Congruence and friction between learning and teaching
Introduction
Until recently many theories of teaching took little account of the results of research on learning processes (e.g. see Duffy, Lowyck & Jonassen, 1993). In many instructional theories, the teacher is the directing agency, who prescribes to a high degree what learners should do to realize the objectives presented by the teacher. This view of teaching, which is founded on the idea that teaching essentially comes down to the transmission of knowledge from an external source to the learner, has come under increasing pressure (e.g. Biggs, 1996). Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989)notice that teaching often leads to isolated and inert knowledge. According to them, knowledge domains acquired through education are often studied in isolation from one another and are therefore difficult to access. Inertness of knowledge refers to the problem, also known in working practice, that, although pupils and students have indeed acquired a lot of knowledge, they may not have acquired the capacity to apply this knowledge to solve problems in practice. Dahlgren (1984)showed that although university students were able to talk about their field of study in more complicated words after one year of studies, their misconceptions about fundamental phenomena in that field had not changed. The speed of technological, professional and societal changes also makes it necessary for people to be able to acquire new knowledge independently after their school careers.
In response to these problems of transmission-of-knowledge teaching theories, a lively discussion has recently arisen about the presuppositions of these theories. For instance, Bednar, Cunningham, Duffy & Perry (1991) state that “learning” is not a passive, knowledge-consuming and externally directed process, but an active, constructive and self-directed process in which learners build up internal knowledge representations that are personal interpretations of their learning experiences. These representations change constantly on the basis of the meaning people attach to their experiences. Bednar et al. (1991)argue for consistently founding teaching models on a theory of student learning processes. The idea that teaching practices and theories of teaching should be based on knowledge and theories of how students learn can already be found in Gagné's work (Gagné, 1970). More recently, Glaser (1991)and Shuell (1993)again made a plea for the development of theories in which teaching and learning are more intertwined than is usually the case.
When learning is conceived more as self-regulated knowledge construction than as taking in already existing external knowledge, the role of teaching changes too, from transmission of knowledge to supporting and guiding self-regulated knowledge construction (e.g. Lonka, 1997). The processes of students' knowledge construction become the object of teachers' efforts. This calls for theories of teaching that are firmly based on an analysis of student learning processes (e.g. Duffy et al., 1993; Brown, 1994; De Corte, 1995). In this article, an attempt is made to sketch the beginnings of such a theory, focusing on the regulation dimension of teaching and learning. It starts with an analysis of the learning activities students engage in. Following Shuell's (1993) suggestion, special attention is paid to the joint effects that teaching and learning may have upon one another. Besides, we will focus on learning and teaching in upper secondary and higher education. Not all parts of the theory can be documented equally well with empirical research results yet. Therefore, the last section presents some directions in which future empirical research should go.
Section snippets
Student-regulation of learning processes
Teaching does not automatically lead to learning. The learning activities students engage in largely determine the quality of the learning outcomes they attain. The literature on student learning is extensive, and different researchers use different concepts for similar or partly overlapping learning activities. Pintrich (1994)compared several taxonomies of learning components and concluded that the common elements were students' knowledge base, their procedural skills, their self-regulation of
Teacher-regulation of learning processes
Learning is viewed here as developing a way of thinking and acting that is characteristic of an expert community. Such a way of thinking consists of two important elements: the knowledge that represents phenomena in the subject domain, and the thinking activities that construe, modify and use this knowledge to interpret situations in that domain and to act in them (Billett, 1996). Accordingly, teaching is viewed as stimulating learners to employ suitable thinking activities to construct, change
The interplay between teacher-regulation and student-regulation of learning
Teaching strategies and learning strategies are not always compatible. Between students' self-regulation and teachers' external regulation of learning processes, complex interplays may take place. Congruence occurs when students' learning strategies and teachers' teaching strategies are compatible; friction occurs when this is not the case. The outcomes of congruence are denoted as mathemagenic effects. Friction results in interference phenomena, also called mathemathantic effects (Lohman, 1986
Process-oriented teaching: from teacher-regulation to student-regulation of learning processes
Destructive frictions often take place. Teachers and designers of instruction, for instance, frequently have the tendency to take over as many learning and thinking activities from students as possible (Bednar et al., 1991; Sternberg & Horvath, 1995). Process-oriented teaching tries to promote congruence and constructive friction, and to avoid destructive friction. The aim is to teach domain-specific knowledge and the learning and thinking strategies that students need to construct, change and
Conclusions and discussion
At a time when knowledge is getting obsolete ever faster and information is getting accessible ever easier via computer networks, the need for lifelong learning increases and teaching models based on transmission and storage of knowledge lose their functionality. Society's demand for new teaching models, aimed at developing students' ability to update their knowledge whenever necessary, is growing. Process-oriented teaching models, focusing on the processes of knowledge construction and
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