What's Learning? Pedagogy? Andragogy?

Black Swan

Malcolm Knowles (1970) in The Modern Practice of Adult Education defined pedagogy as the art and science of how children learn, and andragogy as "an emerging technology for adult learning." Unlike child learning that tended to be more dependent upon teacher-direction, adult learning was seen as more self-directed, enhanced by experiential learning, motivated by new role assumption, and with adults expressing a desire to problem-solve immediately after obtaining new learning (i.e., do it or lose it).

Methinks that Knowles was underestimating the potential and proclivity for children to learn, and that if given the chance, expectations, guidance, and rewards children could exhibit enhanced learning progress in some ways similar to and expected from adults. Knowles also emphasized that adult learning should be tailored to individual learning styles, which I believe should also be employed with children. We are all unique in many ways, and the more that we can recognize and tailor instruction to fit with our uniqueness, the greater the learning potential.

Comments?

mzungu

Black Swan wrote: »

Malcolm Knowles (1970) in The Modern Practice of Adult Education defined pedagogy as the art and science of how children learn, and andragogy as "an emerging technology for adult learning." Unlike child learning that tended to be more dependent upon teacher-direction, adult learning was seen as more self-directed, enhanced by experiential learning, motivated by new role assumption, and with adults expressing a desire to problem-solve immediately after obtaining new learning (i.e., do it or lose it).

Methinks that Knowles was underestimating the potential and proclivity for children to learn, and that if given the chance, expectations, guidance, and rewards children could exhibit enhanced learning progress in some ways similar to and expected from adults. Knowles also emphasized that adult learning should be tailored to individual learning styles, which I believe should also be employed with children. We are all unique in many ways, and the more that we can recognize and tailor instruction to fit with our uniqueness, the greater the learning potential.

Comments?

I think like most things, it should be a fairly even divide between 'teacher entered leaning' and 'learning by doing'. AFAIK a lot of schools are incorporating the practical elements of learning into the curriculum, so thats a step in the right direction. I have no doubt that if a child is really interested in a topic, then there would be a good chance that they would display learning progress if it was supplemented by the necessary instruction when needed from a teacher. However, would the resources be there to cater for the differing learning needs of each child, given that resources seem to be stretched pretty thin doing the 'one size fits' as it stands now?

Black Swan

mzungu wrote: »

However, would the resources be there to cater for the differing learning needs of each child, given that resources seem to be stretched pretty thin doing the 'one size fits' as it stands now?

The "one size fits" seems prevalent in many educational systems today, where public school budgets were too limited to provide student-centered instruction tailored to fit individual learning styles curricula. But there may be a larger issue that drives "one size fit" in the overall purpose and content of curricula: the enculturation of students to acquire values and behaviours of their society, and the subtle institutionalisation of those students so that they do not challenge the concentrated wealth and power of a few in the existing order, or in like manner not challenge the religious belief systems that influence curricula in those types of schools accordingly.

Paulo Freire (1968) in Pedagogy of the Oppressed suggested that there was an educational system focus on the enculturation of students to such an extent that student learning potential was oppressed, and their ability to think critically limited, distorted, and subordinated for the preservation of the existing order. He advocated that these systems be dismantled and replaced by curricula that fostered interactive and collaborative dialogue between teacher and student, and to go beyond the superficial and often memorized/rote and dogmatic learned curricula, replacing it with a dialectic that examined phenomena below the surface and in-depth. If such an examination challenged the culture or existing order, then such reflection and evaluation should foster improvement and not be oppressed. For his pedagogy, he was exiled from Brasil by the existing order.

Mardy Bum

Learning styles are no longer viewed as something which should be kept in mind when teaching. It was a fad that had no scientific basis. For more info check out Daniel Willingham.

