Aristotle (384-322 BC) – science, music and Golden Mean

Teacher to Alexander the Great and Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, is in some ways a more important educational theorist and philosopher than Socrates or Plato. His work has resonated down the ages, and although we have only fragments from his book On Education, we have enough secondary evidence to piece together his theories on the subject.

Empirical, scientific approach

Like Plato, founded a school, the Lyceum  but his teaching ran counter to Plato’s love of abstract reason, as he did not believe in a transcendental system of Forms, Aristotle introduced a more empirical approach to theory and learning with more emphasis on the physical sciences. Of course, much of his science is wrong, and his idea of purposefulness wrong headed, but he set us on a path towards investigation, observation and knowledge, based on experience, that would prove to be a positive legacy over the last 2000 years.

Greek ideal

As a proponent of the Greek ideal of an all-round education he recommended a balance of activities that train both mind and body, including debate, music, science and philosophy, combined with physical development and training. This ideal has had a profound influence on the West’s idea of education and schooling. Character and ethical behaviour was also important, extolled through his theory of the Golden Mean (everything in moderation). Modern schools and universities have, to a degree, this classical ideal in their core values.

Practice as well as theory

Despite his position as one of the World’s greatest philosophers, he showed great concern for practical and technical education, in addition to contemplation. He would be genuinely puzzled by our system’s emphasis on theory rather than practice. Learning by doing was a fundamental issue in his theory of learning. 'Anything we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it...’ he says, echoing many a modern theorist. This is not to forget theory and theorising, only to recognise that education needs to be habitually reinforced through practice. Not that we should read too much into this, as he, like Plato, still had an essentially elitist view of education, with vocational training an activity for the lower classes.

Moral education

To be moral one must behave morally but also be informed by reason. This is interesting, as Aristotle recognised that one can teach young people to be moral without them having to understand why. He seemed to understand that altruism was built-in and that teaching by example was fine, only later do we engage in reflection on why this is so.

Music

Music education was of particular interest for Aristotle, and Plato. He saw it as an important educational technique, a builder of character and good for the soul, as well as a useful pastime. You learn how to recognise and control the different hues of emotion. To be clear, he meant learning how to play a musical instrument and sing, not just listening music.

Lifelong learning

Education was for Aristotle a fundamental activity in life, an intrinsic good and should not be seen as instrumental. ‘Better a philosopher unsatisfied, than a pig satisfied’ to quote his peer and contemporary, Plato. And this philosophical view of education is one of his main concerns. Education is not the mere transmission of knowledge, it is a preparation for participation in a fulfilled life that reflects and acts on ethical and political grounds. It is as much about rights than getting things right and should be state controlled until 21, then continue for the rest of one’s life. Yet another Greek, lifelong learner.

Conclusion

The schism between Plato and Aristotle, theory and practice, teaching and research, humanities and science, lives on in our curricula, schools and Universities. Aristotle, in the western tradition was the first to break with philosophical reasoning as the primary approach to education. However, his theories, along with those of Plato, also gave rise to scholasticism that was to send the search for knowledge and education into more than a millennium of decline. It wasn’t until the Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment that recovery was possible. Nevertheless, Aristotle remains a towering figure and we have somehow recovered components of the Greek ideal through this Renaissance recovery to build educational systems that recognise this legacy.

Bibliography

Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics, London: Penguin. (The most recent edition is 1976 - with an introduction by Barnes).

Aristotle The Politics (A treatise on government), London: Penguin.

Bauman, R.W. (1998) Aristotle’s Logic of Education New York Peter Lang

Barnes, J. (1982) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Good introduction.

Howie, G (ed) (1968 Aristotle’s on Education, London, Collier-Macmillan.

Jaeger, W. W. (1948) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. The authoritative text.

Plato (428-348 BC) – lifelong learning, 3Rs, mind & body but ban fiction!

It is through Plato that we know Socrates, but Plato is no mere mouthpiece. All western philosophy has been described as ‘footnotes to Plato’. Like Socrates, he believed in the power of questioning as a method of teaching and most of his writing is in the form of ‘dialogue’. Indeed, his dialogues do not feature Plato himself. They illustrate by example his view that the learners must learn to think for themselves through dialogue. But he was a direct and detailed, and shockingly controversial,  commentator in his utopian vision of education in The Republic, The Laws and other dialogues.

Plato’s Academy

Plato’s Academy is thought by many to have been the first University, open to both men and women. He founded The Academy in 387 B.C. a philosophical school that remained in use until A.D. 526, when it was finally closed down by emperor Justinian. Having run for 900 years it rivals any current western university for longevity. Above its door were the words Do not enter here unless you know geometry, and he did see mathematics as important training for the mind, along with the idea of proof and clear hypotheses.

3 Rs

School, he proposes, should start at six with the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. A strict curriculum is recommended in early years. The educational system should also be designed to determine the abilities of individuals and training provided to apply to the strengths of their abilities. In other words, a severe form of streaming. These ideas were to be revived by the humanists during the Renaissance and shaped the Western schooling system with its focus on the 3 Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. Mathematics, in particular, provides an education in sound reasoning towards the immaterial Forms, simply amassing knowledge was seen as wasteful. However, and this is where we should take note, he did not recommend that young minds should be introduced the mathematics and abstract reasoning too early. This simply induces rejection and rebelliousness. At this early stage one must develop character.

Censor fiction

Now here comes a recommendation that sounds shocking to modern ears: censor fiction at this age, literature and especially poetry and drama. For those who believe that education is about ‘story telling’ Plato has some salutary warnings. Fiction can cloud a child’s mind and reduce their ability to make judgments and deal with the real world. More than this, he thought that fiction could lead to self-deception, in particular acting, where learners develop a false-sense of themselves. He also thought that they may be tempted to emulate some of the immoral behaviour in such texts. Morality was, for Plato, the bedrock of the educational process and education was a structured and intense process.

