Bibliography
Apr. 25th, 2010 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyTeaching for Understanding at University: Deep Approaches and Distinctive Ways of Thinking - Noel Entwistle
I know the title sounds awfully jargon-y, but I actually have invested in my own copy of this! It is an excellent explanation of the current state of research into various models of teaching and learning, and how a course can incorporate those into its assessment criteria and course construction. It actually serves as a very nice counterweight to Creating Significant Learning Experiences - they use a lot of the same ideas, like the need for students to learn how to learn, and getting students beyond a surface engagement with the ideas into what Entwistle terms a Deep Approach, but they come at it from different places. Creating Significant Learning Experiences looks at the US system, Teaching for Understanding at University looks at the UK system, although both use international research, not just that from their own countries.
Obviously, this means Entwistle's advice for how to apply the findings of research looks different to Fink's; Fink thinks in term of courses and majors, Entwistle thinks in terms of modules and degrees as a whole. It makes a surprisingly big difference, and it is useful for me to have those differences laid out quite this specifically. Equally, while Fink's contribution to the debate is to create his own taxonomy of learning and consider how to apply it, Entwistle is far more interested in synthesising the literature and working out what it means for how we approach learning and teaching; he wants us to consider how teachers view their own role, as research shows a teacher who views their job as putting information into a student's head to pass exams creates more surface learning than a teacher who views their job as getting students enthused about and understanding the subject, who creates more deep learning. How you approach the classroom really makes a different to how your students learn, which strikes me as incredibly important for how you approach the teaching part of your job. There are also very good explanations of various sorts of learning, and the 'good characteristics' of learning you want to encourage among students; I have to say that I've never come across something as useful as this in outlining how you want student to think about stuff and the learning approach you want them to take.
The only problem with this book is that, at times, it gets a bit diagram-obsessed. It likes concept mapping, which I have real issues with - I know they are good things for students who learn visually, but I find them incredibly hard to understand and feel completely alienated by them. Bullet points and summaries, I can do; concept maps make me want to hide under the table. There are also various analytic diagrams of models of learning and things which evoke the same reaction; thankfully, there is also plenty of nice text explaining what they mean. One reason I wanted to have my own copy was to have a chance to absorb the stuff that is taken out of these various visual models at my own pace; it's a kind of information I find very hard to process.
I know the title sounds awfully jargon-y, but I actually have invested in my own copy of this! It is an excellent explanation of the current state of research into various models of teaching and learning, and how a course can incorporate those into its assessment criteria and course construction. It actually serves as a very nice counterweight to Creating Significant Learning Experiences - they use a lot of the same ideas, like the need for students to learn how to learn, and getting students beyond a surface engagement with the ideas into what Entwistle terms a Deep Approach, but they come at it from different places. Creating Significant Learning Experiences looks at the US system, Teaching for Understanding at University looks at the UK system, although both use international research, not just that from their own countries.
Obviously, this means Entwistle's advice for how to apply the findings of research looks different to Fink's; Fink thinks in term of courses and majors, Entwistle thinks in terms of modules and degrees as a whole. It makes a surprisingly big difference, and it is useful for me to have those differences laid out quite this specifically. Equally, while Fink's contribution to the debate is to create his own taxonomy of learning and consider how to apply it, Entwistle is far more interested in synthesising the literature and working out what it means for how we approach learning and teaching; he wants us to consider how teachers view their own role, as research shows a teacher who views their job as putting information into a student's head to pass exams creates more surface learning than a teacher who views their job as getting students enthused about and understanding the subject, who creates more deep learning. How you approach the classroom really makes a different to how your students learn, which strikes me as incredibly important for how you approach the teaching part of your job. There are also very good explanations of various sorts of learning, and the 'good characteristics' of learning you want to encourage among students; I have to say that I've never come across something as useful as this in outlining how you want student to think about stuff and the learning approach you want them to take.
The only problem with this book is that, at times, it gets a bit diagram-obsessed. It likes concept mapping, which I have real issues with - I know they are good things for students who learn visually, but I find them incredibly hard to understand and feel completely alienated by them. Bullet points and summaries, I can do; concept maps make me want to hide under the table. There are also various analytic diagrams of models of learning and things which evoke the same reaction; thankfully, there is also plenty of nice text explaining what they mean. One reason I wanted to have my own copy was to have a chance to absorb the stuff that is taken out of these various visual models at my own pace; it's a kind of information I find very hard to process.
