexities into a whole person
• Ability to relate to others who are different
• Real talk
• Interested in spiritual and moral aspects of
  their lives
• Consider the effects of their actions on others

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Teaching

• Consider separating teaching and assessment
• Consider competency based rather than teacher
  based model (skills rather than model)
• Consider relationships and connections of
  students
• Consider role of teacher in students perspective

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Teaching and applications

• I worry about getting further analytic training,
  cause youre supposed to learn it the way that
  somebody else sees it. It would be different if
  I could find somethinga programwhere I was
  helped to see things in my own way. That would
  be gold. P. 211

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Taking care of Students

• Does too much nurturing take away responsibility?
• Taking care is not doing things for the student

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• It seems to me that the form of many
  communications in academia, both written and
  verbal, is such as to not only obscure the
  influence of the personal or subjective but also
  to give the impression of divine origina
  mystification composed of sibylline
  statementfrom beings supposedly emptied of the
  dross of the self P. 215

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• sibylline - resembling or characteristic of a
  prophet or prophecy "the high priest's
  divinatory pronouncement" "mantic powers" "a
  kind of sibylline book with ready and infallible
  answers to questions

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Models for education

• Authoritarian sage on the stage
• Doubting, critical
• Connected

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What does connected learning look like?

• How can you use this information in your classes?