Educational
Technology & Society 4(1) 2001
Does Technology Present a New Way of
Learning?
This
reflective essay suggests certain precepts that should be effective in the
design of instruction and its evaluation, particularly if advanced or
experimental technology is involved. The arguments are based on
the
assumption that human learning is a biological process that, when reduced to its
essentials, is the product of evolution and does not change even as study habits
do. The emphasis here is on the aspects of learning that are common to all
humans and less on personal preferences for kinds of content or study methods.
A
brief review of the biological basis of learning is followed by some speculative
suggestions on the use of technology and the outcomes of any pedagogy that are
of timeless importance.
Keywords
Brain,
Learning Styles, Teaching, Technology, Emotions, Assessment
The
Biology of Learning
We
hear so frequently that "today's students" are different from their
predecessors, learn in new ways, and so need to be taught differently, that
these assertions seldom get the scrutiny they deserve. In these few pages I
hope
to look at the learner primarily as a biological entity, and learning as a
biological process. I hope to use human biology as a first principle from
which to deduce certain arguments regarding teaching and technology.
In
one sense the claim that "we all learn differently" is a hypothesis
that is too true to be good - by which I mean it lacks any potential for
informing pedagogy. As Steven Stahl (1999) found from an extensive review of the
literature
and from personal interviews, attempts to create a teaching style to match
learning styles produce no detectable improvement. The long-standing push to
emphasize the differences among learners has not led to any improvement in
education and has not produced any pedagogical methods that would lead to
improvement.
The
argument to be presented here is that we should be looking at the commonalties
among learners rather than the differences. Should it be true that, at some
level, all learners are doing the same thing, that fact would make instructional
design a realistic goal.
No
Learning Without a Brain
It
must be clear from the outset that I will be speaking here of "human
learning" only. The word "learning" becomes useless when it is
expanded to include such far-flung phenomena as phototropism in protozoa. The
relevant question here is what is happening when a human person learns
something. We can continue to learn after severe trauma to any of our organs
except the brain. By the same token, the smallest lesion to that organ can
annihilate memory, language, or any other faculty required for learning. A good
starting point, therefore, would be some level of understanding of what the
brain is doing when it learns.
Considering
the curiosity that the brain has inspired in scientists for a very long time, it
is perhaps surprising that a model of learning based on neural function has
taken so long to influence pedagogy. Some recent reviews by
Albright
(2000) and Squire (1999) show the directions of contemporary thinking at this
turn of the century.
Genetics
and Epigenesis
So
far as their gross anatomy is concerned, normal human brains are remarkably
similar. When the brain is developing, a bewildering array of diffusable
chemicals and cell-surface proteins cause developing neurons to
"Connected"
here means that a neuron's growing axon must be able to signal its target cell
when it comes in contact with it. The two cells do not fuse, but elaborate a
patch-like connection called a synapse. The way synapses operate is beyond the
scope of this essay - suffice it to say that the synapse allows a signal from
one neuron to be relayed (under appropriate conditions) to the other neurons it
is connected to. (Signals move away from the cell body always by way of axons,
and are received and move toward the cell body by usually shorter projections
called dendrites. Because the axon is branched at its distal end, a neuron can
make connections with the
dendrites of other neurons at a thousand or mo re sites.)
There
have been, over the years, a number of puzzling observation regarding brain
development.
Not all the neurons produced by cell division survive - many degenerate spontaneously
Because many neurons die, the adult brain has fewer of them than it had at birth, but it is several times larger at maturity than it was at birth
The total number of connections (synapses) in the child's brain is much larger than in the adult's.
The two phenomena of interest here are the increase in brain size without a net increase in the number of neurons, and the dramatic reduction in the number of synapses as the brain matures. Both of these puzzling observations have come to play a part in current thinking about what the brain is doing in order to learn.
The
increase in brain size is due in part to an increase in the number and size of
glial cells. These cells do not transmit signals but serve insulating and
protective functions. The net number of neurons stays nearly constant,but
they enlarge with age and continue to grown axons to make connections with other
neurons. The discovery that neurons continue to send out axons - something that
continues to happen through life - has contributed greatly to current theories
about learning.
The
continuous growth of axons with brain development seems at first incompatible
with the concurrent reduction in the number of connections or synapses. The
explanation came with the realization that most connections in the developing
brain are not permanent - they are said to be labile, or easily broken. Only a
relatively few of them become tight and permanent - these are said to be stable.
A
useful theory of learning has developed around a singular observation - labile
synapses become stable as a result of frequent use.
"Use"
means here that they are actually conducting signals from one neuron to the
next. Logic would suggest that a connection that is used frequently is one that
has contributed to a beneficial pathway. Connections that provide no useful path
fall apart and the axon regresses or degenerates. All of which implies a
considerable amount of randomness in the growth of axons. While most budding
axons have as targets only the dendrites of other neurons of a particular type,
the actual cells they make contact with is primarily a matter of chance.