Regarding independent learning, young people need guidance and only the very brightest and most motivated can be successful independently.

mzungu

Black Swan wrote: »

The "one size fits" seems prevalent in many educational systems today, where public school budgets were too limited to provide student-centered instruction tailored to fit individual learning styles curricula. But there may be a larger issue that drives "one size fit" in the overall purpose and content of curricula: the enculturation of students to acquire values and behaviours of their society, and the subtle institutionalisation of those students so that they do not challenge the concentrated wealth and power of a few in the existing order, or in like manner not challenge the religious belief systems that influence curricula in those types of schools accordingly.

I guess that kind of strict structure had its uses back when it was essentially preparing most pupils for a lifetime in industrial workplaces. In many ways, school was an apprenticeship for those jobs. As regards religion, it was pretty much an indoctrination in many respects. Ditto with nationalism, and usually taught in history (and in cases mythology) it instills a national identity and devotion to the state. Independence of thought outside of these boundaries would have been seen by the hierarchy as 'dangerous'. I will channel Foucault (1977) here and suggest that this process of 'discipline' begins from birth. He says before we are sent to school we have already experienced the top-down dynamic of the parent-child relationship and it is familiar to us. Therefore it is a necessary first step we all take before plunging into the more industrialised setting of school that has a much different top-down approach.

Paulo Freire (1968) in Pedagogy of the Oppressed suggested that there was an educational system focus on the enculturation of students to such an extent that student learning potential was oppressed, and their ability to think critically limited, distorted, and subordinated for the preservation of the existing order. He advocated that these systems be dismantled and replaced by curricula that fostered interactive and collaborative dialogue between teacher and student, and to go beyond the superficial and often memorized/rote and dogmatic learned curricula, replacing it with a dialectic that examined phenomena below the surface and in-depth. If such an examination challenged the culture or existing order, then such reflection and evaluation should foster improvement and not be oppressed. For his pedagogy, he was exiled from Brasil by the existing order.

I am inclined to believe that possibly his biggest crime was not that he spoke out against the status quo (there is most likely a bit of that too) but more what he said was of threat to the economy. Nearly all of the structures in society from education to prison to hospitals are focussed on making bodies 'docile' (Foucault 1977) enough to be unquestioning and 'obedient'. Now, this does work as a way of structuring society, and IMO in that sense it has been rather successful. If we have been made docile by systems of 'discipline' from birth continuing through school, could it therefore be suggested that the main plan (assuming there is/was one) was to have us educated enough to take part in the workforce to feed the all important economy, but at the same time have us silenced from any form of dissent by our own internal 'obedience'. Essentially, it is always about the economy, everything that is instilled into us prepares us for it. Therefore a threat to that is when differing views on education are brought forth, as this would upset the status quo.

One thing that came to mind was, places like Google have pool tables, TV rooms etc. Will the school structure now begin to change somewhat on account of this? On the subject of multinationals, Foucault would see this as the ultimate 'docile' body, one where we no longer view longer working hours (sometimes unpaid) as being coerced, rather a necessary part of the job that we don't mind doing as it is not seen as 'work'.

Just to finish on the original point. I think it would be best for all concerned to adopt a more individualised approach to education. The practical elements are a step in the right direction. Philosophy has recently been introduced for junior certs, this is a positive move. Things may very well be changing in that regard. Hopefully anyway.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage. Chicago.

Black Swan

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Learning styles are no longer viewed as something which should be kept in mind when teaching. It was a fad that had no scientific basis. For more info check out Daniel Willingham.

There has been controversy about student-centered and personalised learning that continues to this day. Kimberly Overby (2011) in Student-Centered Learning, ESSAI: Vol. 9, Article 32, summarizes that "student-centered learning has been successful in raising the achievement levels of students in reading, math and science." Allison Zmuda, Greg Curtis, and Diane Ullman (2015) in Learning Personalized: The Evolution of the Contemporary Classroom suggest that a shift from traditional classroom instruction to teacher guided individual apprenticeships for students improves performance and student innovation.

