Learning that grows Russell T. Osguthorpe Department of Instructional Psychology and Technology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA russ_osguthorpe@byu.edu (801) 368-6908 Teachers and instructional designers universally seek to help learners go beyond simple mastery of an educational objective. Remembering a newly learned fact or developing a new skill are laudable goals, but all good educators seek for more. They hope that the newly acquired skill or knowledge do not lay dormant inside the learner but continue to grow. This kind of growth leads to changes in the ways learners see themselves. One type of competence leads to another type and yet another. The learning grows, and in the process of this growth, the identity of the learner expands. In this paper a model is presented that explains this type of identity formation. Those involved in the development of e-learning and other technology-driven delivery systems are encouraged to consider the principles described in the model. Keywords: Learning theory, identity formation 1. What is learning? Commonly accepted definitions of learning usually focus on a change in behavior that endures over time (see Gagné, Wager, Keller, & Golas, 2004). In other words a child learns how to ride a bicycle one day and can still ride it a day, a week, or a month later. Figure 1 shows how such learning might be depicted graphically. One might say that this type of learning is learning that lasts. It endures beyond the time of initial mastery. This type of learning usually makes teachers, designers, and technologists happy. Our efforts were not wasted, they might say. We delivered instruction, the student mastered the intended learning outcomes, and the level of mastery endured. In contrast to learning that lasts is learning that decays over time. Imagine a student who is taking an online course in American History, a course that requires the student to match important events with shifts in the culture. The student may master the intended content, take the test and perform quite admirably and then gradually forget most of what was learned. Figure 2 depicts this type of learning.
No one involved in the American History course feels good about this type of learning. Teachers feel unfulfilled, students feel empty, and administrators wonder if the funds devoted to the online course could have been better spent elsewhere. In fact, learning that decays does not even qualify as learning at all because it did not meet both parts of the original definition. Students may have mastered some content they did not previously understand, but the change in their understanding did not endure over time. Now let us examine a third type of learning. Figure 3 shows a form of learning that never goes beyond the first two types. Rather than decaying or staying steady over time, it keeps changing in a positive direction. This is learning that grows. An example of such learning might be a student who learns how to ride a bicycle and then starts asking questions about how the gears on the bicycle work. With continued instructional help the student dismantles the gear assembly and replaces it with a better gear assembly. Even at a young age, the student acquires the characteristic of someone who is mechanically inclined and eventually becomes a mechanical engineer. Even if the student had not chosen to become an engineer, the interest in mechanical things might have become a life-long hobby. The point is that the learning kept evolving long after the initial lessons were taught. Skill development led to questions, and the questions led to more skill development until the identity of the learner changed. This type of learning goes well beyond the original acceptable form of learning that lasts. The end goal of such learning is not mastery of facts or skills, it s acquiring a new identity, an expanded view of oneself. How does an instructional designer or teacher plan for such learning? What are the factors that contribute to learning that grows? 2. A model for learning that grows I suggest that there are three primary factors that contribute to learning that grows: Expectations, Effort, and Identity. Each of these factors are focused on the learner. In other words I am talking about the expectations of the learner, the effort the learner puts forth to learn, and the changes in the learner s identity that accrue from the learning experience. Let us first examine learner expectations. People seldom exceed their own expectations. And if they do, one might argue that their expectations were too low. Without expectations, the airline pilot may never fly a plane or reach the desired destination. Without expectations, a student may never open a book to study. Expectations are thoughts that lead to actions. Without them, there would be no human action at all. When I enter my car, I insert the key and turn it because I expect that the car engine will start. When I ask the cashier if the store accepts credit cards, I expect a response. Everything we do grows out of expectations. But there is a critical difference between expecting something because one has already experienced it, and expecting something that one has never experienced. The reason I expect the car engine to start when I insert the key is because I have done it many times before, and it has always worked. Consider, however, learners approaching a new task, one that they have never before experienced. Now expectations take on a whole new meaning. If someone wants to teach me to hang glide and I have never done it before where do my expectations come from? They come from my own view of who I am in relation to the task to be learned. They come from my identity. Do I see myself as someone who is quick to learn new physical skills? Do I see myself as a risk taker?
