If you read the Systemic View of Learning post, recall that individuals are situated within a macrosystem(Culture) and that the macrosystem is temporally placed within a chronosystem (time-frame).  Thus, we cannot analyze the learner without analyzing his/her culture and time period since the learner is an even smaller system within the macrosystem.  But because time is like one big contiguous chain of events, one bleeding into the next, we cannot analyze contemporary culture without understanding how it came to be the way it is – HISTORY.  I found a great article that recaps the evolution of the classroom and learning over time. 

It begins:

Only with a clear sense of the theoretical foundations that underpin assumptions about learning and cognition, can an efficient online learning environment be appropriately designed.  These theoretical foundations provide the means to choose an appropriate educational approach.  The selection of an approach can be seen as a pre-design concern and is the result of answering basic questions such as: why is the environment being developed; what is the focus of the environment; and who are the learners.  Failure to address questions regarding learning theories, pedagogical approaches and explicit learning outcomes, results in the Everest Syndrome – using technology just because it is there (Nunes & McPherson, p. 8). 

Monkey SEE Monkey DO!

So how did learning start?  Monkey see, Monkey do.  "The corresponding earliest form of education based on this learning by doing is apprenticeship"(Nunes & McPherson, p. 9).  Does "Learning by Doing" sound familiar?  Maybe, we are realizing the value in this ancient form of learning!  Learning was active, hands-on and based on physical experiences(Nunes & McPherson, p. 9).  

Along Came Writing and then Gutenberg…

Once knowledge was transferable via writing and books, learners could acquire it from a distance by reading about it.  "Hands-on interaction with the real world continued to be the education of the working classes, but the intelligentsia were not expected to learn practical skills"(Nunes & McPherson, p.10).  Something seems impractical about not teaching people "practical" skills?  And so the critics ranted:

This type of approach to learning has recently been criticized by educationalists and educational philosophers, many of whom feel that it promotes shallow learning, mindless memorizing and regurgitating, and the decontextualized acquisition of definitions and facts (Nunes & McPherson, p. 9).

Enter Mass Schooling Efforts!

And with the entrance of mass schooling onto the scene, the apprenticeship model of schooling diminished.  "Discrete subject areas appeared, social and professional knowledge was divided into independent subjects that we now recognize as mathematics, social studies, reading, language, science and art"(Nunes & McPherson, p.9).  Instruction became the method of transmitting knowledge from the teacher and the teacher’s textbook in an effective and efficient manner to the students. 

The Progressive Era and Psychology

With experimental Psychology blooming at the turn of the twentieth century, the revelations about human memory and higher mental processes led to the emergence of educational psychology (usually accredited to Edward Lee Thorndike)(Nunes & McPherson, p. 11). 

*Side Rant:  In my Senior year Psychology class (the articles from which are dispersed in my room somewhere), we discussed issues faced in the progressive era such as mass schooling, standardized testing, and immigration.  Standardized testing acted somewhat as a gatekeeper to immigrants and minorities who came from more impoverished backgrounds.  Even well into the 20th century, standardized tests (such as the CAT test) tended to be biased towards non-urban children (ie.  words such as regatta were tested as vocabulary – but many children living in the city never heard of a regatta).  Although I have no documentation for this and I’m simply pulling from my memory, if you research the Progressive Era and Education I’m sure you will find many of the things I am discussing.  If I feel extra motivated I will dig up my old articles and notes! 

"Because of the wide diversity in human nature, instructional settings, and fields of study, no general theory has been formulated that is applicable to all educational psychology.  Instead, psychologists work on developing theories about particular phenomena in learning, motivation, development, teaching and instruction.  These different theories of learning help educators to understand, predict, and control human learning and behavior, and therefore shape the way instruction is designed and facilitated"(Nunes & McPherson, p. 11). 

Behavourist Psychology

Next, B.F. Skinner entered the scene as the "father" of Behavorist Psychology.  Recall his Skinner Box, that I mentioned in a previous blog.  "This school of thought believes that human behaviour is explained in terms of physiological responses to external stimuli"(Nunes & McPherson, p. 11).  In learning, this resulted in a teaching technique in which the student is presented with a series of ordered discrete bits of information, each of which he/she must understand before proceeding to the next level(Nunes & McPherson). 

Behavourism has been attacked because of it’s reductionist tendency – reducing learning to the simple correlation between an external stimuli and an internal response.  And like many problems with correlations…. CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION! (Yes Dr. Ackerman I paid attention!).  Reducing learning to this correlation is said to ignore the importance of higher cognitive processes (Nunes & McPherson, p. 11). 

Nonetheless bevahourism became the dominant pedagogy in educational systems and in combination with functional and objectivist philosophies, it has governed educational practices for most of the twentieth century (Nunes & McPherson, p. 12).

• Objectivism is the theory that the world is completely and correctly structured in terms of entities, properties, and relations.  Reality is objective and external to the individual – so knowledge is also external to the learner and must be communicated to him/her through an authoritirian source (Nunes & McPherson, p. 12). 
• I’ve heard this referred to as the empty vessel or empty bucket theory…which implies that learning takes place only in classroom settings and students enter school as empty vessels waiting to be filled.  Teachers are fillers, nothing more… they are mediums to transfer the knowledge.  What’s missing from this theory –> CONTEXT!  

New Society = New Learning Needs (A.K.A. ENTER TECHNOLOGY)

Today’s dynamic continually expanding knowledge requires learners to be creative and flexible problem solvers (Nunes & McPherson, p.13).  "Students need to be able to select and shape information as our forebears shaped and selected wood and clay.  These emergent learning needs point out to a return to the apprenticeship model, where students learn how to learn, how to think and how to solve problems embedded in a larger functional context, that is learning by doi ng.  This cognitive apprenticeship approach proposes a paradigm shift in education and instruction and remarkably a return to basics in educational terms."(Nunes & McPherson, p. 13). 

And We Arrive at Modern Day Learning… Constructivism (See Former Blog)

Dewey described learning as an active individual process, not something done to someone, but rather something that a person does.  He coined the concept of ‘learning by doing’ where learning takes place within the context of a whole experience in which the learner is completely engaged, and results from the combination of acting and reflecting on the consequences: reflective experience and reflective thinking.(Nunes & McPherson, p. 14). 

NOW WHAT?

Even though Constructivism has become the modern day "best practice" theory of learning, as we learn more about the human mind constructivism continues to grow to include interactions and social context as well.  It appears to be addressing learning from a systemic point of view.  Still, many of our classrooms continue to treat students as empty vessels into which we dump objective information.  Furthermore!  We have people pushing for a new theory called Connectivism, which seems highly tailored to technological society. 

I guess the education system has a long way to go, but life seems to be a big game of trial and error!  I think the marriage of technology and the classroom can be a big step in the right direction, even though the teacher still seems to be the main determinant in the success of a course.  Perhaps with more information available to professors and students about current learning trends and theories (plenty of edublogs out there!), the classroom can become a place of active and engaging learning. 

I find it interesting that we are moving back towards an apprenticeship model of learning… I’m not sure if culture has cyclical patterns like the seasons or if maybe people in the past instinctively knew what was best because they lacked all of the "mental clutter’ of modern day man??? Who knows????