The importance of ‘rich authentic learning tasks’ in generating ‘irresistible learning’ for the 21st century

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 15th April 2017

Introduction

The dominant educational model that is still evident in numerous places today is the notion of “present past”. This model is rapidly receding continually as the three factors – new pedagogies, new change leadership and new economic – are converged in new sphere of educational setting that is long overdue for the necessary transformation (Brown, 1999). That is to say, the present educational system features a Rich Seam. By definition, a rich seam is considered as a radical change in the relationship that exist between all stakeholders in education: the teachers, students, culture of the school, technologies, assessments and curriculum. In essence, if the conditions are balanced delicately, it becomes possible for the rich seam to uncover massive latent resources in a rapid way (Van Oers & Wardekker, 1999).

What is easily understandable is that the present systems are spending more money, time and resources towards education that what was previously obtainable. In a way that has never been recorded in history, the education attainment of individuals are presently critical for the person’s success in the future. However, mainstream education systems are increasingly been considered as obsolete, which are designed basically to serve the purpose of an earlier era that featured mass-production. Numerous studies have clearly indicated that the high focus on surface content knowledge determined with the aim of traditional assessment and exams does push both teachers and students out of school.

On the same accord, the world is far beyond the school setting with numerous forms of digital entertainment and expanding threats of future unemployment, which is continually pulling young people away from the learning process considered unimportant. A recent study in the United States (US) found that 59% of adults that are aged 18 to 35 actually developed the skills they use in their workplace outside of their classrooms. Continued advancements in information and communication technologies have also raised the need for authentic tasks as a way of making the learning process irresistible. This is basically the objective of this research, which is designed to develop a new stream of understanding (with practical demonstration and elaborate discussions) on how authentic learning tasks can be used to engineer an irresistible learning process that will keep both the students and teachers willing to stay in the school, and help equip students with employable skills.

Understanding Authenticity in learning tasks

The typical focus of authentic learning is on the real-world, complex issues and the solutions to these issues, problem-based activities, the use of exercises that are based on role-playing, case studies and participation of the individuals in a virtual communities for practices. It is understandable that the learning environment are originally multidisciplinary in nature (Siemens, 2004; Downes, 2007). They are not designed for the purpose of teaching philosophy or mathematics. Learning environments are similar with certain real-life applications or discipline; the management of a city, constructing house, setting a budget, flying an airplane, and solving crimes good examples. Authentic learning goes beyond content to intentionally bring into play the varied disciplines, different views, ways of life and work, habitual aspects, and even communal setting.

Students that are put through authentic learning processes are able to cultivate the kind of portable skills that people who are new to the discipline will find difficult acquiring by themselves and such skills include:

·        The ability of differentiating between reliable and unreliable information.

·        The patient to follow an argument longer than normal.

·        The synthetic ability of recognizing important views that are within unfamiliar setting.

·        The flexible competence needed to work in different disciplines and cultural boundaries needed to generate innovative solutions (Jenkins et al., 2006).

Researchers in the field of learning have been able to distil the importance of learning experience down to 10 features, providing important checklists for educators to understand and adopt in line with the subject matter within their specific domain. These elements are as discussed below:

1.     Real-world relevance – authentic learning activities does match task that are obtainable in the professionals’ real-world setting as close as possible. Thus, learning is considered to be authentic if it demands that the students actively work with abstract concepts, formulae and facts in such a realistic way – mimicking the context of a real-world.

2.     Ill-defined problem – challenges are not easily solved with the aid of existing algorithm; as authentic activities are normally undefined and demand varied interpretations that require the students to identity the tasks on their own and other features needed to complete the task on a major setting.

3.     Sustained investigation – authentic problems are not solved in a matter of minutes or hours, as they involve complex tasks that need to be investigated by the student in the course of a sustained period of time, demanding vital investments on both intellectual and time resources.

4.     Multiple views and sources – authentic activities provide students with the opportunity of examining tasks from different theories and views, based on different resources, and demands that the students be able to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information.

5.     Collaboration – success is not attainable in a case where students are let out as lone wolfs. Authentic activities view collaboration as important, both in the course and in real-world setting.

6.     Reflection – authentic learning activities allow learnings to make choices and reflect on what have been learned, both on individual and team basis.

7.     Interdisciplinary views – authentic learning does not confine relevant to a defined subject or specialty, instead it does present activities that have consequences beyond a defined practices, serving as an encouragement for the students to utilize difference roles and have different interdisciplinary views.

8.     Integrated assessment – assessments in authentic learning are seamlessly woven into main tasks in ways that allow for real-world evaluation.

9.     Polished outcome – authentic learning activities does culminate in creating a whole product that is valuable on its own.

10.  Multiple outcomes and interpretations – instead of presenting a summarized solution through the application of rules and approaches, authentic activities does allow for varied views and solutions that are competing in nature (Jenkins et al., 2006).

