Theories for the digital age: Self regulated learning

Informal and self regulated learning are defining characteristics of 21^st Century education. Various commentators suggest that as much as seventy percent of learning occurs outside of formal educational settings (Cofer, 2000; Dobbs, 2000; Cross, 2006). If these are accurate statistics, they present a significant challenge to schools, colleges and universities. One challenge for education providers is to decide whether they will support the desire of students to self regulate their learning activities using personal technologies. Institutes that discourage the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement may be perceived by their students as anachronistic. Those who do support BYOD for students and staff will need to invest significant time and resources into ensuring cross platform operability and seamless delivery to students’ personal technologies.

Self regulation of learning is thought to be a characteristic of individual students (Beishuizen, 2008) but increasingly can be contextualised within social learning environments. A number of collaborative and social networking tools regularly play a role within the average student PLE. Self regulation has been shown to enhance and improve learning outcomes (Paris & Byrnes, 1989; Steffens, 2008), enabling learners to achieve their full potential (Delfino et al, 2008).  Personal technologies are thought to enable self-regulation at a number of levels, including the ‘object’ and ‘meta’ levels of learning, supporting maintenance, adaptation, monitoring and control of a variety of higher level cognitive processes (Nelson & Narens, 1990). By using personal devices as ‘mindtools’ to offload simple cognitive tasks, students can extend their own memories (Jonassen  et al,1999), build their confidence, and increase their motivation levels (Goldsworthy et al, 2006). Further, personal devices enable individuals to gain access and to participate at many levels within their communities of practice, from ‘entering by learning’ through to ‘transcending by developing’ (Ryberg & Christiansen, 2008). All of this is often achieved by students outside the formal surroundings of school or university, with no time or location constraints.

Moreover, there is a sense that personal technologies encourage learners to be self-determined in their approach to education. Hase and Kenyon’s (2007) conceptualisation of self determined learning - or heutagogy- places the emphasis on non-linear, self-directed forms of learning, and embraces both formal and informal education contexts. The central tenet of heutagogy is that people inherently know how to learn. The role of formal education is to enable them to confidently develop these skills, encouraging them to critically evaluate and interpret their own personal reality according to their own personal skills and competencies. The ethos of heutagogy extends to learner choice, where students can create their own programmes of study, a feature often seen in the loose and unstructured aspects of some Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In many ways, heutagogy is aligned to other digital age theories, in that it places an importance on ‘learning to learn’, and the sharing rather than hoarding of that knowledge. It is not difficult to see that such sharing of knowledge can be easily achieved through social media and the use of personal digital technologies. 

[This is an excerpt from a forthcoming publication entitled: Personal Technologies in Education: Issues, Theories and Debates]

References

Beishuizen, J. (2008) Does a community of learners foster self-regulated learning? Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 17 (3), 183-193.

Cofer, D. (2000) Informal Workplace Learning. Practice Application Brief No. 10, U.S. Department of Education: Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education.

Cross, J. (2006) Informal Learning: Rediscovering the natural pathways that inspire innovation and performance. London: John Wiley and Sons. 

Delfino, M., Dettori, G. and Persico, D. (2008) Self-Regulated Learning in Communities. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 17 (3), 195-205.

Dobbs, K. (2000) Simple Moments of Learning. Training, 35 (1), 52-58.

Goldsworthy, S., Lawrence, N. and Goodman, W. (2006) The use of Personal Digital Assistants at the Point of Care in an Undergraduate Nursing Program. Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 24 (3), 138-143.

Hase, S. and Kenyon, C. (2007) Heutagogy: A Child of Complexity Theory, Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 4 (1), 111–118.

Jonassen, D. H., Peck, K. and Wilson, B. G. (1999) Learning with technology: A constructivist approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Nelson, T. O. and Nehrens, L. (1990) Metamemory: A theoretical framework and new findings. In G. H. Bower (Ed.) The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, New York, NY: Academic Press.

Paris, S. G. and Byrnes, J. P. (1989) The constructivist approach to self-regulation and learning in the classroom. In B. J. Zimmerman and D. H. Schunk (Eds.) Self Regulated Learning and Academic Achievement: Theory, Research and Practice. New York, NY: Springer.  

Ryberg, T. and Christiansen, E. (2008) Community and social network sites as Technology Enhanced Learning Environments. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 17 (3), 207-220. 

