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Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Lisbon, 11-14 September 2002.
Triangle of Competences” as One of the Basic Characteristics of the University Library Learning Environment
Juceviciene Palmira, Tautkeviciene Gintare
Kaunas University of Technology
Contemporary higher education undergoes great changes, which are influenced by changing academic, information, and technological environment as well as market economics. With respect to learning paradigm (J.Bowden, F. Marton, 1998) as well as the conception of life-long learning (Longworth, N. 1999) in the university one seeks to create flexible learning environments. Referring to this standpoint, an academic library becomes a partner and active participant of study process (B.G. Wilson, 1996). Constantly changing academic and information environment raises new requirements for the competence of academic community members. This problem is broad and calls for a deeper study. First of all, the very concept of “learning environment” requires some precise definition as though recently it is often applied in library studies it still remains more declarative than scientifically based concept. Learning environment, interpreting it in the context of learning paradigm, acquires its complex structure and exerts its enabling influence. At the same time learning environment calls for a new consideration of the competences of its participants – librarians, students, teachers/researchers – that are necessary for the activity based on their interaction in the learning environment of university library.
The purpose of this article is to base the “triangle of competences” in general concept of learning environment of university library.
The following objectives are defined:
1. To specify the concept of learning environment in the context of the learning occurring in the university.
2. To reveal the concept of university library learning environment and its characteristics.
3. To base the structure of the “triangle of competences” while discussing the necessary competences of students, librarians, teachers/researchers.
4. To reveal the problems of the functioning of the triangle of competences in the practice of university library work.
The methods employed are literature studies and meta analysis.
1. The concept of learning environment in the context of the learning that takes part in the university.
A big number of educational researchers have recently applied a new approach towards learning in their analysis of learning process. They emphasize a constructive nature of learning, which is being analysed as cognitive and environment based phenomenon. Two main complementary approaches are defined:
Socio - cultural approach. Learning takes place through the process of social interaction (Vygotsky, 1978, Lave & Wenger, 1991, Marton & Bowden, 1998). It always takes place in a particular context with its emotional, organizational, physical and cultural characteristics (Novak, 1998). Students gain new knowledge through the social interaction. The main characteristic of learning is that it creates “zone of proximal development”, i.e. learning involves different inner processes of development that can be developed with peer collaboration or communication with advanced learners (Vygotsky, 1978). Lave & Wenger (1991) analyse learning as everyday activity that normally occurs in an educational institution, at home or workplace. Situated learning is a process when learner participates in a community of practice and learns form more experienced colleagues (Wenger, 1998). Knowledge needs to be presented in an authentic context, i.e., settings and applications that would normally involve that knowledge. Learning requires social interaction and collaboration.
Constructivist approach. Learning is an active and constructive process. Instead of being passive recipients of information, learners are actively involved in a process of knowledge and skills construction. They employ their already existing formal and informal knowledge and interact with the environment. “Learning occurs through a process of assimilating concepts into the cognitive structures by either subsuming concepts under each other, by progressively differentiating concepts from each other or by reconciling the similarities between concepts” (Novak, 1998). Learners actively invent knowledge by building relations and applying their experience. Constructivist approach to learning is based on the idea that meaning making involves the analysis and synthesis of experience in a certain way that creates a new understanding. Learning should foster the integration of thinking, emotions and activity. While learner is constructing a new meaning, learning activity should involve experience, knowledge, opinions, thoughts, emotions and actions.
On of the aims of constructivist learning is to build a “shared meaning among learning process facilitators and learners or in a group of learners. Learners together with their teachers explore the relationship between incoming new information and existing experience and in that way they reach a common understanding.
Reflection and meta cognitive skills are the essential aspects of knowledge and meaning making. The constructivist approach urges for the development of learning to learn competence. The reflective and meta cognitive learning strategies play the main role in creating the learning environments.
According to constructivist approach, a learning environment is student-centered. The representatives of constructivism theory (Wilson, 1996) argue that “at minimum, a learning environment contains: the learner and “setting” or “space” wherein the learner acts, using tools and devices, collecting and interpreting information, interacting perhaps with others”. Learning environment involves the participants (students, teachers, etc.), data, information, knowledge and different channels of its transmission to learners (Bowden & Marton, 1998). Learning environments can be natural or intentionally organized.
Valuable learning environment is characterized by the main features: it has to have positive developmental impact on individual, i.e. the ability based on educational value and expressed by means to help a person to get prepared for solving his/her life and activity problems. The organization of learning environments requires the understanding that different individuals perceive a concrete learning environment differently: the same environment could foster or inhibit the learning of different persons. This is because each individual does not accept a learning environment as it is or as we create it. Instead, he/she accepts a learning environment according to his/her own perception based on the existing experience. A student- centered learning environment is based on the notion that learners have different learning goals, different knowledge and different attitudes, different learning styles. So, the development of flexible and student-centered learning environments calls for the evaluation of learners’ individual differences: core competence, approach to learning, learning needs, motivation and individual learning style.
A rich learning environment should employ as many components as to ensure a possibility to reach different learning goals and to use different learning styles. The learners personally decide what is significant for them, because such efforts encourage for better results and stimulates a learning activity.
An empowering learning environment should be organized in such a way that an individual feels himself/herself capable and powerful for personal development that is implemented through learning efforts. The empowering learning environments are characterised by diversity, choice, and adequacy to learner’s needs. The possibility to choose the place and time for learning is considered to be also important for building the empowering learning environment.
