Instructivist Approach to Teaching and Learning

1. Students learn as a result of instruction, so they should be instructed in what to learn.
2. Instruction should include regular lectures and structured textbooks, with sequential development and graded exercises and problems.
3. Learning is a stimulus-response association that shapes desirable behaviors.
4. Teaching strategies include feedback, reinforcement, review and practice.
5. For example, drill and practice exercises or computer based training.
6. Goal oriented learning: goals are structured into a learning hierarchy from lowest (memorization) to highest (analysis and synthesis).
7. Learning tasks reduced into individual components.
8. Tasks must be mastered independently and then assembled (task and skill analysis is carried out to break down skills into their component parts).

Constructivist Approach to Teaching and Learning

1. Learning is both an individual and a social process.
2. Students decide what they need to learn by setting personal learning goals.
3. Students construct for themselves meaningful knowledge as a result of their own activities and interaction with others (cognitive psychology).
4. Learning strategies include: library research, problem and case-based learning, doing assignments and projects, group work, discussions, and fieldwork.
5. Classroom teaching is a stimulus to the student’s real learning that mostly takes place outside formal classes.
6. Unstructured classes with individualized activities, leaves for much discussion and optional attendance.
7. Students engage actively with the subject matter and transform new information into a form that makes personal sense to them and connects with prior knowledge.
8. Students are placed immediately into a realistic context with specific coaching provided as needed.

Surface versus Deep Approaches to Learning

Ashcroft and Foreman-Peck (1994: 34) define the two main approaches to learning in terms of a surface versus a deep approach

Surface Approach to Learning

Characterized by…

1. Focus on memorization and formulas
2. Focus on parts rather than the whole task
3. Extrinsic motivation

Deep Approach to Learning

Characterized by…

1. The ability to relate new and previous knowledge and theory to experience
2. Learning as an active process of comparing, testing and integrating knowledge
3. The ability to distinguish evidence and argument and to generalize
4. Intrinsic motivation.

The constructivist or experiential learning methods encourage deeper approaches:

1. Independent negotiated learning or group work
2. A focus on personal development
3. Problem or project-based learning
4. Encouraging students’ explicit reflection

 Improving the Learning Environment

Teaching large groups of students via formal lectures is not the ideal way to encourage a deep approach to learning.

Lecturing is a one-way transmission of information.

It does not provide opportunities for students to engage in a continuing dialogue with the lecturer, where their conceptions can be shaped through feedback.

Nor does it allow students to actively apply and experiment with their conceptions or to reflect on experiences and feedback.

What Can You Do?

• Emphasize higher-level intellectual skills
• Ensure that the course objectives specify more than just facts and technical skills by emphasizing higher-level intellectual skills such as: problem solving, critical thinking and the exploration and development of appropriate attitudes.
• Lecturers can challenge students to think critically and analytically by modeling the     thinking processes characteristic of the discipline.
• Sign-posting for clear direction as well as organizing and ordering the content, tell learners what you are doing by providing good sign-posts about the structure and direction of the lecture.

Sign-posts.  Include such things as:

1. links between sections

2. ex. what is coming next and what has just been completed

3. summaries

4. reviews

5. statements which indicate a change of topic, and highlight principles or key ideas so that they stand out from the details and examples

Make Lectures More Interactive

• Include teaching activities that promote cognitive challenge and require learners to demonstrate a deep understanding of the subject matter.
• This may mean using small group activities during lectures so that learners have an opportunity to interact with each other and the material to explore issues, discuss, analyze and report back to the class.
• Small groups can help learners to internalize the material and work to relate it to their own context. This also helps in redirecting attention and changing the pace of the presentation.
• Arrange for learners to use the lecture material immediately following the lecture so that they actively process it and don’t forget it. Ex: problem solving, reading, or preparation of discussion notes.
• Less memorizing of facts and more construction of meaning.
• Decrease the amount of factual material that has to be memorized.
• When learners are pressed for time and overloaded with content; they will usually take a surface approach.
• Learners need to know what to listen for, how the lecture links to and supports subsequent learning activities, and what they should be doing with what they hear.
• You need to let them know what sort of notes is likely to be useful.
• What follow-up learning activities you expect them to undertake.
• How are they going to use their notes beyond the class?
• Spend more time in helping learners to understand and to use basic principles rather than memorizing facts.
• Ask students to explain answers to questions rather than just accepting the correct answer.

Match assessment to objectives

1. Review assessment procedures so that they match the course objectives, and build into assessment a requirement for learners to demonstrate understanding of principles.

2. For example, essays, project work, critical analysis of problems etc.

3. If your aim is that students understand your material, can explain it, apply it or use it to analyze problems, then you shouldn’t use lectures.

4. Teaching methods which involve more active learning achieve more in the same amount of time.

5. Resource-based learning, remember that lectures are very poor at changing attitudes, inspiring learners or inducing positive or professional attitudes towards the subject.

6. One method of dealing with large numbers of students is to use a resource base to replace lectures. Ex. self-instructional materials, audio, video, and computer based learning.

7. This also provides flexibility and convenience in studying. It is particularly well suited to mature students who have a well-developed sense of direction in their learning.

Peer teaching and collaborative group work

1. This method helps to encourage independent learning by having students work in groups that are not tutored or with more senior students.

2. Students can run their own seminars with leadership rotated amongst small groups.

3. The lecturer’s role is to provide clear guidelines to the student leaders about what the seminars should achieve and what sort of learning strategies to use.

4. Group leadership will require students to express their ideas in order to organize them for their audience.

5. This process creates a deeper level of understanding because one of the most effective ways of learning something is to:

• examine each other’s interpretation
• agree on a line of argument
• how to present that argument
• then, teach it to someone else

Learning contracts

1. Learning contracts encourage independence by enabling students to negotiate their own study with the lecturer and together reaching an agreement about how and what is to be assessed.

2. The contract can include objectives, resources, experiences, evidence and criteria for successful completion.

3. This enables students to follow up issues of direct interest to them in more depth and also encourages students to develop as reflective practitioners of their subjects.

References

Andrew, D. and Isaacs, G. (1995). The Effectiveness of Multimedia as an Instructional Tool within Higher Education. Brisbane: The Tertiary Education Institute, University of Queensland.

Ashcroft, K. and Foreman-Peck, L. (1994). Managing Teaching and Learning in Further and Higher Education. London: The Falmer Press.

Gibbs, G. and Habeshaw, T. (1989). Preparing to Teach: an introduction to effective teaching in higher education. Bristol: Technical and Educational Services.

Laurillard, D. (1993). Rethinking University Teaching: a framework for the effective use of educational technology. London: Routledge.

Newble, D. and Cannon, R. (1989). A Handbook for Teachers in Universities and Colleges: a guide to improving teaching methods. London: Kogan Page.

Email: N.Fardouly@unsw.edu.au

Faculty wanting further information about any of these topics are encouraged to contact Terry Doyle at doylet@ferris.edu



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