Steffens, K. (2008) Technology Enhanced Learning Environments for self-regulated learning: A framework for research. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 17 (3), 221-232.  

Drawing Hands by M C Escher 

Theories for the digital age: Self regulated learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

What is learning?

I was in a meeting with a prospective PhD candidate today and the conversation inevitably led to learning. He pointed out that in his lterature reviews he had uncovered a bewildering number of different, and often opposing learning theories. He was clearly impressed if not a little phased by the huge array of concepts and ideas that theorists had developed to try to explain what it means when we learn something. My response was that this was to be expected, because asking someone how they learn is similar to asking them what their favourite food is. But learning theories are variable in their significance, scope and validity. Some of the more revered theories such as social constructivism and cognitivism seem to enjoy a longevity which is evidenced in a large number of existing educational practices, including course design, learning activities, resource development, assessment and design of learning spaces. Yet in the digital age, it is probably in the area of tools selection and application that learning theories are at their most potent. Consider why the iPad and other touch screen tablet computers are becoming so popular in schools. Is this down solely to the intuitive nature of the tablet design, or do teachers see other more tacit pedagogical uses that are supported by the affordances of the tablet?

Our conceptions of learning are as individualised as our fingerprints. During a conference in Barcelona last week, I was asked what I did to make learning fun for my students. I responded by saying that I didn't always make learning fun, because sometimes learning needs to be painful. This response was met by frowns and smiles in equal distribution. Over 70 years ago, John Dewey argued that the 'educative process' consisted of 'severe discipline' to aid intellectual and moral development (Dewey, 1938). We may not be able to agree on a single definition of learning (a good thing) but we can probably all agree that learning can be as painful as it can be enjoyable, depending on the context.

A number of new 'theories' and emerging in the digital age, as people attempt to provide explanations for what is happening with learning. Some argue that learning is changing as a direct result of technology. Learners are indeed consuming, creating, organising and sharing a lot more content than they ever previously did. The exponential rise in user generated content on social media sites bears testament to this, and when these kind of activities spill over into the formal learning domain, previously well established learning theories are challenged. We now see the emergence of a number of new theories that attempt to explain learning in the 21st Century. These include heutagogy, paragogy, connectivism and rhizomatic learning. One of the characteristics of learning through digital media is the ability to crowd source content, ideas and artefacts, and to promote and participate in global discussions. That's why I want to ask the questions: What is learning? Does it differ from learning prior to the advent of global communications technology? Does learning now require new explanatory frameworks? Your comments on this blog are welcomed and discussion encouraged.

Reference

Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and education. New York: Kappa Delta Pi.

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Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Learning pathways

I recently heard a story about the building of a new university campus. Unusually, the architect hadn't designed any pedestrian paths into his plan. When asked why there were no pathways between the buildings, he replied cryptically that he was waiting to see what happened. Soon, over a period of time, as students and staff walked between the buildings, they made their own tracks or 'desire lines' through the grass. Once these tracks had become established as the most natural and preferred routes, the architect ordered the builders in to pave over the tracks. 'Better they create their own pathways', he said, 'than for me build them, and then for them not be used'. Instead of imposing his own ideas onto the community, the architect had crowd sourced his design.

How often do we impose pathways upon students which do not meet their needs, or fit their expectations? How many times have we invested in technology, environments and curricula that is simply a waste of time and resources? The institutional learning platform - the VLE - is a classic case of decisions made about learning without consulting the learner. How can we reach a place in education where students find their own level and make their own pathways through learning?

Deleuze and Guattari's 1980 publication A Thousand Plateaus might offer us some clues. It was hailed by some as a masterpiece of post-modernist 'nomadic' writing. Others criticised it for its dense, pseudo-scientific prose. Whichever way you view this book however, it was notable for introducing rhizome theory as a metaphor for knowledge representation. According to Deleuze and Guattari, rhizomes are unlike any other kind of root system, having no beginning and no end. Rhizomes don't follow the rules of normal root systems, because they resist organisational structure and chronology, 'favouring a nomadic system of growth and propagation.' In plain English, the authors are attempting to describe the way ideas spread out naturally to occupy spaces like water finding its level. The rhizome is not linear, but planar they argue - and therefore can spread out in any and all directions, connecting with other systems as it goes. The same might be said about the way communities form, create their preferred ways of communication and decide their priorities.

