(IMAESCII516) Weekly Forum Reflection 2 - On learning theories I subscribe to...and even question!
(N.B. Although this post is for a class requirement; and posts like this has to be compressed into 150 words, I am challenged by how personal this story is for me. Apologies. ;-))
Being involved in the executive education (ExecEd) and capacity building for several countries in Asia and in some parts of Europe, Americas and Africa, I can provide 3 major observations on how adult learners generally perceive their face-to-face interactions in these programmes.
1. Lecturing is the norm, but not preferred. One major feedback that I normally read from the evaluation forms of ExecEd participants after each course is that some of the full-time faculty our university appointed to teach in some programmes tend to simply ‘lecture’ essential concepts that students could possibly learn by reading the recommended books and other sources. For many of these participants, they looked forward to attending ExecEd classes because they perceive it could give them the space to reflect, re-evaluate and process the observations they have gained from their professional experiences. Facilitators are expected to combine and synthesise their observations, frame it into a usable chunk(s) of information, or anchor it to existing theories and even best practices out there. In some instances, they would rather have practitioners co-facilitating with the faculty because they come from the similar sector whose breadth and depth of experiences likely resonate from their own.
2. Adult Students prefer to interact and socialise. Unless the professor is there to just demonstrate their academic prowess, their long litany of proven theories and scientific journals and awards, learning will not be effective and worthwhile for them. Participants prefer interactivity such as interviewing people with similar or even unfamiliar backgrounds and professions, even from other nationalities. Learning in teams especially when working on problem-solving and personal reflections raises the interest and engagement of our participants. In my public policy classes, learning visits to different organisations, government agencies and even meeting strangers at the streets keep the participants grounded. With that, they appreciate how such policies are conceptualised, implemented and evaluated at the policy and implementation level; at the same time how these policies are felt (or even not felt) by people these policies were supposedly designed for.
3. Effective learning experience could bring fruitful rewards. At the conclusion in one of my ExecEd programmes, the entire class agreed to continuously work on the projects they ideated and presented on the final day of the course. The professionals were all from the water sector. Despite our respective distances, we still continue to share information, update each other on our work, and even visit each other physically in their countries (before COVID-19) after the programme. Our learning community has expanded in many different forms – from physical to virtual and even psychological, with each sharing a mindset to continue working for the improvement of water service delivery in their countries and communities.
I shared this experience because I think that I have applied the Constructivist Model in many of my programmes, without myself knowing what this theory is all about...until this class. In a modest sense, I was a witness to the different constructivist versions in the way I organised my ExecEd classes before. And such pedagogical experiences when teaching adults (not necessarily online) have proven beneficial for them in the long run. Knowledge-retention, co-creation of knowledge and even knowledge diffusion, in my opinion, works properly in such kind of set-up.
I wonder then, how this will work in virtual classes. Before I left Singapore, all my adult and youth classes scheduled for the year were all cancelled due to the pandemic. Even though our university quickly responded to convert all our classes online, even using online synchronous modes, I wonder whether the level of engagement and interaction will remain the same. In face-to-face classes, whenever a teacher calls for a break, participants would stand, have coffee and meet a new classmate in class. Now, in our virtual classes, participants would just switch off their videos to return to their own routine and will only come back when classes begin. I wonder what kind of interactions are taking place in between. And most importantly, I am curious how knowledge and relationships are retained after the course. If this is then my own critique of Constructivism, then I agree with Conole (2008) that it would be time perhaps for facilitators of adult learning to utilise Web 2.0 technologies more creatively to become one's extension of learning outside the virtual classroom. Learners can write blog posts and even comment on others too. In this way, there are still some personal interactions happening beyond the virtual classroom boundaries.
Although Siemens (2004) proposed Connectivism as perhaps the most appropriate theory to be applied in teaching adults online, I do not agree that individuals can act without learning what is beyond their personal knowledge boundaries. MOOCs and Virtual Learning Environments were heavily criticized for not capturing the learners’ emotive aspects and motivation to learn. Participants were simply there to complete the tasks and finish the course for a certificate that ‘who knows who will recognise them’; and how the courses’ credibility will be evaluated externally.
So how we can draw the line? Perhaps as Martin’s blog post in 2007 (cited in Conole 2008) suggested, learning will be a mix of ‘personal, institutional and self-selected’ tools will be the norm in the workplace, even in teaching adults online.
Just by writing this, I came to realise why these activities and assignments this course requires can help pose a pedagogical reframing of Constructivism more....by being online!
- Conole, G. (2008). New schemas for mapping pedagogies and technologies. Ariadne, (56).
- Mattar, J. (2018). Constructivism and connectivism in education technology: Active, situated, authentic, experiential, and anchored learning. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, 21(2), 201-217.
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