Learning in the Information Age

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See also: New Model Learning | Learning Theories and Styles | Instructional Design
Educational Technology - an Introduction for Teachers and Learners | Learning Technology: the Myths and Facts
Learning and the Impact of Technology | Learning, Distance Learning and Learning Technology Links

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A particular challenge to behaviourism came from Chomsky's theory of language acquisition. Chomsky argued that human beings are endowed with an internal understanding of the fundamental rules of language that allow us to develop language skills far in excess of those which would result purely from environmental conditioning. Gross and McIlveen [1997] give the following evidence supporting Chomsky's view:

• language acquisition appears to occur in a culturally universal and invariant sequence of stages;
• native speakers use language creatively, i.e. they are able to produce sentences of a form they have not previously encountered;
• children spontaneously use grammar rules they have never heard or been taught;
• the meaning of a sentence is more than the meaning of its individual words and varies according to context;
  babies as young as two days have been shown (by Eimas) to be able to discriminate between 'ba' and 'pa' sounds;
• studies of twins (by Malmstrom and Silva) have shown the existence of private languages intelligible only to the twins, such languages share certain features with ordinary languages.

Knowles (1913-97) differentiated between the needs of adult learners and juveniles and used the term andragogy to describe the specific methods which should be employed in the education of adults. Smith [1996] summarizes Knowles' andragogy thus:

• The adult learner moves towards independence and is self-directing. The teacher encourages and nurtures this movement.
• The learner's experience is a rich resource for learning. Hence teaching methods include discussion, problem-solving etc.
• People learn what they need to know, so that learning programmes are organized around life application.
• Learning experiences should be based around experiences, since people are performance centred in their learning.

Andragogy requires that adult learners be involved in the identification of their learning needs and the planning of how those needs are satisfied. Learning should be an active rather than a passive process. Adult learning is most effective when concerned with solving problems that have relevance to the learner's everyday experience.

Constructivism asserts that people construct their own individual mental models of the world in order to make sense of their experiences. Learning is the process of adding to or refining this mental model. The key to effective learning is thus to involve the learner as actively as possible in the learning process.

On Purpose Associates [Constructivism] describes how constructivism impacts on learning:

• There is no standardized curriculum. Curricula are customized to the students' prior knowledge, and hands-on problem solving is emphasized.
• Educators focus on making connections between facts and fostering new understanding in students.
• Instructors tailor their teaching strategies to student responses and encourage students to analyse, interpret, and predict information. Teachers also rely heavily on open-ended questions and promote extensive dialogue among students.
• Assessment is part of the learning process and students play a larger role in judging their own progress. There are no grades or standardized testing.

Significant proponents of the constructivist approach include Bruner and Jonassen.

Kearsley [Constructivist Theory (J. Bruner)] identifies three key principles arising from Bruner's work:

• Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn (readiness).
• Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the student (this may be achieved by "spiral organization", in which the same concepts are revisited multiple times with greater detail and complexity being added with each treatment).
• Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and/or fill in the gaps (the learner should be encouraged to go beyond the information given)

The importance of dialogue is stressed by Jonassen, quoted by Mergel [1998], who states "Constructivists ... believe that much of reality is shared through a process of social negotiation..."

Learning in the Industrial Age

Industrial age education generally took place throughout childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, ending (apart from occasional training courses) once working life began.

In the traditional model students sat in rows of chairs facing a teacher standing before a blackboard. The teacher would speak and the students made notes, occasionally asking questions. Students would complete exercises to test their comprehension and practice their ability to apply the subject matter. The teacher would monitor progress and offer guidance before demonstrating the correct solution and method.

Students might be given assignments to complete outside class which drew upon what they should have learned. At the end of the session students sat a timed examination and were expected to recall appropriate parts of the material in response to the exam questions. Students would often "cram" for exams - memorising large amounts of relevant facts and figures immediately prior to the exam, only to forget most of them just as quickly as soon as the paper had been completed.

The traditional educational model could be described as a behaviourist approach to learning, although its methods were in used long before the development of behaviourist theory. This style of education was well suited to industrial age society where individuals had rigidly defined roles in which carrying out certain actions under certain circumstances would generally yield the desired results.

Learning in the Information Age

The information age has replaced the relative predictability of the industrial age with an increased degree of uncertainty that will require greater levels of flexibility and adaptability in order to survive and thrive.

Workers will be more involved in the planning and decision-making processes. Individuals will need to develop the discernment required to make sense of the mass of facts, figures claims and counter-claims that surround them.

