M. Allyson Macdonaldbera 2003

M. Allyson MacdonaldBERA 2003

An analytic tool for deconstructing teaching and learning tasks

M. Allyson Macdonald

Iceland University of Education

Stakkahlið

104 Reykjavík

ICELAND

A paper presented at the BERA Annual Conference,

held in Edinburgh,

11th to 13th September 2003

ABSTRACT

In an era of educational change acceptable conceptions of teaching and learning seem to go through modifications every few years. But what actually changes? New words in policy texts seem to suggest that changes are desirable but what do they mean for teaching and learning practices? What conceptions of teaching and learning enable us to describe, evaluate or plan sequences of learning?

A 7-frame model of teaching and learning will be presented which has been and is being tested in a variety of situations. The origins of the model are to be found in a paper by Hewson and Hewson (1988). A key feature of the model has proved to be a consideration of teaching-as-task and learning-as-task – what assumptions are made about learning by curriculum planners or teachers as they plan teaching? What will students do?

Applications of the model will be presented. These include an analysis of the learning demands that appear in recent national curricula in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, an evaluation of the use of ICT in schools in Iceland and an examination of the course of study in teacher education from 1940-1962 in Iceland. The model has also been used as a planning tool in a variety of teaching situations.

The model, through its focus on teaching and learning tasks, appear to offer researchers and evaluators a tool that is applicable to a wide range of situations. It seems to provide a means of transcending different schools of thought. It has brought about change in the way individual teachers have addressed their teaching. The model offers an opportunity for dialogue in a variety of learning situations, including policy-making, developmental work or classroom practice.

An analytic tool for deconstructing teaching and learning tasks

M. Allyson Macdonald

INTRODUCTION

In order to deal with change in our learning and teaching environments it could be useful to deconstruct what is involved in teaching and learning. To do this we need to consider what are appropriate conceptions of teaching and learning. For some time I have been working with a model of teaching and learning that has been and is being tested as an analytic tool in a variety of situations (Macdonald 1991, 2002). The key ideas were found in a framework presented in a paper by Hewson and Hewson(1988) who had developed their ideas on work by Hirst (1971, in Hewson and Hewson 1988) and Fenstermacher (1986, in Hewson and Hewson 1988).

Hewson and Hewson (1988) asked: what counts as teaching? They say of the conceptual analysis of teaching by Hirst and Fenstermacher that their framework suggests necessary features without which an activity cannot be regarded as teaching. Both teaching and learning consists of activities and tasks, teaching with the intention of bringing about learning, and learning with the intention of achieving a particular endstate, which has the object of some particular content. We see that teaching is necessarily related to learning though the relationship is not causal but ontological. There is a distinction to be drawn between learning-as-task and learning-as-achievement.

A key feature of the model in research situations is its use in considering teaching as task and learning as task and the related questions: what assumptions are made about learning as curriculum planners or teachers plan teaching? What are students expected to do? What assumptions are made about their role?

This paper is divided into two parts, pragmatic and post-modern. In the pragmatic part I present the model and discuss it briefly, mentioning applications of the model in teaching situations. Then I will present several examples of the model as a tool in recent research in Iceland. These include an analysis of the learning demands that appear in recent national curricula in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, an evaluation of the use of ICT in education and an examination of the course of study in teacher education from 1940-1962 in Iceland.

In the post-modern part I choose to trace the evolution of the model and deconstruct its persistence through some of my experiences. The paper concludes with a few reflections on deconstructionism.

PART I

THE MODEL

I have used the model in teaching situations since 1998. When I introduce it I first pass out white cards to participants (see below) and ask them to put them into some sort of order and to explain their reasoning to their partners.

Content / Learning-as-task / Teaching-as-task
Curriculum (aims) / Learning-as-achievement / Assessment

Then I ask if anything is missing. Usually, but not always and seldom immediately, it is pointed out that the student is missing. The student is then added but on closer inspection it is not at all clear where we should begin when we are planning a teaching session. Finally the cards are arranged as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1A model of aspects to keep in mind in teaching and learning

Teaching-as-task

Preparation, organisation

and observations

Interaction in the classroom

- introduction

- management of

discussion

- guidelines

Assessment and evaluation

Assessment methods

- in words

- in symbols or drawings

- practical knowledge

- portfolio evaluation

- performance achievement

Curriculum

Aims

Concepts

Skills

Attitudes

......

