“Can there be Teaching without Learning?”

“Can there be Teaching without Learning?”
Teaching is regarded as 'a set of actions' meant to induce Learning.
If Learning does not take place, how can we say that Teaching was going on?

I have instances of Class Theatres where as per normal parlance Teaching was going on but the students were not learning and did not learn. I said to such Teachers," Dear friend, you were doing everything except Teaching.".
My contention is that if a desired activity fails to achieve the objective for which it is meant, how can we say that the activity was going on?

Please give me your valued inputs asked by: Prof. B. L .Handoo.
Ken Robertson wrote:

Teaching as a generic activity can take place without any learning accompanying it. I have seen this many times at the university level over my career, but have no recent experience in high schools and the like.

Much of the ineffective teaching I have seen has involved the delivery of new concepts and material to classes ranging from a few to several hundred (my biggest first year class was 924). However, the material was delivered by people who are predominantly researchers, with few interpersonal skills, in a manner that did not engage the students.

Often the material was presented in the same form the research results to students whose learning has not reached anywhere near this level. There was no common point of communication. If there were post grad students in the same class, this material would have been suitable for them, and thus learning could occur.

Learning is about bringing together the needs and abilities of the audience, the material and a method of delivery appropriate to that audience. Teaching is getting this combination correct.


Subbaraman (Subba) Iyer wrote:

The teaching - learning interlocks are indeed complex. Based on my own student days and even now, I learn better outside the classroom than inside. Some responsibility for this has to be borne by the teachers, but nonetheless there's always a better way that teachers can do the job.

More often than not, the teacher stands on the stage like a sage with a bowl of knowledge in his head and is often insensitive to the student's background and learning approaches. I would rather have a teacher who's a guide by the side than having a sage on the stage.

I have blogged about the disconnect between the education approaches and the learning approaches. You are free to use this response and also my blog post after appropriate attribution.

Links:
http://subbaiyer.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/the-education-and-learning-approaches/
http://subbaiyer.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/indian-education/
http://subbaiyer.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/questions-the-key-to-learning/


Hesham Metwalli wrote:
I believe the right way to ask this question is "can learning be EFFECTIVE if the learner is not involved?"
teaching and learning are two sides of one coin. you can not separate them or judge them separately.
All educators nowadays agree that the learner is the target of the teaching, so if teaching is not engaging the learner it is pointless.

if you are talking about what happens at most of the universities where you have 900 people sitting in a big hall with one gentleman in the front talking to himself, this is not called teaching this would either be delivering a speech or a lecture. of course in this case learning might still happen but it is the least effective type of learning as it will be random and unplanned because the learner was not involved in exploring or discussing the concepts.

there are agreed criteria for effective teaching and learning. I can pass to you if like so

Eugene Rembor, MBA wrote:
Of course! If you ever tought, you sure have had a number of students who learnt nothing despite your best efforts. May it because they don't have any interest or learning difficulties, there are many reasons why some people never learn.

Links:
http://www.remborpartners.com


Allen Laudenslager wrote:
I used to teach technical information to a non-technical audience. The burden to "teach" was always on me as the instructor. That is I must engage the student. The student's job is to show up and pay attention. If they are not learning it's always the teacher's fault.

I write tech manuals and if the information is not clear it's always the writer's fault.

So, no there can not be teaching without learning (in my not so humble opinion)

Rick Sharrard wrote:
I received a great quote yesterday from LI member Allen Dudley Brown, PhD who said, "When I pretend to teach, students pretend to learn". I think that really hits the mark! The point is that finding a creative way to facilitate learning a particular subject is a challenge. There is no one right way, but there are certainly wrong ways.

Michael Medlock wrote: A teacher's ability is assessed by the learning results he or she achieves. If there are no learning outcomes then there is no teaching going on. So however beautiful or "technically" correct a teacher's method is if the students are not learning then everyone is wasting their time.