Rhizome theory is also a useful framework for understanding self-determined learning - the heutagogy described by Hase and Kenyon. Hase and Kenyon contextualise heutagogy with reference to complexity theory, and suggest a number of characteristics including 'recognition of the emergent nature of learning' and 'the need for a living curriculum'. The self-determined pathway to learning is fast becoming familiar to learners in the digital age, and is also the antithesis to the formal, structured learning found in traditional education.

Dave Cormier - one of the foremost contributors to rhizomatic learning theory - takes this concept deeper into digital territory by equating rhizomatic learning to 'community as curriculum'. The advent of social media, mobile communications and digital media facilitate large, unbounded personal learning networks that mimic the characteristics of rhizomes. If we accept that there is a need for a living curriculum, it would be logical to also accept that a self-determined community generates and negotiates its own knowledge, thereby forming the basis of what its members learn. Rhizomatic learning is also premised on an extension of community as curriculum, where: 'knowledge can only be negotiated, and the contextual, collaborative learning experience shared by constructivist and connectivist pedagogies is a social as well as a personal knowledge-creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises'.

Students can, and do, create their own personalised learning pathways. There is also evidence that learning communities informally decide their own priorities, often observed in the emerging folksonomies that result when digital content is organised, shared and curated. These processes often occur in spite of the strictures and rules imposed upon students by the institution. Most are the result of informal learning, achieved outside and beyond the walls of the traditional education environment. Self-determined learning pathways are crucial for individual learners as well as learning communities and they are by their very nature beyond the control of universities and schools. Schools and universities cannot (and should not attempt to) harness these processes, but they can facilitate them. Just like the architect, institutions can refrain from imposing structures and pre-determined tools, wait to see what their students prefer and then provide them with the best possible conditions to support self-determined learning.

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Digital age learning

In my Learning is learning post yesterday, I started a debate about andragogy and pedagogy. I held the position that the theory of andragogy (Malcolm Knowles) adds very little to our understanding of learning. In some ways, I argued, andragogy theory seems outmoded in the light of recent rapid developments in new teaching methods, learning resources and digital media. Building on this position, I would like to examine two further concepts - namely heutagogy (Stewart Hase) and paragogy (Corneli and Danoff) - which may offer more appropriate ways of framing learning in the digital age. I would like to acknowledge Martin King, who set my thought processes going down this road when he commented on the 'Learning is learning' post. Although the two terms may be unfamiliar to some, most teachers will recognise how they actually work in authentic learning contexts. Heutagogy is a grand way of saying 'self directed or self determined learning'. Paragogy is another way of describing peer to peer learning, where students support each other's learning on an equal basis. Both are highly applicable when we consider the advance of learning technologies and the deep pervasion of social media into many learning spaces, formal and informal.

For me, paragogy is an extension of the concept of scaffolding (proposed by Jerome Bruner), where knowledgeable others (teachers or peers) can create optimal learning environments in which students can learn more than they would if they were studying on their own. Paragogy takes scaffolding farther though, because peers are in an equal relationship. The exchange conditions are duplex - that is, they work both ways and reciprocal learning is achieved as learners connect with each other, share their content and ideas, and engage in dialogue. If this sounds familiar, it is exactly what happens informally day in, day out on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. Paragogy may also find more synergy than andragogy with emerging explanatory frameworks of digital age learning such as connectivism (Downes and Siemens).

Heutagogy by contrast - and in its loosest interpretation - might be conceived of as a form of flâneurism - the act of wandering described by Charles Baudelaire as a means to more fully experience the landscape or environment one finds oneself in. Many of us assume flâneur-like trajectories when we traverse our way across cyberspace, clicking through hyperlinks, sometimes happening by chance upon pages that interest us, and where serendipitous learning ultimately occurs. Heutagogic learning is essentially self directed and autodidactic, and at its most informal, may involve sense-making of the digital landscape by wandering seemingly aimlessly around it. But there is still a self-determined purpose underlying the actions of the learner. Scholars such as Hase and Kenyon have argued that a shift of emphasis from andragogy to self-determined learning would be beneficial because just like pedagogy, andragogy still holds connotations of teacher control (but see Donald Clark - USA - for an alternative perspective on this).

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