Retrieved from the TEL opinion blog, December the 22th, 2005
The reasons why the learner, either a child or an adult, needs "teaching inputs" are very often hidden as a corollary of the emphasis on—and possibly the misunderstanding of—the constructivist principles of design of learning environments. I would like to suggest here that these needs are especially important in the case of modern environments which are largely distributed and provide a potential access to a huge amount of knowledge and information. The following questions illustrate some of the issues that learners may have to face when left on their own in the wild web of digital resources: "How to look for something you don't know? ", "How to know that what you have found is what you were looking for? ", "How to know that you have learned?". Here are some of the issues that a teaching assistant should help to address. Another crucial question is: "How will others know that you know?"
It is not enough that learners have solved problems for them to understand that they have learned. Creative problem-solving which is at the core of the constructivist approach is so rich in new intellectual constructs that it is even a problem for the learner to realise what is worth remembering. Here again is a specific task for a teaching assistant. There is no general teaching model which could be implemented to equip a learning environment with the corresponding functionalities.
The nature of complex knowledge (as opposed to basic skills) is another reason to seriously refocus the design of learning environments on teaching issues. One of the main characteristics of such knowledge is, first that to master it requires to master several different pieces of knowledge organised in the form of a system, and second that its use depends on methods which are not mere algorithms. Such knowledge cannot be constructed spontaneously even when learners are provided with an adequate problem-situation, and actually in some cases such situations are even still unknown (e.g. linear algebra). As a result, complex knowledge requires specific learning environments and content specific teaching strategies. The complexity of such knowledge also comes from the fact that the corresponding learners' conceptions (i.e. learners' cognitive constructs), can be very different the one from the other and rather complex to understand and to model. The current research on students' understanding of the concept of "function" in mathematics or of the concept of "energy" in physics witnesses this complexity. The development of technological tools aiming at supporting the use of these knowledge (formal computation, simulation, etc.) even increases the difficulty by modifying within a kind of systemic loop the nature of the users' conceptions.
We cannot expect one single universal agent to be able to handle the complexity of supporting the learning process in the case of complex knowledge. On the contrary, there is a need for specialised agents, either artificial or human, able to cooperate and to coordinate their actions in order to provide the best support to the learner—indeed, one could remark at this point that the situation might not be so different for the so called "basic skills"…
My claim is that: the educating function of a system is an emerging property of the interactions organised between its components, and not a functionality of one of its parts.
The reasons why the learner, either a child or an adult, needs "teaching inputs" are very often hidden as a corollary of the emphasis on—and possibly the misunderstanding of—the constructivist principles of design of learning environments. I would like to suggest here that these needs are especially important in the case of modern environments which are largely distributed and provide a potential access to a huge amount of knowledge and information. The following questions illustrate some of the issues that learners may have to face when left on their own in the wild web of digital resources: "How to look for something you don't know? ", "How to know that what you have found is what you were looking for? ", "How to know that you have learned?". Here are some of the issues that a teaching assistant should help to address. Another crucial question is: "How will others know that you know?"
It is not enough that learners have solved problems for them to understand that they have learned. Creative problem-solving which is at the core of the constructivist approach is so rich in new intellectual constructs that it is even a problem for the learner to realise what is worth remembering. Here again is a specific task for a teaching assistant. There is no general teaching model which could be implemented to equip a learning environment with the corresponding functionalities.
The nature of complex knowledge (as opposed to basic skills) is another reason to seriously refocus the design of learning environments on teaching issues. One of the main characteristics of such knowledge is, first that to master it requires to master several different pieces of knowledge organised in the form of a system, and second that its use depends on methods which are not mere algorithms. Such knowledge cannot be constructed spontaneously even when learners are provided with an adequate problem-situation, and actually in some cases such situations are even still unknown (e.g. linear algebra). As a result, complex knowledge requires specific learning environments and content specific teaching strategies. The complexity of such knowledge also comes from the fact that the corresponding learners' conceptions (i.e. learners' cognitive constructs), can be very different the one from the other and rather complex to understand and to model. The current research on students' understanding of the concept of "function" in mathematics or of the concept of "energy" in physics witnesses this complexity. The development of technological tools aiming at supporting the use of these knowledge (formal computation, simulation, etc.) even increases the difficulty by modifying within a kind of systemic loop the nature of the users' conceptions.
We cannot expect one single universal agent to be able to handle the complexity of supporting the learning process in the case of complex knowledge. On the contrary, there is a need for specialised agents, either artificial or human, able to cooperate and to coordinate their actions in order to provide the best support to the learner—indeed, one could remark at this point that the situation might not be so different for the so called "basic skills"…
My claim is that: the educating function of a system is an emerging property of the interactions organised between its components, and not a functionality of one of its parts.
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