I claim to have learnt – what evidence is there for my claim and what learning theories have influenced me?

15^th Oct 06 Marie Huxtable

I am writing to try to clarify my thinking and to contribute to the group of educators working on producing their living theory accounts for accreditation on the masters' programme by explicating some of the learning theories that have influenced me over the years.

When the group was asked what learning theories they knew and had influenced them I became excited. You may think this a rather sad state of affairs but for me it was an opportunity to reminisce and revisit 'old friends'. I am often not aware of how far theories have contributed to my developing practice and find it difficult to quote chapter let alone verse and rarely date and publication. Looking back at a couple of papers that have been an emotional and cognitive struggle for me to produce I can see where I have taken, developed and at times possibly even violated the originators intentions, in seeking to progress my own thinking and practice. I think it is the opportunity to explore my journey through communicating with, rather than simply to, others that excited me enough in the group to say I would write about it. I agree with Gardner (1996) when he writes

As you delve further into the topic, it can be instructive to return to these earlier thoughts and see the ways in which you own thinking has changed and, in the best instance, to realise how your understanding has deepened. (p. 1)

So, good reader, you can help me by critiquing my claim to know how I have influenced my own learning, work with me to co-create new understandings and by telling me if I have communicated in a way that excites you to go forth and reminisce a little to bring back into your consciousness learning theories that have influenced you as a learner.

Introduction

Psychology has excited me since I first began my acquaintance with it as a discipline. I was fortunate in my introduction; my first degree in Hull gave me a broad sweep of the richness of the discipline - social, abnormal, experimental, ethological (my original interest), developmental... and included a brief – and to me puzzling – introduction to related disciplines such as philosophy and statistics. I have never been able to say what exactly psychology is but I have always associated it with 'learning' – and for me that means change – the what, how, why of change. It is change that interests me and the possibility of understanding and directing that change educationally that excites me. A megalomaniac in the making? I hope not; I both want that increasing possibility to control and direct change for myself and for others, as with control comes power, and I want a power with, not over, others to co-create a future that is humane.

In the BERA paper (2006) I have begun to think of educational psychology as:

'comprising a living body of knowledge, skills, understandings and values concerning how, why, when, where and what humans learn, expressed and researched with an educational intent through the generation of living educational theories and practice.'

My meaning of 'educational intent' is communicated through phrases such as:-

'I want to enable children and young people to build an understanding of what they want to commit time and effort to during their lifetimes that will enable them to live satisfying and productive lives without imposing my own values and needs.'

'I want to extend the variety of educational contexts in which children can learn about their own living values that they hold as their standards of what is or is not a satisfying and productive life and enabling them to increasingly understand their own embodied living educational theories so they can take control over themselves and the destinies they want to create in a world they want to live in.'

'I want them to learn skills, understandings and values which will enable them to do this with increasing independence.'

Since I started enjoying psychology and education I have taken to many theories and practices and discarded others. With a plethora of theories I have wondered about the criteria used to decide which theory is the best one; why should I choose one rather than another. Some I discard because I can pick too many holes in them even with my limited analytic ability but for the most part, if I am honest when it comes down to it I get excited by theories and practices that support what I believe in. I think I learnt that early when I did my first degree in psychology and was confronted at the time with the ideas of people like Eysenk and Jensen while involved in the students' antiapartheid action. I think Gould (1996) puts the position beautifully but I am perhaps taking it further than Gould would, to suggest that is the approach I have taken to pursuing theories and ideas:

We must identify preferences in order to constrain their influence ion our work, but we do not go astray when we use such preferences to decide what subjects we wish to pursue. Life is short, and potential studies infinite. We have a much better chance of accomplishing something significant when we follow our passionate interests and work in areas of deepest personal meaning. Of course such a strategy increases dangers of prejudice, but the gain in dedication can overbalance any such worry, especially if we remain equally committed to the overarching general goal of fairness, and fiercely committed to constant vigilance and scrutiny of our personal biases. (p. 37)

The interest I have in theories that I believe are not consistent with my desire to live in a humane world is limited. I have found that by engaging with antithetical ideas I can sharpen my analytic and debating skills but they consume a lot of energy which I could more profitably spend working with ideas that enable me to be constructive rather than destructive. I prefer to engage with work by author's whose theories carry hope for me and might share a vision of a world in which I want to live, even if I don't necessarily agree with how they think we should travel. Gould () puts it rather nicely as to why some theories capture my imagination.

