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Methods of Learning are not the Same as Methods of Teaching: – 2009

We encourage alternative and non orthodox methods of learning, and this affects how we present them to the learners, but they are two different things, and we must be careful not to confuse the two. At first this sounds too obvious, but when we are creating alternative and non orthodox processes, it can become easy to forget.

◊ Recall that among other ways of learning, including watching and listening, we recommend "doing" as the usually most effective method of learning.

◊ When we set up a learning session for the students to play roles in a particular scenario, for example, it is the students who are engaged in the "doing" to learn. The teacher is creating the context for that to happen. There is not one single way to create it. When the teacher organizes a literacy class into a planning meeting to decide on a project such as going on a field trip to collect fish prices information then come back to construct signs to indicate the prices of fish, it is not the teacher who engages in the doing, the students do, and the teacher creates the context for that to happen. The teacher can choose among many ways to create it, and design new ones.

◊ In the common orthodox method, the teacher does all the doing: preparing the content, setting up the props, making the presentation, responding to feedback and questions. The teacher, by doing, learns much about the subject, and sometimes forgets that the learners are not "doing" (just listening and watching), are less stimulated, and are learning less. The teacher can easily become puzzled, even irritated, that the learners are so slow.

◊ The teacher must first decide on or plan the learning method(s), and to choose what is appropriate both for the students and for the topic. That comes first. Choosing or planning the approach of the teacher, the methods to use, comes second. They must complement the methods of learning, not duplicate them. There are many possible ways to teach for each method of learning, some not yet known, so there is no automatic formula.

◊ In other words, designing a session must necessarily include both the methods of learning and the methods of teaching, and be planned to be complementary to each other. Three separate elements. All too often, teachers plan classes with a focus on one or another, usually how to teach it, rather than with a balanced and complete approach which not only includes both but also how the two relate.

◊ As we develop OERs (Open Educational Resources) we must not just parrot tired and worn approaches used in the classroom. We need to provide the best, and that includes a call for more analysis of the needs of the students and of the topics, and a willingness to be creative, novel and experimental.

earlier rants:

Language Learning; a Lesson about Learning: – 2009 October 1

One of our training documents describes a method for learning a language that is unwritten. The method also works for learning a written language . . . without resorting to writing (or to books, to note taking, or to learning rules).

◊ The method is based on the idea that how we learned our first language, at ages 1-3, served us well, but the way a second language is taught in school is far different. True, we lose some of our language learning abilities as we get older, especially if we do not exercise them, but it is our methods, not our natural abilities, that are in focus here.

◊ When we learned our first language, we did not use text books or notebooks, we did not memorize vocabulary; we did not memories grammatical rules. Oh we did learn grammar, but we did so by learning what felt right, not what the regulations were.

◊ The method was designed so I could learn a language in Africa to do anthropological studies there. I later used it for training community workers to learn a language if they were assigned to a community where they spoke a different language. The method is to pretend that you are a three year old, select only words and phrases that are useful in your daily life (Please pass the salt) and train your friends and colleagues (as informants) to repeat the term after you (you must not repeat it after them). Without telling them what you are thinking, you pretend that your informants are your older brothers and sisters, correcting your pronunciation. You choose 1-5 words only each day, no more, no less. You vary the way a word is used (I want water. He has water). Within three months, you aim for fluency, which means the ability to operate in the language, with a limited vocabulary, about a hundred words only (what we tend to use in daily life).

◊ Although your ability to learn a new language has decreased, you have burned learning pathways in your brain, and this method takes advantage of them. While you train your informants to not think of themselves as correcting you, just repeating after you, you pretend you are three years old getting corrected.

◊ You might think at first a certain fruit is a napple, which can be easily corrected later when you learn how to read and write.

◊ I think this method can be adapted to teaching a language to a group of students, even though it was designed for self teaching. I see hints of it in the most up to date methods of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and language immersion programs.

◊ What is important here is the degree to which the method can be adapted to teaching other subjects and topics. Using text books and notebooks is efficient and convenient, and encouraged by schools and colleges that are becoming more and more like corporations. unlike an environment that encourages teachers to explore and create new and unorthodox methods. Text books and notebooks encourage conformity, monotony and homogeneity (like McDonald's hamburgers).

◊ It may be that the new challenge of not using text books and notes, may not only make it better to learn introductory levels of each topic, but also preparing the learner to learn the more advanced elements better. I would like to hear from collaborators on WikiEducator their thoughts and experiences with unorthodox methods of learning. --Phil Bartle 01:38 1 oct 2009 (UTC)

earlier rants:

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