Having considered “distance” yesterday, I’d like to look at the other half — Education — today. If we’re going to come up with a definition of Distance Education we need to think about what we mean by each part first so we can then see what happens if we combine them. What, exactly, is this education thing? What are we trying to accomplish and how do we go about doing it?
The “Education Ideal” is that we’re preparing the next generations to take their rightful place as productive members of society. John Dewey’s influence extends from the beginning of the last century to this. What then do we call what you adults are doing? You’re already productive members and most of you are hardly members of the “next” generation (pardon my saying so, but that would sorta have to be your kids, not you). So, what is it YOU — and millions of adults around the world — are engaged in when you take a course? Consider the perspective of John Taylor Gatto who thinks that the purpose of education has devolved since the late 1800s to a process of making people stupid and compliant. And those of you who are teachers — consider the things your administrations value. Do you get evaluated on how much your students learn? Or how well they score on tests? Does “classroom management” appear as a criterion on your annual evaluation and does that — in practice — mean “keeping then in their seats and quiet?” So, in considering Education, I submit we have a bit of dichotomy between the “Education Ideal” and the “Education Real.”
That leaves us in a bit of a pickle but let’s put politics aside and examine Education-as-Practice and think, logically, about our relationship with our students.
From one perspective we equate Education with Teaching. That is, the process of Education is what a teacher does and is the obverse of Learning which is what a Student does. But is this true?
But if Education is what a Teacher does, then what does a School do? Manage Education? Manage students? Manage teachers? Manage financial stakeholders? Respond to governmental regulation? And at this point we’re running in circles because we’ve come back to politics again from the other side. For the purposes of our discussion, we need to apply some contextual rendering of our meanings because it seems clear that — in one context — Education is the process of managing resources and certifying results and — in the other context — it’s the process of instruction. Setting aside, for the moment, the arcane concept of “becoming Educated,” I think we must examine both these meanings when we consider Distance Education as a construct because they each have different goals which must both be satisfied simultaneously.
So, if we focus on the idea of “Education-as-Instruction” and leave aside issues of “Education-as-Management” for our policy and practice discussions in Module 4, what is the relationship between Education and Learning? Is there one? How can we tell? How might we measure it? Do we need to? And is it real or merely an artifact engendered by a set of fundamental assumptions?
Discuss.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:38 am
[...] Please review Considering Education and — as it says in the last line — discuss. [...]
August 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Okay, I’m not a teacher and I’ve never had a classroom. So I’m basing my response solely on my opinion and not really any concrete experience. But in my opinion the relationship between education and learning is one of give and take. Educators are providing the education within the classroom, but it’s up to the students to take in the knowledge. It’s impossible to force students to learn everything a teacher says; they only learn what they want to learn. I think students do have to be tested to make sure they are learning. They need some kind of incentive to show up, pay attention, and learn. If they don’t have that, then they are likely to avoid the whole learning process. But when they’re tested they receive grades. Most parents emphasize the importance of grades and an education so their children at least pay attention and attempt to do well enough to get grades that won’t get them in trouble. But in the process of trying to keep their parents happy, the students really do learn something. So after all that rambling, my point is yes learning should be measured while in school. But how is a whole different discussion (I know, I hear the groans already). Everybody learns information and expresses it in different ways. Some students are good at essay tests, others at multiple choice, and still others at reports and presentations. I’m not sure how I would test students if I had a classroom, but I think I would want to incorporate all these different ways of learning to help the students express themselves the best way possible. I know I personally have failed multiple choice tests miserably because my answer isn’t one of the choices. But I would have been able to excel on the test if I could have written essays on the information to express all the knowledge I learned. So while testing has its ups and downs, I think if educators can find some way to accomodate everyone, then students will have more of an opportunity to prove that they really are learning. Okay, I’m done for now, I promise.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Education itself needs to be versatile. There are several different ways to teach anything and several differen learning styles that present themselves in each classroom. The task for learning then becomes how best to lay the track to reach each student. Learning component must come from meaningful experiences that students can use prior knowledge to comprehend a basic or advance concept. Teachers are armed with an arsenal of methodologies to effectively create those opportunities to learn.
Learning cannot come from just one form of education. Students need multiple ways to achieve learning. Some may call for traditional instruction while others may call for a more constructivist approach. The roundness of learning must come from different sides of the overall spectrum.