Before
birth it is genetics that determines in large part the overall structure of the
brain and its essential interconnections, such as those for vision, hearing and
so on. During a young child's growing years, however, the growth of axons has a
large "epigenetic" element, meaning that genetics determines only the type
of cell that is the target, and perhaps its general location. The actual
cell to which it connects is a matter of chance. So it is
that most cell-to-cell connections produce no useful pathway and degenerate. If
the new pathway perchance helps a child make some sense of the world it will get
used repeatedly and become stable. So the profusion of
Gopnik
et al. (1999) suggest that the child in the crib is operating much like a
scientist in that it is trying out (from a superfluity) various scenarios -
complex neural webs - until a set "makes sense." That particular web,
and its multitude of connections, will get used repeatedly and so become a
network of stable connections.
A
Theory of Learning
From
these observations Changeux (1985), Edleman (1989), Squire (1999) and others
have proposed similar theories of how we learn and (in some cases) certain
pedagogies that capitalize on these theories. Basic to the
If we accept for the moment that something is learned when it is both understood and remembered, the above observations on brain biology have implication for how students study and how teachers teach. It is possible to remember words without an understanding of the concepts they imply, or to understand a concept when first encountering it but not be able later to remember it in detail.
Functional
(or fast) magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
has demonstrated that the regions or modules of the brain that are active when a
subject is struggling with a problem or abstract concept are clearly displaced
from regions active when memorizing strings of words.
So
it is that it is possible to have memory without understanding. On the other
hand, the student who is concentrating can find a web of labile connections that
enable understanding, but without repeated use, the connections that enabled
that understanding may well degenerate and with them any hope of long term
memory of the novel concept.
Implications
for Learning
Assuming
all of the above, there are two elements required to learn something that is
both new and challenging. The first is focused attention. What in common
parlance we call "concentrating" is, at the biological level, the
trying of multiple labile circuits in search of one that "makes sense"
of the new idea. Once such a web is found and the learner is said to "get
it," repeated reconstruction of the concept is required for that particular
web of circuits to become stable and capable of being reactivated, or recalled.
Current understanding of what's going on in the brain can explain, then the
wisdom of some very old advice on how to learn; concentrate and practice.
The
Limbic System
Most
people can discipline themselves to study, the usual form of practice, but the
other element of learning, concentration, can be elusive. Brain biology can,
again, provide some explanation for why concentrating or focusing attention is
sometimes almost automatic and at other time difficult if not impossible.
During
embryonic development genetic instructions result in axonal linkages between
structurally and functionally different regions of the brain. In particular, the
forward-most parts of the brain are well-connected to what is called the limbic
system - a collection of components deep in the center of the brain. The limbic
system determines our emotional states, but it is always in communication with
the forebrain. This frontal region has an organizing function; it weighs its
various inputs and chooses options. It also has the remarkable ability to reduce
activity in certain regions and enhance activity in others. In other words, it
focuses attention where it is most needed. Because the forebrain is firmly
connected to the limbic system, our emotional involvement with any person or
thing can strongly influence where our attention is focused.
Implications
for Technology
The
oldest technologies were all at one time new. The ability to extract metal from
rock, for example, was not just a new technology at one time, but one that had
profound implications for the course of societies. Literacy - the ability to
send and receive information by way of written symbols - was also new at one
time and as the work of Parry, Luria, and others show (Ong, 1982), had an
unanticipated effect on the way people thought and spoke.
Societies
were forever changed by literacy. As Neil Postman has said (1992), "[t]echnological
change is not additive; it is ecological. A new technology does not merely add
something; it changes everything."
Emerging
technologies need to be considered, then, in light of their potential for taking
advantage of the biological nature of learning. They need to be monitored as
well, however, for possible misuse.
Possible
Misuse
Many
young people seem to have a natural propensity for video technology,
particularly if it entertains or is interactive. TV and play stations are part
of their growing up. TV (with two-way sound) was tried in classroom in the
1960s, based possibly on the assumption that young people liked to watch TV, and
would learn what they heard and saw. That hope did not materialize. Teachers on
TV were even less interesting than teachers in person. If there is any
precaution to be noted in the use of any technology to educate, it would be that
the technology in and of itself is not the answer to the problem. Clearly, the
intent of teachers using any technology is not that students simply become
proficient with, or enamored by, the technology itself. Understanding and
remembering course content remains the real goal. I would suggest here two
conditions in particular where computer technology would enhance learning.
Something (or somebody) has stirred up an interest in the student and the technology is available to satisfy and exploit that interest.