In general, findings indicate that students who are put through authentic learning process does seem to be motivated to preserver irrespective of initial frustrations or disorientation that might be inherent, in as much as the exercise does portray the right structure that give the discipline relevance.

Irresistible learning

Irresistible learning is a dimension contained within the new paradigm. The new paradigm can be defined as a succinct learning approach that involves creating partnership between the students and teacher, with the aim of attaining a deeper learning goal enable by pervasive digital access. That is to say, the students need to be constantly connected with the teachers (even outside of the classrooms), presenting questions in relation to their academic and personal lives, which the teachers are also expected to address even outside the classroom (Jenkins et al., 2006; Reeves et al., 2002).  

By irresistible learning, the context communicated here is that the learning process should feature what the students want in both their academic and personal lives, ushering in an encouraging learning environment that keeps them committed towards the whole learning process. Is all about keeping the students in class and encouraging them to learn.

Obviously, it is clear from the above understanding that authentic learning task does have create role to play when it comes to this accord. This is because authentic learning process allows the students to learn in line with what is obtainable in the real-world, as against theorized pedagogies in their varied academic textbooks.

How can teacher effect irresistible learning through authentic learning tasks

From the above discussions, it is evidently clear that adopting the new pedagogy of learning as it relates to authentic earning tasks does have the potential of creating an irresistible learning sphere for the students; something that will keep them more willing to learn. In essence, the teachers need to ensure that such is the new approach (Brown et al., 1988). However, the question remains how it can be possibly achieved. Considering that teachers represent the link between the students and new skills they acquire, they have a direct influence on the way these new pedagogies of learning can be employed in their system for teaching.

Figure 1: the new pedagogy of learning 

Source as adopted from: Herrington et al., 2003

This can be done by building a new stream of learning that merges discovery and mastery together as shown in the figure (1) above. There should be a tour and flow pattern of information flow within the system that will allow the students to develop pedagogical capacities that can be used to create new knowledge base in the world. The overall aim of the approach should be to ensure deep learning between the students and teachers are like. This process is aided by information and communication technologies. The development process are as discussed below.

Adopt a new curriculum

There should be a new curriculum that features authentic learning process. Unlike the normal curriculum used in regular learning that features mainly content outcome based learning process, the new curriculum should be designed based on real-life setting as it relates to what the teacher aims to achieve. Every example giving in the learning sphere need to be based (or at least feature) on real-life (Herrington, 2002). Considering that authentic learning is based on multidisciplinary setting, it is always important to ensure that the curriculum covers varied disciplines and provides necessary rooms for flexible adjustment when deemed fit.

The learner

For this case, both the teacher and students are considered learners as they all have something to benefit from successful implementation of the system. Unlike the old pedagogy, authentic learning allows the student to also teacher lecturer by sharing their personal experience – through collaborative approach to learning (Ayers, 2002; Bertoline & Dorjgotov, 2007). At the same hand, the student is also taught by the teacher through varied means with the overall purpose of impacting new knowledge and skills on the student (in a way that is interesting to them).

The resources

Generally, findings in this regard have considered computer as vital. There should be a constant network of communication between the student and lecturers. Ideally, the system should be cloud based, allowing the students to learn as desired and when desired. Instead of the conventional library, there should be an e-library where the students can source for information. Lecturer can also be delivered online and assessment undertaken in the same platform. Basically, the resources used here are geared towards enacting a more of do-it-yourself learning process on the side of the student, allowing them learn new things on their own and share ideas with the lecturer for due corrections. It is very much impact based (Ferry et al., 2004).

Learning activities

The activities as discussed earlier need to be entirely based on real-world setting. For instance, students in criminology classes don’t need to be taught only criminal cases and how to handle them; instead, they should be put through a real-life criminal case and allow them to handle them to their best of knowledge. In the process of such, necessary adjustments can be made as due on the spot (Herrington & Oliver, 2000). On the spot learning as opposed to conventional theory-based approach is one of the reasons researchers have described it as impact based. The learning activities will depend entirely on the expected learning outcome, but it should always be designed to mimic real-world settings.

Justification for this approach

One thing is clear, authentic learning will allow the students to learn as if they are actually performing such action in the real-world. That is to say, the learning outcome will give them necessary competence to deal with the situation in the case that they face them in the real world. This is the main justification (Bahr & Rohner, 2004). Additionally, the process is more interesting to the students, ensuring that learning becomes irresistible and they become more willing to stay in school. In effect, this approach is justifiable as it would produce professional with advanced skills in relation to real-life setting while also encouraging learning process in general (Nathan & Petrosino, 2003).

Conclusion

As learners become more cautious of the learning process, authentic learning is fast developing into the desired learning approach. This is because it allow learners to acquire knowledge in ways that are similar with what they can obtain in the real-world, by adopting examples based on real world setting. Thus, it is recommended in this paper that academicians need to adopt the new paradigm to learning. The expected benefit is that it will allow learners to enhance their competence as it relates to general application in the real world and it also makes the learning process irresistible.

References

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