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Best and worst learning experiences

2011, March 6 - 13:40 — PatParslow

Prof Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth on Twitter) was having a discussion using the #learning2020 tag earlier which I couldn't help but eavesdrop on. The bit which was interesting me was @bradbeach saying he'd never heard anyone say that their best learning experience was due to content or technology, but rather because of dialogue.

I agree. The best learning I have ever done has been through dialogue. Also, and this is different, the best learning experiences I have had have been because of the dialogue. However, the worst learning and experiences of learning I have had have also been because of the dialogue - bad teachers can have far more of a deleterious effect on learning than any computer will ever manage. At the moment, the best computer learning tools don't get close to the best humans (at least in terms of the experience) - but I would say that in my experience, a computer mediated learning session will, on average, be about as good as the normal teacher-led experience.

Why? One-to-one interaction and self pacing are the most likely impacting factors, I think. Teachers almost always have to go far too slowly if you have half a clue what they are talking about, whereas you can pick the pace you go at with a computer helping you (unless it is video or audio rich, which levels the playing field - only fair, given the human will be 'video' and audio based too).

The very best learning experiences I have had have been when chatting with peers, and when teaching. The next best learning experiences have been with the one or two inspiring teachers I have had, the ones who capture the essence of a subject and fill me with a desire to know more, and to really, *really* understand the subject area.

The vast majority of good learning experiences I have had have been on my own with a computer for company - but that is cheating slightly. A lot of those have been through using tools like Twitter to engage with other real people. At least, I think most of them are real people. The dialogue is important, but it is not strictly necessary for it to be with a person - a well written computer agent could work just as well, for me, at least.

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Comments

2011, March 6 - 22:14 — Brad Beach (not verified)

Dialogue

I feel I understand your point and I must say I think Twitter etc is cheating because the dialogue is still happening between people just via technology.

Stephen ... I hear what you are staying and I agree that not all people learn the same way. However I would suggest that generally if not always individauls who can drive their own learning with the same success as yourself have already acheived a high degree of learning success already. These are the minority of people. Most learners are yet to evolve their learning skills to remove dialgoue.

2011, March 7 - 13:27 — PatParslow

Ii it entirely cheating, though?

 Hi Brad, thanks for stopping by and commenting!

I'm not sure Twitter is entirely cheating.  Yes, it provides the opportunity to have conversation with people - in its own rather unique and slightly constrained way - but the reason I think the tech involved is particularly important in this case is that it open up the opportunities to have conversations with people around the globe.  Now, certainly it was possible to write letters to people in far-flung countries, or have telephone conferences but the Web introduced an important level of convenience and discoverability to the mix.  Twitter, in-and-of-itself, is not particularly better suited than, say, an online forum, although it does provide different affordances because of its largely public nature.  One area where it may well score in future (or its successor, of course) is that the 140char constraint may actually make it easier to have a well-written bot which can provide targetted, timely, comments which can serve the learner well.  

Dialogue works because it allows thoughts to be prompted - encourages discussion.  A well written bot on Twitter can do the same, although certainly at the moment it would be best to include other humans in the discussion.  But then, it is (nearly?) always better to include more people in the discussion, I think.

2011, March 6 - 21:54 — Steve Wheeler (not verified)

Best and worst learning experiences

I agree Pat, and can empathise with you. Some of the worst experiences I ever had were because of bad teachers. I asked a question once in class when I was about 9 years old. The teacher looked at me with contempt and told me it was a 'stupid question'. The whole class laughed at me, and I learned a very important lesson that day - never, ever ask a question in class. It took me years to unlearn that lesson, and to once again question things. There were inspirational teachers too - who taught me through dialogue that I could reach my full potential and be who I really wanted to be. Some teachers are good because they are inspirational. Those are the ones from whom I gained the most and had my best learning experiences.

Doctors save lives. Teachers make lives.

2011, March 7 - 13:35 — PatParslow

Stupid questions

 It is such a shame that some teachers do that - I think I had a similar experience in Reception class in infants, where I had quite the worst teacher of my time in the education system.  All was not entirely lost, however, as the wall I built then helped insulate me from idiots and I was able to learn a lot from the ideas brought up in class and through learning about what my elder siblings were doing at school (as well as what my Mum was learning on her OU course - everyone with kids should do an OU foundation course while the kids are still young!)

2011, March 6 - 16:44 — Stephen Downes (not verified)

Best Leanring

The best learning I've ever done has been on my own, working through a hard problem, by reading and then writing, either text, or software, or derivations. This is also the hardest learning I've done; most of the people I could talk to don't understand it well enough to explain it, and attempting to work it through leads to more confusion than clarity.

Of course, that's just me. And I wouldn't think that what was best for me was best for everyone.

2011, March 7 - 13:31 — PatParslow

 I have certainly had some

 I have certainly had some great learning experiences that way too, and most often, 'hardest' is strongly correlated with 'best' in terms of learning outcomes.  It may not always correlate quite as well with the idea of 'best experience related to learning', which is where I would say dialogue has been the most important element for me.  But on the couple of occasions I have managed to get a prototype conversational agent to chat to me about what I am trying to learn, it has been immense fun and quite productive too, so the people aren't necessarily part of that equation for me.