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?
The idea here is that we need to tease apart the strands of learner-as-skill and learner-as-role. As we transition from delivery mode to delivery mode — classroom to broadcast to online to compressed video to computer based instruction — the skills needed change. The roles do not. Earlier we talked a bit about equivalency theory from the perspective of operationalizing a different format, but we also need to look at it from the perspective of the roles of the learner.
Rephrased: Learner-role is “What does a learner do?” Learner-skill is “How does a learner do it?” The skills may change out as the underlying platform varies, but the role should be relatively constant.