So, a learning environment could be defined as a space or location where a learner interacts with information sources (with more experienced individuals as well) and acquires knowledge, skills and values by means of constructive, strong-willed, deliberate activity that is based on purposiveness and reflection.
Having evaluated the above statements and referring to Jonassen, Land (2000) who submitted the characteristics of empowering learning environment, the essential features of empowering learning environment should be as follows:
- Knowledge needs to be presented in an authentic context, i.e., settings and applications that would normally apply that knowledge.
- Learning requires social interaction and collaboration.
- Learning involves thinking, emotions and activity, that is why a learning environment embraces the diverse environmental factors: physical, emotional and cultural.
- Learning requires learner’s interactivity with a learning environment, i.e. not only environment has to make a developmental impact on an individual, the individual has to be engaged into the constant rethinking of his/her interaction with this learning environment.
- Each learner because of his/her competence, experience and learning goals perceives a learning environment individually.
Among these features two aspects should be defined as extremely problematic:
1. Learning goal (–s), i.e. bearing in mind that a learner has a certain set of goals. How should a learner identify a single goal or several goals that serve best to use a learning environment available for him/her within the given time? If an individual is extremely concentrated on one particular activity, most probably his/her receptivity for the diversity of learning environment factors weakens. It seems better that he/she could proactively use as much the learning environment possibilities as they exist in the time and space. So, a fixed and narrow learning goal, that is desirable in common educational situations, could perform a restrictive role in case of a learning environment. More specifically, this narrow learning goal could reduce the possibilities of learning environment to make an impact on an individual and, despite the factor-rich environment, extract that factor(s) which only matches the stressed learning goal leaving aside a lot of other possibilities.
On the other hand, the question arises if the tolerance of several essential learning goals simultaneously does not burden learning process and distract learner’s attention. In that case one should consider the learner’s relationship with his/her learning goals and information embedded in a learning environment. These issues are related to learner’s information competence and its constant development.
2. Interactivity or, more specifically, the problem of its identification: how to define the impact of learning environment on learning process? The interactivity has a double significance. It is significant for the learner in enabling him/her to realize self-directed, deliberate learning and to use in the best way his/her learning environment. The impact is significant for the educator, because he/she creates this learning environment and takes care about it’s development, therefore he/she needs a feedback. The constant development of learner and educator’s special competence of learning environment development and management as well as meta learning competence are important in this aspect.
The above discussed issues bring to the surface another more fundamental problem: Are the educators, who care about the provision of learning environments for the learners in any event, able to create such a diversity of learning environments? Isn’t it necessary for educators to build an educational environment open for learning which has a multidimensional potential for self-transformation into the actual learning environments for the particular persons. This educational environment open for learning has to embrace a great number of rich and empowering learning environments that are being identified by the particular persons. And the organization of educational environment should enable an individual to easily identify and interact with the learning environment relevant to his/her learning goal (-s).
2. The concept of university library learning environment and its characteristics.
In these latter years an academic library has undergone the huge and never ending changes that take place both in information and academic environments. The library becomes one of the potential university learning environment characterised by the richness of information. Then the question arises: is every space of the library considered to be a learning environment? The richness of information on its own does not ensure the creation of a learning environment. In a library space an individual who knows his/her learning goal or goals, has to identify an environment that helps to implement these goals. That is why an educational environment open to learning has to be created in the library. An educational environment is a space where the pursuit of educational goals is implemented by developing the competence, material, administrative, psychological and studying conditions. The educational environment would meet the needs of implemented study programmes and incorporate the goals for lifelong development of its participants’ information and meta learning competencies. Therefore, it has to have the multidimensional potential of learning environments.
The academic curriculum goals and content have penetrated into the educational environment of university library. So the latter is influenced by the content of study programmes. This educational environment should have a well-defined context of a learning environment. The educational environment of the university library is characterised by the following academic specificity:
- It is an integral part of university educational system;
- It has to interact with all educational environments of university study programmes;
- Its regular clients – students, teachers, scientists, administration staff – communicate with each other;
- Its selectivity depends on the client group.
The development of information and communication means influences the uprise of new information production, storage, processing and submitting ways and the continuous development in the library (Dowler, 1997). Modern technical and technological facilities change the library status from being solely a traditional learning environment to a virtual learning environment. Such a possibility to be a virtual learning environment increases the flexibility of a learning environment enabling to choose the location and time for studying. The richness of information sources, the provision of technical and technological means create more conditions for building the educational environment in the library as well as its learning environments.
So, the university library learning environment is an individualised learning space established from the library’s educational environment; it is a physical and/or virtual space of the library which is recognized according to learner’s experience, competence and learning goals. It has an influence on a learner and involves the information, that meets the individual’s learning goal (-s), its receiving and assimilating methods and tools. Other participants (peers, librarians etc.) also may be an important part of the learning environment.
Two features are emphasized in this learning environment: content (which reflects valuable learning information) and context (a library forms its educational environment perceived by a learner as a totality which influences his/her learning process).
Meeting the changes and satisfying the emergent continuous learning needs, an academic library has to undergo constant transformation and foresee the perspectives of further development including the regular renewal and improvement of an educational environment (learning environments as well). It betokens that organizational learning is crucial, so a library has to be a learning organization. One of the main characteristics of learning organization is the transformation of hierarchical organizational structure into the network organization.