Recap: in part three we discussed the advantages of a socially interactive learning environment. This post is a sort of an aside because it addresses the importance of this creative process in all forms of education, not solely the modern blended learning environment.
Imagine this scenario: you come to class. The professor lectures. You may or may not take furious notes, depending on the kind of student you are, as the professor spouts numbers, facts, figures, and other tidbits of information. Several weeks later, you find yourself in the testing center. Again depending on the kind of student you are, you've either committed these facts to memory, or have no idea which bubble on the sheet represents truth and which are false. You bubble in your choice, get your score, and leave. At which point you promptly cease to care about the facts and never think about them again.
Sound familiar? I'm willing to bet that pretty much everyone has had such an experience at one point or another. It's a pretty extreme example, but it's the basic idea behind an unfortunate number of courses we've all participated in. There are entire semesters of my life from which I don't recall anything - which isn't to say that I didn't learn something then, but simply that I didn't learn it right.
Not all of these classes were boring, either. Some, for example my high school biology class, actually are very interesting. Yet, I remember almost nothing that I learned in that class. Why? Because all I did was absorb information as it spewed forth from my textbook or instructor's mouth and then regurgitate it on the multiple choice tests. Put simply, my learning experience was composed only of memorization, and lacked any degree of understanding.
Understanding is the best way to retain learning. Often times we seem to think that repetition of the memorization phase alone is enough to ensure lasting learning. For instance, we may review flash cards for hours, or do hundreds of simple multiplication problems in elementary school. While repetition is useful in both phases of learning, concentrating too hard on only the memorization phase leads to short term memory. Knowledge must be applied to be useful, and information must be useful to be remembered.
Thus, in order to truly learn something, and learn it well, we should understand it. We should connect it to the world around us, see its various applications, and begin using them in our lives. While math classes can be some of the main classes for repetitious memorization, they are also some of the best examples of knowledge then being understood, built upon, and applied. For example, the multiplication tables I memorized without very deep understanding in the 3rd grade were second nature in the 6th because I then learned to utilize multiplication in algebra. The low likelihood of ever forgetting those simple times tables is not due solely to the fact that I've used them so many times, but also to the fact that I understand how to visualize and understand them in multiple ways and apply them in various settings.
This process of connecting the concepts to the world around us and then using it to solve problems can be termed creativity. Thus we have the creative paradigm of learning, and the regurgitative paradigm of learning.
Since I got to BYU, I have been relatively pleased with the amount of creative learning that we are encouraged to do. My favorite example from this semester is my economics class. While the course entails long hours of reading textbooks and memorizing formulae and laws, the learning process is also one of seeking understanding. On all of my homework and exams, I have not once been asked to regurgitate these economic theories. Instead, I spend hours every week applying them both to fictitious situations presented to me and contemporary events reported in mainstream economic newspapers.
I highly appreciate this type of learning. Though I may never take another formal economics course, I anticipate remembering the things I've learned in ECON110 for a long time, not simply because I have put many hours in, but because it is an effective education experience allowing me to apply my knowledge to the world around me, helping me understand it better and shaping my decisions.
This has unique implications for a blended learning environment, especially the flipped classroom. Because some of the teaching process is handed off to technological components, teachers may tend to a diminished sense of responsibility or enthusiasm in the learning process. This is a huge risk, as in my experience unenthused teachers are a main cause of regurgitative teaching and learning. Computers are not as creative as teachers, and thus teachers have a unique advantage in creating relevant, creative educational experiences. Using technology alone will likely lead to great initial memorization, but uncreative, shallow understanding of topics which will be of little value further down the road.
However, used effectively, technology can facilitate a teacher's involvement in the more creative understanding phase of learning by decreasing the teacher's involvement in the routine understanding phase. Thus as we transition into blended learning, it will be essential for us to design courses in such a way that we benefit, rather than lose, from this change in balance.
No comments:
Post a Comment