A poly-sided peg in a 3-sided hole

As I have stated in other philosophy of education statements, I believe that the basic purpose of education is to produce citizens of the world, capable of participating in our social contracts, both public and private. The current philosophical question before me is where I position myself between three learning theories that form a sort of 3-sided hole. As presented in Multimedia for Learning, they are

• behaviorism—where instruction is teacher-centered, and assessments focus on knowledge rather than understanding. The learner is expected to demonstrate his knowledge by successfully completing tasks as instructed.
• cognitivism—where instruction focuses on transferring knowledge from the teaching environment into a real world environment by engaging the learner in active learning and drawing on their motivation and mental models.
• constructivism—where learners are never ‘taught’, but rather construct their own knowledge. Sometimes they are provided resource materials; other times, they must develop these as well.

As a corporate trainer, trying to develop my own philosophy of education seems a futile task. I would want my philosophy to be scholastically defensible, as well as a real tool for me to follow as I design and develop instruction. But as I have discovered over and over during the last two years,  the theoretical world of academia doesn’t always translate to the corporate world. Specifically as it relates to multimedia programs, courses or lessons, there are several over-arching considerations that drive the design and development, regardless of my personal philosophical position. They are

• My learners are employees. The only question the students must answer at the end of the day is “Can you do the job the way I want it done?”
• My learners are always distant from me, and their learning experience is 90% self-paced
• Many of my learners are not computer savvy, and may have slow or limited Internet access

From this perspective, Behaviorism is the closest model. My learners need to know the processes and procedures; my company needs to decide what those processes and procedures are. This isn’t an environment for learner-focused, collaborative, constructivist learning. At least from my company’s perspective…

But there is my perspective, too. As I stand before learners in some of my F2F classes, I see men (sometimes women) who have a very specific motive for being in class, who have a substantial prior mental model around our topic, and who are very adult in wanting to direct their learning. In class, I can draw on the alternative learning theories to exploit these traits somewhat; our class agenda is still strictly controlled by the needs of the company. My online courses are not multi-media…yet. Thinking forward, I find myself lacking imagination as to exactly which topics are appropriate for multi-media, and lacking some of the software skills to know exactly how I would develop them. So I’m left with a wish list, a philosophy I suppose, of how what I hope I could meet the needs of my company and provide value to my learners.

Here’s my list:

• The company must decide the core content of the program, courses, and lessons; however, students can direct and expand their learning through a library of Backgrounders and Primers
• Follow best practices for course and lesson development with respect to user control and content presentation, providing another level of non-behavioristic learning into program. As I approach a new topic, review the cognitive and constructivist theories and attempt to influence the course or lesson content or activities.
• Remember, remember, remember the stories and histories of my F2F learners. Design and develop for them, for their success, for their joy. In doing so, I have a better chance of contributing to my company’s bottom line as well.

Alessi, S.M. & Trollip, S.R. (2001) Multimedia for learning: methods and development. Allyn & Bacon. Needham Heights, MA.