Do we need to measure education and learning? I think we need some form of assessment to determine if learning took place, otherwise we would just be making assumptions. Assumptions are never a reliable thing. The type of asssessment will have to be the teacher’s decision. Research studies have shown that there is a gender factor that influences success on a particular test, which Jen touched on in her comment. Boys excel at multiple choice, while girls excel at writing examinations. The demographics of your classroom will come into play when you make your decision. But gender alone will not be the one deciding factor for your assessment. Learning styles will also come into play along with a number of other factors to help you with your choice.
This relationship between education and learning is a real thing, but the type of things we use to achieve it will determine the reality of it. The quality of our methods and assessment will make this relationship either a reality or artificial.
August 24th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Can you cite these research studies?
August 24th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
http://www.scre.ac.uk/pdf/spotlight/spotlight64.pdf
Look under the paragraph that starts with “Approaches to assessment tasks.”
August 24th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
OK, that’s a secondary source. The primary source is
http://www.scre.ac.uk/resreport/pdf/081.pdf
I have some reservations about this research. Powney is a recognized researcher, but I want to read the original and check the methods. One of the concerns is content domain and the nature of the assessments. It’s *really* difficult to make these kinds of generalizations in ways that are not confounded by a) environment, b) content domain, and c) age.
Lemme see what I can see.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
OK. This is a good example of why you use primary sources and not summaries or secondaries.
Here’s the paragraph with the bomb in it.
(Powney, 1996, p 62)
There is a lot in this section that does NOT support the assertion that “Boys excel at multiple choice, while girls excel at writing examinations.” The study points out in some detail that the outcomes are not *solely* based on the results of individual tests but also on such varied characteristics as class experience, educational opportunity, ratio of male to female, and even attractiveness of the test taker.
The bottom line here is that while it *appears* that boys do better than girls on multiple choice exams, there is not necessarily a proven causal relationship between gender and outcome with a particular assessment format.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
To begin, assessment is a tough issue. Some students are great at taking pencil and paper tests while others fall apart, but can demonstrate to the teacher a great deal about the test subject if given a chance to express themselves in other ways such as those proposed by Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
I think that a teacher should strive to understand the learning styles of individual students. Creating individual assessments would be a huge undertaking, but an evalution of some type must take place in order to determine whether we have helped the child to learn. Ultimately, the child needs to learn to think in order to help himself or herself. Another task is helping the learner understand how he or she learns. I’m not sure this is emphasized enough.
Among my observations about the intricacies of teaching, learning, and education is the pressure that some parents place on their children to get all As. Some of these students are not enjoying the learning process because they are being forced to learn materials that hold very little interest in order to gain precious scholarship money. I understand that this is the way our society works and that money is very important, but quality of life should count for something, too. Maybe we should rethink this part of our culture. I submit that if students were learning something that they wanted to learn without the pressure of obtaining perfect grades, the success rate of all students might increase and society as a whole would benefit. I admit that I’m sort of a dreamer, but I do think that one of the greatest things in life is the ability to keep learning – and enjoying the process.
Education is the process of teaching more than the process of learning. I think that learning should always be the most important part of the process, though. With the current situation in public schools, it does seem that students are having a specific curriculum imposed on them. The No Child Left Behind policy has caused some schools to “teach the test” which shrinks some of the versatility in what and how a teacher might teach a subject. Whoops. We’re back to politics, again.
A student may take in the facts and if he or she can recite, restate, reiterate, repeat (pick your favorite re- word) to a degree that earns a passing grade, he or she is declared a learner and I believe that is what we call education, at least for now. I have not taught for very many years, but I have enough experience to know that education is not static, which is probably the reason that we are discussing this issue right now.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Education and Learning….same or different? Tough question. I think I tend to think that learning is a process that is dynamic and is an integral part of what we are as human beings. We all learn….the quality or necessity of what we learn may come into question….but knowledge…..any knowledge….has value within a certain context. Just because a student doesn’t learn to read or do math doesn’t mean that he doesn’t learn or that what he does learn has no value. Learning to survive on the street requires a great deal of knowledge….but perhaps that knowledge is not considered valuable to many for who that lifestyle is unfamiliar.
