Learners with physical disabilities discover their learning needs
TAFE NSW VET Pedagogy Project 2005 managed by Lynne Stallard, ICVET
Even though people in VET use the term 'learning' a lot, it often refers to a passive kind of learning. I believe we in TAFE need to give much more attention to making learning active. We need to help people take as much personal responsibility for learning as they can manage at any particular time.
Dr Jeanne Boote
Summary
- main meaning of ‘learning style’ = a hunger to learn that wells up from within; and a preference to learn actively and with understanding (rather than learning by rote)
- learners can learn about learning and, in the process, they can extend their learning options
- real learning is active. TAFE teachers should try to create the conditions for learning, and to help students take advantage of these conditions and better understand their own learning preferences
- learning style is not fixed—it varies, depending on time and circumstances
- creating the conditions for flexible learning and supporting it in TAFE can take more time and resources (at least initially) than traditional approaches, not less!
Teacher stance
Encouraging learning about learning; fostering personal responsibility, independence and empowerment
Background
I'm a teacher-consultant for students with physical disabilities. My section supports students in mainstream courses; other TCs offer special courses. Some people have been born with a disability (the educational implications of which mainly affect their dexterity, movement and mobility or involve pain management), and some have acquired it.
What I see is a regular student who happens to face some learning challenges. I first became interested when I had some students and was told that they were really having trouble with learning. It was puzzling, because there wasn't any suggestion that they had cognitive impairment.
Learning to learn
I've run a number of tutorials on 'learning to learn'. Students in the tutorial may be studying any one of a number of subject areas, none of which I'm expert in. But my focus is on helping them become better at the skill of learning itself.
The tutorials worked quite well. For example, I had one older chap who was retraining after an injury. He was really fixed in his thoughts about learning and what it was. Initially, when he had the choice of studying in traditional mode or flexibly, he would always opt for the traditional mode.
I discovered that he was scared stiff with what flexible learning involved, so opted for a delivery mode he knew. But gradually, he became more comfortable with understanding about a more flexible style of learning. He came back sheepishly at the start of the next semester and asked if he could change over to the flexible mode.
Teaching and learning styles
In my view, when students struggle with learning, it suggests a mismatch between the teaching style and their learning style. Both teachers and learners need to know about learning styles.
In VET, there has been lots of focus on learning—'work-based learning', 'flexible learning'—so the words are all there, but we're not really giving much attention to learning itself. Even though people in VET use the term 'learning' a lot, it's a passive kind of learning.
I believe we need to give much more attention to making learning active. We need to help people take whatever degree of personal responsibility for learning they can manage at any particular time. Because of student numbers and the time and content pressures of VET curricula these days, teachers can’t always respond as comprehensively as they’d like.
Students can’t always change a teaching style, but if they understand how they best learn themselves, they may be able to adjust that to suit the teacher’s approach.
When I've explored the factors which contribute to preferred learning styles, there are so many. Educational background, ability to transfer learning, their interpersonal and organisational skills, their knowledge of learning preference, their preparedness for independent learning, their levels of confidence, the nature of the feedback they received, their previous experience with independent learners, and so on.
We talk about people being 'visual learners' and many other categories. But I don't believe we can categorise people like this. All we can do is categorise learning moments and situations. 'At this time, in this situation, faced with this module, I need to do it this way.'
Given this, a teacher can't be left responsible for tailoring things to someone's leaning style. We have to transfer the responsibility to the learner, for them to be able to recognise different kinds of situations and needs.
From what I understand, when they're in primary school, many students are encouraged to try out different learning styles, and to understand how they learn. But as soon as they get to high school, it's killed off! And when they get into vocational education, say they get to a trade, they're put into the traditional master-apprenticeship approach, where they're told to shut-up and do things the way you're told. But then when they're exposed to opportunities for flexible delivery, they're not equipped to make decisions about learning independently.
Of course, approaches like flexible delivery and online learning are not for everyone. But a student should be able to say: 'If you're telling me I have to do this on line, I'm telling you that that's not the best way for me. So you and me (learner and teacher) have to work out how I can make this better for me.'
Tuning in to a thirst for knowledge
I had a student who was injured while working in a manual labouring job in the poultry industry. She came to us wanting to develop basic office skills. This person didn't have any formal education, but she was good at hand-crafts, all of which she'd picked up from books. So I quickly realised that she was a real independent learner.
She came to see me because she was having difficulty with a particular book-keeping teacher. The teacher would be saying 'Just do as I say. Do step A, then Step B...'. But the student's response was: 'I can't just do it. I need to understand why I'm doing each step!' She had a thirst for knowledge, a real deep-learning approach. So there was a mismatch between teacher and student, and the student was blocked from learning in her preferred way.
I tried to help by explaining that this was only Certificate 2, and that was why there was much more focus on what to do than why it had to be done. But I also steered her towards other ways of finding out more for her own satisfaction.
What I'm really talking about is giving more power to learners. Even though there is an increasing expectation in VET that students will learn flexibly, that expectation is there at the same time as increased class sizes and reduction in contact hours. The result is that a lot of students are saying: 'I'm not good enough to learn by myself. I can't do it!' To learn flexibly, students may initially need more teacher support, not less. Otherwise, it's not going to work.
