Are They Studying or Are They Learning?

Learning refers only to significant changes in capability, understanding, knowledge, practices, attitudes or values by individuals, groups, organisations or society.

Qualification 1: Learning excludes the acquisition of factual information when it does not contribute to such changes.

Qualification 2: Learning excludes immoral learning as when prisoners learn from other inmates in custody how to extend their repertoire of criminal activities.

Are They Students or Are They Learners?

Students

Learners

Relationship with Educators

Students are employees, required to obediently follow instructions.

Learners are citizens with a vested interest in the learning society.

Relationship with other Students

Students are competitors Learners are collaborators

Motivation Obligation: Students are culturally obliged to work for the teacher & for compensation (below)

Responsibility: Learners are motivated by an understood and realized “value” in their work, especially when it is valuable to others.

Compensation Institution defined grades and gateways to college (another institution) and a good job (another institution)

A sense of ongoing accomplishment that is not delivered but earned, and not symbolic but tangible and valuable – an investment.

Mode of Operation Compliant, group-disciplined, objective-oriented, and trainable

Persevering, self-disciplined, group-, goal-and product-oriented, resourceful, and learning in order to produce and accomplish rather than simply achieving learning.

Why Compelled Curious

Equipped …with packaged knowledge and tools for recording packaged knowledge – prescribed and paced learning

…with tools for exploring a networked variety of content, experimentingwith that content, and discovering, concluding, and construction knowledge – invented learning

Assessment Measuring what student has learned. Measuring what learner can do with what has been learned.

Learning quote from Frank Coffield, Just Suppose Learning & Teaching Became the First Priority (2008). Student / Learner chart from blog post of 8 October 2010at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=2762.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS TO CONSIDER

Ideal Impact What would you like the impact of this course to be on students two to three years after the course is over? five to ten years after the course has ended? As learners, and across this span of time, what would distinguish students who have taken your course from those who have not?

Learning & Teaching Philosophy How do you define learning? What constitutes a climate of learning? How have you learned to teach and how do you currently teach? How do your own ideas about learning and teaching align in practice? How do you view students as learners? What knowledge, skills, and attitudes are important for student success in your discipline? What are you preparing students for? What are key challenges in the learning process for students new to this course? Which of these challenges are related to students’ need to unlearn misconceptions as part of learning to construct new knowledge?

Environmental Factors What teaching methods can contribute to student success in mastering the course learning outcomes? Why are these methods appropriate for learning in your discipline? What are the multiple modes of assessment that might provoke students’ engagement in learning? How might out-of-class work prepare students for engaging in classroom learning? 1. Learners

What is the life situation of the learners (e.g., working, family, professional goals)? What prior knowledge, experiences, and initial feelings do students usually have about this subject? What will students need to learn, unlearn and relearn in order to meet course learning outcomes? What will they need to learning about learning for this course – as a key component of learning in this course? beyond this course? How might students resistant key practices of learning – and how do you plan for this? What makes the course outcomes with doing, the processes worth pursuing? the achievements worth seeking?

2. Course Learning What learning expectations are placed on this course by the university, college and/or department? the profession? the individual students? society? Why was the course proposed and approved in the first place, and by whom? What special purposes does it serve (those beyond the meeting of a curricular requirement)? Where does the course fit into development of citizens who will be immersed in 21st century integration of work and life?

3. Course Context How many students are in the class? Is the course lower division, upper division, or graduate level? How long and frequent are the class meetings? How will the course be delivered - consider class session structure, use of technology to support learning or deliver teaching? What should students be able to teach or convey to others at the end of the course?

4. Field & Community Contexts Is this subject primarily theoretical, practical, or a combination? Disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary? When and how – and by whom - does the subject you’re teaching welcome/support/invite divergent ways of answering core questions? Are there important changes or controversies occurring within the field? How can students become proficient with core cognitive, psychomotor/skills, and affective/human development elements in order to become practitioners and lifelong learners? How does the work of the course “fit” into society at large – needs, issues, interests, questions? What are community expectations of / for learners pursuing higher education, this subject? for learners linking study to daily life, local contexts?

Adapted from Linda NilsonTeaching at Its Best;L. Dee FinkSignificant Learning for Significant Living; and CRLT Occasional Paper 23 “Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy for the Academic Job Search.”

Course Name:

IDEAL COURSE OUTCOME

LEARNERS’ CONTEXT from self to

campus to community to cultures

FIELD / DISCIPLINARY CONTEXT

COURSE CONTEXT: LEARNING and

TEACHING

COURSE CONTEXT: CAMPUS and

DEPARTMENT

COMMUNITY CONTEXT