But I am willing to bet that passion must be the central ingredient needed to lift such books above the ordinary, and that most works of nonfiction regarded by our culture as classical or enduring are centred in their author's deep beliefs. (p. 39)

And Dweck (2000)

Because I am first and foremost a researcher, I have tried to convey to the reader my love of the research process – how research can address deep and real questions in a precise way, how exciting it is to learn something important you didn't know before, and how each study raises pressing new questions for the next study to explore. Research lures you down unchartered paths, with each turn revealing something new. ( p. ix)

I hope this introduction gives you an understanding that I believe that the energy and passion that a person is willing to commit to a creative, disciplined, learning journey is core to how they fare.

I would like to be able to tell you how this psychologist or that influenced me but I have a poor memory for specifics and I am aware of the bias in what I remember. For instance I remember the idea mentioned in a lecture in my first degree of J. B. Watson's as that anyone could be taught anything given the right teaching, and sufficient time and motivation:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years. (Watson 1930)

If anyone is looking for an eloquent repudiation of the theories of biologically determined limits to learning, and the classification and ranking of people according to their supposed genetic gifts I would suggest they read Gould's The Mismeasure of Man. In the introduction he clearly identifies his own prejudices and reasons for writing. If you are not aware of the range of thinking in the area of 'intelligence' then I would suggest Gardner's (1996) book Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives gives a palatable overview. His introduction starts by inviting you to

... sit back and think about what intelligence means to you. In doing so, you might ask yourself: What do I think intelligence is? Is it one ability? Many abilities? Is it a property of the individual's brain? Can intelligence be changed? If so, how? Who is intelligent? Why do I think this is? In what ways might my ideas about intelligence be similar to, and different form, those of other people?(p. 1)

He should also have invited you to reflect further on your cultural context. Barry Hymer in the draft of his doctoral thesis points out:

In Japan, western preoccupations with concepts such as intelligence can cause bewilderment. In a recent (27 April 2006) conversation with Prof Lauren Resnick of Pittsburgh University, she described to me a mealtime encounter with a group of Japanese academics, in which they struggled to provide an equivalent term for the concept of intelligence within their own culture. In the end, they suggested the term niceness as the closest approximation!

Examples of learning in an international educational context can be seen from the work of educators working with Moira Laidlaw in China http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/moira.shtml , Jackie Delong in Canada http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/passion/index.html and Branko Bognar in Croatia URL.

So I urge you to read texts on intelligence with an awareness that they represent a very eurocentric reality. Given that as the health warning you may want to look at http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/map.shtml which gives a History of Influences in the development of Intelligence Theory and Testing – and I would add that is from an American's point of view. If you are interested I have given a few further references in appendix 1 and on http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathNES/learning/inclusionsupport/apex/High+Ability+some+general+background.htm

I am aware of these theories but although they have dominated the world of education I have lived and worked in they actually have very little educational influence on me as a learner. I describe what has influenced me in the Gifted and Talented arena as clearly as I could in Everyone a Winner – Towards Exceptional Achievement of All.

The latest contribution to my thinking and practice has been through engaging with Dweck's work (2000) on self theories where she suggests that the concept I hold of 'intelligence' influences how I am prepared to engage with learning opportunities. For instance if I believe I am smart I will avoid situations where I can fail and feel I am foolish, if I believe I can learn to be smart I will embrace opportunities I find challenging as opportunities to learn to be smarter. It has very obvious implications for the current focus on the 'gifted and talented' agenda. I have begun to explore Whitehead's notion of embodied educational theories. I have been of the view 'gifts and talents' are constructions and I have used Renzulli's ideas of different learning opportunities to extend the opportunities for children to find where their passions might lay. A brief resume of different types of learning opportunities highlighted for me that there are few opportunities for children to engage as 'expert enquirers'; or as I have conceptualised it – an opportunity to pursue an enquiry of personal interest, in a disciplined manner with a valued outcome and within a time frame. I understood a 'disciplined manner' could be described by an action research cycle or by Belle Wallace's TASC wheel but this did not seem to open the possibility of a child explicating their embodied educational theories as Whitehead describes and which Dweck shows impacts on their educational journey. What influence have these theories had in my practice? I have created collaborative learning opportunities where children and teachers can work together with a discipline expert to have a taste of being a member of a guild (as Chris White describes it) of writers, mathematicians, choreographers, scientists... This however does not provide the extended opportunity with the support required for engaging in an expert enquiry however. So I am working with educators to engage them in their living theory research and encouraging them to extend their work to engage their pupils as living theory researchers. Belle Wallace and Branko Bognar have shown what is possible with children – I want to find a way of linking those insights through a TASC knot to find if it is possible for children to extend the sophistication with which they enquire into a discipline and through (not separate from) that process extend their sophistication in exposing and working with their own living values and living educational theories towards living more satisfying and productive lives as they mature.

