Recently I’ve been reading a lot about the psychology around lesson structure, and more specifically self-directed learning. I find it really interesting how validating this whole process has been, especially because I’m reading papers that affirm what I naturally do when I teach. Self-directed or student-lead learning places the overall importance of education on independence and self-sufficiency, because, “at its best, teaching aims to achieve at least two essential goals for students: to (a) increase knowledge with respect to particular content and (b) develop skills that will serve students well, even beyond the content of a specific course.” (Dynan, Cate and Rhee, 2008) The second point – increasing knowledge beyond usage in a specific content area, is what I care most about in my teaching practice. I want student to be capable people beyond what they can achieve in a rigidly structured educational setting.
I’ve also been reading about the intersection of creativity and “fun” and learning, as Supervised Studio sessions do sometimes evolve into quite the casual environment, with music playing and joking around. Sometimes this feels like being a bad teacher, because how can students actually learn if I’m making them laugh with my descriptions of process or materials? Finding research that argues that having fun is actually important to learning has been very eye-opening to my own preconceived notions of what learning “is” or “isn’t”. As Petrich, Wilkinson, and Bevan (2013) argue, “”the visual amalgamation of “fun” and “learning” disrupts so many people’s foundational assumptions about what counts as learning”. It’s important for students to enjoy what they’re learning as this creates positive mental associations and can help to cultivate a desire for deeper knowledge. I’m glad that we have informal sessions such as Supervised Studio to offer to students, I want them to feel welcome and comfortable in the workshops, and being able to cultivate an environment where they can relax and have fun yet still learn and practice is clearly more important than I thought.
Dynan, L., Cate, T. and Rhee, K., 2008. The impact of learning structure on students’ readiness for self-directed learning. Journal of education for business, 84(2), pp.96-100.
Petrich, M., Wilkinson, K. and Bevan, B., 2013. It looks like fun, but are they learning?. In Design, make, play (pp. 50-70). Routledge.