Scholarship Of
Teaching and Learning
Project Summary
Submitted by Kari
Dahl
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to Scholarship of Teaching: 2003-04 Participants and Their
Projects
My interest was focused on studentsı attitudes and perceptions and how they influence or impact learning. Many things affect the perceptions and attitudes of students that have nothing to do with content in a class. But the emotions associated with the perceptions and attitudes can determine whether or not the student is open to not only learn the content but have the content deeply affect them emotionally so that the experience of learning can help them retain and use the knowledge long after the class is over.
Review of Literature
In Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain of
learning, (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill and Krathwohl, 1956) the lowest level
of learning is knowledge, or the ability to know only facts. This is what
traditionally teachers are looking for. They test using multiple choice,
true and false, and fill in the blank to measure student learning knowing the
facts. Teachers spend a great deal of time finding out if the student
knows the lowest form of knowing. There is no depth of understanding, of
synthesis, or of evaluation of the material learned. According to Bloom,
(Bloom, et al, 1956) evaluation is the highest form of knowing. In
evaluation, the student knows the facts, can grasp the meaning of the material,
can use the learned material in new situations, can break down the material
into component parts, can put it back together to create something
new, knows alternative points of few, can develop conceptual ideas, and
can judge the value of the material. It is very difficult to measure this
in a test, or even a paper. Most often performance or authentic
assessment is needed in order to clearly evaluate the learning (Angelo, 1993).
It takes an incredible amount of time to do performance assessment, and a different
way to teach than lecture or independent study, to get to this high level of
learning, or "deeper understanding".
Krathwohl (Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia, 1964) suggests that the affective domain of learning is higher than the cognitive domain. Like Bloomıs taxonomy, Krathwohlıs affective domain taxonomy is also developmental. For instance, receiving refers to the studentıs willingness to attend to a certain phenomena. This means they will participate in classroom activities, read the text, but it may lead only to getting the students attention so that they know something exists. Responding refers to active participation of the student, and the student reacts positively to reading the text for pleasure, or coming to class because they are interested and enjoy it. The valuing level, or third level of the domain, is where the student attaches a worth or value to the phenomena. This is where the student chooses to improve and assume additional responsibility willingly. The students begin to value the information and it is apparent in their behavior. They have an attitude that is open to new possibilities and appreciate the new information. Organization is concerned with bringing together different values, and resolving conflicts between them in order to develop a personal philosophy about the information. Krathwolh suggests the highest form of learning in the affect domain is characterization by a value or value complex. This means that the new value has become part of the personıs philosophy and can bee seen through behavior for a long period of time. The behavior is consistent, persistent and predictable. When learning occurs this deeply, a person is transformed. The learning becomes a new, valued belief that the student lives.
Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions. It is a shift of consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters our way of being in the world. Such a shift involves our understanding of ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with other humans and with the natural world; our understanding of relations of power in interlocking structures of class, race and gender; our body awarenessıs; our visions of alternative approaches to living; and our sense of possibilities for social justice and peace and personal joy (http://tortoise.oise.utoronto.ca/~tlcentre/).
Problem
The teacher and the learning organization have a great influence on the studentsı attitude. Much research has been done showing that human perception or attitude directly influences human behavior. In a brown bag session I facilitated, I invited students to be a panel to talk with instructors on how the instructor influences studentıs emotions, attitudes, behavior and learning. The students were all non-traditional with lots of life experience. I asked them to think back in their years as students about the worst teacher they ever had. No one had a problem thinking of one, and several folks had many. We brainstormed the qualities of that teacher and created a list. I then asked them to think about the best teacher they ever had and we created a list of qualities. I then simply asked, ³How did you behave in either situation?² Responding to the worst teacher scenario, the students said, ³I didnıt go to class². ³I did just enough to get by². ³I acted out in class². ³I didnıt care what the content was². ³I caused fights². ³I was defiant². Responding to the best teacher scenario, the students said ³ I spent more time on the class than any other class². ³I wanted to go to the class². ³I couldnıt wait until that class². ³I put my heart and soul into the work I did for the class.² The teacher, how they teach, their attitudes and the expectations they have for the students, affect student learning.
So how can I be a better teacher so
that students have great opportunities for learning that will stay with them
for a lifetime, not just a semester?
How will I know if their perceptions and attitudes of life or subject
matter change because of something I did in class or something they experienced
in class? How do I know if they
have been transformed?
The class that I used for my research was Organizational Development. It is a graduate level course with 20 students from many different masters programs. Most students have prior work experience and return to college for their graduate degree. Many of them are considered non-traditional and are currently employed in leadership position within their organization. The class is held once a week for three hours.
The authentic assessment method used to demonstrate that students have acquired deep learning is that the students perform an organizational assessment in a real organization and develop recommendations that are given to the organization that will move them to be more highly effective in their organizationıs culture, how they solve problems, communicate and make decisions, and how they allow people in the organization to grow and learn.
Students often indicate that they learn much content from their course work, but donıt understand how to apply it in their current or future place of employment. Organizational development is an action research process that engages members of the organization in learning to become more effective. As the instructor, I took the content of organizational development, as transforming the organization. Therefore, I wanted the students to experience transformational learning to understand how learning transforms organizations.