Content

Discipline

Work-related area

Related subjects

Learning-as-achievement

Understanding

Interest and motivation

Skills

Ability

Commitment

Initial state of the

student

Understanding of

the contents

Interest and motivation

Skills

Ability

Learning style

Commitment

Learning-as-task

Tasks

- note-taking, recording

- reading

- discussion

- observations

- examples

Homework

Field trips

Aspects of teaching and learning are thus presented as seven frames – these can be studied separately, together or in interaction with one another. As teachers we can organise and have control over the white frames and as teachers we can experience only that which is within them. It is worth pointing out here that, in the Hirst-Fenstermacher framework presented in the Hewson and Hewson (1988) paper, “content” is not split into content (as in subject area) and curriculum (as in the setting of goals), nor is assessment/evaluation specifically mentioned.

In the Hirst-Fenstermacher framework, the learner is characterized by a present state which does not include (sic) the content. The end-state is characterized by learning-as-achievement, by the learner achieving an endstate. The grey frames are not experienced by teachers – it is only students who begin learning in their initial state, who carry out the learning tasks which the teacher has organised and assigned and it is only the students who experience “learning-as-achievement”.

Depending on time and place it would appear that the frames have different levels of visibility and that for different groups they have different shades of complexity. Each frame requires a set of decisions, sometimes made for teachers and sometimes by them. Ultimately their contents, these decisions, reflect the views that decision-makers or teachers have on a variety of issues. We can apply these frames to an analysis of a national curriculum, a school curriculum or an individual lesson. We may ask: What view of learning is held? Is this reflected in the choice of teaching tasks? In what way students are assessed? To what extent is the position of the student recognized? Is it recognized at all?

We are accustomed to seeing the contents of the white frames, for example, in documents describing courses offered in a particular institution. The grey frames can be more problematic, being either very faint or too clear for comfort. A colleague has suggested that in some situations, the grey frames could be virtually invisible (Tumi Tómasson, personal communication, spring 2001). This has become apparent when senior researchers in an independent institute take on supervision of post-graduate projects; the learner-related frames are not part of the decision-making process of the supervisors. The grey frames are very faint as supervision revolves around the content and not the student. Furthermore the frames may even be faint for the students who may be unaccustomed to anything other than assumptions of a pure transmission model of content in their earlier learning situations.

On the other hand when the framework was presented and discussed at a course for teaching advisors, there was general agreement that the reason the grey frames were often ignored in the planning of teaching was that their incorporation would prove to be an overwhelming task (personal observation, September 2001).

The framework proposed by Hewson and Hewson (1988) and elaborated in the development of the model says nothing per se about the methods teachers use, nor whether they are effective, but assumes that they are intended to bring about learning, are related to the content and are related to the present state of the learner. Nor does it have anything to say about the choice of content or the context in which it occurs. Herein lies the power of the model in its ability to deconstruct the learning and teaching situation such that the conceptions of teaching and learning which lie within the situation under study can be brought forth.

The primary purpose of this paper is to consider the framework as an analytic tool in research projects thus I will discuss only briefly its use as a tool in the planning of teaching.

Using the model in teaching situations

The model has been used and presented in a variety of inservice and research situations since 1998 and appears to ring a chord in the minds of education students, teachers, researchers and policy-makers. Its use in planning courses, for example in distance education, has required teachers to think very seriously about what students are expected to do in response to their teaching activities.

The model has been used as teaching material in teaching methodology courses for distance learning and on-campus undergraduates and graduates. There is always an Aha! moment when the model is presented on a piece of paper and it is simply folded in half so that the white frames are on one half and the grey frames on the other. It has also been used as a tool in the design of research methodology courses. Most recently it has been used as the basis of several chapters in a handbook written for teachers taking their first steps in distance learning (Macdonald and Jóhannsdóttir 2003).

It has been used also as material in several inservice courses for teachers. In one instance the model was presented to teaching advisers, who then had the task of adapting it to their own work with teachers – on the one hand, what constituted the content and structure of advisory work, what were the types of tasks carried out by advisers and how was the work evaluated; on the other hand what was the initial state of teachers seeking advice, what were appropriate tasks for the advisees and towards what end were they planned? In other instances the model has been used to help teachers identify ways in which they can work towards meeting the needs of all students, including gifted students. These include notions of differentiation in content, curriculum, teaching tasks, learning tasks and assessment, combined with a recogntion of different initial states, and has facilitated the understanding that there is a myriad of ways in which teaching can be designed to meet individual needs.