I hope I have been able to demonstrate to you how the theories of Renzulli, Wallace, Whitehead, and Dweck have influenced me as a learner and hence my practice. I also claim that I can now articulate some of my 'embodied theories' with some clarity and authority and offer the article I had accepted for publication in a credible journal, Gifted Education International, as evidence. I also offer an extract from an email from a Head teacher in response to the article to show that I have been sufficiently clear in my communication to influence someone else.

... very thought provoking and opened the pathways for discussing and rethinking more traditional views of gifted and talented registers, and associated practice.  The text was very accessible and it made me laugh out loud in several places, as I related key points made to personal experiences in the classroom.  ... I have subsequently felt compelled to share with several other teachers who have also enjoyed and responded positively to the messages contained within. (email received 4^th Sept 05)

Other learning theories have influenced my learning when I take time to reflect, for instance Renzulli (1997), Sternberg (1990), Freeman (1998), Adey (2002), and Gardner (1993) and more recently Dweck (1998) and Whitehead (1996). I gave an account of what sense I made of these people's work in the appendix to an enquiry presented as an accredited module in a masters programme. ()

Some key influences in my learning journey

Sternberg's book on 'Successful Intelligence' resonated at a time that I was thinking about what attributes a successful learner had. His ideas about 'creative', 'analytic' and 'practical' intelligence and how they interplayed made 'common sense'. Freeman's (1998) work challenged the mythology surrounding high ability and introduced me to learning and identification of ability through engagement in different levels of learning opportunities; her sports approach. Renzulli's work connected and extended my thinking from Sternberg and Freeman, though his concept of 3 rings of giftedness; analytic and creative, but now with a place within his model demonstrating the importance of task commitment with an understanding of high achievement. His School Wide Enrichment Model revolutionised my understanding of the interplay of different types of learning opportunities in stimulating and supporting learning. The work of Adey linked the concept of 'teachable intelligence' directly with the curriculum through his work on CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education). Gardner's work on multiple intelligences became increasingly popular and made me think further about my understanding of the notion of 'intelligence', learning styles, preferred areas of performance and how this was being interpreted in schools. Finally I was introduced to Dweck's work and found her ideas on how the theories a person holds about the nature of intelligence; 'entity' or 'incremental' has direct implications for how they view themselves and act, linked with my still embryonic understanding of Whitehead's living values, living educational theories and living contradictions. (Appendix 2)

So, the learning theories I want to revisit are selected on the basis that they have done something for me, they have enabled me to justify what I do and change my practice from a considered position, hopefully for the better.

It is more difficult for me to look back into the dim and distant past and remember what learning theories influenced me then and how they influence me know as a learner. Some of the earliest learning theories I enjoyed in my career as an educational psychologist in schools has got to be those by Bloom, Mager, Haring, Gagne, Bereiter and Engelmann. I liked the clarity, the transparency and the logical precision that objectives based learning and direct instruction offered.

