The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

Education is patently not an exact science. While the theories summarised above may be commonly accepted in the research literature, these ideas come with no guarantees.  Every context and every individual student is different.  The experience of higher education for the student will be an ever-changing collection of different combinations of factors and influences.

Teaching is a complex and dynamic activity that requires the teacher to make a multitude of decisions about goals, curriculum and strategies before, during and after each instructional episode.  It is both intellectually and emotionally challenging and demands a high degree of involvement by the teacher.  The often-frenetic pace of teaching does not leave much time to reflect, on the teaching-learning process.  Thus, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of action without reflection.

It may be therefore be helpful to explore the gap between ourselves and our learners in the knowledge, skills and attitudes which we consider important in the subject we teach, and how we can help them reduce that gap as they move through their course of study.

The fundamental challenge for the scholarly teacher who wants to improve the learning of their students is to understand these theories, to know which to choose and how to apply them in their teaching, and especially how to adapt them to different contexts.

The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

These claims about what we know about student learning are a personal view and undoubtedly would not gain unanimous support – and there are many arguments to be made about nuanced differences within many of these theories, and about the specifics of how they should affect practice.  But arguably there is a high degree of homogeneity and overlap between these theories, and a significant amount of agreement in what they are saying, with perhaps at least one exception.

In the literature regarding the ‘construction of meaning’ there is a strong argument for the need for what has been called ‘scaffolding’ in supporting students’ learning.  And this has been linked to a concept developed by Vygotsky – zones of proximal development (ZPD).  Put simply, the ZPD is the gap between what the learner can do without help and what they would be able to do if given help.  Vygotsky, and many who have accepted this concept, believed that the role of education is to identify and focus on giving the learner experiences within their ZPD. Scaffolding refers to the help that the student needs and, as is implicit in the metaphor, can be taken away as the student’s ability (‘the building) progresses until the next ZPD when new scaffolding will be required.

But in the literature regarding ‘threshold concepts’, there are a number of aspects that would seem to be incompatible, or at least create serious tensions with the ZPD/scaffolding approach.  Firstly, if understanding of a particular threshold concept is necessary for a student to progress it may not be possible to wait until they reach the appropriate ZPD.  Secondly, the scaffolding theory is at least partially driven by a desire to make the learning process as painless as possible.  But the threshold concepts theory would argue that the ‘state of liminality’ endured while grappling with a threshold concept and passing through that ‘portal’ will almost inevitably be a painful and difficult experience requiring, as it does, the loss of previously held understandings and beliefs.

The notion that all learning could be safe and relatively painless through scaffolded progression through successive ZPDs is an idealized impossibility but one that nonetheless is probably worth striving for.  However, we also need to accept the reality that learning, and higher education in particular, should be transformative and that can be a painful experience. (This was also discussed by Perry – see above – in relation to the difficulties that students have negotiating their progress through the stages of cognitive development). And this may be especially true when it comes to the challenge presented by threshold concepts which probably requires even more scaffolding in support of the student at that time, in helping them deconstruct previously held views and to move through the state of ‘liminality’.

The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

Physical learning environments affect how students learn

What do we know?

We know that a bad physical environment – e.g. cold, hot and stuffy, cramped, poor acoustics – will have a negative effect on student learning.  But in the past decade there has also been a growing realisation that as learning approaches have been changing – e.g. use of media and technology, mixed-mode courses, blended learning, increased group-working – there is a requirement for the physical environment to also change.

Implications for improving student learning

The need for increasingly flexible learning spaces, ever-greater access to technology and especially web connectivity, and the need for social-learning spaces are probably the three main strands regarding the changes that are needed.

Further reading

JISC (2006) Designing Spaces for Effective Learning: A guide to 21st century learning space design, HEFCE, available at: www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISClearningspaces.pdf

The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

Beyond the immediate level of the course experience, there is evidence that there are aspects of the wider, more general environment that can also be made more conducive to improving student learning.

Better learning is likely to happen in collaborative and highly interactive environments 

What do we know?

Departmental cultures that create rich and engaging learning environments, that are collaborative and highly-interactive, where teaching is valued, and that engage in a processes to improve teaching are likely to produce better-performing students, even when compared with other departments in the same institution.

This aligns closely with Wenger’s conception of a ‘community of practice’ arguably going a long way to meeting his three key requirements of “a joint enterprise’, ‘mutual engagement’ and ‘ a social entity’, and with the notion of ‘cognitive apprenticeship’.  The latter takes a constructivist approach to learning where the context of the learning is all important – in this case that context being within a community of academic practice.

It is also possible to link with the previous two perspectives, a theory which started in nursing education. It sees the student as being on a learning journey from ‘novice’ to ‘expert’ moving, from the outside edge, ever further into the community of practice.  The more successful department (and programme) will do all that it can to progress the student along that journey, and to bring them into the community.

Implications for improving student learning

To create an active, vibrant and welcoming sense of community, with numerous opportunities for both formal and informal interaction, and with the explicit notion of bringing the students into the community of academic practice.

Further reading

Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Benner, P. (1984) From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

Teaching practices need to be aligned with students’ expectations

What do we know?

Thus far, I have focused on how teaching practices can influence student learning. But the students’ expectations can influence how teachers go about teaching. Trigwell et al. described a situation (which they themselves had observed) in which tutors adapted their approach to teaching in response to requests from their students to go through problems using a more teacher-focused approach based on the transmission of information.

