Autonomy, cognitive skills, and the “new” learner
The flaws in the traditional education system have been well-documented. A recent article,
Cybernetics, e-learning and the education system which I discovered as I was re-reading a blog entry, moved my thinking forward. Oleg Liber, the article's author, notes “This structure constrains the educational options available to learners, who have to be fitted into its structure.” (p. 135)
Looking back into my own college education, I realize that much of my academic success came from the fact that I fit well into this structure. I was a strong student, gifted in the area Howard Gardner labeled Verbal/rational intelligence. Standardized tests were a piece of cake. I thought analogies were fun. I was in top tracks and got high SAT scores.
BUT….
I didn’t learn how to think until half-way through graduate school. I didn’t learn how to utilize tools to extend my cognitive reach till much later, decades later. I am now formally exploring what tools and technologies will extend my cognitive reach and allow me to think more deeply and synthesize information more creatively.
Oleg Liber reiterates the critiques of the traditional education system, and to do so he returns to Ivan Illich’s milestone book,
Deschooling Society (1971) for a relevant framework.
I agree in particular with “People now want to participate in defining their learning agendas, and want to engage more actively in the learning process…” (135). But in an ongoing conversation with a colleague, Susan Metros at Ohio State University, we are exploring the new cognitive skills that success as a knowledge worker requires. Are we teaching those new skills? Can we incorporate/integrate them into existing courses (I maintain that we can and should)?
If we focus on process, not content, what skills might be beneficial, if not essential?
Finding and filtering information
Organizing and publishing information
Evaluating information
Communicating clearly and efficiently
Team work and problem-solving
Research
Interpretation
Knowledge application
Autonomy (being a self-directed learner)
Meta-cognitive awareness
The list is long and full of overlaps. It certainly needs to be trimmed down to key skills and strategies need to be designed to incorporate these key skills into higher education, not to mention the K-12 world.
Cognitive Apprenticeship
One way to re-envision higher education is to explore the worldview that it has traditionally embodied. Diana Laurillard (quoted in the Liber article) points out that “higher education is concerned with world views, with the acquisition of the concepts and distinctions of a discipline, its discourse; and this is best learnt through practice, where engaging in the discourse.” The author notes that such a view requires that education in courses/disciplines be viewed as a “cognitive apprenticeship.”
I love that term because it harks back to the apprentice model of the craft guilds in the middle ages. You work with a master; you master each tool; you imitate; and ultimately (if you are gifted) leap to innovation. I am, of course, thinking of Leonardo da Vinci.
How might that “cognitive apprenticeship” model translate to e-learning, to a new global academy?
Envisioning the future
What if I am designing a course precisely to be a cognitive apprenticeship in my discipline? What must I do? How might I rethink “curriculum” to broaden it, of necessity, to include the skills of that discipline?
What content will I use/post in my online site?
What will my online site “look like”?
How will I incorporate the essential cognitive skills?
Where is the locus of control?
How do I shift this control to students as soon as possible?
As soon as they are ready?
How do I determine their readiness?
Do today’s learners, particularly the alleged “digital generation” possess these skills?
Do workers, laid off when their jobs are outsourced
All comments welcome!
