Summary

Students use a variety of methods to attempt to learn or give the appearance of learning. We propose a model for what we call the Capable Learner . We consider how to encourage students to adopt this vision for themselves.

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Outline

Introduction

1. Learning Styles Model
   1. Feeling Mode
   2. Reasoning Mode
   3. Believing Mode
2. The Capable Learner Vision
3. Strategy to make the vision real
   • Tasks required to implement the strategy.

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I have a rough descriptive model for the way a student usually approaches the task of learning and a normative vision. First, I will describe the model. Second, I will describe the vision for what I call the capable student. Finally, I will propose a strategy that will encourage the desired change. The model for a student's habitual learning approach focuses on three distinct modes in which a student can attempt to learn. These are: sensation or feeling, belief or faith, and third, thinking or reasoning. I assert that if we could quantify to what extent the student attempts to use each of these, we would have a useful basis for a theory of human learning.

Feeling Mode

Feeling is so basic that we assume that babies do it and we easily regard animals as feeling also. We assume that we have been seeing, hearing, and touching ever since our birth. Feeling is the core of what physicists like to call naive realism, the philosophy that the world is very much like what we perceive. In spite of this pejorative, our sensations are indeed the final arbitrars of both taste and knowledge.

A person who attempts to learn through his or her sensations is likely to specialize in one particular sense. This gives rise to the term "style of learning" which we characterize as dominant in visual, auditory, or kinesthetic interactions.

There seems to be an element of innate talent for sensory abilities. We can all recall acquaintances who demonstrate exceptional ability to capture information via sight, sound or touch.

These sensory learning styles are obviously applicable to the arts but by no means are they restricted to them. Indeed, one purpose of theory in science is to generate information that can be interpreted as extensions of our senses, thus allowing us to continue with sensory learning without direct contact. The telescope, the microscope, ultraviolet and infrared radiation detectors illustrate this principle.

Reasoning Mode

The thinking or reasoning mode, especially as applied in the sciences, is an attempt to extend our knowlege beyond that which is immediately accessible to the senses, but in a way that is consistent with them. Thus, the student of science learns to use his reason to predict from theoretical assumptions what s/he is likely to observe.

In addition, the "abstract disciplines" like mathematics, philosophy, and logic focus on reasoning mode almost exclusively. Reasoning mode is heavily dependent on language skills as well, both natural human languages and the artificial languages of mathematics and symbolic logic.

There is a definite bias on the part of many academics in favor of reasoning mode as compared with feeling mode. This bias is partially counterbalanced by esthetic concerns common to the fine arts and literature.

There is general agreement among many academics that at least the maximum potential reasoning ability is innate and that there are thus natural limits to what we can expect of some students. Perhaps in this age of egalitarianism, this assertion would not be easily accepted as polite, but there is empirical evidence that some people find convincing.

Believing Mode

Finally, what I have called the "belief or faith" mode of learning is the most common in our homes, churches, and schools. In this mode, the student attempts to remember verbal formulae that some authority (parent or teacher) has alleged as "true".

The credibility of some authority figure is such that his/her statements are unchallenged by all except a rebellious minority of students. When adolescents begin to question authority, the effectiveness of the faith mode of learning declines and few students have the resources to develop an alternative. What many university professors and secondary teachers forget is that they are not automatically credible. To be effective, they must convince skeptical students to trust them. Skipping this step may prejudice the success of their course.

Often a student makes a devil's bargain to pretend to accept the instructor's authority for the purposes of completing course requirements. The natural outcome of this practice of deceit is cynicism. The concentration on this form of learning is so complete that many students fail to recognize that there is any other kind. Since most of their experience with learning has been involved with this approach, it is reasonable to assume that our students rarely develop skill in reasoning or observation without explicit instruction.

The Capable Learner Vision

First, a capable learner is able to recognize each learning mode. The student should recognize when an instructor's approach demands sensory attention to events, abstract or concrete reasoning, or pure memorization. Further, the capable learner avoids the frustration of one who doesn't know how to profit from his courses.

My vision of a capable learner is one who is conscious of using his or her mind as a reliable tool for learning. Thus such a student will identify one or more learning objectives, build a plan to achieve these objectives with those skills in which s/he has confidence, and execute the plan.

The willingness and ability to evaluate one's own work is an essential component of successful learning. The ideal student will take time to review the solution to a problem to be sure it is both correct and understandable and to determine if there are any lessons of long term value on which s/he should focus.

Strategy to make the vision real

Due to the bias in favor of faith learning (also called "rote"), we need to do something special to avoid overdependence on this approach. Certainly, one thing that many professors already attempt is to advise students early that memorization alone will not allow them to succeed.

Whatever strategy we adopt, it should take advantage of the resources available in the cooperative learning environment. A single professor will not have the ability to interact with each of thirty individuals to achieve this profound change. I suggest that we arrange matters so that students are thrown together and must divulge their study patterns.

Thus, our first requirement is an instrument that will allow students to make a quantitative assessment of their own styles. Rather than digress to consider now how to achieve this, let us simply put it on a queue of tasks we need to accomplish.

Since the self-revelation implicit by sharing a self-assessment with one's peers is likely to be unfamiliar if not threatening, we need to provide a structured context in which it appears natural. This gives rise to a second task which we will add to the agenda.

A public commitment to personal change is useful to help one maintain the discipline required. We need to have some rite of passage in which a student makes such a commitment, not because the instructor demands it, but because the student "feels" it appropriate.

In order for the change to be effective, the student must perceive that something has improved. Some benefit that the student appreciates must accrue when the evidence of change is patent. For evidence, we will suggest a repeat of the self-assessment, reevaluating strategies.

Tasks required to implement the strategy.

1. Find or develop a methodology for self-assessment of learning styles by students.
2. Find or develop a non-threatening context for sharing self-assessments generated by the instrument of TASK 1.
3. Find or develop a means whereby a student can make a public commitment to practicing different learning styles without undue pressure from others.
4. Find or develop a means for peer group evaluation of learning styles used in group activities.
5. Determine a benefit to which the student becomes heir when s/he demonstrates the desired change in learning style.

Please send comments to DickBeldin@prdigital.com