Caroline Cole wrote:

There are many reasons students do not learn, even with the best instructors. Certainly we can point to overcrowded classrooms with increasingly fewer resources. We can cite the current “edutainment” view of education, where teachers in today’s attention-deficit world are evaluated according to how “fun” they are or how much teachers can entertain students with classroom bells and whistles. There’s also the consumer view of education, where the student-consumers (and their so-called “helicopter parents”) insist that, because they’re paying for their education, they are always right and, thus, entitled to the exceptions, exemptions, and other special treatments a classroom or educational system might afford. Or, we can attribute problems to myriad systems in our society that reward children (and adults) for every endeavour, regardless of success, making it harder to genuinely engage, motivate, and inspire those in our classroom.

Perhaps, however, many of these reasons come together in the fact that classrooms increasingly represent a range of students with different learning preferences. In such contexts, teachers who tap into some learning strategies rather than (or at the expense of) other strategies, encourage some students may learn while others do not; moreover, among the students who learn, students may take different things from any given lesson.

Efforts to track students into more homogenous classroom populations aim to address this challenge; specifically, the more common ground there is in a classroom, the more likely a teacher can "teach to the masses" and efficiently achieve target results. Such efforts, however, have been deemed separatist, classist, racist, sexist, and politically incorrect all around.

Yet, as more diversity enters a classroom, teachers struggle to address--much less accommodate--the increasingly divergent learning strategies today’s students represent, forcing teachers to either focus on the largest common denominator of student abilities or address the less common learning strategies in haphazard, unsustained ways. Whatever the choice, the result are the same: some students will learn, and others will not.

Aiming to be the best teacher I can be, I have learned that I cannot be all things to all students. I teach to my strengths (e.g., subject matter, teaching style), and help students who prefer other systems as best as I am able. But I have come to realize that some students are better served by colleagues who have different strengths, approaches, ways of presenting materials; therefore, as much as possible, I try to help students identify those resources so students can achieve their goals in the most efficient and effective way.

As a university faculty member, however, I recognize that I am in a privileged position, because higher-education students have some options about the courses they take or the sections in which they enrol; my views, therefore, are informed by luxuries many K-12 teachers do not have. But, even when students do not have choices (as in the case of some mandatory courses I teach), there is a Buddhist proverb that both explain the teaching/learning connection: "When the student it ready, the master [teacher] appears."

Education is a reciprocal process, and there’s comfort in knowing that sometimes we are the teacher a student is ready to receive, and sometimes we are not.

Shaheen Salam wrote:
Teaching and learning are reciprocal and it is a situational scenario. In a class or any teaching session it is not that teacher teaches and learner learns. At times the teacher picks a learning point from the students. It is also not true that any teaching could be 100% failure because in a class, learning takes place at different levels and every student has his/her own pace of receiving knowledge and then applying it. Nevertheless, good learning always comes out of an interactive teaching session.

Indira Chaudhry wrote:
One cannot teach if one has not learnt.....and to learn one must have a teacher or learn on own...

But if there is no aptitude then the teacher is helpless....as the student has not made effort to learn...

On the other hand if the teacher is not appropriate or has no interest in teaching then the student is at a loss...

For the desired effect...ie activity to go on Teaching and Learning have to be performed by the respective teacher and student(s)

Brian Curry wrote:

Dear Bhushan,

My understanding is that teaching is the work of teachers. Therefore, if their work is bad, there will be no learning, except of course if the students learn in spite of the teacher.

Regards,
Brian

Prikshit Dhanda wrote:
Why is there a need to teach ?
Just present the subject as a sumptuous meal to starving souls and guess what.....the students will devour the same.

Coy Lee wrote: Prof, Handoo

Learning is a Requisite
You must be Master of your Learning
When Learning is thrown away,
All that is left is pure Motion without Thought

Hope it helps,
Coy

Larissa Wowk wrote:

If there has been no learning then neither has teaching taken place. This is not the fault of the student but in how the "teaching" was delivered.

