Chapter 6

Supporting Learners’ Activities

Robert Thorn

This chapter defines what the author refers to as “real learners,” providing an overview of the potential role of universities in developing a society of real learners. Specifically, the chapter examines what universities can do to encourage the development of real learners in secondary education and how they can select real learners. The overview also turns to what universities can do to develop real learners among their students and staff in the institution. Lastly, it is argued that universities should take responsibility for the development of real learners for the sake of the individuals and societies concerned and for civilization in general.

Defining the “Real Learner”

We’ve known for a considerable time what it is to be a learner and that developing learners in education is what really matters. Is this what really happens, though, at each stage of an individual’s education? I suggest that in many cases globally it is not and that in most schools and institutions of further education, developing learners through one’s teaching is somewhat left to chance and occurs as a by-product of teaching one’s subject. To begin, let us make a distinction between a “real learner” and a “student.” The distinction is not a particularly rigorous one but serves the purpose here of emphasizing a different way of looking at our aims for those being educated. This in turn allows us to distinguish between two approaches we may take to education. If some of our current approaches are continued, then we will continue to fail many young people and, ultimately, our society. If we choose to redefine our approach in terms of developing the learner, then we will have a chance for better outcomes from education and a better society.

The Real Learner and the Student

To distinguish between learner and student, we first need to take a look at how we perceive the purpose of education. If education is to liberate individuals so that they may lead happy, fulfilling lives within society, then education must allow the individual the ability to live, adapt, and succeed in a changing world. Being educated means being able to make informed choices, learn, and unlearn through one’s life; cope with challenges and difficulties; excel in areas of interest; and lead a fulfilling life of contribution, inquiry, and reflection. For this, one needs to have a useful, up-to-date knowledge base, skills—at least in learning—and an attitude to learning that completes the transition to an effective learner.

While it may have been once that we knew how to successfully educate people,¹ it seems that in many state schools around the world the point of education is being missed, and the benefits of developing the learner are being lost with it. We continually hear references to the disenchantment a variety of stakeholders have with school and contemporary education—academics, employers, parents, and teachers who complain of disengaged students who do not have the right knowledge, skills, or learner attributes to cope with further education, jobs, careers, citizenship, and life in general.

These disappointing outcomes of modern education may have their roots in many factors, but one major contributor is most certainly the issue that we have taken the wrong approach to education. Instead of focusing on developing learners, we have focused on developing students. Here, I define the learner as someone who values learning for its own sake, knows themselves as a learner, is (and is becoming more) adept at learning, and will remain a lifelong learner. I define the student as someone who learns at school for grades, because they are told to or because it will get them a good job or place at college.

In many traditional and contemporary schools, knowing how to learn is assumed to be known, and it is left to chance whether the individual can cope with what they have to learn or not. Study skills courses have been shown to be ineffectual, as students are not skilled at transferring skills taught out of context and using them in the subjects they take.² Educators have to develop learning through their regular classes to develop learning effectively. In many contemporary educational systems, those who can learn are “good” students and those who can’t are “poor” students. Schools rarely focus on helping young people become better learners.

If we look at college, how many institutions help undergraduates become better learners in the context of higher education? One could state that surely by this stage in their education, young people will have already been taught how to learn. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. In secondary schools students are generally taught in subject-specific classes by specialists in those subjects. Teachers teach their subjects as though they are the most important aspect of what they do in the class. The content and, in slightly more progressive schools, a range of subject-specific skills is taught. The content is defined by academics in that field who consider it important for anyone at the appropriate level to know about the subject. The goal is to give students a taste of the subject and a basic grounding in the subject to allow them either to go on to study it in greater detail or to be considered employable people educated to the appropriate level. There seems to be, in many education systems, a lack of shared vision in terms of developing learners. Students are primed to do well in final assessments. The grades they achieve through the years of their schooling are often seen as the annual target and the reward. Passing grades at final assessments are what educators aim to have students achieve. The focus on grades reduces the focus on student development, let alone the development of a learner. All this does nothing to directly prepare individuals for the future or increase their chances of self-fulfillment or a life of meeting challenges, solving problems, or finding happiness.

In developing learners, we reverse the focus. We prioritize the development of learners over the teaching of subjects. Instead of the focus being placed on the mastery of each subject and the issue of developing as a learner being left to chance, school subjects, along with other areas of the individual’s life, become the contexts in which young people develop as learners. In developing powerful learners, learning becomes part of a young person’s identity, and the preference of what to study in more depth is left to chance. However, there is certainly now a greater chance that learners will study a subject well if they are already adept at learning.

Educators in primary and secondary education need to focus on developing learners, but in order to do this, schools must ensure that educators, parents, and the learners themselves understand the development of learners is of paramount importance. They need to know how to make the change from focusing on studying to focusing on learning and learner development.