Education will need to change from being a process of conditioning to one of empowerment. Learning will need to change from being a homogeneous commodity to a customized experience tailored to the needs and characteristics of the individual. Learning will no longer end in the teens or early-twenties. Instead it will continue throughout life as individuals need to continually update knowledge and skills to keep pace with ever-changing technical and social conditions.

In order to meet the learning requirements of the information age learning opportunity providers should adopt a more constructivist approach to learning, creating conditions in which learners may learn by actively engaging with realistic scenarios and exchanging views and experiences with peers and mentors. The following section describes bow technology may provide powerful solutions for the delivery of high-quality learning suited to the needs of the age.

The Potential of Learning Technology

In addition to shaping the desirable outcomes of the learning process the information age offers potential enhancements to the ways in which learning may take place.

Technology provides near instantaneous access to vast quantities of information and learning materials at near zero cost to anyone with Internet access. Educationalists may provide a pathway through the mass of available content by means of selective, quality-assured directories and search engines, effectively forming subject-specific "digital libraries".

Technology may relieve the "loneliness of the long distance learner" by providing asynchronous communication channels bridging both temporal and geographic distance. A major function of learning environments is the ability they offer learners to communicate with both peers and tutors irrespective of physical locality or time zone. There is enormous learning potential in the exchange and discussion of ideas.

Technology offers the potential of delivering a personalized learning experience to individual learners. People have different strengths and weaknesses and learn in different ways. In a classroom setting the same experience is delivered to every student. In technology mediated learning a unique learning experience may be presented to every learner based upon individual characteristics and performance in previous lessons.

Technology can provide models and simulations that actively involve the learner to a greater degree than was ever possible in classroom-based learning. The learner is able to receive feedback on his/her interactions with the system and is thus able to learn by doing within the safety of the virtual world.

For further detail on the potential of learning technology see Finnis [2003].

Conclusion

Society is moving into a new era. An era of rapid change and inherent unpredictability driven by ongoing advancements in information and communication technology. This new era will impact upon every aspect of society.

Citizens of the information age will need different kinds of skills to those that served them in the industrial age. They will need to be managers of their own destiny. They will need to find relevant information from the morass of freely available data. They will need to interpret and evaluate what they find. They will need to adapt to ever-changing conditions. And they will need to learn throughout their lives.

Traditional behaviourist approaches to education will no longer be sufficient in the industrial age. Education will need to adopt constructivist principles to empower learners through an individualised and active learning experience. However, constantly improving technology can provide exciting new ways of delivering that learning.

References

Allen, Kathleen; Economy, Peter; The Complete MBA for Dummies; Wiley 2000.

Armstrong, Ron; Self-managing Teams in Service Organizations to Achieve Best Performance Results; R.V. Armstrong & Associates 2001; http://www.rvarmstrong.com/SelfManagedTeamsProduceBetterResultaArticle.htm.

Bandura, A. & Walters, R. H.; Social learning and personality development; New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston 1963.

Finnis, J; Learning Technology: The Myths and Facts 2003; http://www.twinisles.com/dev/research/learntech.htm.

Gross Richard, McIlveen Rob; Cognitive Psychology; Hodder & Stoughton 1997.

Hayes, Nicky; Teach Yourself Psychology; Hodder & Stoughton 2002.

Kearsley, Greg; Constructivist Theory (J. Bruner); Theory Into Practice database 1994-2003.

Kelly, Kevin; The Roaring Zeros; Wired Magazine Sep 1999; http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.09/zeros_pr.html.

Mergel, Brenda; Instructional Design & Learning Theory 1998; http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm.

On Purpose Associates; Constructivism;
http://www.funderstanding.com/constructivism.cfm.

PageWise, Inc; B. F. Skinner and behaviorism 2002; http://nh.essortment.com/bfskinner_rgjj.htm.

Small, Peter; The Entrepreneurial Web; ft.com 2000.

Smith Mark K.; Andragogy - The history and current use of the term plus an annotated bibliography, 1996, last update 2002; http://www.infed.org/lifelonglearning/b-andra.htm.

Tennant Mark; Psychology & Adult Learning; Routledge 1997.

Whittle, David B.; Cyberspace; Freeman 1997.

Williams, Ron; Self-Directed Work Teams: A Competitive Advantage; Quality Digest, November 1995; Volume 15, Number 11; http://www.qualitydigest.com/nov95/html/self-dir.html.

URLs last accessed June 2003

See also: New Model Learning | Learning Theories and Styles | Instructional Design
Educational Technology - an Introduction for Teachers and Learners | Learning Technology: the Myths and Facts
Learning and the Impact of Technology | Learning, Distance Learning and Learning Technology Links

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