I personally have a hard time separating knowledge from learning, I see
them as the same activity seen from two different viewpoints. Therefore
the ensuing discussion is more based on outcomes than processes. Our
problem is in our process.
I feel that all students learn, they however may not be learning what the
teacher is preaching. I feel this is at the crux of the problem. The
knowledge or learning that they might be receiving is that knowledge or
learning is a product that must be gained in a very competitive and
uncustomer-like environment. Many students that think that they are
customers (opps) and ask the question "what does this mean to me", become
very confused at the hierachical answer "because its good for you". The
match may not be clear to them and chose against the learning process of
academic subjects. If this question is not answered the potential
customer of the system may become the victim engaging in meaningless work
and wonderful hobbies. Learning is not a factor of intelligence, but
desire and desire is based on motivation.
Sports as an activity always interested me. As an activity, compared to
academic learning, sports is a very painful process. Where is the
comparison in education in the glory of playing hurt, in the excitement of
coming back from a terrible injury to be in the game, to the hours and
hours, and years and years of thankless drills for one moment or time in
your life. Many of our "customers" chose this pain as a passion and
academics as a hobby. In a previous career, as a social worker when
working with young adults I stated " from an operations point of view
there is only one difference between business and crime - in crime you
only get to fail once (to them prison was not failure - death was)".
Using this as an introduction got me better students then telling them you
now have an opportunity to learn so its up to you to take advantage of it.
>From the research it is clear that our academic processes are not
producing the best educated population among our 1st world peers. Our
economics reflect this in the fact that we are the largest debtor nation
in history.
I am not comfortable with the perspective that ignores the student as a
customer of the education process as one that is going to take us where we
need to be.
James
On Fri, 9 Jun 1995 djustice@wppost.depaul.edu wrote:
[...quote of prev msg trimmed by your host...]
> Because, in the end the learner is also the person in the best position to
> judge whether learning occurred (much better than the institution or even
> the teacher) in addition to treating students as "customers" institutions
> might consider using student's own assessments of whether or not they
> learned. In fact self-assessment is an important new approach to
> measuring learning and has many applications, particularly in what we hope
> to create in "learning organizations."
-- James Moore <zoiho@digex.net>