In Western-style education, we have managed to develop two of the three pillars of educating the learner. We have developed the first pillar of curriculum content, and in many systems, curriculum review takes place regularly. The second pillar of skill development has also received significant attention and development over the last 40 or so years. What hasn’t gained enough attention in schools is the development of learner attributes. The mission of preparing young people for their future and for the future of society needs to focus on this third pillar of education. Along with knowledge acquisition and skill development, we need to focus on the development of learner attributes. All three need to be in place to develop real learners who will meet the goal of becoming not only useful members of society but also individuals who can use their learning in the pursuit of self-realization and true happiness.

What Is a Real Learner?

There have been many attempts to define the attributes of a learner.³ In the following, one more set of attributes is presented, which stems from my own experience and research. However, as with so much in education, it is not the precision of such lists that is important but rather the spirit in which the attributes are developed that is of vital importance. Rather like a game in which people argue the rules rather than play and enjoy the game, too often, for the educator as well as for the learner, the pursuit and discussion of the particulars of definition takes precedence over developing and nurturing the spirit of developing learner attributes itself. We then lose the vitality that needs to be employed in generally changing the paradigm from educating for any other reason to educating to develop real learners and hence effective global citizens.

This aside, let’s define what is referred to in the rest of the chapter as the “real learner.” The real learner is the individual who

• is a robust learner,
• is a proactive learner,
• is an independent and collaborative learner,
• is a lifelong learner, and
• has highly developed learner attributes.

The learner attributes that we need to help learners develop form a list of dispositions that have both character and skill components, as well as my additions, such as the International Baccalaureate Organisation’s (IBO) learner profile attributes,⁴ but slightly modified:

It is the responsibility of all stakeholders (including, and perhaps especially, the learners themselves) to help learners develop these attributes as well as developing knowledge and skill acquisition. As educators, we are particularly suited to helping learners develop these attributes not only with respect to learning but also within a context of citizenship. Also as we are educators, these attributes should be focused on developing the learner. The emphasis by a teacher should therefore be on, for example, the development of caring with respect to the development of the learner rather than just caring in general. Each of the attributes needs to be thus developed. If we can develop such real learners, imagine how much better they will be at being global citizens.

The development of these attributes is paramount to the development of a real learner. This development should ideally start at home and continue there and through primary and secondary school. One problem arises when educators are not trained or experienced in helping learners develop attributes and see such a task as yet another imposition on their time—a time that is already full with content matter, skills development, assessment, and preparation for assessment. However, there are ways to educate with the development of the learner in mind within the current system. There are movements that are trying to address the matter. In the United Kingdom, Professor Guy Claxton’s Building Learning Power⁵ aims to build the muscles of learning, enabling students to be much more robust and flexible learners. In the United States, the team at Harvard’s Project Zero runs courses on Visible Thinking.⁶ The whole learning to learn movement in the United Kingdom and elsewhere has provided some movement toward the goal of developing real learners. If these movements took off and did indeed develop real learners, it would surely be appreciated by universities and other institutions of higher education.

Aren’t Real Learners Exactly What Universities Want?

The following are three short case studies that might suggest that schools are not producing what universities want and that some institutions are not ready for the real learner. One might claim these examples to be trivial; however, in discussion with college counselors, former students, and university staff, they represent the tip of a significant iceberg.

If university faculty don’t nurture curiosity, then for some, university will be a place that damages or kills it (if school has not done this already). This stance puts universities at loggerheads with the development of real learners that, in itself, is all the more reason primary and secondary teachers need to develop robust learners who can cope with difficult or even off-putting learning environments.

This second example would rather imply that the feeder schools that normally supply that institution were not only failing to produce good learners for the future but actually damaging their young people. It may also suggest that the university faculty were used to students not asking questions and perhaps did little themselves to nurture curiosity. All three case studies would seem to suggest a fundamental flaw in the majority of students—that they don’t ask questions. The first case shows the defensive nature of the faculty of some institutions who feel they are there to transmit knowledge and not to discuss it or have it questioned.

Faculty have important issues to attend to—the pressures of research, administration, publishing, and teaching. It must be easy to assume that it is acceptable to dismiss students who do not come up to the mark or to hold the belief that if students are good, then they will make it through even if your input is minimal.

Other cases encountered show a paradox in entry requirements. In one university entrance system, although the IB Diploma is held in great esteem by their universities, the system requires these students to perform much higher than students within their own national system. Many of this author’s students have been identified at universities all over the world as wonderful due to their approach to learning. These undergraduates have been from both IB schools and national schools that provided students with an education that not only aimed at knowledge retention and basic skill development but also demanded the development of their learner attributes. Even universities that value real learners still at times place barriers in the way of recruiting them.

What Can Universities Do?

One simple move would be for universities (and employers) to begin to demand that schools develop real learners. What does your local university do to encourage schools to develop real learners? Universities and employers should be demanding that schools develop real learners because it is those that will serve the universities and employers best. They also need to ensure that they recognize a real learner when one turns up and are prepared to make the most of real learners when they accept them.