The budget limitation argument used to justify traditional classroom curricula "one size fits" has been rapidly dying as computer software and hardware prices have been falling, while at the same time the capacities of such devices have been rapidly improving to facilitate cyber-learning. Computer-based simulations of scientific, et al, phenomena lend themselves well to student-centered, self-paced, and personalised instruction, where students can vary the independent variables, intervening variables, interactions, and dependent variable outcomes to facilitate radical conceptual change from outmoded or erroneous mental schemes; and with the advent of serious gaming, cold radical conceptual change can become hot radical conceptual change to where learning becomes fun, while students level-up their knowledge of science, medicine, analytics, problem-solving, etc. Computer-based Guided Experiential Learning (GEL) has been a pedagogical catalyst for instructor-facilitated simulation environments, immersive virtual experiences, and techniques for automatically assessing cognitive performance in the context of game-like planning tools at the University of Southern California's Center for Cognitive Technology. This is not to say that such simulated virtual learning should be the only component, rather there still are some researchers that suggest that bundling instructor guided, student-centered, self-paced, and personalised instruction with small group learning interactions has merit.

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Regarding independent learning, young people need guidance and only the very brightest... can be successful independently.

This depends upon how you define, measure, analyze, describe, explain, and predict "the very brightest." This is not a given or an elaboration of the obvious. For example, if you define "the very brightest" as a measure of intelligence, there appears to be many intelligences, and a debate today if we can identify all the necessary and sufficient conditions that make for intelligence(s), as well as if we can scientifically measure intelligence(s) with validity and reliability when attempting to explain and predict it; i.e., many would suggest that there was more unexplained variance than explained variance today when attempting to measure intelligence(s).

Mardy Bum wrote: »

...most motivated...

Motivation was a complex topic. Richard E Clark (2010) has discussed the Zone of Tolerable Problemicity as a model to describe, explain, and predict motivation as pertains to learning, and in particular cyber-learning, that draws from Albert Bandura's self-efficacy. Motivation was unique to each student, was not fixed, and can be pictured as a moving normal distribution curve, where what motivates someone to learn today will change with mastery. Easy tasks may be boring, while highly difficult tasks can be discouraging, but tasks of the middle-range provide the most motivation. So it becomes problematic to define, describe, explain, and predict what constitutes "most motivated" when it's a moving target for each individual student.

Torakx

Black Swan wrote: »

Paulo Freire (1968) in Pedagogy of the Oppressed suggested that there was an educational system focus on the enculturation of students to such an extent that student learning potential was oppressed, and their ability to think critically limited, distorted, and subordinated for the preservation of the existing order. He advocated that these systems be dismantled and replaced by curricula that fostered interactive and collaborative dialogue between teacher and student, and to go beyond the superficial and often memorized/rote and dogmatic learned curricula, replacing it with a dialectic that examined phenomena below the surface and in-depth. If such an examination challenged the culture or existing order, then such reflection and evaluation should foster improvement and not be oppressed. For his pedagogy, he was exiled from Brasil by the existing order.

This really resonates with me.
And apparently Nietzsche too, from what I've read.

"for your true nature lies, not concealed deep within you, but immeasurably high above you, or at least above that which you usually take yourself to be. Your true educators and formative teachers reveal to you what the true basic material of your being is, something in itself ineducable and in any case difficult of access, bound and paralysed: your educators can be only your liberators."

I think this was taken from a small book Nietzsche wrote called anti-education.
More here
This post will be very subjective. Hope nobody minds that. It's how I relate to everything.

My own views are kind of simple when it comes to education.
I see young animals play fighting in order to learn the skills to hunt.
I see children playing for the same reason.
To push their own boundaries and discover new things, new skills.
To overcome and grow.
As a dyslexic I would not be here typing on a philosophy forum, without the help of one very special teacher I had in 5th class primary school.
This legend of a teacher read us Tolkiens "The Hobbit" for an hour every day and encouraged us to PLAY chess during lunch and take part in a school chess tournament( I came second, yay! )
During class people would bring him injured animals to bring home and heal.
Those are the fond memories I have of school...
Of course this teacher was also a popular local artist and philanthropist.

