Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning is complicated. For decades, educators have been trying to define how people learn and the best way to teach so teach so that students learn. In the process we've learned that there is no such thing as "the best way." What we have learned is that there are many ways of teaching, and students have different ways of learning. Discussions about the teaching and learning process, or "education" took on prominence with in the early 20th century with John Dewey (1859-1952), an American philosopher, psychologist and also known as an educational reformer. Dewey advocated that in order to attain a civil society schools had to educate students to become informed public citizens. While that sounds logical today, it was very progressive in Dewey’s time when classical education consisted mainly of studying Greek and Roman philosophers, and knowledge was transmitted through the all-knowing “sage on the stage.”
Dewey proposed that learning is a social process, and when students are allowed to interact with the curriculum, they learn better. Although he was really thinking of young children and not so much adults when he suggested that interaction with the curriculum help the learning process, Dewey’s thoughts on learning and education have implications for teaching in higher education today.
The traditional college class session used to be to attend a class 3-4 times a week, with each class lasting about an hour or a bit more. Through the years, the student population as shifted to students who commute to class because they work, have families, and other life-living obligations that demand a class schedule that works with their needs. So now classes are longer, so as to accommodate students who can attend class only once a week. Consequently, instructors have had to readjust their notion of teaching, as now the students in the class demand to be taught knowledge, but in such a way that they can be involved.
Hence, interest in instructional strategies! It behooves every instructor to develop a repertoire of instructional strategies to not only facilitate learning, but make classes interesting and lively.