Mind and body

Music and sports should then be brought into the curriculum with more serious attention paid to military training at the age of 18. The Greek ideal of body and mind is seen in an educational context with a structured approach to education across one’s entire lifetime. This idea lived on in the European tradition of education with its focus on competitive sports, the revival of the Greek ideal of the Olympics, even military cadets.. The Greek lettered fraternities in the US, the ‘classical’ education that so influenced 19^th century schooling, still so influential in Western Universities, show that this Greek tradition lives on.

Lifelong learning

We must remember that Plato doesn’t see this as education for all, merely a minority destined to rule, although The Republic analysis can be seen a an analogy for the individual mind. On the other hand, his appreciation that people learn differently over time has been taken up by those who see ‘andragogy’ as a theoretical construct. He does see the mind developing over time with age as an important factor in education. The child is not capable of sound reasoning and must be protected from harmful cultural influences but in time, at 18 and 21, higher educational goals are introduced, with philosophy at 30. It is only at the age of 50 that the educated person should be allowed to rule – the philosopher king. There is a sense of lifelong learning.

Conclusion

Plato’s lasting contribution to educational theory has pros and cons. It led to severe, selective streaming, cast doubt on the use of literature, poetry and drama and put an undue emphasis on abstract, academic knowledge at the expense of the vocational. This last point is perhaps the most pertinent, as it was based on a very abstract and metaphysical theory of knowledge (Forms). On the other hand, it led to rigour in mathematics and reason, laying the foundations for The Academy, the forerunner of the modern University. Theoretically, he mapped out a developmental educational theory that rested on the Greek ideal of mind and body but saw education as developing at different ages, an early conception of lifelong learning.

Bibliography

Plato (1955) The Republic, London: Penguin (translated by H. P. D. Lee).

Murdoch, Iris (1977) The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato banished the Artists, Oxford University Press.

Hare, R. M. (1989) Plato, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Succinct introduction. 

Socrates (469-399 BC) - method man

Socrates was one of the few teachers who actually died for his craft, executed by the Athenian authorities for supposedly corrupting the young. Most learning professionals will have heard of the ‘Socratic method’ but few will know that he never wrote a single word describing this method, fewer still will know that the method is not what it is commonly represented to be.

How many have read the Socratic dialogues? How many know what he meant by his method and how he practised his approach? Socrates, in fact, wrote absolutely nothing. It was Plato and Xenophon who record his thoughts and methods through the lens of their own beliefs. We must remember, therefore, that Socrates is in fact a mouthpiece for the views of others. In fact the two pictures painted of Socrates by these two commentators differ somewhat. In the Platonic Dialogues he is witty, playful and a great philosophical theorist, in Xenophon he is a dull moraliser.

Socratic method

That the teacher should be an intellectual midwife to people’s own thoughts is his great educational principle. His mother was indeed a midwife and he was among the first to recognise that, in terms of learning, ideas are best generated from the learner in terms of understanding and retention. Education is not a cramming in, but a drawing out.

What is less well known is the negative side of the Socratic method. He loved to pick intellectual fights and the method was not so much a gentle teasing out of ideas, more the brutal exposure of falsehoods. He was described by one of his victims as a ‘predator which numbs its victims with an electric charge before darting in for the kill’, even describing himself as a ‘gadfly, stinging the sluggish horse of Athens to life’.

He was roundly ridiculed in public drama, notably by his contemporary, Aristophanes in Clouds, where he uses the Socratic method to explore idiotic ideas using petty, hair-splitting logic. This negative side of Socrates is well described by Woodbridge in The Son of Apollo, ‘Flattery, cajolery, insinuation, innuendo, sarcasm, feigned humility, personal idiosyncrasies, browbeating, insolence, anger, changing the subject when in difficulties, faulty analogies, telling stories which make one forget what the subject of the discussion was’. His great joy was simply pulling people and ideas to pieces.

Socratic philosophy of education

Beyond the famous Socratic method, he did have a philosophy of education which included several principles:

1. Knowledge and learning as a worthwhile pursuit
2. Learning as a social activity pursued through dialogue
3. Questions lie at the heart of learning to draw out what they already know, rather than imposing pre-determined views
4. We must realise the extent of our ignorance.
5. Learning must be pursued with a ruthless intellectual honesty

In practice, these noble aims were marred by a spitefulness. He would claim that he taught nothing as he had nothing to teach, but this conceals his true desire to overcome and intellectually destroy his opponents.

His lasting influence is the useful idea, that for certain types of learning, questioning and dialogue allows the learner to generate their own ideas and conclusions, rather than be spoon-fed. This has transformed itself into the idea of discovery learning, but there have been severe doubts expressed about taking this method too far. We wouldn’t want our children to discover how to cross the road by pushing them out between parked cars!

The Socratic method, although quoted widely, is often no more than a teacher using the occasional open or inductive question. In fact, when used crudely it can frustrate learners, especially when not combined with genuine dialogue and feedback. To ask open questions about facts can be pointless and result in those awful classroom sessions where the teacher asks a question, hands shoot up and a few can answer the question. When used well, however, especially in subjects such as philosophy and for uncovering conceptual clarity in other subjects, it has lots to offer.

E-learning

In e-learning, Roger Schank has taken the method forward into designs based on questions which access indexed content, especially videos. One could also argue that search based inquiry through Google and other online resources allows the learner to apply this questioning approach to their own learning, Socratic learning without a Socratic teacher. Intelligent tutors and adaptive learning systems, like Cogbooks, truly account for where the learner has come from, where they’re going and what they need to get there. Sophisticated e-learning is allowing us to realise the potential of a scalable Socratic approach without the need for one-to-one teaching. Interestingly, it is only in the last few decades, through the use of technology-based tools that allow search, questioning and now, adaptive learning, that Socratic learning can be truly realised on scale.

Conclusion

As someone who abhorred didactic, talk and chalk teaching and learning, Socrates would be appalled at current education and training. He was not an institutional figure, practiced his teaching in the public space of the Agora and thought that experts were normally fooling themsleves by believing they had the knowledge to impart to their students. It is the unexamined life that is not worth living but not the life of certainty. .

Of course, if we were to behave like Socrates in the modern school, college, university or training room, we’d be in front of several tribunals for bullying, not sticking to the curriculum and failing to prepare students for their exams. Not to mention his pederasty. (We can perhaps put this to one side as a feature of the age!) So think again when you use the phrase ‘Socratic method’, it’s not what it seems!