I became a bookworm as a result of the inspiration found in fantasy books, which pretty much helped me learn how to speak english better than I ever would have in school. It was more interactive for my imagination and new words were learned from the context.
Most of the more complex words I use are from fantasy books and after age 30 from philosophy books.
For a long time(into my late teens) I thought privy for some reason meant in favour of... LOL
I had to figure these things out by testing them in real life, making mistakes and learning new interpretations.

My main point here is to say that modern education is going against the natural ability of humans to learn. Especially those who are "right brain hemishpere dominant".
http://gamut.neiu.edu/~lruecker/empathy_pub_final.pdf
One reason could be that this system was designed by people who were predominantly left brain types. Lacking empathy, but with the help and guidance of empaths.
Men for the most part.
I have suspicions it is also designed to educate those who are less empathic, less creative, in order to keep them away from knowledge, power or control.
Maybe it was to keep the female gender or the feminine spirit down?
All of these consequences could be by products. But I am not so sure.
From my research into politics and social engineering through history, it seems deliberate and conscious.

To drive home the point on play and learning, I'll add some Nietzsche quotes
Consider with these, that play is inherent in expression of the self.
Our deepest knowledge expressed through dynamics of power.

How can man know himself?
It is a dark, mysterious business: if a hare has seven skins, a man may skin himself seventy times seven times without being able to say, “Now that is truly you; that is no longer your outside.”
It is also an agonizing, hazardous undertaking thus to dig into oneself, to climb down toughly and directly into the tunnels of one’s being. How easy it is thereby to give oneself such injuries as no doctor can heal. Moreover, why should it even be necessary given that everything bears witness to our being — our friendships and animosities, our glances and handshakes, our memories and all that we forget, our books as well as our pens.
For the most important inquiry, however, there is a method. Let the young soul survey its own life with a view of the following question: “What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?”
Assemble these revered objects in a row before you and perhaps they will reveal a law by their nature and their order: the fundamental law of your very self.
Compare these objects, see how they complement, enlarge, outdo, transfigure one another; how they form a ladder on whose steps you have been climbing up to yourself so far; for your true self does not lie buried deep within you, but rather rises immeasurably high above you, or at least above what you commonly take to be your I.

No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!

A true teacher doesn't take anything seriously except in relation to their pupils- not even themselves.

And one of my favourites.

A man's maturity: having rediscovered the seriousness that he had as a child, at play.

In my view, the future of training people to learn how to think, is to get them to playfully think.

Online role playing games have the potential to train in so many areas where knowledge can be grounded securely and through practical applications.
They are in many ways a reflection of our lives and societies.
Things you can learn from online games:
Economics and market manipulation.
Strategic concepts/frameworks and power dynamics.
Being part of a group within a society(guilds).
Leadership experience with said groups.
A heightened sense of our own effect in social environments and interactions.

I think the future of real education or better to say learning to think( and in doing so, educating ourselves at a much deeper level), is through interactive media/games.

But this goes against the destination set for most children.
Since they will be expected to work on average in conditions more suited to a school/factory environment.
Worker bees don't need to learn to play. Only just enough to work.
Again and again, societal issues and problems always seem to stem back to the cause.
Government and it's monopoly on force and coercion, as a tool for wealthy faschists to control and manipulate society.

People will naturally learn what and when they need.
The reason they cannot, is the indoctrination and destruction of their inner child, their playfullness in learning.

We have in most "civilized" countries a system of enforced indoctrination( through government force), which destroys that playfullness and the ability to self learn.
The answer to the question of how to help society as a whole to become more knowledgable and learn more productively is to take away government, which would release children from prison(school) and allow society create what it needs when it needs it, without interruption or disruption.

There is no other obstacle I see to societies growth in knowledge and learning.
It would happen spontaneously left to itself. It's what we humans do naturally. We learn and seek knowledge.
The most curious of all species.


The short answer to "What is learning", is "play".

Black Swan

Torakx wrote: »

This post will be very subjective. Hope nobody minds that. It's how I relate to everything.

