The relationship between learning and teaching.

Mike Horne FGS

There are a large variety of teaching styles - methods in which the teacher or author of the material passes it on to others.

There are a variety of learning styles and circumstances in which people learn.

For the learning to be effective there has to be a convergence of the teaching style/medium with the learning situation.

This is a simple attempt to illustrate this by plotting teaching against learning in a matrix. I am using the term teacher in its widest sense - to mean a person who passes on knowledge or skills in some way. And I am using the term learner also in a wide sense to mean someone who chooses to seek out skills or knowledge. Sometimes neither the learner nor the teacher may be aware of the process because it is so informal - such as friends offering advice.

The X axis is the teaching from a totally "live" environment with the teacher responding to the student to the total reliance on pre-prepared teaching materials.

The Y axis is the degree of openness or structure of the learning - from total freedom for learners to study what they like to a structured course. The freedom of the learner may even be more restricted in so much as they have been sent on the structured course rather than chosen it themselves.

This could be presented as a larger matrix with more intermediate boxes or as a graph.

The examples I use in the boxes are some that I thought of - I could have added more and you are welcome to start with a blank matrix and add your own!

The corners of the matrix are easier to define!

There is also a rough correlation between the degree of freedom for the teacher and the size of the audience. The live teaching modes tend to be between the teacher and an individual or small group of people. The larger the audience the lower the opportunity for improvisation and interaction. The teacher can better respond to the needs of the smaller audience. With the pre-prepaired distance-learning the teacher has no contact with the learners and has to have an educated guess at their reactions in advance.

What about the learning experience? Personally I learn best if I have chosen to learn and am actively seeking the skills/knowledge and experimenting with them. So looking at that fact from the teachers point of view - the teacher should aim to be as interactive as possible to give the learner freedom and a sense of 'ownership'.

You may notice that I have placed 'adult education' (a.k.a.Lifelong Learning) in the centre of the matrix. I feel that as a teacher I have a degree of freedom to react to the learners' needs within the structure of a syllabus. And I think that the students have the freedom to continue or leave. Being in the centre of the matrix the teachers can actually move into any of the other teaching styles to meet the needs of the class. They can vary the mode throughout the session or the course, providing a huge variety of learning experiences for the learners.

Thinking about it further - there is no single 'adult education' style of teaching, but rather freedom for the tutor to use any of the surrounding styles from the matrix. In fact I have used all of them in my classes in some way. To go around the matrix in a clockwise direction :-

• I provide course notes and additional reading for course students and make them available to the public on my website.
• One set of pages on Buddhism on the website are a 'distance learning' experiment that provides feedback as each task is completed.
• I use the 'University Lecture' style to pass on 'text book' information and knowledge, where I expect students to make notes..
• I lead classes (and the public) on guided geological walks. Sometimes I pass on my research to classes more in a 'guest lecture' style or slide-show in which do not expect the students to takes notes.
• I use different 'training' styles - 'practical class' style in which I demonstrate how to do something and then let the students do it; the 'trade union training' style in which I talk about the issue, set a task for individuals or groups and then they feedback to the class and I ensure that we have covered all the material before we move on; the 'Centre for Lifelong Learning' style in which I introduce the topic and then the students discuss it in groups and feedback to the whole class as presentations.
• One of the courses involves research in groups and I tend to act as 'supervisor' or 'scientific advisor'. I have also supervised solo research projects for the University Foundation Award 'final piece of work (in effect a 3000 word dissertation). And I allow students on all courses to research aspects of the subject that interest them and present a short 'guest lecture' to the class.
• Effectively when students bring in specimens to t the class it becomes a 'Roadshow' - I do not know what they are going to bring in advance and do my best to help them identify the specimen. This also is what happens on most field trips - I am never sure what exactly we are going to find to have to 'improvise'.
• Sometimes the class becomes more of a club towards the end of the course with students contributing their own skills and experiences for everyone's benefit.

Looking at the matrix again it would perhaps make some sense to add an extra column to the right to include teaching in which the teacher never knows who the student is and produce something like:-

This would now include teaching styles/modes which I no experience of as a teacher. For reasons given elsewhere in this portfolio I do not run a formal distance learning course at present. I have never written a complete text book. And I do not really run formal 'tutorials' though I have included 'group discussions' in some courses.

Upon reflection 'training' would now possibly split into different types - with individual and small group training being different to the 'CLL style' discussion type. But then we could go on further dividing these cataegories, that is not the point though!

Copyright Mike Horne, 2002

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