Bibliography

Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, E Hamilton, Princeton. (Highly recommend the Thaetetus as it is the key dialogue on the search for knowledge.)

Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin Classics (trial and condemnation)

Aristophanes The Clouds, Penguin Classics (satire of Socrates)

Ferguson J (1970) Socrates, Macmillan (excellent source book)

Woodbridge F (1929) The Son of Apollo, Boston (good commentary)

Blog marathon: 50 blogs on learning theorists over next 50 days

Why no heroes?

Over the next 50 days I plan to blog 50 separate pieces on learning theorists. Despite education and training’s central role in society, its intellectuals are not well known. Few can name more than a handful of candidates for the Hall of Fame. Unlike sport, politics, philosophy, literature, music, painting, film, business or science, learning practitioners have a sketchy idea of the contributions and theories of their intellectual leaders.

Most physicists know of Newton, Einstein and Hawking. Most artists know of Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Picasso. Most musicians know of Beethoven, Mozart and the Beatles. Businessmen know of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and Bill Gates. Even criminals would know of Guy Fawkes, Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler. Yet most learning professionals have at best a sketchy idea of learning theory and the minds that have shaped this theory, and practice.

Progress?

In the history of learning, we find that learning is doomed, not so much to repeat itself, but to remain stuck in an ancient groove, that of simple lectures and classroom learning. This is still the dominant method of delivery, yet there is little or no evidence to show that it is effective. Almost everything in the theory and psychology of learning tells us that it is wrong to rely so heavily on this single method of delivery. The history of learning theory has had to be ignored to accommodate this lazy approach to practice. It seems to have been willingly ignored to protect, not learners, but the bad habits of those who teach.

More pedagogic change in last 10 years than last 1000 years

I have argued that there has been more pedagogic progress in the last 10 years than the last 1000 years but we could just as well say the last 2,500 years, going back to the Greeks. The history of learning theory and practice has not proceeded in an orderly fashion, like science. Like a river delta, there’s a rough sense of direction and progress, with lots of tributaries, some run dry, other run into other tributaries, some switch back and so on.

In an effort to explain our predecessors, warts and all, this series of portraits will take look at the people who shaped learning theory and practice over the centuries. They have all played a role in shaping (some mis-shaping) the learning landscape. Our theorists are major thinkers who have reflected on the large-scale issues around learning and education. The practitioners have more direct relevance, as their advice is wholly relevant to the design of e-learning programmes.

The format is simple. Over the next fifty days I will present fifty major shapers and movers in learning, theorists, practitioners and those directly relevant to e-learning.

LEADERS  IN LEARNING

GREEKS

Socrates

Plato

Aristotle

RELIGIOUS LEADERS

Jesus

Mohammed

ENLIGHTENMENT

Locke

Rousseau

Wollstonecraft

PRAGMATISTS

James

Dewey

MARXISTS

Marx

Gramsci

Althusser

BEHAVIOURISTS

Pavlov

Skinner

Bandura

CONSTRUCTIVISTS

Piaget

Bruner

Vygotsky

HUMANISTS

Maslow

Rogers

Illich

Gardener

SCHOOLS

Montessori

Friere

Steiner

INSTRUCTIONALISTS

Ebbinghaus

Harris

Mazur

Black & William

30

25 E-LEARNING

TECHNOLOGY ANALYSTS

McLuhan

Postman

Schank

Kelly

Shirky

GAMES

Prensky

Gee

USABILITY & EVALUATION

Norman

Nielsen

Krug

MEDIA & DESIGN

Mayer & Clark

Reeves & Nass

INFORMAL LEARNING

Csikszentmihalyi

Cross

Zuckerburg

INTERNET LEARNING

Page & Brin

Bezos

Hurley & Chen

INTERNET CONTENT

Sperling

Wales

Khan

OPEN SOURCE

Torvalds

Moodle guy

10 TRAINING?

Bloom

Biggs

Bateson

Belbin

Mager

Gagne

Kolb

Kirkpatrick

They are by no means the only people who have contributed to the field, but they’re a pretty representative group. I have taken a particular tack in these pen portraits, examining their relevance to the future of learning.

First up tomorrow SOCRATES.

Listen up – audio a massive boost for learning

My sons find it amusing that my iPod Nano has no music but around 500 podcasts, many from In Our Time on Philosophy, History, Religion and Science. Why? Because I travel a lot and like to keep myself stimulated on trains, planes and in other non-places. Like reading, I find the focus on one medium useful, especially for knowledge and reason.  So here’s some reflections on my audio experience.

1. Doubles productivity

Paul Maharg has developed some superb online, simulation tools for lawyers but one thing in his toolset did catch my eye. He has a ‘fastalk’ button for listening to audio/video faster than normal speed. This may sound trivial but it’s not. My iPod Nano also has a x2 button that allows you to listen at twice natural speed. As we read at about twice the speed we speak, this means that I can listen at reading speed. In terms of productivity, I HALVE talking time. Let’s apply that rule to lectures. If I listened to recorded lectures at twice the speed, I’d be doubling my productivity. Alternatively, I could listen to the lecture twice in the same time, which will dramatically increase retention through reinforcement. Either way there’s an enormous boost in productivity. Note that one study saw no significant difference in retention at double and even triple speed. Indeed, listening skills seemed to improve.

2. Review button

The ‘replay last thirty seconds’ button is also a godsend. If you miss a word, phrase, number or simply want to hear the point again, it’s easy. How often do students ask real lecturers to repeat something they hadn’t caught or understood? This instant review button is made for learning (quite aprat from pause, return to point from which you left, rewind and fast forward).

3. Note taking easier & better

I also take notes when listening to these podcasts. With just earphones and an iPod, my arms are free. It allows me to focus on the screen while I type or page when I write. If I’m looking at a lecturer this, as anyone who has tried to take notes in a live lecture knows, is difficult. And as we know that good note taking increases retention by 20-30%, there’s another productivity boost. Indeed, I find that the spare cognitive capacity, created by not having a live lecturer, allows me to write notes well, and in my own words, which is even more useful.