Essentially there were two perspectives for inquiry, etic and emic. The etic perspective was the one we commonly refer to as objective empiricism guided by the scientific method, typically using quantitative analysis. The emic perspective was through the eyes of the participant, typically using qualitative analysis found in ethnographic researches with 5 basic methods: observation, participant-observation, archival, expert panel (including key informants), and interviews (individual and focus groups). When you say you were "very subjective," while also referencing philosophers and philosophies (e.g., Nietzsche), you suggested an emic qualitative approach to inquiry, including participant-observation and archival, which are certainly useful approaches in our Philosophy forum when exploring, examining, and commenting on "What's learning?"

KY Ng and PC Earley (2006) in Culture + Intelligence: Old Constructs, New Frontiers, Group Organization Management, Vol 31 (1), pp 4-19, suggested that both the etic and emic perspectives when integrated and synthesized (e.g., multi-methods or triangulation between quantitative and qualitative) provided a more comprehensive description and explanation when examining cultural intelligence and its variations. N Markee and G Kasper (2004) in Classroom Talks: An Introduction, The Modern Language Journal, Vol 88 (4), pp 491–500, suggested an emic epistemology as a method to examine, describe, and explain classroom learning phenomena. So your "very subjective" emic perspective in combination, and in potential synthesis with some of the etic empirical perspectives offered here may have merit.

Torakx

Thanks, for that comment. I haven't really considered those two types of inquiry( I must read more into this). I just presumed that like most places in modern life, subjectivity was not fact in most peoples eyes. Got no links? Didn't happen type of thing..
But this method of research seems very natural to empathic types I guess.

If I am starting to use close to an emic style, it's most likely thanks to your guidance on this forum
When I first got here, I probably would have just posted reflections on my own experience.

Black Swan

So here's a Cognitive paradigm to discuss and toss about when considering "What's learning?"

Cognition has been defined as "coming to know" (West, CW, Farmer, JA, and Wolff, PM, 1991, in Instructional Design: Implications from Cognitive Science). Knowing was of two types, declarative "knowledge that" represented complex connected and interactive conceptualisations, and procedural "knowing how" to do things step-by-step; and in the latter case, when sufficiently repeated resulted in automaticity of behavior, whereupon repetitive actions could be implemented with little or no thought. Where procedural knowledge became resistant to change, declarative knowledge was subject to creation, recreation, falsification, and change given the introduction of new theoretical constructs, contrary evidence, and reinterpretations of data.

Declarative and procedural knowledge were not at first mutually exclusive, just higher and lower "coming to know" schemata, which eventually became differentiated by constantly evolving declarative in comparison and contrast with procedural habituation. Learning of both was facilitated by the use of metacognition skills such as mnemonics, imagery, rehearsal, metaphors, analogies, similes, concept maps, chunking, and frames. Motivation was defined and enhanced through identifying and implementing the Zone of Tolerable Problemicity (Richard E Clark, 2010) for each student, with continuous and incremental adjustments of the mid-range zone as mastery occurred.

Torakx

Interesting pdf there.
I can't help but view this from a "will to power" perspective, as well as considering animal training for the same reasons.

"Students with strong negative emotions based on a belief in a lack of control do not start, persist or invest mental effort."

This is true in animal training as well.
When I read the word "control" there, I think of the word "power" instead.

If we define control as having a sense of power over a process, I think the learning process becomes fairly obvious using animals as a foundational..erm.. premise/framework?
A more simplified way to see overall/foundational behaviour in people.

When it comes to motivation, it seems that procedural cognition would be more important.
For example, if you give a dog a treat every time they sit, they will learn procedurally that sitting equals reward.
When the rewards stop coming, the sitting becomes pointless.
The motivation was rooted in the reward.

If you give the dog a reward every time it tries to do a command or tries to figure it out, it will procedurally learn, to try to learn.
The dog will cognitively associate trying to figure out the answer with rewards.

