Effort in Learning
I'm disappointed to see so much effort put into making learning effortless (learning styles, cognitive enhancing drugs etc.). The most basic and critical components of learning is the laying down of memory traces. Making meaningful connections to the knowledge you already have. The act of taking information and going through the process of moving it from information to knowledge and then understanding.
Another critical component of learning involves the correct reactivation of those memory traces. If you can't recall what you've learned, then you haven't really learned it. Laying down memory traces, and strengthening them so they can be reactivated takes energy. Whenever the brain uses energy in a directive fashion effort is involved.
In fact, research into cognition clearly demonstrates that the more effort that is put into learning something, the better it will be recalled in the future. For effective learning, that effort must be in both the encoding (the learning) or the retrieval (the recall). Transferring information from sensory memory to short-term memory, to episodic memory and finally into a stable long-term memory trace is the kind of learning we are trying (or supposed to be trying) to accomplish in higher education. Bjork's (one of the world's leading memory researchers) Desirable Difficulties chapter provides great background reading about the work of memory in learning (that is if you are looking for real research int how people learn rather than the latest fad). The idea that we make it as easy as possible for students to learn is missing the point. Requiring them to invest energy in the process and put real effort into the process is what fosters learning.
Although this might not fit well in a world where the massification of higher education means packing them ever higher and deeper into a lecture hall for the shallow sit down, shut up, face the front while I tell you how to think type of activity that accounts for most of the teaching that takes place in higher education today.
Howard, as someone who embarked on the road that was the scholarship of learning (not the scholarship of teaching and learning) I find it depressing how little of what we know about the science of learning has anything to do with education. From this point in my career, I don't believe that you could design an educational system that could possibly ignore real learning as our current system does. There are times I wish I had never embarked on this lonely journey because in my case, the wistful dreaming of the days of dreamy ignorance are years behind me. I enjoy our conversations and wish I had run into you years ago.
As I prepare to embark on my 49th consecutive year as a postsecondary educator, I sympathize with some, but not all, of your sentiments. Focusing on the "some," I can relate that, among the many hideously stupid things I've been told by Senior Deans, Vice-Presidents and so on are that it is the task of faculty to "make learning fun" and that, if students are sullen, directionless, distracted and horribly unprepared for what's now called the college "experience," it is the job of faculty to "motivate" them by showing how "relevant" their courses are to the precarious job market in the "gig economy." I am, alas, not a neuroscientist and cannot, therefore, speak authoritatively about such matters as the effect of digital communications on learning (though I fear the worst and have been shown no convincing evidence to the contrary). I do, however, believe that "something" is going on that is corrosive of anything and everything that has anything to do with authentic education. So, I am reduced to connecting our problems to the overall corporate culture both in and out of the academy. It's a start and not wholly wrong. Further inquiry into the mode, means and relations of the production and reproduction of knowledge is rather desperately need. Meanwhile, education, in the era of "universal" and no longer merely "mass" education, is suffering a tremendous transformation. Presently, over 75% of high school grads are expected to enroll in some sort of postsecondary program, where they will be taught by faculties composed of over 75% contingent faculty. It's the discount department store model of higher learning, where Associate Professors are being turned into the academic equivalent of Walmart Associates, and students are now low-end customers, not apprentices in a guild of skill and knowledge. Something is very wrong. It will get worse. I may never get better again ... at least not without some very hard work at "push-back." Presently, too, the main source of inspiration is a flexible theoretical blend of Luddism and Marxism and a call to insurrection. Alas, the practical track records of Ned Ludd and Karl Marx do not inspire much confidence in the future. Perhaps a theoretical update is in order (there are plenty of prolific practitioners of "critical pedagogy" to show us the way). Or, perhaps we should all just try harder! Anyway, the seemingly permanent crisis in higher education is both moral and political. We must help our students to distinguish right from wrong and assist in showing them how enable what is right and inhibit what it wrong. And this applies to every field from accounting, anthropology, architecture and art history all the way to zoology. What exactly to do? Well, it's May 1 ... a date sacred to some around the world (North America excluded). That's a hint!