Bloom has had a resurgence and can be found in the DFES strategies but interestingly the original books are out of print. I think this a real pity as his original text has lost a lot in its simplification and various subsequent uses and misuses. If I can give you a flavour of what I mean, Bloom wrote in the foreword:

You are reading about an attempt to build a taxonomy of educational objectives. It is intended to provide for classification of the goals of our educational system. It is expected to be of general help to all teachers, administrators, professional specialists, and research workers who deal with curricular and evaluation problems. It is especially intended to help them discuss these problems with greater precision. For example, some teachers believe their students should 'really understand,' others desire their students to 'internalise knowledge,' still others want their students to 'grasp the core or essence' or 'comprehend.' Do they all mean the same thing? Specifically, what does a student do who 'really understands' which he does not do when he does not understand? Through reference to the taxonomy as a set of standard classifications, teacher should be able to define such nebulous terms as those given above. This should facilitate the exchange of information about their curricular developments and evaluation devises. Such interchanges are frequently disappointing now because all too frequently what appears to be common ground between schools disappears on closer examination of the descriptive terms being used.

But beyond this, the taxonomy should be a source of constructive help on these problems. Teachers building a curriculum should find here a range of possible educational goals or outcomes in the cognitive area... (p1)

I found Bloom's taxonomy interesting in the explicit acknowledgement that learning was not a unitary concept and that we often talk, unintentionally, at cross purposes. It is interesting that what started as a taxonomy was turned into a hierarchy and is worked through from bottom to top by many in curriculum planning with extension material planned for the quicker students using the 'top' or 'higher order thinking' levels. I wondered about this for a long time. I think the use is mistaken although I still find the ideas interesting and they are considerably richer in the original than the pale simplification presently being portrayed. However you might like one version of Bloom's taxonomy to play with; I would acknowledge source but it has been lost in history.

You can see that 'learning' and 'thinking' are used interchangeably. I quite like this representation as Bloom is often seen as a hierarchy as well as a taxonomy. I am not altogether comfortable with the use of his work to dictate a hierarchy of teaching and the creation of learning opportunities but I will come to that later.

Before I leave Bloom it might be worth remembering that only one of the books is usually referred to. The second part of the taxonomy focussed on the affective domain and the third on the psychomotor. It is the same with Mager. The popular work that I read with enthusiasm was Preparing Instructional Objectives, his book on Developing Attitude Toward Learning was less commonly read. I found his first paragraph in the latter still carries meaning for me:

People influence people. Since you are people, then you influence people. That's clear enough. But do you know just how you influence people? Do you know that you can have a great deal of control over the favourability of your influence (Mager, 1968 p. 3)

And reading his Preface reminds me that even back in my behavioural days I had an inkling that there was much more to learning than the 'what'; the message was carried in the medium.

There is no question that what we teach is often different from what we tell. Sometimes we teach the beauty and importance of a subject as well as the substance of it. Sometimes, though, we teach people to dislike, and then to avoid, the very subject we are teaching them about...

If you don not care whether your student use what you have taken the trouble to teach them, this book is not for you.

I would like to tell you that it was this book that I worked with but it was his other one on Preparing Instructional Objectives that I found most use back then. It gave me a quick and easy introduction to writing instructional objectives that I don't think has been bettered. It is one of the reasons that I think that the current obsession with smart targets has missed the point. A couple of hours reading and you can become skilled at writing them and yet nearly 30 years later the same obsession exists. It is not complicated; on the basis of that book and applying the principles of Gagne's instructional design and a few ideas from direct instruction colleagues and I put together a course on A Model for Clarifying Concerns and Intervention that has the same success rate now as then for teaching teachers to write teaching goals and target objectives – and yet the complaint is still made that teachers don't write smart targets. I also found that a fairly vague teaching goal seemed to bring about the desired change and it was the idea of target objectives that seemed to be more influential than the actual use in planning intervention. The underlying principles seem similar to solution focussed therapy, motivational interviewing and positive imaging and the results are similar. Actually looking for what you want is enough – I worked on a sight vocabulary scheme with a colleague and decided to baseline by asking teachers to use a very simple precision teaching tool and graph the result daily with their pupils. We didn't get as far as trying out the scheme – the children made too much progress during the baseline period.

So what learning have I taken from that experience of working with those theories? As I said I found I could plan effective methods for transmitting skills, but the change in the practice of educators that seemed to reflect in changes in the children were not to do with how precisely the intervention was planned.

