Linear Learning
December 10th, 2006 by trottahe
As my daughter was growing up, she would move through her homework as quickly as possible, not often going beyond what the teacher requested. Now as a sophomore in college, she continues this approach, a product of our educational system where the most efficient way to deliver material/learn material is a straight path. It is only in her Graphic Design classes does “deviate” from her goal to be done as soon as possible and with the least amount of pain.
As Gee points out in Chapter 6, Cultural Models, there are some unfortunate models of learning out there. In most traditional subjects, there is a common philosophy that “Learning is a model of memorizing facts and concepts from teachers and books”. A result of a number of different factors influencing our educational system today, I believe there are times when variations of this model are applicable. I think we all can agree that taking time for creative exploration might not work best when learning routine or emergency flight procedures.
With that said, the ideal would be for students to recognize then these linear models are appropriate and when they are not. In video games, most often players are “punished” in some way if they try to reach the goal as soon as possible. As Gee points out, the player is rewarded for exploring, for it is then that he finds the most items that he needs the most. Lingering allows him to hear pertinent clues and gain critical knowledge. Rushing can result in bad decisions and even an early “death”. In the video game world, the player is rewarded for non-linear movement and how quickly one proceeds is not important to success, in fact, you might just miss the good stuff!
Wouldn’t it be sweet if students felt this way about researching Hamlet, the Civil War or Rip Currents? We have found undergraduates, in general, to be very “traditional” in their way of thinking how a classroom functions. They expect faculty to be straightforward and student roles to be passive. They do the minimum, progressing in a direct path. This pattern of information processing and structure is clearly visible in wikis used for group projects in the classroom. Even though students have the ability to link to new or existing pages, external or internal, they almost never do so, choosing instead to one long page.
We have also seen this learning model used in student approach to case-based learning scenarios. All the resources students need to complete the challenge are contained within the modules, although not always in the most obvious place. Instead of taking the time to investigate the resources provided, a great many students have “Google’d” for the information they have needed to support their recommendations.
In some respects, I feel our educational system created exactly what it asked for. Students traditionally have not been rewarded for exploratory learning consistently therefore, it is not their first approach. However, we know in real life that it is the journey that is the most important, not always reaching the goal in the shortest amount of time. Information is really distributed within a web-like structure, shared in communities of practice …. well, that leads me quite nicely into my next post. 
