REVOLUTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION : THE SHIFT FROM TEACHING TO LEARNING

We call the traditional, dominant paradigm the "Instruction Paradigm." Under it, colleges have created complex structures to provide for the activity of teaching conceived primarily as delivering 50-minute lectures-the mission of a college is to deliver instruction.

A recent article in a leading education magazine flatly states that "the primary learning environment for undergraduate students, the fairly passive lecture-discussion format where faculty talk and most students listen, is contrary to almost every principle of optimal settings for student learning." The Learning Paradigm ends the lecture's privileged position, honoring in its place whatever approaches serve best to prompt learning of particular knowledge by particular students.

The Learning Paradigm shifts what the institution takes responsibility for: from quality instruction (lecturing, talking) to student learning. Students, the co-producers of learning, can and must, of course, take responsibility for their own learning. Hence, responsibility is a win-win game wherein two agents take responsibility for the same outcome even though neither is in complete control of all the variables. When two agents take such responsibility, the resulting synergy produces powerful results.

Turning now to more specific purposes, in the Instruction Paradigm, a college aims to transfer or deliver knowledge from faculty to students; it offers courses and degree programs and seeks to maintain a high quality of instruction within them, mostly by assuring that faculty stay current in their fields. If new knowledge or clients appear, so will new course work. The very purpose of the Instruction Paradigm is to offer courses and the teacher's job is to "cover the material" as outlined in the disciplinary syllabus.

In the Learning Paradigm, on the other hand, a college's purpose is not to transfer knowledge but to create environments and experiences that bring students to discover and construct knowledge for themselves, to make students members of communities of learners that make discoveries and solve problems. The college aims, in fact, to create a series of ever more powerful learning environments.

The Learning Paradigm does not limit institutions to a single means for empowering students to learn; within its framework, effective learning technologies are continually identified, developed, tested, implemented, and assessed against one another. The aim in the Learning Paradigm is not so much to improve the quality of instruction- although that is not irrelevant-as it is to improve continuously the quality of learning for students individually and in the aggregate.

By shifting the intended institutional outcome from teaching to learning, the Learning Paradigm makes possible a continuous improvement in productivity. Whereas under the Instruction Paradigm a primary institutional purpose was to optimize faculty well-being and success- including recognition for research and scholarship-in the Learning Paradigm a primary drive is to produce learning outcomes more efficiently.

The philosophy of an Instruction Paradigm college reflects the belief that it cannot increase learning outputs without more resources, but a Learning Paradigm college expects to do so continuously. A Learning Paradigm college is concerned with learning productivity, not teaching productivity .

Institutional Structure

Instruction Paradigm colleges atomistically organize courses and teachers into departments and programs that rarely communicate with one another. Academic departments, originally associated with coherent disciplines, are the structural home bases for accomplishing the essential work of the college: offering courses. "Departments have a life of their own," notes William Schaefer, professor of English and former executive vice chancellor at UCLA. They are "insular, defensive, self-governing, [and] compelled to protect their interests because the faculty positions as well as the courses that justify funding those positions are located therein."

Seat Time as a key indicator of progress in the Instruction Paradigm

Time is learning's warden. Our time-bound mentality has fooled us all into believing that schools can educate all of the people all of the time in a school year of 180 six-hour days...If experience, research, and common sense teach nothing else, they confirm the truism that people learn at different rates, and in different ways with different subjects. But we have put the cart before the horse: our schools...are captives of clock and calendar. The boundaries of student growth are defined by schedules... instead of standards for students and learning.

Role of Assessment

The key structure for a systematic "Paradigm Shift" is an institution wide assessment and information system- an essential structure in the Learning Paradigm. It would provide constant, useful feedback on institutional performance. It would track transfer, graduation, and other completion rates. It would track the flow of students through learning stages (such as the achievement of basic skills) and the development of in-depth knowledge in a discipline. It would measure the knowledge and skills of program completers and graduates. It would assess learning along many dimensions and in many places and stages in each student's college experience.

Ideally, an institution's assessment program would measure the "value-added" over the course of students' experience at the college. Student knowledge and skills would be measured upon entrance and again upon graduation, and at intermediate stages such as at the beginning and completion of major programs. Students could then be acknowledged and certified for what they have learned; the same data, aggregated, could help shift judgments of institutional quality from inputs and resources to the value-added brought to student learning by the college.

Instead of fixing the means-such as lectures and courses-the Learning Paradigm fixes the ends, the learning results, allowing the means to vary in its constant search for the most effective and efficient paths to student learning. Learning outcomes and standards thus would be identified and held to for all students-or raised as learning environments became more powerful- while the time students took to achieve those standards would vary. This would reward skilled and advanced students with speedy progress while enabling less prepared students the time they needed to actually master the material. By "testing out," students could also avoid wasting their time being "taught" what they already know. Students would be given "credit" for degree-relevant knowledge and skills regardless of how or where or when they learned them.

