Learning Techniques Teaching and Learning

Learning Techniques

Teaching and learning has been an increasing challenge as a result of numerous elements. Most notably, the three articles to be discussed address three specific challenges that face the teaching world today. These include the rise of research and teaching technologies such as the Internet, the increasing knowledge of the human mind and psychology, and the tendency of people at retirement age to reenter community colleges for a variety of reasons. These elements present teachers, lecturers and professors with a variety of challenges that can no longer be met by a simple approach. In a variety of ways, the three articles to be discussed focus on strategies to help mitigate the challenge of diversity in the classroom.

The most obvious similarity in the three articles is that they all focus on an aspect of teaching and learning. Furthermore, each article's author or authors make certain assumptions about learners and methods to teach them most effectively in order to make their point. On the other hand, the articles contrast by addressing three different learning environments. Caudron's article, "Can Generation Xers Be Trained?" focuses on training in the business environment, McCarthy's "A Tale of Four Learners" focuses on the school environment, while Murray and Bank's "Intergenerational Learning" focuses on the community college environment.

The purpose of Shari Caudron's article, as mentioned above, is to focus on the business environment and the specific training techniques used. Her article focuses on what has worked best for the youngest entrants into the business world, namely the age group know as "Generation X" She explicates a variety of factors that are relevant in training this generation. The generation is for example very independent in their learning, as they have learned to rely on themselves from an early age. Secondly, while they are career focused, they do not focus on remaining with a single company for a lifetime; instead, they enter a company to leave it later for different work at a different company, and thirdly, people from Generation X are very technology oriented. These are only three of the assumptions that Caudron makes about this generation. In training these employees, Caudron recommends that job focused training be implemented at companies who seek to employ people from this generation. She goes further to suggest that training used for this generation can also be applied to other employees, with minor modifications in order to make it more applicable to them. Training, according to the author, should be "fun" to make it most effective.

This appears to suggest that all employees would benefit from one specific type of training. While it is an intriguing idea, the assumption is not necessarily correct on two levels: firstly, not all "Generation Xers" are necessarily most receptive to "fun" learning and indeed very adept at technology or multiple levels of information processing; secondly, different personality types require different training techniques to learn most effectively. A better idea might be to integrate "fun" learning with a more traditional mode of training, particularly in an environment that includes a wide diversity of age and personality groups.

A similar assumption is made by Murray and Bank, who hold that there is a fundamental difference between young people entering community college for the purpose of further learning, and older people, who reenter college for a variety of different reasons. Indeed, the authors make a number of different assumptions. The first is that younger people, having grown up with computers and technology, are much more adept at using such technology as the Internet and other equipment, while older people need more patience in learning such skills. On the other hand, the authors also acknowledge that older people have a large amount of knowledge and experience that younger learners could benefit from. Their sense of responsibility is for example much more developed than that in younger learners.

In contrast to the Caudron article, Murray and Bank do not claim that a "one size fits all" approach will work for both older and younger learners, but rather that both should be accommodated in their different settings. They are somewhat vague about how the contrasting learning needs of younger and older groups can effectively be met in a single classroom setting, but nonetheless note that there is a great need for community research to clarify this issue. The conclusions and attitudes of these authors are also much more accommodating of the differences in learners than those of Caudron.

Having noted the above, the article could benefit from a clearer explication of different teaching methods that could work not only for the different groups, but for integrated groups as well. Another limitation is that the article differentiates between two age groups, without acknowledging that there could be learning style differences within a single age group. While therefore accepting that there could be different learning styles, the article still treats these somewhat simplistically.

By far the most complex in terms of learning style application is McCarthy's article, which focuses on four students in the same age group, who learn in vastly different ways. Four different learning styles are identified, with suggestions on how to integrate teaching techniques to bring about the best in all of them, even if they are in the same classroom. The main distinguishing factor between this article and the others is that teaching techniques are not adjusted according to each learner's specific style, but rather that learners are expected to use their strengths in order to mitigate their weaknesses in order to make the best of the teaching provided.

Furthermore, another contrasting factor in this article is the fact that teaching is not focused on only one single aspect of a student group's learning need. Instead, the author acknowledges that each student brings to the classroom a variety of differentiated personality and learning traits. Instead of attempting to focus on each of these individually and creating a teaching approach that would address it, the "whole person" of each student is addressed by creating a teaching approach that is designed to both cater to the strengths and challenge the weaknesses of each student. In this way, learning is stimulated by a multi-level approach.

This does not however meant that the author does not make assumptions. Each of the four students mentioned are classified according to a learner type. Each learner type displays a number of characteristics, and the type of learning that each responds best to. The fundamental difference is however that these assumptions are neither the starting point nor the ultimate aim of teaching. Instead, the teaching this article recommends advances beyond learning type towards the further inner aspects of each learner. Learning is seen as a cycle rather than a linear process of optimal teacher/learner interaction. Instead McCarthy sees teaching and learning as providing students with the opportunity to grow.