){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
“We have an ingrained habit of transmitting concepts to a generation that no longer requires the same learning; on the contrary, it needs answers to their own needs.”
Teaching and learning are directly related and part of a more complex process. What is learning? What is teaching? What is the relationship between these two concepts? Is it possible to ensure that a student has learned because we have taught him? There is no single answer to these questions; rather, it depends on the theoretical learning perspectives from which one intends to provide an answer (Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, Sociocultural). Education occurs according to each era’s world view and life; therefore, each period’s philosophical, social, economic, and political underpinnings are considered.
The concepts of teaching and learning return purposely to the privileged stage of academic and pedagogical discussion of the new contexts forced by recent actions. The relationship between teaching and learning is brought up in many cases, as if it were a causal relationship. However, a new perspective puts this direct and causal relationship at risk.
“Do you see, Hippias, that I tell the truth by stating that I am indefatigable in questioning those who know? It is likely that I have only this one good quality and that the others are of very little value. Proof of this, enough for me, is that when I am with some of you, those things well regarded as wisdom, for which all the Greeks would bear witness, make it clear to me that I know nothing. On the contrary, I praise as wise the one who has taught me, making known what I learned from him.” Socrates in Hippias Minor, 372 BC. (Plato, 1985, pp. 371-396).
Fenstermacher (1979, pp. 157-185) believes that the confusion stems from the ontological dependence of the concept of “teaching” on the one of “learning.” There would be no teaching idea in language structure if learning did not exist as a possibility; the concept of “teaching” depends upon the existence of “learning.” Just as in the case of “searching” and “finding,” “running a race,” and “winning,” the second phenomenon must exist as a possibility, although not necessarily as a reality, for the first idea to live.
The fact that learning often occurs after teaching should not be explained as a direct consequence of the teaching actions, but the activities that the student himself undertakes, starting from the teaching and incorporating the content.
The traditional approach to teaching considers students to be passive recipients of the information. The memorization of the content narrated by the teacher was the main objective of the teaching process. The stored knowledge was abstract. Learning and teaching were considered individual functions with the lone teacher standing in front of an auditorium full of individual students (Segers, Dochy & De Corte, 1999; Dochy & McDowell, 1997).
From teaching to learning
Teaching affects learning as a task, and the learning tasks developed by the student are responsible for learning outcomes. Fenstermacher (1979) calls “studying” the set of activities that students develop to appropriate the content (dealing with the professors, solving the assigned tasks, reading the bibliography, developing summaries, identifying difficulties, consulting for help, doing the exercises, etc.).
“A virus forced teachers to leave their comfort zone to start designing teaching and learning strategies different from the master class.”
According to this position, teaching only affects learning indirectly through the tasks that the student himself learns. So, the conception of a causal relationship between teaching and learning changes to one that assumes there is mediation between the teacher’s actions and the students’ achievements. The mediations are cognitive (resulting from the psychological processes through which students attempt understanding and achieve a mental representation of the new content and its integration with available elements of their cognitive structure). The mediations are social (derived from the classroom’s social system and the interactions through which knowledge is made available and shared).
Presenting teaching as one of the binomial “teaching-learning” terms could be, instead, a notice about the ultimate purpose of teaching actions, the social responsibility of teachers to use all available means, and the need to consider the characteristics of the recipients and not just the traits of the body of knowledge to be transmitted.
On the other hand, teaching as an attempt to transmit knowledge whose adequate appropriation depends on the recipient’s activities does not exempt the teacher from his responsibilities for students’ learning. Instead, the teacher helps to direct their best and greatest efforts of the students (Basabe, L. and Cols, E., 2007, pp.125-161).
Contemporary education requires achieving its objectives, adapting to the current context, and re-signifying the concepts linked to particular actions and procedures throughout history. Reflecting on teaching and learning seems like an activity connatural to educational processes. Different pedagogical theories lead to diverse conceptions and positionings in the face of these practices. Recently there has been a displacement of teaching by learning, which has produced significant transformations in the way contemporary subjects are taught and how teachers and institutions assume their roles in the new dynamics of knowledge (Pulido Cortés, 2017, pp. 9-14).
A virus obliged professors and teachers to leave their comfort zones to design teaching and learning strategies different from the master class. It is interesting because this will necessarily lead to tearing down walls, myths, beliefs, and entrenched attitudes to transmit concepts to a generation that no longer requires these ways of learning but instead needs to find ways to address their necessities.
Nowadays, conventional organizational training has been replaced by virtual, remote, or distance teaching. Repositories with open educational resources related to these educational methodologies have been enabled, and seminars over the web known as “webinars” have been organized. The teacher has become a pedagogical mediator, as Gabriel García Márquez expresses in Love in the Time of Cholera: “The alarm served to make the warnings of Dr. Juvenal Urbino be taken more seriously by the public powers. At the School of Medicine, a mandatory Chair (professorship) for cholera and yellow fever was imposed by directives academics and authorities, and the urgency of enclosing the sewers and building a market distant from the garbage dump became understood.” Higher education has been slow in the transition to online education. However, now that the sector has been forced to offer modules online, universities will probably not return to the previous status quo.
The coronavirus has taken the planet by assault. As in all crises, social mismatches appear, contradictions are generated, and social-order tensions become evident. The need to move from teaching to learning makes one reflect on this in university classrooms and consider the demands of education for the 21st century, calling for curricula and teaching strategies with open, flexible, and transdisciplinary processes.
The Board of Education for National Conversation, coordinated by the Minister of National Education of Colombia, focuses on three essential axes. This article is my contribution to the third axis, submitted to the Presidency of the Republic on June 8, 2020, and sent to the Ministry of National Education for analysis and study on June 11, 2020.
-
Construction of public policy for teacher training.
-
Construction of an articulated, participatory, decentralized system with adequate mechanisms for agreeing.
-
Reform of the educational model. Move from a teaching-based model to one based on contextualized learning. A model that teaches thinking fosters constructive criticism aims to face challenges with innovation and creativity, and potentializes contextual solutions.
To know more about the National Conversation about Education board, consult the full version of the article.
About the author
Galo Adán Clavijo Clavijo (gaclavijo95@gmail). Ph.D. in Pedagogical Sciences, University of Oriente, Republic of Cuba. Dr. Honoris Causa. Leader of the Pegasso research group on four lines of research: power and government in the University, curricular design from learnings, the new pedagogies, and teacher training.
References
Basabe, Laura, y Cols, Estela. (2007). La enseñanza (Chapter 6). Camilloni, Alicia (2007) (Comp.), El saber didáctico. Buenos Aires: Paidós
Dochy, F., & McDowell, L. (1997). Assessment as a tool for learning. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 23, 279-298.
Fenstermacher, G. D. (1979). A philosophical consideration of recent research on teacher effectiveness. Review of Research in Education, 6.
Ministerio de Educación Superior (1991). Reglamento del trabajo docente metodológico en la Educación Superior. La Habana: MES.
Platón (1985) Hipias Menor. Diálogos 1 Madrid: Editorial Gredos
Pulido Cortes (2017) Praxis y saber. Vol.8. No.18. Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia. Tunja
Segers, M., Dochy, F., & De Corte, E. (1999). Assessment practices and students’ knowledge profiles in a problem-based curriculum. Learning Environments Research, 2, pp. 191-213
Segers, M.S.R. (1999). Assessment in student-centered education: does it make a difference? UNISCENE Newsletter, 2
Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.
Translation by Daniel Wetta.
){kind=icon}
){kind=icon}
This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
