If you believe learning by doing is a superior method of learning, and training, certainly better than old boring lectures, reading, etc, you’re in good (well, maybe not good) company. Many educators and trainers believe the same — that “real” learning can only occur if learners are demonstrably active. That is, you can see them doing something. Then again most trainers lack a sound education in learning and learning theories, at least to the breadth and depth needed to be competent in helping other people learn.
Here’s the thing. Despite the fact that most trainers come at learning from a humanistic perspective that emerged from the 60’s, they tend to ignore some human capabilities that distinguish us from animals. Animals tend to learn by doing because they lack abilities that we have. Hamsters learn by trial and error, primarily, and by the effects of reinforcement, but that mode of learning by doing is one of the least effective methods. Then again, hamsters don’t have many other options. And yet again, again, a wrong move in the learning by doing might result in the hamster’s demise.
Humans differ from your hamster in several respects, the most important being that we are capable of “symbolization”. We can work with symbols in our heads (often via language), anticipate, generalize and extrapolate learning from one context to another, and much more. We, for example, learn huge amounts of things, by watching other people (observational learning), while the hamster, bless his little heart, would be quite limited in this respect.
So, while Hammy is rather limited in his learning capabilities, and those capabilities limit him to “learning by doing”, we are not. We learn very well via the spoken word, despite what trainers and all the humanistically impaired educators will tell us. Learning via listening has been around centuries, and there’s good reason. It works.
Now lest we over-simplify, different learning and training methods have different strengths and weaknesses, and I’d be the last person to say that “learning by doing” is inferior. It’s an important method. But so is the imparting of knowledge via words, written or spoken. Both have strengths and weaknesses, as does each kind of learning method.
Experience — hands on experience is useful. Practice, along with feedback is useful. Absolutely. But so is discussion, and so is, perish the thought, well designed lecture, provided it is delivered properly and is based on what we know about how people learn (ie. Ausubel’s advance organizers, principles of attention).
It IS, however, very difficult to design and deliver an effective lecture of any length, and that is why there is so much stigma attached to the method. Most of us have experienced bad ones, and when they are bad, they are really bad (although boring does not indicate no learning is occurring).
As a parting comment, consider this:
Learners must indeed be ACTIVE if they are to learn, but the activity that counts (almost always), is the activity that goes on between the ears. Learning is not dependent on “doing something”. It’s dependent on appropriate cognitive and emotive processing in the brain. Any methods that create that will create learning, regardless of whether the activity appears obvious to an observer.
#1 by Milan Davidovic on July 12, 2009 - 3:18 pm
I wonder if this question is actually worth discussing absent the “who” and the “what” details:
- Who’s learning?
- Who’s teaching?
- What’s being learned/taught?
- What’s the desired outcome?
“Learning by doing is superior” seems to me such a high-level assertion that I have trouble imagining a productive conversation around it. Perhaps I’m missing something, or maybe I just don’t roll that way.
#2 by Robert Bacal on July 12, 2009 - 3:34 pm
Milan, I can always count on you to get to the core of the matter.
It seems like everyone would buy in to what you are saying, but they don’t. I am sure you’ve seen the blanket type comments made about any and all lecture on training discussion lists, and so on, and the “everything must be interactive” so no lecture allowed discussions. Which, like all generalizations, have some merit, and don’t have much merit.
I’ll have to hunt down some of the quotes I’ve seen.
I don’t think lecture is the preferred overall method, but as I said elsewhere:
“Isn’t it interesting that today’s trainers tend to reject “telling” as a way of helping people learn, when it is the oldest form of learning interactions for human over centuries”.
#3 by Christy Tucker on July 12, 2009 - 4:44 pm
I agree with the idea that discussions can be mentally/cognitively active, even if they don’t produce a physical product. And really, if we’re training people for practical skills, knowing how to discuss and wrestle through problems verbally (or through email, or whatever) is a real skill to teach. Perhaps this means we should be focused on authentic assessment–real practice of whatever the skills are that we want people to learn. How you get the information is less important than how you apply it.
But I don’t think you can just do an information dump and call that training, and most lectures are just information dumps. Information without practice isn’t particularly valuable, and it doesn’t matter how that information was conveyed.
