If the role of the teacher is to provide the bridge, the the role of the learner must be to identify those bridges which are useful in some way and use them. On the face of it, this seems like a no-brainer. But trying to dig into the idea becomes a frustrating exercise in teasing out the skills from the roles. This is particularly true when we start talking about oxymorons like “online learning.”
Reading in the Kearsley book, Online Education: Learning and Teaching in Cyberspace, for example, we find a chapter on online learning that talks only about the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required to operate in the space. While I’m sure this is helpful, I put it on a par with getting a map showing student parking. Sure, it’s “what to do” but not “why do it” and that is the critical element. Just as we needed to tease out the Teacher-as-Job from Teacher-as-Role in order to get to a foundation upon which to build the idea of teacher, I think we need to separate out Learner-Skill from Learner-Role. As a result, any discussion of environment, time management, or communications technology goes into the Learner-Skill pile, but what does that leave us?
Discuss.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:03 am
[...] Last week we talked about the role of teacher. This week we need to talk about the role of learner. A year ago today, I wrote: The Learner [A]ny discussion of environment, time management, or communications technology goes into the Learner-Skill pile, but what does that leave us? [...]
October 11th, 2008 at 9:32 am
[...] I wrote this piece about the relative roles of teacher and learner a couple years ago and I think it still holds true: If the role of the teacher is to provide the bridge, the the role of the learner must be to identify those bridges which are useful in some way and use them. On the face of it, this seems like a no-brainer. But trying to dig into the idea becomes a frustrating exercise in teasing out the skills from the roles. This is particularly true when we start talking about oxymorons like “online learning.” phaedrus » Blog Archive » The Learner. [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 8:18 am
The statement about the roles of the teacher and learner are simple. In my posts I over thought the role and started listing characteristics. Teachers are there to fill in those gaps for students to succeed and the student must want to recieve that informantion. This is everything we have been talking about.