As to education, I think institutions have great intentions….but teaching the masses is a daunting prospect. It is difficult to dictate what learning is valuable and what is not. A generation ago, perhaps it was somewhat easier, but in the modern world, where there are so many direction to go, it is practically impossible to meet every learners’ needs. While in an ideal world, each learner would have a program customized just for him/her, in reality educational instituions simply haven’t the resources and manpower to accomplish this.
So we compromise….and try to land somewhere in the middle. Do we succeed….sometimes we do….sometimes we don’t.
August 25th, 2007 at 8:10 am
I would like to think that what a school does is harbor an environment where learning can take place. Learning can take place anywhere, but a school building is the most convenient and satisfying to our society’s conscience. The government has to make sure that it is doing something toward education the future of the country. I don’t really think that schools are really that interested in how much learning or the quality of learning, but if learning is going to on enough to meet the needs of the test scores. We want test scores to be high you know. That is the head that turns the tail in Kentucky.
I read above the debate over the types of assessment and so forth, but I am still stuck on the thought that, “Are we teaching our students to think?” I must admit that I have my doubts. We have been told to not formally assess students unless it is in our CATS test format, so no true and false, no completetion. I know that this is crazy, I would argue that the CATS tests doesn’t really show what they have learned and I know that it isn’t showing how and if students are thinking. Now the question for me is, how do we show that students are thinking?
August 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
We all have the same goal, we want our students to learn. The question is, can all students learn? I believe that with the right instruction all students can learn, but at their own pace. Each student is unique in their own way and learn in different ways. Some teachers go in to teach and have a set way of teaching. This teacher is not going in to teach all children, but only the ones who can learn her/his way.
As a teacher of special education students I see teachers who think that because the student can not accomplish the assignment handed to them on thier own or in the manner that is expected then the student is not going to learn anything and amount to much.
I don’t like grades and I don’t like formal testing. I believe that just because a student doesn’t do well on a formal test doesn’t mean they can not do it. What about all the work they have completed and got right?
All students can learn, but can we teach all students to learn?
August 25th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I have read Dr. Lowell and the responses, and I agree with all of you. My response is not an opinion, just an observation. I taught public school for a short time and now I teach at a high school in a maximum security juvenile correctional facility. At the public school, the administration wanted creative teaching styles as well as “kids quiet and in their seats” At the prison, they just want the “kids quiet and in their seats.” My last evaluation said that that I am strong in my knowledge of content and my ability to make it known to the students, but weak in my classroom management. These kids are very difficult. Most of them have spent very little time in school. they can only be policed and given some practice in doing various math procedures. The interesting thing is that in the near future, our classes will be converted to “computer only instruction” and all of us teachers will only be monitoring their work on the computer and somebody in Columbus will be evaluating their progress.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:34 am
The relationship between education and learning. That is the topic and question. I do believe that there is a relationship between the two howevere, are teachers educating? I believe they are doing the best they can under the circumstances. Teachers must not only present knowlege to a very diverse population of students, they must also entertain and continually search for different ways to keep students focused and on target according to a set of standards, core content and best practices, all while teaching the test and being diverse enough to include all the individualized adjustments and document them. Teachers are expectd to know what culural influences are affecting the learning process that the students should be participating in. The pressure is not put on the students to be learners. It is put on the teachers to entertain and feed the brains whether students want it or not. I feel that the more student responsibility measured by accountability not just to the teachers, will be the hope for change in the learning process between teachers and sttdents.
I don’t mean to sound so negative about it but that is reality as I see it.
I don’t even teach core content and I am so thankful that I don’t have all the pressure that most other teachers have to live with on a daily basis.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Inaddition to that I would like to say that I truly enjoy my days with my students because in my class we do many activities and the student totally get involved in our singing and oral practice that is a very necessary part of the language learning process. I just love my daily experiences and exchanges with my students. I believe it shows and when students see this then the repore is wonderful and continues to grow.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I believe we teach our students that the purpose of Education is to prepare them for their future to help them become a productive citizen. But what about the generations before us full of people that did not complete middle school or high school? My grandmother only went to school up to the 8th grade. Does that mean she was not a productive citizen? I doubt it. I believe that we can learn without ‘Education’ as we know it today. Life doesn’t take place in a formal classroom. That’s the reason we pay more attention to multiple intelligences, and have steared away from the ‘sit down and take notes’ approach in the classroom. Life in itself is a lesson, but can we thrive on that alone? Probably not.