4. Avoids visual distraction

So is there any real reason to video the lecturer? I think not. Khan stays out of his videos as does Thrun in his Stanford content. They both state that this is a deliberate move and I’m glad. I don’t need to see their face to understand what they’re saying. For knowledge and reason that is primarily semantic, I find the purity of audio, like text in reading, ideal. Images and video are, if anything, a distraction. In terms of retention this type of knowledge is stored in semantic, not episodic, memory. That’s not to say that imagery doesn’t help in elaboration. However, the best form of elaboration for this type of knowledge is that produced by the imagination.

5. Imagination kicks in

When it comes to semantic memory, and knowledge of this type, freeing my working memory from ‘looking’ at a lecturer, also allows my imagination to kick in. This brings my own existing knowledge and thoughts to the act of learning, which I have no doubt increases elaboration and therefore retention and recall.

6. Audio easy to record & distribute

Audio is, of course, cheap and easy to record. Unlike video, you don’t have to worry about lighting and movement. Video files are many times larger than audio files, therefore easier and cheaper to store and distribute, especially on mobile media. Just kick that stuff out through iTunes and you’re up and running.

7. Audio convenient on the move

Given the ease of production and distribution, it’s an ideal form of mobile learning. All you need is a mobile or iPod and earphones. My Nano is literally as small as a watch (indeed it can be worn as a watch), weighs just a few ounces and can be attached to my lapel.

Conclusion

So audio can double productivity at double speed (or listen to twice) compared to actual lectures, can be reviewed, allows productive and meaningful note taking, eliminates visual distraction, stimulates the internal imagination and therefore retention, is easy to record, easy to distribute and perfect for mobile learning. That’s before we even get to the 24/7 access. On productivity, my claim that this approach 'doubles' productivity applies to the mathematically certain fact that you save half the time. That doesn't mean you've been twice as productive in retention. Here, however, the fact that you can take notes gives an evidence-based boost of 20-30%. That combined with the use of your imagination to elaborate the learning and listening to it twice, boosts retention even further, as does the absence of visual distraction. The claim of 100% increase in retention, is therefore, approximate but credible.

7 good reasons for slashing University PGCE teacher training courses

I don’t often agree with current Government policy on education but on this one they’re heading in the right direction. I’d go a lot further. There’s many reasons for closing down hundreds of these PGCE courses.

1. Too small and costly

Some courses have as few as 10 students. To be precise there are currently 330 courses with 10 or fewer students. This makes them madly expensive to staff and resource. Even worse, these courses are often in close proximity to each other.

2. Supply outstripping demand

Demographically we need less teachers as pupil numbers are falling. There’s simply not enough jobs to go round.

3. Irrelevance

The drift towards ‘University-led’ courses had loaded these courses up with irrelevant theory that has no real bearing on the practice of teaching. A good example is Abraham Maslow, a staple in teacher training, yet of no use to anyone in terms of what they’re actually asked to do in schools.

4. Delivered via lectures!

To deliver teacher training through lectures is pedagogically pathetic. Good practice is not taught through bad practice. It’s like teaching medicine using blood letting.

5. Third rate research

The only defense UCET (Universities Council for the Education of Teachers) and other trade associations like NATE (National Association for the Teaching of English) have come up with is the loss of expertise and research. For me this loss is a plus. There’s far too much third rate research in education.

6.  Outdated

Teacher training almost completely ignores the radical shifts in technology and pedagogy, producing teachers who are ill-equipped to deal with technology in learning. These courses lock young teachers into fossilised theory and practice.

7. Performance-based assessment

There’s no better place to assess teachers than in real schools where they really are judged on performance. Far too many teachers have gone through training in the past only to find themselves unsuited to teaching in practice. The drop-out rates are unacceptably high.

Conclusion

The Graduate Teaching Programme and other fastrack programmes have clearly proven their worth. It’s time to recognise that this is a vocational qualification that could do with a lot less theory and more practice.

Professor Alison Wolf – a wolf in wolf’s clothing!

I gave a talk to over 200 experts in vocational education this week and got a round of applause a few minutes in because I had a go at Professor Alison Wolf, Gove’s lapdog, for devaluing 3100 vocational courses in schools  culling them to only 70 accepted courses. How could the person responsible for a recent report that called for parity between academic and vocational learning be responsible for this unprecedented attack on the very thing she said she supported? It’s simple, she’s a hired idealogue, hand-picked by Gove to further his attack on state education. Gove’s a politician who acts on whim, Wolf has a long track record in right-wing stances on education.

Even hard-nosed, free-market CEOs were astonished at the stupidity of the move. Rather than readjust the parity between GCSEs and these qualifications, which would have been easy, he attacked and destroyed the very credibility of vocational education in schools, creating an imbalance that will take decades to reverse. They took a scythe to qualifications that people have worked for years to develop, in particular the Diploma in Engineering, developed with serious employers such as Siemens, Boeing, Toyota, Rolls Royce, Sony and JCB - so much for employer recognition.

What the Wolves and Goves don’t really understand is the degree to which young people are often reignited in education by doing something they see as relevant. More than this, many go on to become entrepreneurs, as they start their own businesses. The Wolves and Goves have no real understanding of entrepreneurship. In a time of riots, financial crises, recession, soaring unemployment, especially among the young and suspicion about the cost and relevance of Higher Education, surely we could have held the Wolf from the door by protecting our progress on vocational education? How do you think the young people doing these qualifications feel when they hear people on television and in the press describe their qualifications as “Micky Mouse” or “dead-end” qualifications. It’s shameful.