The organizational development class is designed to have the students learn the content by involving them in performing an organizational effectiveness assessment in a real organization so that they can better understand what interventions are applicable to an organization when in a certain stage of effectiveness to move them to become more highly effective in culture, communication processes, and learning. The entire class is designed as a learning process that teaches them how to do the assessment and what constitutes a highly effective organization. They become a consulting team that actually administered the assessment, collects the data, analyzes the data and through a written report and presentation, makes recommendations to the organizationıs members. They learn through researching literature on what is a highly effective organization, involvement in activities that helps them practice consultant techniques, and are required to participate in an opening activity that promotes relationship building among class members daily.
I developed my own questionnaire that I administered every class period before class started. It was designed to find out what attitude the students come into class with, not related to class but life in general that day, why, and what emotions are associated with the attitude. I wanted to better understand how what is happening in life could affect the attitude of learning. I then asked them what is their attitude about being in class today, why and what emotions are included in their attitude. I wanted to find out the students expectations and readiness to actually come to learn the content.
15 minutes before the class period was over, I gave them another questionnaire that asked what their attitude was as they left class, why, and any emotions associated with it to see if possibly the experience of class helped them change their attitude about life in general. Another question asked about their attitude toward the class, to see what attitude or emotions class or their learning actually caused them. I also asked them if anything got them excited or frustrated, what was the incident and why did it cause them those feeling. I asked them if they had any key learning from class, and why are they key to them. I wanted to find out if the key learning they had were somehow related to personal experience, real life situation, the method in which it was taught, or something else. I also wanted to find out if the key learning was somehow transformational.
I encountered a surprise the first day of class when I looked over the data the students had provided me about their attitude about the organizational development class. I was anticipating a poor attitude about the class, because of the content and an my own assumption about studentsı attitudes toward school and learning. On the contrary, 12 of the 20 students indicated their attitudes were positive, excited and interested. When asked why, four common themes emerged including: ³application of principles to my career², ³information is key to my success as a professional², ³I am interested in organizational development², and ³the theories will allow me to express changes for my organization². The studentsı emotions were overwhelmingly excited and motivated, with some anxiousness, apprehension and fear based on not knowing what we were actually going to learn or do in class.
Out of 20 students, everyone indicated that they believe their attitude affects their learning. Every student reported that they had a transformational learning experience occur, even though many attribute it to different learning activities. Many of the students shared that the emotions involved in the transformation began as frustration, anxiety, with an attitude of lack of confidence. However, their emotions changed to pride, excitement, enthusiasm and surprise which led to an attitude of confidence, transferring learning from class to their professions or life, and being relaxed with the content and process.
The most common example of why students felt transformed were that the information learned was transferable to their lives and work and that they would indeed use what they learned. Evidence of student learning that supports this is found in these comments:
Many students also felt the interdependence that the class developed through different perspectives and attitudes of learning together as evidenced by these comments:
One student responded, ³The class was an ³outside² the box experience. Not lecture, applied. Instructor was a transformative leader that helped us understand what we were doing and how we could get there².
Many of the learning activities that occurred during class, attributed a change in attitude from entering class at 4:00 pm until leaving the class at 7:00 pm. Many attributed the change in attitude was because of tiredness from having worked all day. They indicated the opening activities were a great way to come in, get to know one another, and receive a new burst of energy. Emotions that students described went from: Frustrated to positive; stressed and crabby to happy and motivated; a lot of fun; involved, upbeat and positive; people let their guards down; happy, comfortable and connected.
They also indicated the anxiousness, apprehension, fear causing anger, lack of confidence, self-consciousness and frustration helped them focus on what had to be learned to be ready for the assessment. Their emotions changed to pride, courage, confidence, excitement, and pleased. One student indicated their emotions to be ³apprehension that became the biggest learning experience Iıve ever had². One other student talked of being ³very, very, very shy and self conscious² at the beginning of the class to feeling good and relaxed and able to voice their opinion openly.
Evidenced by the studentıs final reflection, the assessment process emerged as the main reason for this change in attitude. Emotions included:
Every teacher wants to know that his or her students are learning deeply, not such surface knowledge. When asked, ³What activities helped you learn deeper?² the organizational assessment process, again, emerged as the main activity. Comments included ³Applying the knowledge to help organizations be successful², ³What you learn about yourself is more important than anything else², ³The assessment was a real world situation that will have effects on real people and how they do their jobs. If they choose to listen to our recommendations it could have a profound affect on many people for a long time. Thatıs pretty cool.² These comments show that students were beginning to value what they had learned and that what they had learned about organizational development would become part of their philosophy about life.
The emotions involved were indications of moving from receiving to valuing (Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia, 1964) the concept of organizational development and developing their own philosophy to become embedded in their actions long after the formal learning process. Emotions include:
A final emotion that captures it all was indicated by one student, ³Now, happiness².
I find myself not being able to think about content without process in my teaching. In my research I was trying to find a specific event, process, or piece of content that caused change in my studentıs attitudes and emotions daily hoping it was related to learning the content. I have reconsidered this notion. Is it really important to know exactly what happened and why? Or trust that the whole process is responsible for transformation and no one thing can be attributed as the cause?
I believe that creating the environment to be safely discontent, giving the permission or trust to become confident, and doing the process is where the most important ³transformational² learning comes to the student. The content becomes a tool for learning. I am always interested in finding new and better processes for learning, as the content will be forever changing in every field or discipline. It goes back to the old saying, ³I may not remember what you taught me, but I will never forget the way you made me feel² (Unknown). I look forward to transforming myself as I continue to work to transform my learners.
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