In order to teach someone you need to be able to connect to and reach your audience. If you are not doing so then it is a waste of your time and theirs. The teacher needs to come down to the level of the student and work up from there. The teacher needs to ensure knowledge and competence is acquired in one lesson before teaching the next. Knowledge builds on knowledge. This is true in all areas of teaching across all ages.

Patrick Fitzgerald wrote:

Well 'Teaching without Learning' can in fact occur. The idea of teaching is it is meant to impart knowledge and enhance learning. In order to learn you have to have an audience that is willing to listen.

1) The students (generally) cannot know more than the teacher. If they do then a majority of the time is wasted.

I know this for a fact because I was one of those students who knew more than the teacher. I took a high-school level HTML/Web Design class and basically did not learn a single thing (thankfully the college level class I got into had stuff to learn like JavaScript, SQL and PHP and usually took a good period of time to complete). I finished all the tasks in about 5-15 minutes depending on complexity and how nice I wanted it to look and spent the remaining time of the 2 hours helping other classmates with their understanding of the lesson.

2) The teacher has to be able to effectively communicate their knowledge to the students. If they cannot do this then I think you can claim that no teaching is really happening.

I had a professor in my first semester of college who was responsible for the Ana log Electronics course and it was blatantly obvious that he KNEW what he was talking about but he just could not get it into words that would help YOU understand. There was also a language barrier I believe as well as it seemed like English was not his first language.

Peter Arno Coppen wrote:
This seems to me a matter of definition. If you define teaching as a "set of actions meant to induce learning" (and not "a set of actions inducing learning"), then the intentions of the teacher suffice to call such a set of actions teaching. It may be teaching that does not work as intended, but that doesn't change the word.

Apparently, your contention is that your definition of the word 'teaching' is different from what you state in the beginning. You seem to include the intended result in the definition.

The question can be posed for all words denoting intentional actions. An analoguous example would be: if you are sending a message to someone and it never arrives, would you still call it a message?

LaRue Williams wrote:
--Can there be "teaching" without learning? In my humble opinion "no". The objective and purpose of "teaching" is learning. The two are intrinsically bound. Teaching is not being achieved without learning. If there is no learning taking place then some sort of activity is definitely going on in the environment, but that activity, whatever it is, cannot be called teaching. percentage of learning is the metric for teaching. If a person does not measure teaching by the learning taking place that person does not understand the concept of "teaching" at all. The reluctance to measure teaching with metrics of learning is the reluctance to be held accountable for results. This discussion goes to the very fiber of why educational standards drop.

Private Note:
Prof. Bhushan Lal: I'm very glad you asked this question. It goes to the very fiber of problems in the educational system. The desire for tenure and organization supercedes that of being sure our youngsters learn. I was in the public school system for 7 years as a secondary teacher and too often the concern was job-security; organization of neat lesson plans; and short hours with summers off rather than focus on the students, their needs, and the skill sets that taught them with the result of learning.

Alice de Sturler wrote:

You can only tell whether teaching took place once the students start to write papers and display how much they know/have learned, through discussion they have with fellow students on a subject matter discussed in class, their interaction during class is another meter and of course, whether they recommend your class to fellow students.

I guess you need to separate the traditional style of teaching with the "as of yet unknown outcome."

shubhranshu agarwal wrote:

Teaching without learning is as impossible as the cooking without water. Today, teaching has become multi task activity instead of just guiding the students about one or two aspects.


Manoranjan Mishra wrote:
dear prof Bhushan

i think i partly agree with your point of view in indian context. Our tearchers are not helping in learning activity. teachers are kind of programmed to teach certain subject with limited exposure/knowledge.

the problem is not the knowledge but the creative process in teaching that encourage to learn/discover new things is not at all happening .

there is a kind of risk-averse nature in teaching process to new things. So whatever a teacher teaches it has only little effect on students.
theachers should encourage experimentation and should be a part of that to accelerate the learning process.