There does seem to be a move toward addressing teaching and learning in universities. For example, faculty members are being appointed to positions where they are responsible for raising the standards of teaching among faculty. It has also been fascinating to see, on a recently created online network for university faculty, the interest in helping faculty to become better educators. It is difficult to balance one’s teaching with one’s research, especially when the faculty members believe that their research is their priority. This makes it all the more important that we find a way that faculty can develop learners in efficient and effective ways through their lectures, seminars, and tutorials. A change in approach is needed more than adding extra sessions, duties, and requirements to faculty loads. An approach such as those used by Claxton and Ritchhart might be the way forward.

What Can Universities Do to Encourage the Development of Real Learners in Secondary Education?

University faculty need to recognize that they can nurture schools to develop the kind of learners they want—real learners—rather than waiting to see if they pop up by chance, as seems to currently be the case. Universities should question their entrance requirements and processes and adapt them to seeking real learners. They should then make it very clear to schools that they prefer to take those students who are successful academically and in other areas because they are real learners and not merely because they study well for tests or filled their résumés with activities for the sake of gaining university entrance.

The learning atmosphere of universities should be investigated to see that it is conducive to the development of real learners. Universities should collaborate with primary and secondary schools. Here, enlightened secondary educators can help implement changes in methodology and identify ways faculty can support students in becoming learners. Students should be encouraged to form learner groups whereby support is developed so that students may say, “Our lecturer may not be such a good teacher, but as individuals or as a group, we can get the best out of what he or she can offer.” The idea of learning groups needs full development, but it is offered here for reflection.

What Can Universities Do to Select Real Learners?

The problem of identifying who is a real learner and who is not is difficult. A good résumé and portfolio, incisive letter of application, glowing letters of recommendation, great grades, participation in extracurricular pursuits—these are all the hallmarks of the kind of student we want to see leaving our schools and going into further education. In addition, we need to know that the schools these young people are coming from pay heed more to developing real learners (with one outcome being the best chance of getting to university) rather than preparing students who jump through the hoops with the sole aim of gaining admission to a university. Currently, we have professional bodies that accredit schools or authorize programs of study, but do these really ensure that our schools are developing learners rather than students? Having served with three such bodies and having been on the receiving end of school inspections, accreditations, and program authorizations, in my experience there is not enough focus on whether educators are developing learners or merely have their academic plumbing in order. What we need to see is a supportive, advisory, quality control system that is able to go into schools and help them become accredited learning institutions. One of the conditions for accreditation would be that of sustainability, including induction programs and a proactive stance to real, continuing professional development aimed at becoming educators who develop real learners and who educate with the learner in mind.

What Can Universities Do to Develop Real Learners Among Their Students and Faculty?

This chapter can only raise the question of how universities can identify, select, and encourage real learners. As such, it does set the challenge for universities to examine what it is they want. If they want undergraduates who are the best learners they can be, then what is it they do to promote this? If universities find that the students they accept into their establishments are not good enough at learning, what should they do about it?

There are several questions we need answers to: First, what to do with those students who have made it into the institution, and, second, what to do to ensure that new undergraduates are prepared as real learners?

As a secondary educator I set out the following proposals in my naïvety and ask for patience and consideration of the ideas:

Universities should do the following:

• Encourage primary and secondary school systems to change toward developing the learner by requiring that real learners are those accepted as priority into universities (this will try to ensure that you have more real learners entering the university in the first place).
• Ensure that all teaching, counseling, and admissions staff have a thorough knowledge of learning issues (in developing learner attributes, it is often the way you approach your teaching in very subtle ways that makes the biggest impact).
• Encourage the awareness of developing as a real learner among their own students (some efforts have been made in this direction, notably Tony Krasnic’s concise learning approach for college students⁷).
• Provide support for teaching staff who are more researchers than teachers. As mentioned, this could be done in conjunction with enlightened local high schools where lecturers observe how teaching for learning development need not take up more of their time.
• Create an awareness of the basics of learning theory in their staff and students.
• Provide basic courses for this in the first year of college (not a study skills course, which seems not to have the desired effects, but a learning awareness course where students are introduced to the idea of developing as real learners and of their rights as a learner).

These are only a few ideas, but hopefully they can spawn other ideas suitable to each institution. The key is for each institution to ask the question, find satisfactory answers of its own, and then make the changes necessary.

Taking the Responsibility for a Different Future

Why Universities Should Take Responsibility for Developing Real Learners

Universities, out of all educational institutions, should be places that value and champion the development of real learners. That’s not to say that overnight all lecturers should transform themselves into expert teachers. What is suggested, though, is that all students are encouraged and supported to become real learners at some stage in their education. The real learner, especially in collaboration with other real learners, can make the most of any learning situation and therefore can work with or around the researcher or lecturer who has little empathy or motivation in teaching the undergraduates. We owe it to ourselves and to young people to reassess what it is we are doing in education—to reassess what education is all about. We need to find those important missions and start using our influence to see that they are achieved not only in our institutions but in all institutions around the world.

We need a revolution in education, and we need universities to help—not just through their educational departments, but through all departments demanding that schools stop producing sheep and start developing real learners.