The reason you can remove rewards more confidently in the latter case, is because the dog gains a sense of power from overcoming a challenge.
The next challenge and overcoming that, will be the reward.
It becomes a fun game for the dog to challenge the extent of it's power.
The act of trying becomes the motivator, not the act of achieving.

This is completely contrary to how our society teaches individuals or groups.
As I probably said earlier, I call it regressive training when it is based on achievement.
The pdf linked makes a lot of sense to me, but not in a technical sense. More the overall ideas.
I think it is so much more simple than most would like to believe.
So simple they can not believe.

If all teachers just understood how to properly motivate a dog, they would not have any trouble motivating students.
But they might lose their jobs haha!
Motivation requires going outside the system, to do it without regressive training.
Would the authorities allow the removal of test results?
Of sitting quietly all in uniform? This doesn't sound playful at all to me!

If a student is consciously and/or unconsciously anxious at all about results, it is regressive to their motivation and performance.
Like the dog who only learns to pass the test to get the treat, the student does not fully realize the potential of their procedural learning capabilities and becomes eventually tired and have feelings of pointlessness.
The end rewards may seem great in some cases, but that is not where procedural motivation lies.
Those end rewards( test results, a job, or in the dogs case a treat) seem more sided with declarative cognition.
Abstract forms, not yet realised at the core through action, if I have understood these terms declarative and procedural correctly that is.

When it comes to doing, it seems to me we need that procedural habit/cognition to first get started. A foundational platform to jump up from, to ground the first step.
This is something that needs to be ingrained as early as possible in dog training for example, but old dogs can learn new tricks
If they still have a strong or useable "will to power", it can be directed.
Life force, motivation to break the boundaries of self control/insecurity etc

When dealing with abused dogs or students, who have been given all the wrong training, it is going to be an uphill struggle.
Especially when they often go back home at the end of the day to a bad environment for progressive thinking and feeling/being.
Let alone that nearly allof schooling these days is also regressive in nature..
Trying to bandage societal issues in a classroom which is initially designed to regress thinking and learning IMO, is not a sensible overall strategy in my view.
It seems like a crutch to me, that will only serve in the long run to weaken the healing process.
Eventually progressive teaching will not be able to hold up the current regressive framework. Like a crutch it will weaken one side when used too long, not allowing the whole to challenge and overcome itself.
I think we just have to wait for the authorities and their schools to fall by themselves(instead of propping them up with crutches forever), in order for them to realize that progressive thinking is far superior even when fearful of losing control.
A progressive master gets so much more from it's subjects.
An insecure master, stalls production, loses respect and basically turns in on itself losing control.
I'll stop before I go any further with my anarchistic rants

Oh one more mention for the idea of play.
I just want to highlight again, that this act is in itself the key to learning. It covers all the fundamental aspects of learning.
When children can't wait to get out of the house to go play at school, you will know we are doing something right.
Until that time, school is like the death of learning and knowledge. A prison camp for degenerative experimentation.

Black Swan

Torakx wrote: »

If you give the dog a reward every time it tries to do a command or tries to figure it out, it will procedurally learn, to try to learn.

BF Skinner in Schedules of Reinforcement suggested that random positive reinforcement resulted in greater frequency of conditioned behaviour than 100% reinforcement.

Torakx wrote: »

The dog will cognitively associate trying to figure out the answer with rewards.

I would be very cautious about suggesting "dog will cognitively associate trying to figure out;" i.e., dog "cognition" may be problematic in terms of how it's defined, measured, interpreted, explained, and predicted. Unfortunately, in pop-science it sometimes falls victim of anthropomorphism too.

Torakx wrote: »

Oh one more mention for the idea of play.
I just want to highlight again, that this act is in itself the key to learning. It covers all the fundamental aspects of learning.

In recent years serious gaming (as opposed to entertainment gaming) has emerged that provides a gaming environment to facilitate learning in sciences, mathematics, etc., for both pedagogy and andragogy. For example, you can pursue a serious gaming research topic PhD at USC.