Which brings me to Haring and his hierarchy:

I must say I really liked Haring and this simple hierarchy has had a great deal of influence on me; the descriptions he gave of the levels of skill acquisition seem to fit so well with what teachers describe of the type of the learning behaviour of their pupils. The early acquisition phase when teachers said, s/he knows it some days but not others, the fluency building where s/he is accurate but not fast, the generalisation phase where s/he could use the skill in one context but not another, and the adaptation phase where s/he learnt to put skills together in novel ways to deal with novel problems. I still like it. With skills I am slow to acquire I can see myself going through the phases, l can see the problems created for a child when educators do not provide opportunities for the child to build a confidence and competence with one skill set before introducing the next, when I have explained a problem of learning in terms of the hierarchy it has made sense to teachers and children and I have been able to agree a very simple intervention programme of test – record – teach – to get them going. Interestingly I was rarely asked over the years as a school psychologist for support in programme design beyond the acquisition and fluency building stages; as with Bloom the focus has been almost without exception at the 'early stages'. Why? Maybe that once some movement had been made teachers could deal with the 'higher levels' without specifically focussed intervention. I don't think so for the most part – the children would often continue to be described as having 'learning problems' as Haring describes at the generalisation and adaptation stage. I think it might have more to do with how 'learning' is conceptualised in school and the focus on measurable outcomes in terms of skill repetition, or 'surface learning' as John West Burnham puts it.

I will jump a bit as I have only been aware of West Burnham's theories in the last few years but his ideas of surface, deep and profound learning have interested me. The slides from the presentation I did in Durham in May 2005 capture the flavour quite well. You can also see how far I had moved from understanding learning as skills acquisition to knowledge creation.

You also get a flavour of how I am conceptualising learning from this slide.

I would like to introduce you to a few other learning theories before I move on to say how I think they have influenced me. You may begin to see how my thinking has progressed and help me by introducing me to ideas that connect with that train of thought or perhaps challenge some of the assumptions you can see I am making.

My thinking took a jump as I developed my work on high ability and struggled with the concepts of ability that were dominant in the late 1990s.

Renzulli introduced me to the idea of different types of learning opportunities which are systemically related. If you will forgive me taking some short cuts I would like to summarise them as

So how can I show what influence some of these theories have influenced me. When I say influenced me I do not necessarily mean that I have accepted the interpretation that the originators held for them. Working with the ideas of Haring and people like Tweddle and Ainscow I very neatly devised reading programmes, spelling programmes – skills training programmes which I could feel satisfied that I had some idea why I had constructed them in the way I had and could demonstrate pupils progressed. I was also aware of the limitations of how far skills analysis and training approach could go but worked on the basis that if children acquired the basic skills and they had evidence they could accept of their ability to learn something they previously thought they couldn't then that was a step in the right direction. I enjoyed working with these basic skills based programmes, teachers seemed to appreciate I offered them something they had not thought of and the children seemed to feel better about themselves. I recognised there were other approaches such as 'paired reading' that had similar success rates which opened possibilities beyond the simple skills into the upper parts of both Bloom's and Haring's hierarchies. I also appreciated that more often I felt my 'use' had been in just listening to the teachers, children and parents and as they talked out their concerns they recognised what they were and what they wanted to do about them. In fact I am not sure I have anything better to offer now. The same sort of success rate is found with approaches that have got impressive titles like 'solution focussed therapy', appreciative enquiry, cognitive therapy. How does this connect up with any learning theories? I think perhaps I don't want to separate learning skills and creating knowledge in the sense that one is better than the other. Renzulli helped me articulate that – the opportunities that whetted the appetite, that provided the opportunities to acquire identified skills through planned learning outcomes and the enquiry based

Gagne http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Gagne.htm

http://www.ittheory.com/gagne1.htm puts Gagne and theories in historical context

Bandura

Resnick

Maslow

http://www.emtech.net/learning_theories.htm nice summary and access to other sites of a lot of theorists

Reference:

Bloom B. S. Ed (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals; New York: David McKay

Gould S. J. (1996) The Mismeasure of Man; London: Norton

Haring N, Lovitt T, Eaton M, Hansen C (1978) The Fourth R Research in the Classroom. Charles Merrill Pub

Mager R. F. (1968) Developing Attitude Toward Learning; Belmont, California: Fearnon-Pitman