Our world demands we be a ‘jack of all trades’. I would rather know a little about a lot than a lot about a little. We certainly need specialists in certain areas of human existence but we still have to be open to what is to be learned all around us. I doubt few of us in this class are here so we can become more productive citizens. We probably already are. But, with freedom comes education and with education comes freedom. Freedom to run a country, to change jobs, or to just think for ourselves.
What I would love to know now, without waiting any longer, is how to teach our students to value their education. I wish I did when I was their age. As an adult I love the challenge of learning something new of discovering a fact I did not know before. Maybe I’m a geek but I think kids need this desire more than ever.
August 26th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Education vs. learning is a sticky wicket that comes down to definitions, in my humble opinion. Education is what a student receives during a course of instruction or teaching.
If the things that you are educating the people about are useless facts that they do not know how to use but merely recite then people are not thinking contributing citizens. If the society does not value “thinking” people then the educational material that is “taught” will produce people who have the ability to think and run the society wisely.
Is classroom management a necessary trait for a teacher? , I believe so because without a teacher to act as a strong leader in a learning community things can go awry quickly. Now should the student’s goosestep from once class to the next and recite their lessons in unison orally? I thing not. But when the teacher needs to give the students some valuable information about what is to be learned that day all of the students should be in their desk attentively listening. Where the middle ground is takes in to account many factors such as class size, age background etc.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:39 am
[...] Yesterday we thought about the concept of “Distance.” (Well, I did anyway. Your voices were conspicuously absent from that consideration.) Today I want to take up the idea of “Education.” See Considering Education. [...]
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Keep in mind, when you read this I hope not to offend anyone.
I love the ideal of “we’re preparing the next generations to take their rightful place as productive members of society.” In reality we are not. Students are not held accountable for their actions, grades, or test scores; the teachers are. IEP’s have made students less responsible therefore making educating them harder. When they have no conquences, they do not perform. As an adult, I react to conquences so why don’t students have some.
Some students are not going to college; learning how to mop, sweep, clean will be some of their professions. That is not a negative thing. What would our world be like with out our custodians. Yuck! (Much respect..many thanks)
As far as education, I am a way to try to teach students to think, connect and understand the topic. What some think is important, others do not. As a student, this class is supposed to teach “inform” me of new ways to do things. I did not see a ‘test’ on the syllabus so Dr. Lowell will assess my learning by other means. We all as teachers may need to do this.
I have rambled so I hope I have answered the question.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I feel that education is the process we use to motivate students to require knowledge. How we do that depends on the individual student’s needs. Students need to be motivated and want to learn before we can teach them. There are many different methods and philosophies to teach students and as an educator we have to cater to all these needs. The way we see success in these students is through different types of assessments. Are we evaluated on test scores? I think yes. I had a PD over the summer and they talked about the importance of making tests in class the same format as the state test. These way students will be use to this form of testing and do better. I heard about resources that test designers pulled from to make questions and so on. I didn’t hear anything about what excites individual children or how to find many ways to test. I understand testing is important to see if we are doing our job, but why can’t we test in a way that the child can express their knowledge. If they learn how to add 2+2 by only showing me with counters, isn’t that still correct.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I see two different worlds when I think about what education is compared to what we want it to be, or “Education Real” and “Education Ideal.” I think that along the way of molding the next generation by inspiring them, we have become more that teachers. I often feel like a baby sitter trying to keep students quiet and seated, because as was mentioned, classroom management is so important. I have often though that we have lost focus on what is really important. Will test scores really matter to students when they are looking for a job or trying to make it in the real world? Probably not.