Salman Khan.....Rocking wrote:
I will give you a practical example.I joined a part time course to enhance my skills as i am a firm believer in continuous education.The teacher came in 15 mins late-talk about discipline-& finished the lecture in 1 hr without even bothering whether anyone understood what she had taught.For once i thought that i had missed some previous lectures due to which I could not understand.I was in dire straits.After the lecture I came to know that half the class was in the same position like me.So we formed a group & gave her the feedback.Her response was shocking.I just have to follow my schedule which is really tight & what else do you expect in part time classes.You have to try to learn yourself.
It reminded me of my father who was a gold medallist & an educationist himself.He used to say howmany ever times a teacher teaches & if the student doesnt understand it is the teacher's fault but once the student says he has understood but then doesnt know then it is the students fault.I wonder howmany teachers follow this today.
The motive of teachers today is exam preparation.They will teach you how to pass in the exam with flying colours.They are not bothered whether you learn or not


Caroline Pinto wrote:
How much time do teachers spend on helping students to ground their learning within their experience base? A good teacher in my mind focuses on providing opportunities for students to make sense of that which is presented within their own context. So, the process of facilitating learning is as important as the content that is being taught. The onus goes back to the teacher to reflect on how content can be made relevant to students.

Cheers
Caroline

Nasir Tajuddin wrote: I would have to agree with Peter Arno Coppen's answer.
If our focus is entirely on words, then teaching is just a set of observable actions, as you have mentioned.

However, from practice, I would like to define teaching as the intention and subsequent action of delivering meaningful concepts / messages to others while simultaneously reinforcing these concepts within the self.

Hence, we learn before we teach, and we learn further as we teach through a process of further elucidation and self-expression. Teaching without learning is, hence, an irrational contention. Even if the entire class completely refuses to learn at the end (which is an extremist assumption), the teacher's intention to teach, and opportunity to express herself is what would matter.

The problem you have identified seems more dependent on context rather than how we define certain actions through the limitations of the English vocabulary. People, at times, do not wish to learn no matter how hard a teacher may try (evening classes, for example, which professional attend half asleep). Such contextual variances would not change the nature of the teaching process, at least

Sigrid Steinschaden wrote:

Let me ask one short question: when do I know that I have not learned anything? Some things I have learned I realised and recognised even only some years later.

Was it the teacher who was bad or was I a bad learner?
Did I focus too much on myself and too less on the teacher or was it the other way round?

Especially with arts there is so much to learn and according to ones own capabilities (that need to have a broad basis) some things might be expressed / lived later than others. It is a permanent exchange and reflection of ones own personality!

Every single learning needs time as it is a process - such a time is needed by students... and teachers!
Tools (for both sides) are:
- self reflection
- mentoring
- deepening ones own knowledge in various fields (permanently).

Usually there are always similar experiences made by others who even did / do some research about it!

Sigrid Steinschaden wrote:
Thank you very much for your question!

For me the basic question is the definition of education and its intentions.

One can educate oneself / become educated in so many fields that looking for the specifically needed and appropriate technique is more important than asking whether technology has gained too much influence on education itself.

Technology therefore can be one tool of many others to educate - sometimes it might be the (situationally) best tool than other media, other times it might be the worst tool in comparison with other media.

Furthermore technology can be an additional tool to other tools chosen (such as face to face education, reading,...), as one needs to separate education as well in 'teachers' and learners.
It is the learner who needs to go into details of the things learned by face to face teaching. Teachers only can give some input, gaining and deepening knowledge to ones own needs is propbably one of the most important obligations people do have towards themselves and towards others.

Teachers can introduce technology in a balanced way without using it because one needs to do so - this is the decision-taking responsability of the teacher!

I really do hope that this discussion goes on (even though it might be one of the main discussions in didactics already for centuries)!

Subhas C Biswas wrote: Teaching is teacher-centered. Learning is learner-centered.

When there is mis-alignment of the objective as perceived by the teacher or learner, it is a possibility.

Situation can be corrected through effective evaluation of the people and process.