In the Learning Paradigm, then, a college degree would represent not time spent and credit hours dutifully accumulated, but would certify that the student had demonstrably attained specified knowledge and skills. Learning Paradigm institutions would develop and publish explicit exit standards for graduates and grant degrees and certificates only to students who met them. Thus colleges would move away from educational atomism and move toward treating holistically the knowledge and skills required for a degree.

LEARNING THEORY

The Instruction Paradigm frames learning atomistically. In it, knowledge, by definition, consists of matter dispensed or delivered by an instructor. The chief agent in the process is the teacher who delivers knowledge; students are viewed as passive vessels, ingesting knowledge for recall on tests. Hence, any expert can teach. Partly because the teacher knows which chunks of knowledge are most important, the teacher controls the learning activities. Learning is presumed to be cumulative because it amounts to ingesting more and more chunks. A degree is awarded when a student has received a specified amount of instruction.

The Learning Paradigm frames learning holistically, recognizing that the chief agent in the process is the learner. Thus, students must be active discoverers and constructors of their own knowledge. In the Learning Paradigm, knowledge consists of frameworks or wholes that are created or constructed by the learner. Knowledge is not seen as cumulative and linear, like a wall of bricks, but as a nesting and interacting of frameworks. Learning is revealed when those frameworks are used to understand and act. Seeing the whole of something-the forest rather than the trees, the image of the newspaper photo rather than its dots- gives meaning to its elements, and that whole becomes more than a sum of component parts. Wholes and frameworks can come in a moment-a flash of insight-often after much hard work with the pieces, as when one suddenly knows how to ride a bicycle.

Hence, the primary focus of teaching shifts from "information supply" to facilitating "knowledge web construction." This approach places the student at the center - actively constructing his/her future. The teacher intervenes in student learning only to enhance student performance in activities they would have trouble relating to prior knowledge.

Teachers stimulate generation within students by guiding them into building the links themselves. Students who compose titles and headings, write questions, state objectives, write summaries, draw graphs, prepare tables, demonstrate methods, compose metaphors, propose analogues, give examples, draw pictures, solve problems, develop explanations or draw inferences, take new ideas and re-work the information for presentation.

In the Learning Paradigm, learning environments and activities are learner-centered and learner-controlled. They may even be "teacherless." While teachers will have designed the learning experiences and environments students use--often through teamwork with each other and other staff--they need not be present for or participate in every structured learning activity.

The Learning Paradigm embraces the goal of promoting what Gardner calls "education for understanding"-"a sufficient grasp of concepts, principles, or skills so that one can bring them to bear on new problems and situations, deciding in which ways one's present competencies can suffice and in which ways one may require new skills or knowledge." This involves the mastery of functional, knowledge-based intellectual frameworks rather than the short-term retention of fractionated, contextual cues.

Students must do more than just listen: They must read, write, discuss, or be engaged in solving problems. Most important, to be actively involved, students must engage in such higher-order thinking tasks as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Within this context, it is proposed that strategies promoting active learning be defined as instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing." The students become involved in acquiring information and interpreting or transforming it. In order to be able to do this, time must be provided within the curriculum.

The role of the student and faculty member changes and both must be ready to accept those changes. Students must take responsibility for their own professional development and increase their level of participation in the process. They must change from simply dealing with the use of isolated facts or subjects to becoming aware of the relevancy of the information and its immediate application to real-life situations. Students may resent and resist these changes. Faculty will need to help students make the transition. Faculty must be ready to develop new skills and attitudes as they make the shift to an active learning environment.

Under the Instruction Paradigm, faculty classify and sort students, in the worst cases into those who are "college material" and those who cannot "cut it," since intelligence and ability are scarce. Under the Learning Paradigm, faculty- and everybody else in the institution-are unambiguously committed to each student's success.

Buckminster Fuller view of students: human beings are born geniuses and designed for success. If they fail to display their genius or fail to succeed, it is because their design function is being thwarted. This perspective is founded not in wishful thinking but in the best evidence about the real capabilities of virtually all humans for learning. As the Wingspread Group points out, "There is growing research evidence that all students can learn to much higher standards than we now require." In the Learning Paradigm, faculty will find ways to develop every student's vast talents and clear the way for every student's success.

Under the Instruction Paradigm, the classroom is competitive and individualistic, reflecting a view that life is a win-lose proposition. The requirement that the students must achieve individually and solely through their own efforts reflects the belief that success is an individual accomplishment. In the Learning Paradigm, learning environments-while challenging-are win-win environments that are cooperative, collaborative, and supportive.

In the Instruction Paradigm, faculty are conceived primarily as disciplinary experts who impart knowledge by lecturing. They are the essential feature of the "instructional delivery system."

The Learning Paradigm, on the other hand, conceives of faculty as primarily the designers of learning environments; they study and apply best methods for producing learning and student success.

If the Instruction Paradigm faculty member is an actor-a sage on a stage-then the Learning Paradigm faculty member is an inter-actor-a coach interacting with a team. If the model in the Instruction Paradigm is that of delivering a lecture, then the model in the Learning Paradigm is that of designing and then playing a team game. A coach not only instructs football players, for example, but also designs football practices and the game plan; he participates in the game itself by sending in plays and making other decisions. The new faculty role goes a step further, however, in that faculty not only design game plans but also create new and better "games," ones that generate more and better learning.