The
interest intended here is not in the technology itself, but in some content, or
problem,
or body of information that is made available by the technology. It is this
aspect of technology use that might explain the considerable success of some
distance learning endeavors. These have been most successful when the students
(often in their mid-thirties and employed full time) have a recognized and real
need of learning and have no other access that is interactive. In such cases
computer technology works
A second condition that would seem to offer promise capitalizes on students' natural interest in the technology itself.
Here
great care in design is essential. For some young people technology is
intrinsically fun and they will use it for that reason. The trick, if you will,
is to gradually transfer students' engagement from the technology to the
content.
A
particularly good example of the second condition appears in these pages (Roth,
p xx). Students in that case had an interactive program that looked a bit like a
game. An object moved in a sometimes surprising way when just two variables were
changed in varying combinations. Students didn't "know" at first that
they were dealing with force and velocity and that both of these have scalar and
vector properties. Two elements contributed to the success of this method.
First, the program was a bit like a puzzle that needs solving and so students
took to it readily. Equally important, they worked at a terminal in groups and
quite naturally made their opinions known both by gesturing and by speaking.
While it took some time to do so, students' refined their language until words
like "force," "velocity," "larger," and
"direction" were being used precisely and meaningfully.
The
question of whether high technology is good for education or not is as
meaningless as whether textbooks are good or not. There cannot be a yes/no
answer. As reports of technology use accumulate it is becoming obvious that
"appropriateness" is the operative word. The assumption, for example,
that all young people like gadgetry and computers in particular is
clearly wrong. The idea that all subjects can be taught equally well with one
technology is quite probably wrong. That learning can never be improved by
technology is certainly and demonstrably wrong.
Probably
the best advice for the use of technology in teaching is that given by Neil
Postman (1999) when contemplating any change:
1)
"What problem are you trying to solve?" and
2)
"Whose problem is it?"
That technology can solve "the problem" of education or that it has nothing to offer are equally preposterous positions.
It
is hoped that a better understanding of learning as a biological process, a
matter of brain change rather than simply brain use, will make contributions to
both the design and use of technology - at any level of sophistication - in
teaching. What should be becoming clear is that "hands-on" activity,
whether in laboratories or with computers, is neither a sufficient nor a
necessary component in learning (Leamnson, 2000). Only when students are
motivated to think about the concepts in question (and verbalize them one way or
another) does activity of any kind enhance learning.
The
answer to the question "Does technology present a new way of
learning?" must be that it does not. All learning is biological brain
change and all teaching is an attempt to encourage and stimulate students to do
what it takes to make those changes, that is, to focus their attention and to
practice. A more useful statement might be that computers and associated
technology, and the access they afford, constitute a new way of studying. But as
noted earlier, technology doesn't just add something, it changes things. The
pressing question is whether new ways of study will result in learning as
understood in these pages.
Outcomes
to be Assessed
I
suggest that it would be a serious mistake to look for, or design, new learning
outcomes simply because the pursuit of learning is utilizing new technology.
What humans think about changes almost daily, but the way we
think has
not changed in many thousands of years. What the brain does to retain
information is part of our biological endowment and that does not change because
our environment changes.
We
might well consider which talents of our ancestors were of greatest benefit when
they were developing metallurgy, chemistry, geometry, the calculus, and great
works of literature. Are these talents outdated?
The
ability to concentrate, to evaluate, to examine alternatives, to solve problems,
and to verbalize our thoughts are not useless talents, no matter the level of
technology in a society. I would propose, then, a kind of test for the efficacy
of a technology, old or new. Does it improve the users' problem-solving
abilities? Does it encourage concentration? Does it enhance engagement with
content? Does it build facility with language?
In
short, the point of any technology cannot be mere facility with the technology.
The point of technology, old or new, is to increase or enhance human learning. A
good appreciation of the biological basis of learning can only
contribute positively to the design of instruction, including the use of
technology.
References
Albright,
T. D., Jessell, T. M., Kandel, E. R. & Posner, M. I. (2000). Neural Science:
A Century of Progress and
Changeux,
J.-P. (1985). Neuronal Man: The Biology of Mind, Translated by Laurence
Garey, New York: Oxford
Edelman,
G. M. (1989). The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness,
New York: Basic
Gopnik,
A., Meltzoff, A. N. & Kuhl, P. K. (1999). The
Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children
Leamnson,
R. (2000). Learning as Biological Brain Change. Change, 32 (6), 34-40.
Ong,
W. J. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, New
York: Methuen.
Postman,
N. (1992). Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, New York:
Knopf.
Postman,
N. (1999). Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century: How the Past Can
Improve Our Future, New York: Knopf.
Squire,
L. R. & Kandel, E. (1999). Memory: From Mind to Molecules, Scientific
American Library, New York:Freeman and Co.
Stahl,
S. (1999). Different Strokes for Different Folks? A Critique of Learning Styles.
American Educator, Fall,