THE MODEL AS AN ANALYTICAL TOOL IN RESEARCH

Here several applications of the model in recent research situations will be discussed. The seven frames of the modelfocus attention simultaneously on the teacher and learner and each frame is a window into a world of choices and situations which must be taken into account when making teaching decisions. The view differs according to the contexts in which we work and the assumptions which we make about the way in which students learn.

Teacher education in Iceland from 1940-1962

Several years ago a colleague and I began work on the history of teacher education here in Iceland during and after the war years (Kristinsdóttir and Macdonald 2003, Macdonald and Kristinsdóttir 2002). Key concepts in the project which was initiated by colleagues in Canada and Sweden were traditions and transitions. We decided that my colleague would pay particular attention to changes in society and the laws regarding education, and I would look at the course of training provided within the Iceland College of Education.

Six detailed reports about the teaching activities at the ICE were written by the principal for the period. Each report generally included the following sections: length of the academic year; list of students according to year, including parents and home address in the year they are admitted to the school; teachers and subjects taught by them; subjects, and hours of instruction each year; course materials and topics; student grades; examination times; grants and financing; and some other matters. In 1958 a 50-year review of the ICE was compiled, much of it written by the principal, but also with some short articles by teachers and ex-students. A great deal of information is to be found here with fleeting glimpses of bygone times written by former students and staff.

I thought it would be of interest to deconstruct the data within these reports and the review in such a way that conceptions of teaching and learning could emerge, not least because the object of study was teacher education. The deconstruction was also thought of as a way of rereading the reports and preparing for interviews: We wanted to know: what were the characteristics of the course offered at the Iceland College of Education in the 1940s and 1950s? What could be found within the frames? How visible were they? Who determined what was in them? Was there any change in the frames over time? If so, what might account for these changes?

When considering the seven frames, we found that the only frame that changed substantially during the period 1941-62 concerned the characteristics of the students entering the college. Men were in the majority during almost the entire period under study, and especially during the period from 1948 to 1956. There were changes in gender by 1960 with an increase in the number of women, which by some was considered to have affected the position of the profession to the worse, as an interviewee points out (Kristinsdóttir and Macdonald, 2003). The age of students decreased during the period. The majority of students were 18 or older in 1941 with an average age of 19.7. During the next twenty years there were some legal changes regarding education and many changes in society. By 1961 more than half were younger than 18 and the average age was 17.3. Not only were the students considerably younger, with considerably less experience, they were also the product of the transitions in Icelandic society and the educational system. Younger students in particular were starting to use the college as a means of obtaining an upper secondary education, though in fact many did go on to teach. The college had become a stepping-stone rather than a final point.

The other six frames remained virtually unchanged; traditions were being upheld in the courses to be studied, the teaching and assessment methods and the ways in which students were expected to learn. The juxtaposition of changes in one frame with the absence of changes in the other frames led us to ask more searching questions about the conceptions of teaching and learning held by teachers at the college. What did students think of their training? Did they feel ready to face the task of teaching in the ever-expanding primary school system?

The use of the model as a tool in this research threw into sharp relief the traditional notions of teaching as transmission, of knowledge itself having value and that is was entirely possible to continue teaching without making allowances for changes in the student population nor in society. Indeed we used the metaphor of an island in a sea of change for the position of the college during this period.

Learning demands in three Nordic countries

In 2002 two colleagues and I took on the onerous task of comparing the “learning demands” made in lower and upper secondary schools in the national curricula in the three Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. In particular we were to consider five areas, teaching of the “mother tongue”, English, mathematics, social studies and the sciences. The report was commissioned by a working committee within the Ministry of Education which had been set up to consider the issue of whether it was possible to shorten the period of secondary schooling in Iceland from four years (i.e. age 16-20) to three years (i.e. age 16-19). We were asked to work only from representations of the official curricula in each country and as much as possible to restrict ourselves to what was found on web-sites in each country. Provision was made for short field visits to schools in Sweden and Denmark. The report was submitted in September 2002 (Macdonald et al., 2002).

We were not provided with a clear definition of what the committee meant by “learning demands” (which in Icelandic also has a slight hint of “learning expectations”) other than that we should consider knowledge, skills and attitudes. Thus it was left to us to develop and use an operational definition that would make sense not only to us but also to the committee. An initial foray into documents available on the Internet produced a list of topics or emphasese listed under mother tongue teaching in the three countries, and this seemed to be entirely unsatisfactory.