Three types of expectations affect learning: (1) expectations of oneself, (2) expectations of others, and (3) expectations of the learning situation. For example, if I choose to learn how to hang glide, I have certain expectations about how I will perform, perhaps even about the kinds of help I will need to succeed. I have expectations about others and their ability to provide that kind of help. And I have expectations about the situation itself. Even though I may never have attempted to hang glide, I see the hang glider, I feel the wind, I watch others perform the task, and I form expectations about what hang gliding is like, how it might feel, and how proficient I will be at mastering the skill. Figure 4 shows the relationship between expectations, effort, and identity with the components of each contributing factor. As the figure shows, agency plays a role in the formation of expectations and the exertion of effort. One chooses albeit subconsciously at times to expect certain things and to put forth certain types of effort. What if, for example, my hang gliding teacher explains to me that she has taught over 1,000 students to hang glide without any experiencing serious injury. I may choose to take that information and still expect to be injured myself, or I may choose to expect that I will be like the other 1,000 and learn in safety. As the learning situation unfolds, learners must exert effort if they want to master the new skill. And the kind and amount of effort they exert will be directly related to their expectations. If they expect to fail at the task, they will be loath to try. If they expect to succeed, they will be eager to try. So expectations fuel the learning experience at every turn. If learners expect to gain little from listening to the teacher, reading the text, or completing the online instructions, they will likely expend little effort to those ends. If they expect to gain much from instructional help, they will exert themselves both physically and mentally to master whatever help they can get. Their efforts will sometimes be individual and at other times collaborative. In each case, expectations are again at the base of their efforts. They have expectations about how well they work together with others and expectations about how effective they are on their own. If expectations are low and effort is lax, little learning will occur, but the learner s identity will still be affected for the negative. With low expectations and half-hearted effort success is highly unlikely, and the learner may draw many conclusions again often subconsciously from the experience. However, if the learner has high expectations and exerts whole-hearted effort, success will be likely, and the learner will draw very different conclusions from the experience. Returning to the hang gliding example, if I decide that I will not be very good at it and then arrive late to my first lesson and tell the teacher that I don t think I m cut out to be a hang glider, I might talk myself into not trying at all. Whereas if I get up my courage, envision myself being lifted by the wind over the next hill, and do the requested exercises before arriving at my lesson, everything will be different. My effort will be whole-hearted, my desire to learn will be strong, and my ability to achieve my goal will increase quickly. Figure 4 shows that the ultimate aim of learning is the transformation of one s identity. Even though learners seldom think about this, it is in learning that we become new people. We discard the old and
embrace the new. At times we doubt our own ability to grow into this new identity, but as we keep trying, keep exerting whole-hearted effort, change comes. Wenger (1998) discusses how all learning can eventually be viewed as transformative helping forge a new identity: Because learning transforms who we are and what we can do, it is an experience of identity. It is not just an accumulation of skills and information, but a process of becoming to become a certain person or, conversely, to avoid becoming a certain person. Even the learning that we do entirely by ourselves eventually contributes to making us into a specific kind of person. We accumulate skills and information, not in the abstract as ends in themselves, but in the service of an identity. It is in that formation of an identity that learning can become a source of meaningfulness and of personal and social energy. (p. 215) But identity change does not come all at once. And identity is not a single-dimension characteristic. Figure 4 shows that there are at least five types of identity that can be affected by learning situations: (1) professional identity, (2) personal identity, (3) talent identity, (4) character identity, and (5) learner identity. Professional identity relates to the way I view myself in my chosen occupation. In the hang gliding example, I may never choose to make it my profession, but then again, I just might decide to retire from what I am now doing and become a hang gliding instructor. Personal identity relates to personality traits. I remember a young man who wanted to develop his social skills. He was socially reticent, uncomfortable in front of groups, and at times almost inaudible even when speaking to just one other person. He set out to acquire social skills and in the process gained a new identity as one who was socially comfortable and able to address large groups without hesitation. His learning although it focused on more than just conversational skills was in the service of an identity. He was trying to improve in his ability to succeed at his chosen