Thrown to the Wolves

Professor Wolf is, of course, an ideologue. What’s more the she-Wolf gave birth to another she-Wolf, who is even more of an ideologue – Rachel Wolf. Rachel has no academic background in education, had barely finished as an advisor, first to Boris Johnson then Michael Gove, when at the tender age of 25, she suddenly received from Gove, a cool half million of funding. This was for a charity she had started just a year earlier, called the New Schools Network, advising on ‘free-schools’. There was, of course, no tender - clearly an inside job. Let’s be clear here - this was a lobbying organisation that received direct government funds to advise on educational policy. I should add that this ‘charity’ refuses to name its other benefactors. I wonder why? Could they include some private sector interests in school networks? And yes, you’ve guessed it, there’s a daddy Wolf. Martin Wolf, the well-connected, right-wing chief economics columnist for the Financial Times. This is an Oxbridge family wildly removed from the real world of vocational employment. It would seem that the fate of millions of young people has been thrown to the Wolves.

The real problem

Alison Wolf confused cause and effect. The real cause of the problem is the league tables. Make rankings your goal and people will find a way of climbing them, even if it to the detriment of the students and the value of qualifications. Academics do it all the time. The so-called Times Universities rankings is only a reflection of successful research applications and says nothing about teaching (the supposed 30% for teaching has no direct measurement of teaching and uses irrelevant proxies).  A curious side-effect of this cull is to show that Academies will plummet in the league tables, as last year they had only 7% of students achieve the Ebacc, against 13% for comprehensives. Their own flagships are being thrown to the wolves.

The real solution

The solution was to establish parity or equivalence, not eliminate one side of the equation altogether. If we had taken the advice of Tomlinson all those years ago we would have true parity and not this Middle England, Downton Abbey attitude towards vocational education as ‘trade’, something to be seen as ‘second-best’ even despised as a lower-class pursuit. Sheer snobbery is at the root of this problem.

We now find ourselves in the truly absurd position, when the country is facing massive problems with growth and employment, of valuing Latin above ALL vocational qualifications. For me, the defence of Latin as a worthwhile core subject is the touchstone for snobbery and the sheer refusal to accept research findings. I used to think that education was stuck in the 19^th century, I never imagined, that a decade into the 21^st century, we’d be taking things back to the 1^st century BC!

To be frank, we’re sitting on a social time bomb and rather than showing leadership, a narrow cabal of academics, journalists and politicians, are shortening the fuse.

M-learning – be careful – a 7 point primer

Warning – market’s a mess

Anyone who says cross-platform, m-learning content development and delivery is easy, is lying. A wander round the Learning Technologies exhibition induced a rash of promises that were at best economical with the truth. Mobile leaning vendors seem addicted to the word ‘YES’ in answer to any question. It ain’t that simple. Walk into any mobile shop, such as Carphone Warehouse and witness a fragmented market. Latency, bandwidth, screen size, methods of display, methods of input and the lack of universally adopted or agreed standards – that’s your technical environment. A quick glance will reveal iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Symbian and Palm. It’s all a bit of a mess. So be careful about what’s phones are promised.

Learning limits

Early research on mobile learning showed something that is conveniently ignored by mobile learning evangelists. Attention and retention may be seriously affected by small screen size. Few watch movies, read entire e-books or perform long pieces of linear learning on their mobiles.More worrying is research by Nass & Reeves that shows that retention falls rapidly with screen size. This pushes m-learning towards performance support, recording performance and collaborative learning, rather than courses. So be careful about what type of learning you want to deliver.

Technical complexities

Most serious developers use a tool that creates core code then cross-compiles to create native apps across a range of platforms. This is not easy as these things are difficult to write but the apps will be fast. A variation is to use a VM (Virtual Machine) which may be a bit slower but gives you control and flexibility. Or, more commonly, they will create web applications as browsers increasingly cope with worldwide standards such as HTML 5, Javascript and CSS 3. So be sure that you understand the means of mobile production as it will affect speed and options.

Content complexity

How complex will your content be? The three letter word ‘app’ covers everything from a simple text feed to complex geo-location, camera integrated applications with serious internal logic, interactivity, games and media manipulation. This is not easy in web apps, so be clear about the exact functionality of the apps you want to deliver. You may end up with some very limited options.

Managing through LMS/VLE

You have to consider whether you want integration with your LMS/VLE such as Moodle, Totara or Blackboard? M-learning isolated from your LMS/VLE may be difficult to justify and participation in the LMS/VLE functionality may be desirable. Do you want SCORM compliance?

Performance portal

Do you want the device to control and record performance in more ‘learn by doing’ or vocational applications? This evidence may need to be fed into an e-portfolio. Do you want to use the camera or GPS as part of the learning experience?

Collaborative learning

Is collaborative learning required? Do you want to integrate social media into your app? Or does the device already do this through their normal phone activity?

Conclusion

Take these seven issues seriously and you’re in a position to make a serious decision about whether you want to enter the m-learning market. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is now happening and would encourage participation. But you have to think context as well as content. Mobile learning may be more suited to some target audiences than others, younger not older, mobile not static, vocational not academic. Go into this with your eyes wide open or mobile will simply mean they take your money and run.

Lectures selling students short: evidence from 'Science'

Academics will go to any length to defend the lecture (see twitter feed on my Don't lecture me! talk). No matter how much evidence there is to show that it is poor pedagogic practice, they resist the change. Even worse are those on the technology side in HE who ignore the arguments. They’re like those creationist scientists who have to reconcile empirical evidence with blind faith. In any case, here’s another study (yawn) that proves the obvious – lectures are selling students short.

Lectures v research-based instruction

In this study ‘Improved Learning in a Large-enrollment Physics Class’ by Deslauriers, Schelew & Wieman, from the University of British Columbia, lectures were compared with research-based instruction. The study was well designed with two large groups (n=267 n=271), one taught using an “experienced, highly-trained instructor” who taught using lectures, the other by a “trained but inexperienced instructor” using research-based instruction, based on cognitive science. Both taught an undergraduate physics course on electromagnetic waves with clearly identified learning objectives.

Higher attention, attendance & attainment

The results were astounding. Not only higher engagement and increased student attendance in the non-lecture group but a massive difference in attainment. To be precise, the ‘lectured’ group scored 41% on the test, the ‘interactive’ group 74%. Pretty strong medicine.

