>> So when we talk about learning, people often differentiate between progressive and traditional approaches to learning. Can you explain what those terms mean? >> Yes. Well, traditional approaches are what we were talking about in terms of what you would expect in a normal classroom as we think of it these days. The assumption is the brain is a sort of computer and that you put data into the computer and something good comes out in an exam or possibly in a future career. The use of a website could assume the similar model. The difference there is people can choose whether to go on a website or not and then your motivation is completely different than if your sat in a classroom that you have to be in, but the model of what you're trying to do would be the same. It's a traditional view of the brain as a computer. What it ignores though is the fact that lots of other things are going on in the brain. It isn't a simple black box of input and output. It totally ignores the fact that people have feelings. They have feelings of resistance, anger, joy. They have original ideas that the person who made the website or the teacher in the classroom has never thought of themselves, which might be better, might be different, might add and they have different purposes for being there. So even if they have to be at school, they'll make a purpose for being there. Or even it's resistance, even if it's being as difficult as possible. That will be one reaction to the purpose, the learning purpose in school. So traditional approach to learning assumes that's what people's brains do, but is somewhat limited in its scope one could say. Progressive approaches to learning tend to be based on Piaget's work, Jean Piaget and John Dewey as the author. >> [LAUGH] >> This nice little volume. They both were working at the beginning at the first half of last century. And they both said that to learn in any meaningful way, people had to have an experience and they themselves and to construct the meaning of their experience and then do something with it to change the world. And so those are the progressive ones. Another branch I suppose you could say of progressive theory is emancipatory theory. So people like, Freire, Michael Apple Michael Fielding, Stephen Kemmis. They would consider themselves to be progressive, but in terms of increasing freedom, people's freedom and equality rather than just thinking about the learning experience itself as being based on a personal encounter, if you like and reflection on that and then meaning making inside the mind. >> So, I often hear people talking about constructivist views of learning. Is constructivist views of learning and progressive education are they linked? Are they the same thing? Are they different? >> Well, they're used in all sorts of ways and people mean all sorts of things by them. But yes, they do tend to be very much linked. It's the idea that one has to construct one's own learning, that no one can do it for you. And that even if someone tries to, you will be constructing your own schemer in your head of how things work based on what was already there. So in any classroom everybody comes with very, very different experiences, backgrounds, memories, families. And so the idea that everybody will learn the same thing is actually a fallacy, because it all depends on what you already have and how you, yourself process in a situation. But constructivism is the idea that people have the chance to construct their own meaning and this is an explicit aim in any learning situation. So Jean Piaget, he was very much I think we would call him the Father of Constructivism. But his focus, he looked at his own children in a laboratory and it was very individual pursuit. So he noticed how they made sense of their environment, if they were left to their own devices. So they would explore things and then they would say, things and be making sense and they would explore more things. And he noticed the stages that people went through in doing this. How they were able to abstract more as they got older. Vygotsky who tragically died in 1934, so way before Dewey and Piaget. He also talked about constructing learning, but his famous zone of proximal development that every student essay includes. Suggested that yes, learners made sense of their own world. They made sense themselves of the world, but they could be guided by what he called a more expert other to a certain extent, depending on the individual. And for Vygotsky language was very important, because he was interested in promoting the Soviet idea. So he knew that through language, we carry cultural meanings and that was his goal. So, even these classic learning theories have their agenda and I think that's really important to remember. Anyone writing about learning fits in somewhere with their own agenda, whether it be political or cognitive or psychological. I think it's a good idea to explore where they're coming from and why. So the idea is that you can structure in learning and constructivism with the support of a more expert other or without on your own, that's what we might call experiential learning when it's without the support of a teacher or and with peers. So in a typically constructivist classroom, one that is based on the theory of constructivism, you would expect to find a lot of dialogue where people are supporting each other in developing their own ideas. >> So would it be true to say that there is some of these different approaches to learning are better suited for some of the different purposes that we discussed? >> Absolutely. I mean, if your purpose is which it may well be in many countries at this moment to get through that exam, to get that qualification, to get you out of the country or to get you out of poverty. Then you best sit down and read your book and check it over and memorize, because that's what the system it. It doesn't mean it's for you as a human being, best for the world, but it might be the most strategic approach. Yes.
