Lessons in learning

SYLVAIN COMEAU | What model of teaching and learning is needed for the1990s and the next century? Professor Janet Donald, from the Centre for University Teaching and Learning, set out to provide some answers in her recent book, Improving the Environment for Learning: Academic Leaders Talk About What Works.

In preparing the book, Donald spoke to faculty and administration from four major American universities.

"The most important thing they talked about was the concept of the learning community, which places a focus on students. Students are the key."

The learning community harkens back to the foundations of universities.

"The question is whether universities understand themselves well enough, and understand what a university is... A lot of people think about universities as a centre for research, but relatively few people think of it as an intellectual centre. Yet, that was the origin of universities; they are supposed to stimulate inquiry and reflection."

In the book, an academic is quoted on the learning community: "It would be an organization that would have the characteristics of a community and that would be oriented toward learning, meaning more collegiality and less transmission going on, and a lot of tentativeness and probably less certainty."

Donald then writes: "The changes suggested in this quotation reflect the concept of relatedness among learners, a more democratic approach to learning, and an openness to experience and to others that might appear to be a lost ideal. It is much closer to the band of scholars that formed the early disciplines, but most evidently it is collaborative."

Universities have strayed from this ideal partly because they cater to the career-oriented philosophy of their clientele.

"In more recent research I've been doing with students, I am investigating whether they are prepared to invest a great deal of time in structuring their learning, thinking and following a pattern of inquiry. This approach to learning, which is an attempt to establish meaning, sometimes gets left out of the equation because students are concerned about grades and career preparation, and courses are designed in terms of credits and grades.

"This career focus has increased in North America over the past 30 years. So students are entering with attitudes and long term goals which don't fit the task in universities."

Even very career-oriented students would be well served to gain an in-depth, profound understanding of their chosen field.

"Taking the time to truly understand a field, a small area in a field, or even just a problem, is considered a luxury these days. Yet, it's an absolute necessity for learning and thinking. We often fail to let our students know how much time it takes to gain a real understanding. They try to take the minimum amount of time, but then, the knowledge doesn't stay in their minds; it will not be incorporated into their thinking. It won't affect their lives in deep and long term ways."

Solutions proposed by Donald's sources, and quoted in the book, include a number of techniques aimed at motivating a "meaning approach to learning" -- learning based on seeking understanding of the underpinnings or foundations of a subject. At the institutional level, these include: rewarding programs "for paying more attention to students, so that students and faculty interact more frequently, where mentor relationships are established."

Donald says that a meaningful program of rewards for teaching and mentoring would be similar to the rewards professors obtain for excellent research.

"The best way to reward professors for paying more attention to their teaching is to give them support within the department, or within the program. [At McGill] we recognize superior teaching in our promotion, tenure, and hiring procedures. But one area where we can go further is in providing support for professors to innovate, to spend time developing patterns of learning, tutorial patterns."

Her book also suggests techniques at the program level for motivating active learning by students. Some recommendations include: "aid students in becoming self-regulated; tell them up-front what is at stake" and "give students a sense of the number of hours of studying required to succeed."

Donald says that active learning habits acquired in university should serve graduates throughout their adult lives.

"What we really want is to have students come out of university with a commitment to life-long learning. They have to come out with skills that support them in their life endeavours; they understand more and more that they have to go further and spend more time on their education. They also know that things will change enough so that they will have to continue to learn. That's the baseline today."