Conclusion

The excuse is HE that ‘we’ve always done it this way’ but if other areas of human endeavour were to take this attitude "in medicine we would still be bloodletting, in physics we would be trying to reach the moon with very large rubber bands" says Wieman. The evidence is overwhelming from Bligh to Mazur – lectures don’t work. So let’s cut to the quick here, we have an entire profession ‘lecturers’ whose job title and practice are deeply flawed. Show me a Professor of Education, especially a Professor of E-learning, who lectures, and I’ll show you a hypocrite who doesn’t read the research.

7 reasons why Facebook is front runner in social media learning

There’s a lot of talk about social media in learning but where’s the action? Well, something’s happening in social media and learning, and Facebook is looking like a front runner. I first noticed this through the work of Millie Watts at Richard Huish College (see previous post) and Dr Ray Blunco sums it up in his Social Media in HE’ blog, when he says that the studies he’s run and participated in show that “students will overwhelmingly use Facebook”. Twitter seems to be used less and therefore less relevant and people don’t normally hang out in formal discussion groups in Ning! This has been reinforced by chats with the Facebook folks, who seem to have some serious plans in this area.

1. Why Facebook? They’re all there.

Interestingly, students argue that they prefer Facebook in learning because they’re already there and it’s easy to use. Almost all students are on Facebook and they’re there all of the time receiving updates all day long, so you can tap into their daily flow and make learning a part of their life, not just a chore through talks, tasks and tests. In fact, many report that they already, informally, use Facebook to ask each other questions, make enquiries about assignments and generally catch –up. So it makes sense to amplify that behaviour.

2. Learning automatically mobile

The fact that students get updates on their mobiles, is of course, an obvious advantage. Learning through Facebook, means for most, automatically engaging in mobile learning. This is a big leap forward, as learners spend a lot of wasted time being on the move – walking to educational institutions, hanging around waiting and so on.

3. Facebook - Groups

Let’s dispel the first myth. You don’t have to be ‘friends’ with your students, or respond to their ‘friend’ requests. You simply become a participant in a separate group. So think Facebook groups (not Facebook pages). A formal Facebook group is a private, closed space where you can share, poll, ask questions, chat, share documents, share images and so on. No one else sees the posts. Of course, you also receive notifications of group updates.

4. Tools (apps)

In addition to the group dynamics, there’s a rack of practical tools learners can use, as they can be interested into Facebook, including: Blogger (do teacher and student blogs), Slideshare (share slides), YouTube (show videos), Flickr (share images), CITEME (citation tool that finds and formats citations absolutely brilliant) and so on. We can also expect to see a rack of apps appearing that will accelerate this process.  ‘Appsfor good’ is a charity that runs courses for students in building apps (check them out). This is relevant, entrepreneurial and way beyond what the normal dull ICT curriculum teaches.

5. Facebook for educators

A useful starting point is ‘Facebook for educators’, a well written introduction which explains the basics. It has a useful list of the 'Ways Educators Can Use Facebook':

Help develop and follow your school’s policy about Facebook. 
 Encourage students to follow Facebook’s guidelines. 
Stay up to date about safety and privacy settings on Facebook.
Promote good citizenship in the digital world. 
Use Facebook’s pages and groups features to communicate with students and parents.
Embrace the digital, social, mobile, and “always-on” learning styles of 21st Century students.
Use Facebook as a professional development resource.


6. Civil use of social media
The bottom line is that world class institutions, like Stanford, have Facebook policies and encourage its use on campus. In any case using Facebook in schools, colleges, Universities and workplaces allows us to get the message across about the safe use of the internet, how to report problems, understand privacy settings, being civil, how to deal with cyberbullying etc. Using Facebook kills two birds with one stone – the medium is the message, so use the medium to teach the safe and sensible message.

7. Facebook as professional development

Devote a portion of your next INSET/training day to setting up a Facebook teachers/lecturers/trainers group to share professional knowledge. Surely there’s no better way to learn about the use of social media in learning than to simply get on and use it!

Lastly a shout for some of the good folk who are working hard to bring you advice, examples and so from the world of social media and learning, like Jane Hart, Jane Bozarth and many others.

Why learning in on-places changed my life

I’m a mobile learner. In fact, I’d say that of all the learning experiences in my life, learning on the move has been the most productive. How so? Learning is a habit (see previous post)and I’ve habitually learnt on the move, largely in what Marc Auge calls ‘non-places’ – trains, planes, automobiles, buses, hotels, airports, stations. I’m never without a book, magazine or mobile device for learning. 

Young people not driving

Isn’t it interesting that, according to the University of Michigan, the number of US 17 year olds with a driving licence has fallen from 69% in 1983 to 50% in 2011? Among the several explanations for this, is the rise of the internet. The explosion of communication through texting, chat, Facebook and email, has lessened the need for physical contact. Indeed, driving prevents you from being in the flow, as you can’t be online (legally) when you drive. Young people also choose to spend their money on small, electronic shiny devices, like smartphones, rather than large, hugely expensive, shiny, mechanical cars, which they may see as environmentally unsound. On top of this costs have soared, especially for fuel and insurance.

Non-driver

This caught my attention as I’ve never driven a car in my life. Don’t get me wrong it’s been more happenstance than moral stance. I’ve lived in cities such as Edinburgh, London and now Brighton, where a car is just not that useful. I’ve never really been stuck, in terms of getting anywhere, with just two exceptions; when I was a student on a campus University in the US and when I worked in Los Angeles. Other than that, my familiarity with public transport, has got me to some pretty obscure places around the world.

Learning time

By luck this has literally given me years of time to read and learn in the isolated and comfortable surroundings of buses, trains, planes and hotels. I actually look forward to travel, as I know I’ll be able to read and think, even write in peace (writing this now on a 6.5 hr flight from Middle East). Being locked away, uninterrupted in a comfortable environment is exactly what I need in terms of attention and reflection. I calculate that over the last 30 years, of not driving, I’ve given myself about 20 days a year study time, totalling 600 days, so I’m heading towards a couple of years of continuous learning.

