Can the School Teach Deep Learning?

Can the School Teach Deep Learning?

A Paper based on

Deeply Affecting First-Year Student’s Thinking:

Deep Approaches to Learning and Three Dimensions of Cognitive Development

By

Marcial I. Enginco

MA Educational Psychology

College of Education

UP Diliman

For

Grace S. Koo, PhD

Professor, EDFD 202: Cognitive Learning

SUMMARY

Deeply Affecting First-Year Student’s Thinking: Deep Approaches to Learning and Three Dimensions of Cognitive Development is a study conducted to assess mainly the effects and relationship of Deep Approaches to Learning (DAL) to students’ Critical Thinking, Need for Cognition and Positive Attitudes Toward Learning.  It was published in the May-June 2014 edition of the The Journal of Higher Education.

The researchers sent invitations to participate to college and universities all over the United States on which 60 responded positively, 19 institutions were then selected.  The longitudinal research initially collected data from 4,501 incoming first year college students, with 3,081 of the total (68.5%) agreeing to  a follow up data collection. 

The research aimed to estimate the relationship of DAL on three cognitive dimensions, namely: Critical Thinking, Need for Cognition, and Positive Attitudes Toward Learning.  The results reveal that DAL has no relationship to Critical Thinking, but with slight significance to Need for Cognition and Positive Attitudes Toward Learning.

The study was conducted by Thomas F. Nelson Laird, Tricia A. Seifert, Ernest T. Pascarella, Matthew J. Mayhew and Charles F. Blaich with a grant from the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College.

INTRODUCTION

Deep learning, like a young tree taking root, is lasting and has positive implications on the growth of a person not only as a learner but as an individual making productive decisions later in life.  As the learning burrows ever deeper into the rich soil of knowledge, it gives growth to sturdy branches that allow the learner to become an incisive and insightful thinker, with an inner motor to creatively and persistently seek out knowledge to use and share freely and readily, without need for recognition – like a sprawling canopy generously giving shade and respite to the weary just because it can. 

But alas, an analogy about how potent deep learning can be in the field of education, or in creating clarity and crafting solutions out of personal, social or work life problems is easier to conjure in the head than to make it work in the classroom, as the results of this study would seem to strongly suggest.

A teacher, or even an ordinary person with cursory concern over a student’s education, would be justified to assume that a young student, fresh from high school, will positively gain from being exposed for a year to something as effervescently termed as Deep Approach to Learning, or DAL.

However, oddly and rather unexpectedly, the research has failed to establish a link between DAL and Critical Thinking, and had barely – and only by a flimsy thread – connected it with Need for Cognition and Positive Attitudes Toward Learning.  Intriguing further is the finding that it is not exposure to DAL but the pre-college critical thinking level and academic preparation of students which determine the overall critical thinking performance of the respondents when they transition into college.  Simply put, high school students will roughly register the same score in critical thinking up until the end of their first year in college, even if they went through a year of DAL.

 Is DAL, then, merely a powerful-sounding placebo? A myth that educators want to play over and over to assure the educational system, to which they belong, that it is closer now more than ever to understanding how the human mind learns?   Is the school the proper venue for learning to learn deeply, or is it merely an auxiliary to such a pursuit?  I will attempt to address these questions and expound on other related issues in this paper.

The Good, The Bad and The Questionable

As a graduate student still finding my way through the intricacies of research, I heavily rely on how readings, particularly journals and studies, are written and constituted to inform my concept of what a good research paper should be, at least in substance, flow and structure as I prefer to adapt the form to my prose.  

However, too often, I encounter researches that treat the review of related literature as an opportunity to showcase how much work went into the paper even before the actual research began by haphazardly citing sources left and right, front, back and center, instead of lucidly using the same to guide and educate  the reader about competing views and reinforcing thoughts, which then will lead to insightful dissection of gaps that underscore the importance of the study, as well as the value of its eventual findings to the reader and his particular interests.   This is why I appreciate the manner by which the researchers of this study clearly and methodically whittled down the gaps out of the literature woodwork, which has made it easier for me to grasp the importance of their research and what can and cannot be realistically expected and derived from it.

Also, I think that the researchers should be commended for, at least on paper, broadening the conditions from which the study of deep learning and its effect on students may be framed by including contextualizing factors such as the respondents’ socio-economic background into the mix of variables.  Though I would have appreciated it better had they actually raised the results and discussed the findings to suggest differences in (even similarities or no differences), say, critical thinking between Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Caucasian Americans.  I mention this because I believe that such general data may be used by future researchers as a starting point for further understanding ethnicity, and the social contexts and underpinnings particular to a group.