I really want to say something really inspirational about education and its definition, but I think that we are moving farther away from what education should bem which is preparing students for the real world.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I think that learning is dependent upon education/educators and education is dependent upon ones learning ability, apptitude, desire, etc. Education should be directed in a way so that it meets all students needs (even though this task can be difficult) thus making sure that all students are learning to the best of their ability. In my class I teach one concept several different ways to appeal to all modalities. We can measure a students education/learning through observations, discussions, tests, and interactions. If I ask a student to add 2+2 and they give me an off the wall response then I have a problem. As some point there was lack of communication in the education of this student and thus their learning of the content was obstructed. I do think that we need to measure to keep us as teachers on track as well as the students. If I assess my students and several of them do not grasp the concept then I know that I need to approach the content in a different manner. If a student is not understanding the education approach that is presented to them then they will not learn. I think that a variety of tests need to be offered on any given content area to make sure that artifical results are not possible.
On another note from the posting I think that education should be preparing the next generation for their place in society, but I think that it fails at times. For example, just academically preparing a student for college is not enough-they need to be prepared to handle the pressure of society and have the independent skills necessary to make good decisions. I think that edication and learning should extend beyond book knowledge.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I agree with both Amy and Carla. Teachers are suppose to help students learn or educate them. It is hard due to the fact that we are teaching to the test any more. I am a new teacher and at times I have been told that we only teach what is on the test or I have to test them in ways that will be similar to the test. How is that really educating the next generation? They will not be tested in this format in the future. They will be using skills and knowledge retained from our classes to work in a job setting, whether it be a custodian or a doctor or etc. A doctor isn’t tested with multiple choice questions and open response/on demand writings. Their knowledge is tested through their actions and their work. So I agree it is getting harder to be the person responsible for teaching those students everything they need to know before heading out into the world when they are only taught to answer questions with an A, B, C, D, or sometimes E response. So what are we as teachers? Are we educators and responsible for everything each student is to know before heading out into the real world?
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I read so very good points in the comments of my classmates. Education encompasses many different ideas, theories, and strategies. As educators it is our responsibility to find the combinations that meets the needs of the students. So in other words education is the same as providing others with the information, skills, and knowledge they need to better themselves and to discover things on their own. Also the testing topic tends to bring out strong opinions from many people. I’ll be the first to admit to having strong opinions about test. I don’t like that the method of testing is the same for every child and every subject. The tests do not allow for different learning styles and they don’t take into consideration best ways to demonstrate different subjects. Take my favorite subject “math” there are many areas in math that it is more important that the students understand how to do things then it is for them to get the right answer. So I’m a strong believer that the students need to demonstrate and understanding of the processes.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Education, I think is often seen as formal instruction, and learning as something that can be concretely measured. I think the variable that we neglect is the individual learner’s schema. How does what I am teaching connect to the particular learner? Once, I was doing reading intervention with a child on a story about a child who had moved into an apartment with an elevator. He had a ‘comprehension breakdown’ and did not seem to understand the story. In an attempt to stimulate his background knowledge, I asked him about his experiences with elevators. He told me he had never been on one “because my dad is afraid of them” This child was not trying to process the story as I wanted him to – he was trying to understand why the child in the story was so excited by having an elevator in the buildingl. This child was learning (adding to his knowledge of the world) even though it was not what I was expecting him to learn.
Another point that we miss in our schools is building the love of learning for our kids. I will never be able to teach all that a child needs to know about any given topic, but if I am able to spark and interest in that topic AND I give him the tools to pursue learing independently, then his potential to learn is unbounded. I regret not being able to follow the curiosoities of the children in my classroom, but as others have mentioned we are so curriculum driven that I would be percieved as not doing my job if I spend any time doing any thing that I cannot tic off the Core Content for my grade level.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I think that Monica described the relationship between education and learning very well — “Education, I think is often seen as formal instruction, and learning as something that can be concretely measured”. When we think of education we think of a general type of term – a level of learning (such as a high school education or a college education) or a formal type of instruction. When we think of learning we might think of what we gain, which can be measured concretely (for example by a pre test and post test). So, yes I feel there is a direct relationship between education and learning. We learn by getting an education.
Learning in the school setting can be measured in a number of ways, and should be measured. We need to be able to “see” what children have learned from a particular unit/lesson of study. We want to be sure our children are working towards mastery of a particular topic.
I think that the relationship between education and learning real. We go to an institution for learning to take place and I think that all children learn something–not everything you try to teach them–but they all learn (of course, at different levels).
August 27th, 2008 at 9:15 am
[...] of the comments on my earlier post deserves some attention: Considering Education Education, I think is often seen as formal instruction, and learning as something that can be [...]