Non-places

It was the French anthropologist Marc Auge in his book Non-Places, who pointed out that many of us, especially heavy users of public transport, spend considerable amounts of time in railway stations, airports, hotels and other neutral, non-spaces, in transit to somewhere else. The good news is that these places have become havens for learning. I stock up on books, read in the lounge, browse magazines, buy newspapers, and generally see these places as opportunities for reading and refection. Witness the rise of airport bookshops and the commonplace appearance of a Kindle or laptop on trains and aeroplanes.

Conclusion

If you redefine m-learning, as learning on the move and get away from the idea that it’s just content delivered via mobiles, it becomes an important part of the learning landscape. So buy a Kindle, notepad or load up your phone with content. Or stick to books. The important thing is to get into the habit of learning on the move and see non-places as learning spaces.

More pedagogic change in 10 years than last 1000 years – all driven by 10 technology innovations

Pedagogy - one of those words that’s used when people want to sound all academic. So let’s just call it learning practice. Of one thing we can be sure; teaching does not seem to have changed much in the last 100 years. In our Universities, given the stubborn addiction to lectures, it has barely changed in 1000 years. So what’s the real source of pedagogic change?

It’s not education departments who peddle the same old traditional, teacher training courses or train the trainer courses. It’s certainly not schools, colleges and universities which seem to have fossilised practice (to be fair some old practices are sound). It’s certainly not respected pedagogic experts. When they do arise, like Paul Black and Dylan William, they’re largely ignored. Here’s my theory – the primary driver for pedagogic change is something that has changed the behaviours of learners. independently of teachers, teaching and education – the internet. Let me elaborate…..

Suddenly we had Google, then in the last ten years Facebook, Twitter, BBM, MSN Messenger, Wikipedia, YouTube, iTunes, Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox. All of these have had a profound effect on how we learn, through radical shifts in the way we find things out, communicate, collaborate, create, share or play. The internet is a pedagogic engine, changing and shaping the way we learn. In this sense, we’ve had more pedagogic change in the last 10 years than in the last 1000 years – all driven by innovation in technology.

1. Asynchronous – the new default

Education and training have been tied to the tyranny of time and location. Being able to access courses, knowledge and media has been a huge positive flip towards learning where and when you want to learn. Clive Shepherd believes that the new default should be ‘asynchronous learning’ (not realtime) and not the traditional live, face-to-face, synchronous (realtime) classroom course. Only after you’ve exhausted the asynchronous online options should you consider synchronous face-to-face events. What a wonderfully simple idea, a massive pedagogic shift enabled, largely by online technology.

2. Links – free from tyranny of linear learning

The simple hyperlink encourages curiosity and is a leap to more learning. It has allowed us to escape from the linear straightjacket of the lecture or paper bound text (article, report, academic paper, book). It has led to more meaningful learning experiences adding breadth, depth and relevance. Links are a key feature of Wikipedia, online content, articles, reports and huge amounts of posts in social media that finish with a meaningful link. This pedagogic innovation has freed us from the tyranny of linear learning.

3. Search and rescue

Google aren’t kidding when they state their mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. They are well on the way to doing it and while they’re at it, providing educators with the tools, over and above ‘search’ such as Google Docs, Translate, Scholar… the list goes on. They’ve even invested in the Khan Academy. The challenge for every teacher is to ask themselves, ‘Is there anything I’m doing or teaching that can’t be found in Google?’ This pedagogic shift means more independence for learners, less dependence on memorised facts and answers to most questions, 24/7, for free.

4. Wikipedia and death of the expert

Jimmy Wales should get the Nobel Prize. A crowdsourced knowledge base that is bigger, better, easier to use, searchable and in many more languages than any encyclopedia that went before. In addition, it recognises that knowledge has blurred edges, so discussion is available. The 5^th most popular site on the web, everyone uses it – yes everyone. The radical pedagogic shift is not only in the way knowledge is produced but the fact that it’s free, seen as open to discussion and debate, and so damn useful.

5. Facebook and friends

Sarah Bartlett’s study has found that students are keeping Facebook open for collaboration right up to deadline during assignments. Social media is a way of sharing experiences and knowledge with a wide range of friends and weak-tie acquaintances and has changed the way we learn. It allows us to collaborate and access recommended links to learning, as well as learning events in the real world. Being networked means living within a new pedagogic ecosystem.

6. Twitter, texting and posting

There has been a renaissance in reading and writing among young people. They text, BBM, IM, Facebook (primarily a text medium), every day, often many times a day. This is often done even when they have the possibility of voice (mobile) and face-to-face services such as Skype and Facetime, which they often avoid. They are also keenly aware of what channels are archived (text and Facebook) as opposed to discarded (BBM, IM and voice). Far from drifting towards high end media, text is alive and kicking.

7. Youtube – less is more and ‘knowing how’

YouTube has changed the way we use video in learning for ever. The irreversible change is the idea that a piece of video needs to be as long as it needs to be, not an overlong, over-produced mini-TV production. This is why the 1 hour recorded lectures on YouTube EDU and iTunes U seem so damn awful. Why replicate bad pedagogy online? It also proved Nass & Reeves original study was right that high-fidelity video is not essential. YouTube has shown us how to do video, keep it short and that we don’t need big budgets to do good stuff. More importantly, for ‘knowing how’ as opposed to ‘knowing that’, it has proved incredibly powerful.

8. Games

Games have brought the proven sophistication of flight simulation into our homes and shown that failure (abhorred in traditional teaching) is the key to learning. Repetition, reinforcement, deep processing, learn by doing and fine-tuned assessment are all features of gameplay. Games, and console hardware has opened up possibilities for simulations and experiential learning that is already shaping learning in the military and healthcare. The multiplayer dimension is also changing the way we see the pedagogy of collaboration in learning. Gameplay is just another word for sophisticated, experiential pedagogy.

9. Tools

This is not often recognised but the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tools have effected a considerable change on pedagogy. Word processing has changed, irreversibly, the way we write (reorder, redraft, use reference, citations, spellcheck, grammar check) as well as providing graphics and layout tools. Our digital documents are also replicable and easily sent by email. Spreadsheets have given us the ability, not only to do formula driven work, especially in functional maths useful in business and science, but also driven the easy and flexible representation of data as graphics. Presentation tools have allowed us to present text, graphics, photographs and even video into teaching and learning. Tools, pedagogically, allow us to teach and learn at a much higher level.

