New isn't always best

  by j0sh (www.pixael.com)

I've written many times about the unnecessary polarization of the debate between traditional and digital educational practices. It's all too easy to create conflicts when there shouldn't be any. It's true that we need to move away from all over-reliance on lectures and instructivist pedagogy but we shouldn't simply abandon methods that can continue to play a role in education. There are times when a well-planned lecture is exactly the right method to deliver a message and simple multiple choice tests can serve a useful purpose.

I was interested to read a post by Ryan Tracey, Let’s get rid of the instructors! where he presents a defence for the more traditional xMOOCs of Coursera and edX, often criticised for their lack of collaboration and learner empowerment. He lists several cases where an instructivist approach with recorded lectures, prescribed reading, self-tests etc is probably the most appropriate. When you are new to a subject and want a basic introduction then it's good to have it presented in a structured and logical manner. Inquiry and collaboration require a higher level of knowledge and are time-consuming so if time is short the traditional approach will be best. If you need to learn something to do your job you have no time to spend on exploring and working it out for yourself; you want the information presented clearly and then put it into practice. Of course, once you've grasped the basics you can explore and collaborate to learn more but the initial phase may be less interactive. A lot of learning is about repetition and memorization, requires stamina and enormous patience and is generally a solitary effort. Repetitive traditional drills are often the only way to learn.

So these xMOOCs do fulfill an important role and we often wrongly assume that all learners have the same preferences as we. Not everyone wants to investigate freely or work in peer groups. Some simply want to get on with it in their way and resent being forced into group work that can be counter-productive if the group does not pull together. As Ryan rightly points out the fact that an xMOOC is instructivist doesn't prevent enthusiastic learners from investigating some aspect further under their own steam or with a small group from the course.

While the learner is free to work their way through the curriculum along the pre-defined weekly path, they are also free to inquire, explore and discover at their discretion within a thoughtfully structured environment.

The point is that we need to choose the appropriate methods for each situation and use the best tools for the job. Not all courses need to be open, constructivist and flexible. Sometimes the old approach is better. In our enthusiasm for the new we should not simply discard the old as irrelevant. Making the right choices is the challenge for today's educators. Let's build on past practices, not just break with them.

As history reminds us time and time again, no one view is ever the “right” one – at least, not all the time. Our perspective is so dependent on the circumstances that we learning pro’s must appreciate the problem before trumpeting or poopooing the solution.