2002 Article Notes

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- 1.1 e-Nough!
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e-Nough!

by Marc Prensky (2002)

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"Although the two are often conflated, teaching and learning are very different – teaching is done to people, in open view; learning is done by people and happens in the privacy and solipsistic isolation of each student’s mind." (1)

First, we don’t always ask (or answer) the right questions about learning, or make the right distinctions. Second, our efforts to quickly direct research toward improving classroom teaching often lead us astray. And third, there are some old concepts and language that are just very difficult for us to throw away, along with some old common-sense truths that are very hard for many to accept." (2)

“Although learning can be understood as a change in an organism’s capacities or behavior brought about by experience,” writes Daniel Riesberg . . . “this rough definition encompasses many cases usually not considered examples of learning (e.g. an increase in muscular strength brought about by exercise). More important,” he goes on, “it fails to reflect the many forms of learning which may be distinguished, for example, according to what is learned, may be governed by different principles, and may involve different processes.” (2-3)

Let me propose a definition of my own:

“Human Learning is the set of processes people employ, both consciously and unconsciously, to effect changes to their knowledge, capacities and/or beliefs.
Whatever its failings, this definition helps us remember that: (1) Learning is not one process, but several – sometimes separate, often interrelated. These processes can be enumerated, and associated with material to be learned. (2) Learning most be done by the learner – whether consciously or unconsciously – it can’t be done by a teacher or anyone else (3) learning involves not only “knowledge” (facts, groups of facts, relationships between facts), and “doing” (capacities tasks, skills and behaviors) but also “beliefs” (theories, understanding of how and why things work or happen), which are much less often talked about in this context. What this definition leaves out is also important: “acquisition” “experience” “permanence” “improvement” “performance,” and especially “being taught” are not intrinsic to learning, although they are related.(4)

A great part of the reason is that there is so little theoretical consensus – scientific or otherwise – about what learning is and how to make it happen. And one key reason for this is that there is so little differentiation in the term “learning.”" (6)

"The learning that goes on constantly, 24/7 – mostly, but not entirely, at a non-conscious level – just because we are human and take things in." (7)

The learning of “information,” such as when I learn the name of my teacher, the names of my classmates, and what texts we will be using.(7)
The learning when we give something our full consciousness and attention. (7)
The learning where we transfer things from short to long term memory, as, for example when we learn new vocabulary. (7)
The learning where we discover principles that we can articulate and then apply in other situations.
The conscious, step-by-step learning of skills or procedures.
The learning that transfers skills consciously learned into non-conscious behaviors through repeated practice (such as in surgery).
The learning of skills that are hard or impossible to put into words, such as riding a bicycle or juggling.
The combination of conscious and non-conscious learning of new abilities, such as writing, or interpersonal skills.
The learning from playing with systems, simulations and other participatory experiences.
The learning in debriefings and after action reviews. Etc. (7)

"While some researchers do study learning to find out how it works, the groups mentioned above study learning principally to “improve education.” (“Applied” research.) And since most of our education happens in groups (i.e. classes), what they are really trying to figure out is “how learning happens in groups.” Unfortunately, learning doesn’t happen in groups at all – learning happens in minds. And minds are helped best to learn in a one-on one situation." (10)

"I actually think it might be more accurate (although certainly less elegant) to refer to these classes or groups of students, as “herds,” and to today’s teaching as “herding.”" (10)

". . . despite the fashionable but mostly meaningless noise we hear about “learning communities” and the fact that interaction with others is sometimes useful for learning, students don’t learn as much in herds as they would had they been taught exclusively one-on-one." (11)

"Herding introduces all sorts of new variables into the mix that are not there with one-on-one, the most obvious being heterogeneity." (11)

"The herded, student, of course, must adapt to the teacher." (11)

"Much, if not most of the actual learning takes place not in the lecture hall, but when the students are on their own, studying by themselves. And since they typically are given little guidance on how to learn, they must try to puzzle it out for themselves – underlining? cramming? asking your friends? You decide. Unfortunately tutoring – the one proven learning helper that works better than all the others – is left as the method of “last resort” reserved only for when you’re not getting it (read “dumb.”) Plus, to get this most effective form of instruction, you might have to spend more money on top of the sky-high tuition you are already shelling out!" (11)

"This is the real opportunity of electronic teaching – bringing the benefits of one-on-one instruction to everyone." (11)

"What we have done, unfortunately, is taken all the techniques that we have developed and fine-tuned for herding, such as lectures, demonstrations and tests, put them onto the computer, and assumed they would work." (12)

"So I say “e-Nough!” To consistently produce true learning, which is what our “e-Learning” needs to accomplish, we will need to do much more." (12)

" . . .we will have to take the tutor, not the teacher, as our instructional paradigm, and incorporate all those things that have been obvious to any good tutor for thousands of years: Start where the learner is, provide motivation, keep the tasks challenging but not out of reach, encourage questions, allow for lots of practice." (12)

"A “metacognative” approach to instruction can help students to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them." (13)