10. Open source

Open source in coding led to the idea of open source in tools and knowledge. From MIT Courseware to Project Gutenberg, huge amounts of learning have been made available online, across the globe, for free. Free books alone have opened up the canon in a way we could never have imagined, fuelling the e-book revolution. In this age of digital abundance, open and free content is the democratisation of knowledge. This is truly a digital reformation that has swept aside unnecessary barriers to access. Pedagogy, in this sense, has been freed from institutional teaching.

Conclusion

These are ground breaking shifts in the way we learn. Unfortunately, they’re not matched by the way we teach. The growing gap between teaching practice and learning practice is acute and growing. Institutional teaching, especially in Universities is hanging on to the pedagogic fossil that is the lecture. The word pedagogy has become a hollow appeal for traditional lectures, classroom teaching and summative assessment. The true driver for positive, pedagogic change is the internet.

21st Century Skills are so last century!

The new mantra, the next big thing, among educators who need a serious sounding phrase to rattle around in reports is ‘21^st Century Skills’. I hear it often, almost always in some overlong, text-heavy, Powerpoint presentation at an educational conference, where collaboration, creativity, communication and emotional intelligence skills are in short supply. Thank god for wifi!

But does this idee fixe bear scrutiny? In a nice piece of work by Stepahnie Otttenheijm, she asked (radical eh?) some youngsters what 21^st C skills they thought they’d need. Not one of the usual suspects came up. They were less vague, much bolder and far more realistic. Rather than these usual suspects and abstract nouns, they wanted to know how to create and maintain a strong digital identity, be nice, recognise what’s learnt outside school, learn how to search use my Facebook privacy settings. My suspicion is that they know far more about this than we adults.

Collaboration and sharing

Young people communicate and collaborate every few minutes – it’s an obsession. They text, MSN, BBM, Instagram, Facebook, Facebook message, Facebook chat and Skype. Note the absence of email and Twitter. Then there’s Spotify, Soundcloud, Flickr, YouTube and Bitorrent to share, tag, upload and download experiences, comments, photographs, video and media. They also collaborate closely in parties when playing games. Never have the young shared so much, so often in so many different ways. Then along comes someone who wants to teach them this so called 21^st C skill, usually in a classroom, where all of this is banned. I’m always amused at this conceit, that we adults, especially in education, think we even have the skills we claim we want to teach. There is no area of human endeavour that is less collaborative than education. Teaching and lecturing are largely lone-wolf activities in classrooms. Schools, colleges and Universities share little. Educational professionals are deeply suspicious of anything produced outside of their classroom or their institution. The culture of NIH (Not Invented Here) is endemic. 

Communication

Again, we live in the age of abundant communication. There’s been a renaissance in writing among young people, who have become masters at smart, concise dialogue. The mobile has taken communication to new levels of sophistication. They know what channel to use, in terms of whether it’s archived or not, synchronous or asynchronous. Texts and Facebook comments are archived, some messages are not (voice). You call people, synchronously, when you want them to make a decision. Text is asynchronous, therefore slower, more relaxed. They can also handle multiple, open channels at the same time. What do we educators have to offer on this front? Whiteboards?  Some groupwork round a table? Not one single teacher in the school my sons attend has an email address available for parents. I’ve just attended two major European conference where only a handful of the participants used Twitter. What do we know - really?

Problem solving

Problem solving is a complex skill and there are serious techniques that you can learn to problem solve such as breakdown, root-cause analysis etc. I’m not at all convinced that many subject-focussed teachers and lecturers know what these generic techniques are. Problem solving for a maths teacher may be factoring equations of finding a proof but they’re the last people I’d call on to solve anything else in life. Do teachers actually know what generic problem solving is or is it seen as some skill that is acquired through osmosis when a group of kids get together to make a movie?

Creativity

Beware of big, abstract nouns. This one has become a cipher for almost everything and nothing. I have no problem with art and drama departments talking about creativity but why does creativity have to be injected into all education. Creative people tend to struggle somewhat at school where academic subjects and exams brand them as failures. When it comes to creativity, my own view is that the music, drama and other creative skills my own offspring have gained, have mostly been acquired outside of school.

Critical thinking

I have some sympathy with this one, as critical thinking is sometimes well taught in good schools and universities, but it needs high quality teaching and the whole curriculum and system of assessment needs to adjust to this need. However, as Arun has shown, there is evidence that in our Universities, this is not happening. Arun (2011), in a study they tracked a nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 students who entered 24 four-year colleges, showed that Universities were failing badly on the three skills they studied; critical thinking, complex reasoning and communications. This research, along with similar evidence, is laid out in their book Academically Adrift.

Digital literacy

Across the world young people have collaborated on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to bring about change. Not one of them has been on a digital literacy course. And, in any case, who are these older teachers who know enough about digital literacy to teach these young people? And how do they teach it – through collaborative, communication on media using social media – NO. By and large this stuff is shunned in schools. We learn digital literacy by doing, largely outside of academe. To be frank, it’s not something they know much about.

Conclusion

Beneath all this, is there just a rather old, top-down, command and control idea – that we know what’s best for them? Isn’t it just the old master-pupil model dressed up in new clothes? In this case, I suspect they know better. There’s a brazen conceit here, that educators know with certainty that these are the chosen skills for the next 100 years. Are we simply fetishising the skills of the current management class? Was there a sudden break between these skills in the last compared to this century? No. What’s changed is the need to understand the wider range of possible communication channels. This comes through mass adoption and practice, not formal school and university. It is an illusion that these skills were ever, or even can be, taught at school. Teachers have enough on their plate without being given this burden. I’ve seen no evidence that teachers have the disposition, or training, to teach these skills. In fact, in universities, I’d argue that smart, highly analytic, research-driven academics tend, in my experience, often to have low skills in these areas. , formal environment is not the answer. Pushing rounded, sophisticated, informal skills into a square, subject-defined environment is not the answer. Surely it’s our schools and universities, not young people, who need to be dragged into the 21^st century.