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Article Excerpt
Abstract
This paper examines the traditional assumptions of an instructional-centered education and considers the modifications introduced by learner-centered and the more radical student-centered approaches in relation to the applications of instructional technology. Finding limitations in each, a partnership design is proposed, which, seeks the mutual success of instruction and learning as well as accounting for the circumstances of instructors and students.
Introduction
The last decade has resulted in an intensive focus on technology in relation to the pedagogics and didactics of instructional theory and teaching methods, but has largely ignored learning and student life. Currently, efforts are being made to create a more balanced discourse on technology that emphasizes the subtle nuances and complexities of learning within any discussion of teaching (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Love & Love, 1995; Travis, 1995). In a learning paradigm (sometimes called philologics; recapturing the term from linguistics); scholars no longer presume that every student learns the same way or that widely accepted teaching practices necessarily result in optimal levels of learning for students (Barr & Tagg; Guskin, 1997; Rendon, 1994; Rhoads & Valadez, 1996; Stage & Manning, 1992; Tierney, 1993).
In addition, "adult-learner" and commercial versions of higher education have advanced more radical "student-centered" approaches that support market-driven curricula that accommodate student needs and demands, reconceptualize the "student" as "client," and recognize the now-client's agenda as equal if not primary. A more academy-driven approach has been in the nascent field of student studies, sometimes called "mathesics," that examines the lebensweldt of the individual and the community called student (Anderson, 2003).
Traditional Assumptions
Learner centered and student centered sensibilities are most often critically viewed from a traditional instruction-centered standpoint. This standpoint rises on a number of assumptions that (a) clearly differentiate it from the other two, (b) justify the traditional performance and marginalize any others, and (c) have substantial implications for the application of technology in higher education.
We would argue for eight key assumptions: Traditional instruction is canonical, propositional, unitary, hierarchical, linear, global, curricular, and proselytic. The first three of these assumptions refer to the character of the content, the next three to classroom practices and the last two to instructional goals. It is the argument of this paper that conceptualizations of instructional content, practices, and goals significantly affect the development of technological applications, and, therefore, deserve our attention. Traditional content is both "true" and "has to be known" which establishes its canonical character. It is standardized into secure and decontextualized sentences or propositions that Latour (1987) calls "immutable mobiles." And it is made unitary by suppressing exceptions, gaps, contradictions, and alternatives. The result is a monolith that has a universal modality of meaning independent of teacher, learner, or mode of presentation.
Traditional content can be taught and learned--if delivered in well organized presentations that are engaged by properly prepared and motivated students. With this content, the classroom is global, unmarked by time, place, culture, or context. Translation problems aside, the perfect lesson can be constructed and delivered to the world. And it can be delivered by the highest ranking authority in the hierarchy of knowers to ensure its incontrovertibility. This combination has been, of course, the initial promise of every mass distribution educational initiative from film to radio to television and now to the on-line course. Its appeal comes from the conceptualization of the classroom as a linear transmission from teacher to student which is simplified by the rule that only teachers teach and only students learn.
The traditional classroom is further recognizable by its use of the single-learner model. In the single learner model, each learner is considered to be functionally equivalent to any other learner--no accounting is made for individual differences or circumstances. Fairness is defined by sameness--each learner encounters the same content, has the same assignments, and is judged by the same criteria; and success is defined in individual performance--an assumption rooted in the epistemology of methodological individualism and supported by cognitive theory (Derry, 1996; Simpson, 2002; yon Glasersfeld, 1989).
The single-learner model also allows for impersonal teaching and anonymous learning. The teacher does not have to know any student and no student has to be identifiable by any other--assumptions that clearly support the mediation and automation of instruction. If only teachers teach, then instructional goals are their sole province. Those goals are curricular in that they justify both content and classroom practice. Goals are noteworthy because they define which outcomes of instruction are important in the practical terms of assignments and tests. Students who learn "off the books" will still fail no matter how consequential that learning...
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