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Learning in Higher Education

Contents (click to jump to a section)

• Links to web documents
  • Other papers of possible interest
• References
• Further work
  • Critical thinking questions

Links to web documents

• Lists of theories of learning
  • Greg Kearsley's list of theories of learning, possibly relevant to education [click "the theories"]
  • A list of some educational theories (with expositions)
  • Another list of some educational theories (with expositions)
  • Yet another list of some educational theories (with expositions)
  • A definition of constructivism, and other things.
  • Short page on constructivism
  • Radical constructivism
• Table of Perry "positions"
• A brief comment on critical thinking
• The relationship of the Perry, deep&shallow, and Laurillard models
• The concept of "mathemagenic activities" [notes]
• Laurillard's diagram of 12 activities for teaching and learning [Handout]
• Learning management: to be added to theories of the learning and teaching process. [The subject of lecture 5; given as a handout]
• Discussion on ITFORUM of Draper's "learning management" paper
• How to cite (refer to) a web document

  Other papers of possible interest

• Feedback in learning [notes]
• Learning styles [notes] and a seminar.
• A diagram of the causal factors affecting learning in education
• Reading list on "situativity" theories of learning

References

*Bereiter,C. & Scardamalia,M. "Intentional learning as a goal of instruction" ch.12 pp.361-392 in L.Resnick (ed.) (1989) Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser (Lawrence Erlbaum) [This is exactly on my introductory lecture: about viewing learning as problem-solving and goal-based behaviour.]

*Cole,M. & Scribner,S. (1977) "Cross-cultural studies of memory and cognition" ch.8 pp.239-271 in R.V.Kail & J.W.Hagan (eds.) Perspectives on the development of memory and cognition (Erlbaum: Hillsdale, N.J.)

Draper (1997) "Adding (negotiated) learning management to models of teaching and learning" [WWW paper: http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/TLP.management.html ] [provided as handout]

*Finster, D.C. (1989) "Developmental instruction" 2 articles, in Journal of chemical education vol.66 no.8 (Aug) pp.659-754 AND vol.68 no.9 (Sept) pp.752-756 [On applying Perry. In chemistry library, in Joseph Black building?]

*Laurillard, D. (1993) Rethinking university teaching: A framework for the effective use of educational technology (Routledge: London).

*Kuhn, D. (1991) The skills of argument (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge)

*Marton,F., D.Hounsell & N.Entwistle (1984) (eds.) The experience of learning (Edinburgh: Scottish academic press) [Key book on deep and shallow learning work]

*Papert, S.A. (1980) Mindstorms: Children, computers and powerful ideas (Basic Books: New York).

*Perry, W.G. (1968/70) Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years (New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston) [Main Perry book. Level 2 Short Loan Education N299 1999-P]

Perry, W.G. (1988) "Different worlds in the same classroom" in P.Ramsden Improving learning: new perspectives (London: Kogan Page)

*Putnam H. (1975) "The meaning of meaning" in Mind, language and reality (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press).

Rothkopf,E.Z. (1970) "The concept of mathemagenic activities" Review of educ. research vol.40 pp.325-336

Further work

I particularly recommend "thinking work" for the topic of these 5 lectures, for two reasons. Firstly, further library reading is not very extensive or convenient. Secondly, these ideas are not universally accepted, and their relationships not fully worked out. They need thinking about and questioning more than they need more facts, and that would be better evidence of real learning in this area. Perhaps a combination is best. Certainly I myself have read and re-read the Laurillard book and the Marton et al. book, finding it slow going because they provoke so much thought: are they right? where do their ideas break down and encounter exceptions?

But the best further work are the questions below, and more basically (and importantly): think of examples of your own for each thing: for each Laurillard activity, for what is deep and what shallow in each of several subjects.

Critical thinking questions

• One reason that theories of learning in HE need to be so different from most psychology learning theories is time scale. The time scale of a typical unit in HE is at least that of a lecture, perhaps that of tens of hours of student work i.e. one exam question's worth. What is the time scale of the learning typically studied in psychology e.g. to see a face such that it will affect later recognition? What time scales (for learning items) are typical of each of the kinds of learning you have studied? Would you seriously expect a theory for one time scale to be adequate for another?

• Argue for and against learning as a) involuntary mental function b) problem-solving c) social transaction.

• What are all the reasons, from completely different areas in psychology, that could justify doing more interactive exercises in class? E.g. physiology, multi-modal cues, processing forced by having to act, ..... Could you also amass potential reasons why such exercises are a bad idea, that waste time or inhibit learning? (E.g. social pressures to agree without considering your real beliefs).

• What important features of your experience of learning in HE do not seem to be described by any of these theories i.e. are evidence of their incompleteness?

• Are there other activities that seem (to you) to be mathemagenic (learning-promoting), but which seem to be missing from the Laurillard model?

• What is a critical question of your own?. Being able to generate them is also an exercise forcing you to re-process the material, and of course peculiarly relevant to this topic.

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