The researchers exercised great care in the selection of participating institutions.  However, the same, it seems, was not applied to the choice of respondents as liberal arts students were more liberally selected over other majors in the sample.  This over representation, the paper explains, is because the study’s focus is on the impacts of liberal arts colleges and liberal arts experiences.  Oddly enough, no findings specifically mentioning the results for liberal arts students were discussed or offered in the paper.  Or perhaps, the results corresponding to that query were exclusively turned over to the Wabash College, which sponsored the research.  Whatever the case maybe, this apparent overlook leaves questions hanging.  Was it because the researchers utilized weighting algorithms designed to make the overall sample more similar to the population?  If so, then it defeats the stated purpose of over representation and exposes perhaps a flaw of loose ends and untied threads.

I suppose it is not illegal because apparently it is an accepted research strategy, but I highly question the propriety of giving a stipend to the respondents as the endeavor is essentially and ultimately academic in nature.  Would the respondents answer less truthfully had they not received any monetary compensation?  I wonder, is the reason behind this strategy driven by deep or shallow thinking?

Likewise, I also feel that the respondents were not given full disclosure of the nature of the study they were participating in, but merely a general and vague description of it when they were informed that they were to be part of, to quote from the paper verbatimly, “a national longitudinal study examining how a college education affects students, with the goal of improving the undergraduate experience.”  It is like informing a would-be participant in an experimental anti-ebola medicine that the test that will be conducted on him aims to find out how fast his body can absorb an unknown drug, with unknown effects – still true, but not the truth that the subject needs to hear.  I wonder if the results of the research would change if the respondents were informed that the study was about how DAL would affect their critical thinking, need for cognition and positive attitudes toward learning.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

It is said that the inner drive to search for knowledge becomes second nature to deep learners, and that this trait holds true outside of the classroom and manifests in multi-faceted ways in how the person goes about his daily business.  For the deep learner learning itself, and the process that goes with it, is more than enough motivation to seek out knowledge – and sometimes, “The” only reason for doing so.  On the other hand, the shallow learner prefers rote and memory exercises, avoids complex situations and detests unfamiliar terrains as these may lead to mistakes and wrong decisions that he/she will deem a failure, a rather embarrassing one.

Unfortunately, in the absence of an objective verification outside of the classroom and into the personal lives of both kinds of learner, the proof of learning and performance is often measured in grades; which, then, begs the questions: Did the learner with the high grades actually learn?  and did the learner who did not get a sterling mark absorbed less?  Add to this the reality that many teachers teach for exams and we can see how unreliable most grading systems are is in far as gauging whether students are developing into deep, lifelong learners or shallow, memory sticks collecting data that is either conveniently deleted, replaced, or corrupted over time.

From grade school and up to the time I was in college, I was not a performer in the traditional sense of schooling terminology.  And if my grades were any indication, then I was not learning all that much either.   But I was learning, deeply. 

My first encounter with cartoons was on a neighbor’s TV set.  The young Enginco household then, with our parents’ indulgence, did not have the benefit of technology, except for a small radio cassette player that was not allowed to play louder than a normal conversation.  What passed for entertainment were three sets of encyclopedia which I began leafing through long before I knew what letters sounded like.  There were also all manners of printed paper materials with visually rich pictures including big, thick books about two wars apparently involving an entire world populated by people with a penchant for violence and facial hair, an even bigger hardbound with watercolor illustrations of jagged lines that formed brown, green and white masses scattered over vast blues with tiny ships trailing dotted lines that touched the edges of brown, thin magazine-sized books about massive triangular edifices housing half-naked dead people with serious eyeliners, huge flying lizards that lived in water and large fierce-looking animals that ate treetops, but which no one alive had seen in the flesh, only in bones.  I looked at all of them, over and over again.  And when I learned how to read, I went over them, over and over again, and so with the score of Reader’s Digest that kept coming in month after month.

But at school, I practically read nothing.  And in the instances that I did, there was no trace of enjoyment, only a deep fear of being singled out as lazy and unworthy of being called a student.

When I entered college at barely sixteen, I did not strike anyone as an intelligent person.  In fact, the first thing that a school official told me when she was looking over my report card with a worried face was, “Mag-aaral ka ng mabuti, ha.”  I simply nodded because I’ve been hearing the same thing from my former teachers every time they wrote down on my report card the numerical value of my performance in class.  Were the grades fair?  If it reflected the sum of my performance based on test scores, assignments and projects turned in, and overall participation in class, I say they were.  But did it take into account whether I was a deep learner or a shallow one?   Apparently not.  And it seems that most schools and many educators do not care as long as their requirements for computing grades are objectively met.