The importance of aligning teaching practices with students’ expectations was clearly demonstrated in a study by Mark Newman. This attempted to evaluate the introduction of a course designed according to the principles of problem-based learning in the third year of a part-time nursing education programme. Up to that point, however, the programme had used a traditional subject-based curriculum. Moreover, the tutors who were employed to teach the problem-based component received minimal training and support. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the students were resistant to the new curriculum, and large numbers withdrew from the programme. As Newman himself remarked, problem-based learning “did not meet the students’ normative expectations of teaching and learning” (p. 6). Elsewhere, he commented: “Students appeared to expect to be passive recipients of knowledge, taught to them by an expert, instead of having to make their own way through difficult material”.

Implications for improving student learning

Although definitions of problem-based learning often imply that it encourages the development of more sophisticated conceptions of learning, it can also be argued that problem-based learning and other student-centred forms of course design actually presuppose more sophisticated conceptions of learning on the part of students. This might explain why some students have difficulty adapting to new forms of learning. Students who retain a reproductive conception of learning through exposure to a subject-based curriculum may have considerable difficulty adapting to the demands of a problem-based curriculum. Changing students’ conceptions of learning may therefore be a prerequisite for improving their learning itself.

Further reading

Van Rossum, E. J., & Hamer, R. (2010). The meaning of learning and knowing. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

Course design and activities built around threshold concepts and the use of concept inventories, can help students deal with “sticky” and “troublesome” knowledge 

What do we know?

This comparatively recent theory argues that all disciplines have ‘threshold’ concepts – concepts that it is necessary to understand if one is to move on within the discipline and that are crucial to further understanding. (A common example often given is that of ‘opportunity costs’ in the discipline of economics.)  These concepts are the ones likely to be found difficult and ‘troublesome’ by students because they challenge students’ prior knowledge and require reconceptualisation.  They are therefore the most likely places that students get ‘stuck’ in their learning, and the metaphor of ‘a portal’ has been used to describe them.  Getting through them may be difficult and painful (what has been called a ‘state of liminality’) and once successfully passed through it would be difficult, and probably impossible, to return because the learner’s views/beliefs/understandings have been so significantly changed.

Implications for improving student learning

In designing a programme of study it would be helpful to identify the key concepts, and which of those that would be seen as threshold concepts, and consider the logical structure of conceptual development of these in the course.  Threshold concepts in particular will need sufficient time, and activities designed around them to help students through the ‘state of liminality’ in ‘unlearning’ previously held views and the acquisition of new understanding.

The development and use of concept inventories (a criterion referenced test designed to assess whether a student truly understands a set of concepts) may help faculty to identify where the students are, both ‘before’ and ‘after’ given inputs and set tasks, and also to monitor general student progress regarding conceptual development through the programme.  It is especially important to try and identify student misconceptions and, at the appropriate time, to help them, through carefully designed activities, to deconstruct them (e.g. see A Private Universe, referenced above).

Further reading

Meyer, J.H.F. et al (Eds) (2010) Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers

Land, R. et al (Eds) (2008) Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers

The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

Programmes where there is a clear & commonly held understanding of how courses are integrated, where staff and students “can see the whole picture,” produce better learning

What do we know?

For students to learn effectively they need to see the connections between ideas and be able to link them to form meaningful ‘wholes’.  When it comes to course design, the coordinating ideas that underpin its content and structure, and may give it coherence to you, may not be obvious to the students – and this can be especially true on modular courses.  The danger is that the students will not see beyond the detail of individual modules and not see the ‘big picture’ and therefore don’t make the necessary, intended connections between ideas.  In the worse case scenario, faculty teaching on the course may also not know or be aware of the rest of the programme and the intended ‘big picture’ or how their module or unit is intended to contribute to the whole. On the other hand, when faculty have a very clear idea and sense of common purpose regarding a particular programme there is evidence to suggest that the students perform significantly better.

Implications for improving student learning

Having an underpinning design behind the structure of a course is not sufficient to provide the necessary coherence to the students.  The intended linkages and connections need to be fully understood by the faculty and made explicit to the students at every appropriate opportunity.  This links to ideas below regarding positive learning environments

Further reading

Gibbs, G. (1992) Improving the quality of student learning, Bristol: TES

The ‘What we know’ theories are going to be published here as a series of blog posts over the coming weeks but are also available now collected as a free eBook from the OCSLD shop, where there are now four titles available. Our new book, Assessment Literacy: The Foundation for Improving Student Learning is available in paperback and kindle formats. 

There are certain “high impact” activities that significantly increase learning 

What do we know?

What we know in this regard comes from a huge wealth of data gathered from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).  Some of the headlines from that data are that high impact activities, i.e. ones which are most likely to have a positive effect on improving student learning include:

● demanding that students spend large amounts of time and effort on purposeful tasks

● including a high degree of non-trivial interaction between both students and teachers, and between students

● including a higher likelihood that the students will experience diversity through interaction with others different from them

● Students receiving frequent feedback

● Students being presented with opportunities to integrate, synthesise and apply knowledge, and see the relevance of what they are learning

Implications for improving student learning

Courses that engage students in educational purposeful activities include in their learning design some or all of the following:

● Student opportunities to ask questions and discuss in class

● Student opportunities to make class presentations

● Students work together on projects, in or out of class

● Students receive prompt feedback – written and/or oral

● Students tutor each other

● Students provide each other with feedback

● Participation in a community-based project

● Opportunity for conversations with different races/ethnicities

● Conversation with others who have different beliefs/views/values

Further reading

Kuh, G. et al (2010) Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons