Systems & Conversation ... |
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Systems & Conversation Authority & learning Bloom’s Taxonomy Imitation Learning & Teaching System The Learning Curve Learning how to Learn Situational Learning Resistance to Learning Tacit knowledge

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Systems and Conversations:
Pask and Laurillard
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Gordon Pask's work stands rather outside
the mainstream of the psychology of education, but is immediately
recognized by many learners and teachers in adult education
as being very significant. He was a cyberneticist rather than
an educationist, and developed an overall systems approach to
learning which is highly abstract and difficult, although rewarding:
it is reflected in the “conversational” models of learning of
Laurillard and
Thomas
and Harri-Augstein. |
His most accessible work, however,
is based on the recognition of two different kinds of learning
strategy: "serialist"
and "holist".
- When confronted with an unfamiliar
area, serialists tackle the subject step by step, building
from the known to the unknown with the simplest possible
connections between the items of knowledge.
- Holists, on the other hand,
seek an overall framework and then explore areas within
it in a more less haphazard way, until they have filled
in the whole.
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More
(Pask’s obituary)
Even
More
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- Build up their knowledge sequentially
- May lose sight of the broader
picture
- Are impatient with "jumping
around"
- May be more comfortable with
inherently "linear" subjects

- Pick up bits and pieces within
a broad framework
- May leave gaps, or repeat themselves
- May make mistakes about the
connections between things
- May be more comfortable with
"topic" based learning

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As with most models of learning style, most people are
more or less "versatile", but the implications
of the Pask model do not stop with labels for learners.
As a systems thinker, he was interested in matches and mismatches
within the whole. Thus he found that matched style on the
part of both learners and teacher promoted learning, while
mismatches inhibited it. Moreover, there are some subjects
which lend themselves readily to serial learning on the
one hand, or holistic on the other. Thus the initial stages
of learning arithmetic must follow a serial sequence—they
do not make sense any other way—whereas history or literature
need a more holist approach. These different assumptions
have led, for example, to quite different ways of learning
foreign languages: structural (serialist) and communicative
(holist). You can see some parallels with
convergence
and divergence, but don't push them too far.
Note that while this whole site
is occasionally (!) guilty of over-simplification, this
is nowhere as true as here: Pask’s work is both complex
and ingenious, as well as being firmly empirically based
— to see it in terms of “just another pair of learning
styles” is extremely unfair. .
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The conversational approach to learning and teaching
is slightly different from others we have considered, because
it is based on discussion of the teaching/learning system.
While this is a feature of some of the humanistic approaches,
they are largely interested in the values underpinning teacher/learner
interaction. Other approaches focus on learning as an attribute
of the learner (as the person who is changed by the experience),
and separate out the teaching as simply a process of facilitation,
a means to an end.
The conversational approach looks at the on-going learner-teacher
interaction, and particularly in
Laurillard's model, at
the process of negotiation of views of the subject which
takes place between them in such a way as to modify the
learner's perceptions. From this she develops a set of criteria
for the judgement of teaching/learning systems, particularly
those based on educational technology.
Thomas and Harri-Augstein
derive the basis for the learning conversation from an analysis
of the construct system of the learner.
The Process of the Learning Conversation
In Laurillard's view, the pattern of the conversation
needs to be: |
- The Teacher can set the task goal
- The Teacher can describe her conception of the subject
(or that aspect of it being taught)
- The Learner can describe his conception of it
- The Teacher can re-describe in the light of the Learner's
conception or action
- The Learner can re-describe in the light of the Teacher's
re-description or Learner's action
- The Teacher can adapt the task goal in the light of
the Learner's description or action.
And so on....
based on Laurillard 1993
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This requires the following features of the teaching-learning
system
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- The Teacher can set the task goal
- The Learner can act to achieve the task goal
- The Teacher can "set up the world" (i.e. control
the learning environment) to give intrinsic feedback on
actions
- The Learner can modify his action in the light of feedback
- The Learner can modify his action in the light of the
Teacher's description or his (the Learner's) re-description
- The Learner can reflect on interaction to modify re-description
- The Teacher can reflect on the Learner's action to modify
re-description
(based on Laurillard, 1993: 119 note
that this has been slightly modified in the 2nd edition) |
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So the learning conversation operates on two levels:

cf. Laurillard
2002: 87
At the "lower" level (on the diagram) the student
is engaged in the goal-oriented behaviour of trying to master
the topic of learning, while the teacher is providing the
experiential environment within which this can happen, including
managing the class or tutorial, setting tests, delivering
resources, etc. As this is going on, the teacher and learner
are engaged in a conversation about it, exchanging their
representations of the subject matter, and their experience
of the lower level, and adapting each to the other. This
process of talking about what you are doing is one of reflection,
and modification of what you are doing in the light of the
talk is adaptation.
This
might make more sense upside-down (!). To see what I mean, click
here
Original content updated and hosted at
www.learningandteaching.info/learning/
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