But admittedly, I came into college not much of a critical thinker, or else I would have questioned how the way grades are computed, and how education – which should prepare the student for the real world – is ironically largely not about the real world.  While I was naturally curious, I went about looking for answers without the benefit of weighing first in my head the answers and options to the questions: What can I, or others, get out of this?  Is it good for me?  For others?  Will it put me in trouble?  Not even the basic question, Can I get away with it?

I believe that critical thinking is the difference between the intelligent and the wise.  It comes with age, experience and making mistakes, and not through school-induced strategies, no matter how well-meaning or well-defined they are.  So it does not surprise me at all that the results of the study have shown that the level of critical thinking of first year college students will be no different from when they were still highschool seniors.  It is not fair to have high expectations about critical thinking from people who have not lived long enough to learn lessons from their mistakes.  And we are talking here about Americans who go into their first year in college at roughly 18 or 19.  What more can you expect from Filipino students who enter college at 16 (Until the first graduates of the K-12 come in, that is.).

Yes, there is a marked difference in critical thinking between freshmen and their junior and senior counterparts.  I had first account knowledge of this when I was asked to teach literature some years ago, which involved not only a lot of reading but plenty of analysis and discussions as well.  For reasons known only to the respective program directors, some courses required their students to take the subject in their first year of schooling, while others recommended it for later years.  To my consternation and utter frustration (directed towards the program directors), I found the ideas, articulation and capacity for lesson integration of first year students not only severely lacking in depth and clarity, but in breadth and ambition as well, which were thankfully miles apart from those of many juniors’ and seniors’ who have somehow reached the beginning stages of critical thinking.

I believe that positive attitudes toward learning and need for cognition are as equally important as critical thinking to deep learning.  A student who has a positive disposition to learning is not given to frustration and self-doubt in the face of difficult and complex lessons.  On the other hand, one who sees education, and learning in general, as a chore and required burden tends to be highly self-critical and averse to making mistakes that paralysis by analysis becomes an unintended consequence when confronting complexity or unfamiliar territory.  Thus, the learner forfeits the opportunity to deepen his knowledge or discover opportunities.  I have known many people who were grade conscious and got good marks in college who settled for jobs that require minimum risks such as an executive assistant (euphemism for secretary), or employs rote such as a bank teller or bill collector, which greatly undermine their true potential to acquire more challenging and rewarding pursuits.

Need for cognition is the term used to describe a person’s tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking.  People with high need for cognition immerse themselves in ideas and knowledge, and actively participate in discussions and other activities that deepen and broaden what they already know.  On the other hand, those with low need for cognition are said to have the tendency to look at others, either a trusted friend or a famous celebrity, to shape their thoughts and facilitate decisions.  Sadly, at the rate Kris Aquino, Vice Ganda and Vic Sotto are gobbling up endorsement deals then I guess it would be fair to assume that many Filipinos have very low need for cognition.  Perhaps this also explains why the likes of the Revillas, Estradas and Lapids win elections running away, to the bank.

CONCLUSION

Are Philippine schools designed for deep or shallow learning?  Do teachers have the capacity to plumb the depths of learning?  If not, can they be trained to adapt to teach deep learning techniques?  And if they can be trained, can their teaching output be standardized to assure deep learning?

I believe the answers would depend on who is responding.

DepED top brass would say, “But of course, we can and we will employ DAL in our classrooms.  In fact, we have the modules ready and training schedules planned.  Our implementation goal is this… “

While the teacher would reply, “Don’t tell me that I’m doing it wrong.  I’ve been teaching this subject for 20 years already and I can recite my lessons even with eyes closed.  If you want to go deep learning, then go deep in your pocket so that we can get just compensation for teaching your children how to learn.  Ang hirap kaya.”

And then the students would nonchalantly mutter, “It sounds scary.  Do we even need that?”

Deep learning does not happen in a vacuum.  There must be an impetus to make it happen.  And in fairness to the school and to the educational system as a whole, I don’t think that learning deep learning starts nor ends inside a classroom.  I believe that any researcher can predict with a high degree of certainty the depth or shallowness of a student’s learning by simply looking at what can be found inside the child’s house, or listening at what kinds of conversation and how they are carried out inside the home. 

We had what we had inside our small, wooden house and we, all six male siblings, grew up with a healthy appreciation for learning. 

Of course, a teacher with great awareness at the totality of the learning process would be very helpful in the process.  But until all teachers learn to stop saying “Mag-aral ka, mababa ang mga grades mo,” the school can never be the bastion and champion of deep learning.