The research summarized by Tom Werner in Whatever you do, don’t drop practice is a great example of this. Note that this isn’t talking about avoiding presenting information; all of the conditions included information for students to read. But information + practice is what led to the best results. That does lend some support to the idea of learning by doing, don’t you think?
#4 by Robert Bacal on July 12, 2009 - 6:17 pm
I don’t disagree with what you said, generally, but I’d fine tune it. Yes, practice is important, but there’s good research to show that “covert practice” or mental practice can be as effective, and sometimes better than actual practice (again, lots of its and ands).
That’s been reiterated in early stuff a la Maltz (psychocybernetics) which may have been the first pop psych book), but also through research into instructional systems of which I was a part long ago, work by sports psychologists, etc.. New behaviors often emerge without “practice” per se, or are largely learned without practice, and then fine tuned through experience.
In short I agree practice is important, but you’d be surprised how powerful and effective invisible mental practice is. I really teaching myself how to cut in ice skating, almost totally through mental practice. I’m sure others may have examples.
As for lectures being information dumps, let me play devil’s advocate. I assume you read books. That’s an information dump, right? Have you learned though the books you’ve read? Of course you have. Now, I’m not saying that’s how we should “train” people.
But I will say that both lecture and reading are valuable learning tools. To throw them out based on dumbass prejudice is a little bit much.
Now, all that I say is predicated on using lecture or any tool effectively. A bad lecture is a bad lecture. Mind you a bad small group sessions is a bad group session, but it’s not so obvious that it’s bad.
I have wasted far more time in small groups than I have in lecture. I’ve often wanted to scream “Just F****** tell me, already”.
#5 by Christy Tucker on July 12, 2009 - 6:53 pm
I absolutely learn through books, and they are information dumps. But I learn more from a book when I spend time practicing, whether that practice is applying a new skill, reflecting about it on my blog, or mentally practicing. Notice that in my previous comment I said training can’t be just an information dump–an information dump on its own isn’t training. A lecture or a book with nothing accompanying it isn’t training. Can they be part of it? Absolutely. But they can’t be the only thing. This isn’t either/or, lecture or practice–it’s both. That’s what was done in the research I cited, and it worked. And clearly you agree with the idea that lecture on its own isn’t training.
And I do agree that practice can be internal. The trick for having practice be valuable, I think, is that you generally have to be cognitively active. It’s hard to get someone to that point of being cognitively active/mentally engaged/whatever you want to call it with just lecture. It’s not impossible, but it’s harder. And you’re right that most of the time people don’t know how to do a lecture well, and that’s part of the problem.
I think we make it easier for our learners when we give them multiple ways to wrestle with the content–reading information, hearing information, seeing examples, practicing, reflecting, etc. The recent Dept of Ed meta-analysis on online & blended learning really seems to show that what’s effective is using a lot of different methods together. The online learning worked better than face-to-face learning because it provided both information dumps and practice (among other things). The blended learning was the best option because it combined some of everything.
How about this? Let’s try to look at all the tools available to us and use them all when they’re appropriate. Let’s never do training that consists of one kind of learning–just lecture or just practice. Let’s look for the combinations of methods that work effectively. What do you think? Is that really what you’re arguing for here?
#6 by chris saeger on July 15, 2009 - 12:40 am
One question–Do you want to fly with a pilot who has attended lots of those very informative lectures? or one who has practiced “doing” flying.
one comment–if i have to sit and listen, i will download the podcast and listen on my own time not sit in someone’s lecture at their convenience.
#7 by Robert Bacal on July 15, 2009 - 11:39 am
That’s an oft mentioned question, and I’ve used it myself (except about neurosurgery, but in this case it’s a completely false dichotomy. We don’t HAVE to choose one over the other. That’s not the issue. It’s never been the issue.
Some content works well with lecture, some content does not. That’s just basic training and learning knowledge.
But to answer your question: I want my pilot to have both practice gleaned through simulators and real life flying PLUS an understanding of facts, information, and theories so that he has a broad understanding of what holds his plain up in the air. Much of that can be gleaned through words.
The answer is clearly both, which, in fact is how most professionals are trained.
Except that trainers don’t get it. Given the choice between doing “group work” for an hour, having the ignorant lead the ignorant, and doing a 15 minute lecture done well, trainers will usually pick the former.