In the Learning Paradigm, as colleges specify learning goals and focus on learning technologies, interdisciplinary (or nondisciplinary) task groups and design teams become a major operating mode. For example, faculty may form a design team to develop a learning experience in which students networked via computers learn to write about selected texts or on a particular theme.

After developing and testing its new learning module, the design team may even be able to let students proceed through it without direct faculty contact except at designated points. Design teams might include a variety of staff: disciplinary experts, information technology experts, a graphic designer, and an assessment professional. Likewise, faculty and staff might form functional teams responsible for a body of learning outcomes for a stated number of students. Such teams could have the freedom that no faculty member has in today's atomized framework, that to organize the learning environment in ways that maximize student learning.

INSTITUTIONAL ROLES

Under the learning paradigm, everyone in an institution is responsible for student learning-teachers, librarians, counselors, secretaries, custodians, food service workers, presidents, trustees. Limiting employees' jobs to traditional roles does not allow employees to identify with the institution's mission and may keep them from noticing institutional problems and barriers outside of their area or from helping students. The shared responsibility for student learning does not relieve the student responsibility, but it means that everyone has a stake in student success.

Planning and operational decisions must be made with consideration to their potential impact on student learning. Institutions should restructure to produce better student learning. The instruction paradigm, they say, confuses a means (instruction) with an end (learning). Every choice, every decision-about staffing, resource allocation, everything-gets subjected to a simple screen: How does this improve learning?

Many experts predict profound changes in the roles of faculty and their relationships to students and to one another. They see traditional instructional methods as ineffective, unaffordable, and infeasible for meeting future demands. Traditionally, college teachers have assumed that students learn through lectures, assigned readings, problem sets, laboratory work, and fieldwork. However, these assumptions are being challenged by new research about how people learn. Evidence from a number of disciplines suggests that oral presentations to large groups of passive students contribute very little to real learning.

Technology is being used in many new and exciting ways to enhance student learning. Multimedia presentations engage students with different learning styles. Electronic mail provides an avenue for more frequent and more timely interaction between teachers and students. Online chat rooms and discussion groups encourage student interaction. Advances in technology have made information much more available. Teachers will no longer have to function as storehouses of knowledge, keeping up with an explosion of information. Instead, teachers can help students use resources to evaluate information wisely.

Teaching must be viewed as a scholarly activity with its own body of research. Faculty members in the learning paradigm will be concerned not only about keeping up with their disciplines but also about keeping up with what is being discovered about learning and effective methods to promote it. They will be encouraged to experiment with teaching, to study it, and to evaluate it in much the same way they would evaluate other scholarly activity.

Implementing the new learning paradigm does not lessen the status of the teacher or of any other professional. Instead, it focuses the resources of the institution on the outcome of student learning. Shifting control of learning to students should not be seen as a threat. Teachers will be responsible for more important activities than just dispensing information. They will be the designers of the learning environment, constantly assessing and seeking improvements. They will continue to guide, mentor, and evaluate the learning of their students.

Faculty and Institutional Change

The efforts of faculty members will be essential in the transformation of colleges and universities to become more learning centered. As influential players in the governance of their institutions, they are in position to help revise mission statements so that they clearly define the institution's purpose as student learning. Faculty members can help ensure that planning and operational decisions are made to impact student learning positively. When designing new facilities, for example, faculty members can insist on the flexibility necessary to support new teaching and learning methods, rather than accept architectural designs based on tradition.

Perhaps the most important institutional activity for faculty in the learning paradigm is to take the lead in identifying learning outcomes for students and developing ways to ensure that graduates achieve those outcomes. Just what should students have learned, and how do we know that they have? These discussions can be valuable at the departmental level, but they are essential at the institutional level. Once learning outcomes are identified and measured, the next step is to set goals for improvement and try new methods to bring these improvements about.

Educators have a tremendous amount of time and energy invested in the current paradigm and may be resistant or blind to the need to change. Faculty members have been trained by example to provide instruction and grade students. Administrators hire and evaluate teachers on the basis of how well they present materials. College and university policies often make it difficult for faculty to try new methods. Staff members have probably never been told that their jobs are to create an environment conducive to student learning.

Despite these barriers, educators must make student learning a priority. They must establish expectations for learning outcomes, assess whether the expectations have been met, and set goals for improvement. Policies must be changed to encourage new methods. The limitation of traditional methods of instruction will not be accepted much longer, and educators rather than legislators should establish learning outcomes standards. This is a challenge that educators must accept.

This is adapted mainly from an article by Robert B. Barr and John Tagg, "From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education", Change Magazine, Nov/Dec., 1995

With additional excerpts from other articles, including:

George Boggs, "What the learning paradigm means for faculty", the AAHE Bulletin (1999, Vol. 51, pp. 3-5), a publication of the American Association for Higher Education.

Stephen C. Ehrmann, "Improving the Outcomes of Higher Education: Learning from Past Mistakes", EduCause Review, Jan/Feb. 2002