The nature of learning

What is learning? 

Across the globe parents are being confronted with this question. So are children and teachers. So, too, examination bodies such as Ofqual in the UK. Even the school calendar, revelling in its traditional long summer break, is very much up for consideration given the length of time that many students may be absent from school over a protracted length of time.  

If we take a knowledge-centred approach and define learning as something akin to “the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience or being taught” - then the next question is: how do we as educationalists help our students learn, in the best possible way, over this unsettling period of chaos? Taking into account emotional wellbeing, growth mindset, access to materials, cognitive overload, differentiation, progress made, assessment, downtime, workload, spacing, interleaving and the many other considerations that teachers have in delivering lessons?

This is hugely complex, and we are just scratching the surface of these factors right now. Over the last fortnight I have taken part in countless meetings, prepared online schemes of work, investigated all sorts of online platforms for teaching programming and data representation, and spoken with students and teachers about their work, their expectations and their fears.  

The anecdotal evidence is this:

• Transferring traditional teacher-led classroom materials into some form of electronic, online version is problematic. This is for multiple reasons - teacher-led materials need, well, a teacher to lead them in order to be effective. This is much more difficult in a remote learning scenario - potentially alleviated by live video lessons, but they bring their own set of variables to the equation as outlined below. Expecting students to acquire new knowledge or skills (remember the definition of learning), and then to revisit them and consolidate them more or less independently is a big ask.
• Should we be delivering new content to our pupils? Can we realistically expect them to assimilate new knowledge? Is it fair to have this expectation of all pupils, some of whom are significantly disadvantaged? Alternatively, should the materials we deliver be based upon content already covered, serving as revision? Or is that lowering expectations too much?
• How much content can we expect students to learn? Is it realistic to expect them to progress at the same pace as a lesson in a regular classroom? If not, then what is fair to expect - 80% of the pace? 50%? Is our lesson content effectively 50% of what it would normally be?
• Live streamed lessons, using the likes of Zoom or Google Hangouts or Microsoft Meetings are very demanding on both the teacher and the pupils. Is it better for the teacher to record short snippets of content, which the pupils can then replay at their leisure? What about the teacher who does not wish to do that? Who fears this content being saved and disseminated wider than the intended audience?
• What are the alternatives in terms of delivering lessons? What can we learn from Moocs, bearing in mind that many Moocs are tailored towards adult learners? How do we assess the progress of our pupils and thereby tailor the next lesson to the progress they made in that particular remote lesson? We do need to tailor the next lesson to their needs of course. Don’t we?
• Access to technology is an enormous issue. What device does the student possess? A smartphone? Can we expect a pupil to use a smartphone to receive electronically delivered lessons throughout their entire day, 5 days a week? Have we considered the fact that pupils and parents and, yes, teachers, need a break from technology built into their days? How many laptops are in the household? What is the connectivity like? How many households do not have sufficiently robust bandwidth to be able to cope with remote lessons? What about parents who are working from home?
• The whole world is gripped by a collective anxiety. Our students - those who will grow to shape this world - are at the heart of this vulnerability, and they are witnessing cataclysmic change to their ability to move freely, to their education, and to the way in which their parents and grandparents respond. Educators need to be really much more mindful about their wellbeing, and about the stress they and their parents are under. Teachers themselves are parents, and grandparents, and homeowners and renters. As human beings they are subjected to the same stresses - only in addition to often caring for (and homeschooling) their own children, they are attempting to deliver lessons to their remotely accessible pupils. Or in many cases they are right on the front line as key workers in schools - schools deemed too hazardous for most pupils to be attending at the moment. Really, we need to bear this in mind when planning a learning strategy, don’t we?

My purpose here, then, is to pose these questions and seek some answers. Those teachers, educators and parents who have already been through this - what is the right pathway to take? Teachers and parents in Italy or in Spain or in the Middle East - what advice can you offer to help us navigate through this? What research exists to point us towards the ideal means of educating the millions of children, families and teachers in the world who are going through all of this?