Learning to Learn:Learning to Learn:Adapting to Media Adapting to Media UnnaturalnessUnnaturalness

Dr. Fred KempTexas Tech University

May Seminar, 5/24/2012

Three Caveats

• Either Or? “Replacement Fallacy”? NO

Three Caveats

• Either Or? “Replacement Fallacy”? NO• Criticism of teachers? NO– My Concern is with the system, not the people

Three Caveats

• Either Or? “Replacement Fallacy”? NO• Criticism of teachers? NO– My Concern is with the system, not the people

• You may have heard about or read about most of this before.

TeachingTeaching LearningLearning

TeachingTeachingLearningLearning

TeachingTeachingLearningLearning

TeachingTeachingLearningLearning

Wasted EffortAlienation

TeachingTeachingLearningLearning

Wasted EffortAlienation

Too often, and in too many ways, current systems of mass education are a catastrophe in themselves. Far from looking to the future, too often they are facing stubbornly towards the past. (Ken Robinson)

A New Kind of LearningIn our view, the kind of learning that will define the twenty-first century is not taking place in a classroom—at least not in today’s classroom. Rather, it is happening all around us, everywhere, and it is powerful. We call this phenomenon the new culture of learning, and it is grounded in a very simple

question: What happens to learning when we move from the stable infrastructure of the twentieth century to the fluid infrastructure of the twenty-first century, where technology is constantly creating and responding to change? (Thomas and Brown)

An Invisible Learning

A growing digital, networked infrastructure is amplifying our ability to access and use nearly unlimited resources and incredible instruments while connecting with one another at the same time. However, the type oflearning that is going on as a result looks so different from the kinds of learning described by most educational theorists that it is essentially invisible. (Thomas and Brown)

Thinking Differently About Our AbilitiesRunning throughout this book there are three fundamental themes: The first is that we are living in times of revolution. The second is that if we are to survive and flourish we have to think differently about our own abilities and make the best use of

them. The third is that in order to do so we have to run our organizations and especially our education systems in radically different ways.

Sir Ken Robinson: RSA AnimateChanging Education Paradigms

The Incompatibility Between Technology and Schooling

We argue that there are deep incompatibilities between technology and schooling. Therefore, it is no surprise that technology’s main impact on learning is occurring outside the school…. The students with the means and ability will pursue their learning outside the public school.

A universe in which certainty is possible must exclude novelty and individuation. Complex dynamical

systems, in contrast, teach us that "change, novelty, creativity and spontaneity are the real laws of nature, which makes up the rules as it goes along. This is good news, cause for rejoicing; we should lift up our voices, as the prophet says, and not be afraid." In any case, in a world of rapid change such as ours, we may have no other choice.

And schools like M.I.T. and Stanford have been offering lectures for free

online. Coursera is the next step: building an interactive platform that will allow the best schools in the world to not only offer a wide range of free course lectures online, but also a system of testing, grading, student-to-student help and awarding certificates of completion of a course for under $100. (Sounds like a good deal. Tuition at the real-life Stanford is over $40,000 a year.) Coursera is starting with 40 courses online — from computing to the humanities — offered by professors from Stanford, Princeton, Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. (NY Times, May 16, 2012)

Learning How to Learn

• Give a man a fish, you give him a meal.• Teach a man to fish, you’ve fed him for

life.

Learning How to Learn

• Give a man a fish, you give him a meal.• Teach a man to fish, you’ve fed him for

life.• Provide the conditions that allow a man

or woman to learn how to fish, and he or she will keep learning, and adapting, for life.

Two Necessary Elements

• The first is a massive information network that provides almost unlimited access and resources to learn about anything.

• The second is a bounded and structured environment that allows for unlimited agency to build and experiment with things within those boundaries.

(The inmates-running-the-asylum problem.)

Fostering the Inquiry Impulse

• “We call this style of learning inquiry. It creates a motivation to learn and provides a set of constraints that make the learning meaningful. Inquiry is an extremely powerful technique for learning because it produces stockpiles of experiences.” (Thomas and Brown)

• Inquiry arises from questions the student has, not from transferred and memorized information and knowledge.

How to foster Inquiry

• “Well, first thing you have to do is to give up the idea of curriculum. Curriculum meaning you have to learn this on a given day. Replace it by a system where you learn this where you need it. “ (Seymour Papert)

• Fostering inquiry means giving up “coverage,” or the notion that what is important to learn can be mapped, packaged, and transmitted.

Inquiry Communities(Moving further out on the limb)

• We need to move from “communities of place” to “communities of interest.”

• The college degree will be replaced by a “validation of learning” model similar to the certificate.

• The school “class” will be replaced by small groups coalesced around an inquiry and mentored by a professional “learning agent.”

Benefits of the Inquiry Model(Now I’m WAY out on that limb)

• Students will pursue their learning on their own terms.

• What they learn will effectively respond and adapt to their specific environment as they perceive it.

• They will learn that learning itself is more important than what they learn. They will be prepared for life-long learning and adaptation to change.

Questions? Discussion?