So – we are a few classes into our Evidence-Based Learning exploration and a general thesis that continues to surface, at least to me, is the idea of focusing our teaching methods and classroom experience towards a more interactive, peer-to-peer engagement style rather than traditional methods of lecture. As the effectiveness of this pedagogy becomes more apparent, it is safe to say there is a growing trend towards participative teaching methods so as to promote the active engagement of the student as a learner.
While I was researching future trends in teaching and learning, particularly in higher education settings, I discovered another trend regularly noted was the promotion (by both government and educational institutes) to expand the mature student population, making higher education more accessible to a greater number of potential students. (For the sake of this post, when I say mature students I typically mean individuals over the age of 25 who have taken more than a year off school). As I am technically a mature student, this got me thinking…
Given that mature students are understood to face a different set of barriers & stressors, and to bring a wider breadth of experience to the classroom than their younger counterparts, what if the trend towards participative educational settings isn’t for everyone? While the effectiveness of this particular style may have evidential merit to it, does its effectiveness depend on how the methods are perceived among its learners? And given the additional trend involving the desire to engage mature students in higher education, is this the best method to do so?
I am not going to lie; I have always personally preferred more traditional lecture and individual assignment style classes. Surprising then, that all four of my courses this semester involve some sort of ongoing discussion with peers, group papers, or in this case, a class based entirely on learning from your peers. This is just one example of the direction the higher education system seems to be going. However as it turns out, as a mature student, I am not the only one who participates in classes of this nature somewhat uncomfortably. A mixed-method study of mature students and their perceived experiences concluded that despite part-time mature students appearing to integrate more effectively with their peers than full-time mature students do, both cohorts favoured traditional teaching methods to interactive and problem-based group learning activities they had participated in (Moran, 2012).
This is rather surprising, given that previous research pointed towards the mature learner being more orientated towards “deep-learning” and not the “memory-regurgitation cycle” (Kelly, 2004), which traditional teaching methods tend to lend themselves to. Collis et al states “there is a tendency for social skills and strategic thinking to improve with age”, but despite these indications, the mature students in the study mentioned above still expressed a desire to receive information from the lecturer directly, rather than engage with their peers and found imposed group work a source of frustration and inconvenience.
This topic raises a number of questions: Is the enjoyment of the education process more or less important than the learning outcomes themselves? Does the perceived experience have an effect on achievement? Lastly, should academics even be concerned with student experience or is the focus to maximize academic performance?
References:
Kelly, M. (2004). Lecturers’ perceptions of mature students in institutes of technology. The Irish Journal of Education, 35, pp.45-57. Retrieved from http://jstor.org/stable/30077494
Moran, C. (2012). Are our perceptions of mature student learning experiences accurate? International Conference on Engaging Pedagogy. Retrieved from http://icep.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/icep12_submission_3.pdf
mgdrummo 
Interesting blog!
Reading this brought me back a bit to the conversations we have been having as a class on learning styles. In a way- the preference for a certain way of learning is very connected to people’s false belief that there are different learning styles catered to different people. According to Pashler, learning styles do not exist at all, but how does this relate to learning preferences? Well, it is actually suggested that we learn best from experience and, in particular, novel experiences. Therefore, I would argue that learning in a way that is out of your comfort zone may actually encourage more knowledge than a typical/comfortable way would. At the same time, there still are good and bad forms of teaching, so it is important that the ways in which we are learning are back by psychological evidence. Ultimetely, I don’t think that the age you are learning at makes a difference in how you learn, and learning in a way that is not traditional may actually be more beneficial than sticking to a preferred style.
I personally, as a 20 year old, was taken aback by the format of this class, but have learned more in the past few weeks than I have in classes that I sat in for a whole semester.
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Hey Alison, great insight! I definitely agree with you in that this in some ways relates back to the perpetuated idea of learning styles. And while I may very well be out of my comfort zone, I cannot deny that I have learned so much already in a short amount of time with this class, as it is just so unique. I’m intrigued by the relationship you brought up between novelty and learning, and how intricately they seem to be connected. It turns out there is a region in our midbrain loosely referred to as the “novelty center” of our brains, called the substantia nigra/ventral segmental (SN/VS) area. This area is closely connected to the amygdala and hippocampus, which both play important roles in learning and memory. Researchers Bunzeck and Düzel tested people with what they called an “oddball” experiment that used fMRI imaging to see how their brains reacted to novelty. In a nutshell, what they found was that the SN/VTA was activated by absolutely novel images (brand new images that hadn’t been seen before). Images that only slightly deviated from more familiar ones didn’t have the same effect, and neither did images with negative emotional context such as car crashes or angry faces. This is relatable to what might happen during repetition of flash cards or educational material. Only the completely new information stands out among a group of overly familiar objects or images. There have also been animal studies that showed that the plasticity of the hippocampus (the ability to create new connections between neurons) was increased by the influence of novelty—both during the process of exploring novel stimuli and for 15–30 minutes afterwards. While there hasn’t been much study on humans in this area, the findings from these animal studies hold some pretty intriguing implications for learning & memory.
Duzel also noted that novelty has previously been considered a “reward”, much like dopamine, but in actuality it’s much more related to motivation. What this all makes me think is that the perceived experience does have an affect on learning outcomes – but maybe not so much whether it is enjoyable or not but rather if the experience was familiar and repetitious or if it was new and unexplored. I think it is good to step out of our comfort zones…which is why I’m sticking with this class 🙂
References:
Cell Press. “Pure Novelty Spurs The Brain.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 August 2006.
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