profession, and in the process was attempting tasks he had never attempted before so that he could discard the old and embrace the new. Talent identity is the development of one s gifts. Rather than starting from scratch, learning that leads to improved talent usually has some inborn seeds or gifts. Someone might say, She is a talented basketball player, or he is an exceptional artist. It is not uncommon to describe people by their talents: Which friend are you talking about, the tennis player or the drummer? Talents are part of one s identity, and talents are often the object of one s learning. Character identity is always forming. This is the kind of identity that marks someone as a person of integrity, an honest person, or a caring person. The ways in which one s character develops are not completely understood. But the centrality of character to one s identity is beyond argument. No one would claim that honesty or caring are unimportant characteristics of human beings. These characteristics determine the degree to which one can be trusted, respected, and loved. And they are forming in every learning experience. Some argue that character traits can be taught, others argue that they must be caught not taught (Osguthorpe, 2005). But regardless of how such traits become part of one s identity, their importance is unassailable. The fifth type of identity in Figure 4 is learner identity. I believe that this identity is key to one s ability to live a full life. Do I see myself as one who can learn anything that I need to learn at anytime in any way? Or do I see myself as one who struggles to learn new things? In either case each new learning experience adds to or changes learner identity. And all other forms of identity hinge on this one type. How can I develop a character trait if I don t feel that I can learn anything effectively? How can I develop a new talent if I am a poor learner? How can I acquire a new characteristic in my personality or become more skilled in my profession if I view myself as a problem learner?
3. Implications Several years ago I observed my wife as she taught singing lessons. One of her pupils (we will call him Jared) had a strong desire to learn to sing. At the age of 18 his inborn musical gifts were not very apparent, and he also had a severe reading disability. At first he could hardly match pitch when my wife asked him to sing a note she played on the piano. I asked her one day why she was working with him if she really thought he could learn to sing. She responded, I just feel like he s got something in there, and I m going to help him bring it out. They kept working together week after week. After not hearing him for a number of months, I entered our home one day and was astounded to hear how much improvement he had made. My wife and I heard him sing a solo in front of about 600 people. He sang well. And most who listened to him believed that he had always sounded that good. But we knew something they did not know. We had witnessed the learning and the personal changes the learning brought. Jared s success was certainly due in part to his mastering interim instructional goals. He learned how to maximize his personal gifts. And he improved in reading at the same time he improved in singing. All of these achievements were impressive. But more impressive yet were the effects of his experience on his own identity. He came to see himself as a capable learner, more capable than he had ever been in school. He saw himself as a singer. And he saw his own personality expand, being comfortable to sing in front of a large audience. He expected to learn to sing. And he exerted whole-hearted effort. And in the process he became someone he had never imagined. This is learning that grows. It is a type of learning that is available for all. Jared s story, and many more like it, call out to instructional designers and teachers to focus more on the ultimate outcomes of learning rather than dwelling so much on the interim outcomes. The ultimate outcomes focus on the identity formation of the learner. The interim outcomes focus on mastering instructional objectives. How will such a shift be possible? It will happen in collaboration with others. It will occur in communities of practice of designers and teachers. What this means is that designers and teachers themselves must experience identity change. If designers see themselves as those who produce products to effect a certain set of restrictive interim learning outcomes, then that is what will be accomplished. If teachers see themselves as slaves to state-imposed instructional goals, then we will never move beyond where we are right now. If, on the other hand, educators come to see themselves as fostering identity change in the learners, they will raise their sights and focus more on helping learners raise their expectations and exert whole-hearted effort. This change, and it will not come quickly, will lead to learning that transforms learners and fuels their expectations for greater future success. 4. Further information For additional information contact the author at the following email address: russ_osguthorpe@byu.edu References [1] R. M. Gagné, W. W.Wager, K. C. Golas, and J. M. Keller. Principles of instructional design, Ft. Worth: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (2004). [2] E. Wenger, Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1998). [3] Osguthorpe, R.D. On the possible forms a relationship might take between the moral character of a teacher and the moral development of a student. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA, 2006.