In the last half century, most societies around the world have made some changes in the way in which they have approached formal education. The changes have generally involved two significant features:

1. The extent to which the learning takes place individually or in collaboration with other people, and

2. The extent to which the learning is controlled by the educator (or course designer, or other 'expert'), or controlled by the learner.

In a typical classroom fifty years ago, learners sat in rows and worked individually. They listened to the teacher, or read information that had been written by an expert, and then did highly controlled exercises to demonstrate their understanding. These exercises usually had only one right answer.

In contrast, today many educational environments are set up to allow for group work, and learners are expected to be more proactive in the learning process and to deal with multiple realities instead of a single right answer. An example of this shift is the use of project-based learning and assessment in many educational institutions today.

The following diagram shows how the two features mentioned above combine to create different kinds of learning experiences for the learner.

Approaches to teaching: open/closed and individual/shared

Gabi Witthaus, 2009

All learning activities can be described in terms of one (or more) of the four quadrants of this model. For example:

• Learners doing a True/False test would fall into quadrant 1.

• A group of learners listening to an expert giving a presentation in a live, online session would fall into quadrant 2.

• An individual reading a self-help book to improve his anger management skills would fall into quadrant 3.

• Agroup of medical students looking at an X-ray and having a discussion about what problems they see in it would probably fall into quadrant 4.

Of course it is not always quite so clear-cut: let’s say, for example, the group of learners listening to an expert giving a presentation started asking questions of the expert, and discussing the topic amongst themselves; in this case, the activity would move towards quadrant 4. And the individual doing a true-false test may decide to stop half-way through and go to an encyclopaedia to find out more information – that would bring quadrant 3 into the picture. The medical students discussing the X-ray may be following a series of questions prescribed by their teacher – this would shift the activity closer to the border between quadrant 4 and quadrant 2.

Many educational processes move fairly fluidly between quadrants like this.

Reflection

Can you place each of the following learning activities in one (or more) of the quadrants in the above diagram?

a. Learners doing multiplication sums for Maths homework

b. Learners filling in the missing preposition in gap-fill sentences on a language learning worksheet

c. A patient looking up information about her condition in a medical encyclopaedia

d. Learners doing open ended role-plays in class

e. A class listening to a lecture

f. A learner listening to a lecture on a podcast that she has saved onto her mobile phone

g. A loose, informal network of professionals who share information and help each other solve problems

h. A group of learners playing a game in which players have to follow instructions on cards

i. Learners doing a multiple-choice quiz in an e-learning course

j. Group discussion of a case study

k. Learners having a conversation about the lecture they just attended

l. A traveller reading a guide book to prepare for a trip

m. A learner looking up information on Wikipedia as input for a project

n. A conference with plenty of open discussion time

And now think:

1. Did you find that any of the above activities belonged in more than one quadrant? For example, in example (h) a conversation could be controlled by the teacher or controlled by the learners – it depends on the nature of the instructions on the cards.

2. Putting yourself in the shoes of a learner, which kinds of activities do you think you would find most engaging? I.e. in which quadrant(s) would you be most motivated to put a lot of time and effort into your learning?

Thinking about the kinds of activities you generally use in your teaching, which of the four quadrants would you say is dominant in your teaching practice? Do you think your own preferences as a learner (noted in your answer to question 3) have influenced your teaching style? To what extent do you think it would be helpful (or not) to introduce more activities from the other quadrants into your teaching? We will explore this idea further in the rest of this unit as well as Units 4 and 5.