Jack Canfield gave an example of how we can use negative feedback so that we can actually get to our goals. He used the analogy of a pilot taking off with a clear set destination and flight path. During any flight the plane is constantly going off course because of various reasons like strong headwinds and others. However, the pilot is constantly being given feedback through his instruments as to how to get back on course. This is a constant thing that goes on. The plane deviates off course only to be righted by the pilot upon his receiving feedback from his instruments. Despite being off course perhaps even most of the time the plane will land safely.

We can use this analogy to compare how teachers give feedback to their students about their learning goals and their learning process. If we tale a look at the goal of the pilot, it is very clear. Almost no pilot takes off without knowing where his destination is and his estimated time of arrival. Do students know what their learning goals are? They may have a vague idea that they must learn something by a certain date (usually a high stakes examination or test). How often do teachers tell students what their learning goals are? Who is flying the plane in this case? Who is the pilot? The teacher or the student? If the teacher is the pilot then the students may arrive as passive passengers but may have missed out on a whole lot of learning as the feedback is given to the teachers and not them. Will the students ever learn to fly on their own? I doubt it. Yet the students of today are expected to be able to fly on their own at the workplace. They supposed to be independent learners. The independent learner learns to trust the feedback that they get to get them on track and eventually to their destination. But before that the independent learner must be made aware of his own learning goals. Teachers cannot just say the students are going to learn “this chapter”!

The feedback that pilots get is also very precise. It is quality feedback that corrects the error and tells them how to get back on track. One wonders how often students in  schools get quality feedback especially if the teachers who are supposed to give quality feedback is responsible for a large number of students. More often then not we get a tick or a cross, a number or a grade, with at most, very cursory comments that tell us little about what we have done right or wrong. Imagine if this is the quality of feedback that a pilot gets. Would we want to fly on his plane?

The feedback would also be just that: feedback. It will not carry with it negative connotations about how bad the pilot has been. Ever met pilots before? They are a very confident breed of people despite getting negative feedback all the time while doing a very crucial piece of work. Again if we compare with our students in school, more often then not when they do receive feedback it makes them feel like failures leading to a steady erosion of confidence. Some even stop doing because they don’t want to lsiten to the feedback anymore. Why is this so in many schools? Teachers ought to take note of this. The manner in which feedback is given is crucial to the receiver. Teachers therefore ought to pay more attention to this aspect of teaching.

Very often when you ask students how they memorize anything that they have learnt, they will tell you that they do so by reading over and over again. This has perhaps been the time-honored way of memorizing done by students faced with the huge chunks of information that they get at trivial pursuit academies called schools.

Recently, I also wrote about the need to teach the accelerated learning techniques, like mind mapping and the different memory systems in schools as part of the need to prepare ALL students to learn. This morning I came across a post by Daniel Willingham (see here)where he mentioned that his university students in general do not know about memory and how it works. He said, “It turns out that they don’t know much about committing things to memory.”

He doesn’t blame teachers because he says “teachers are not taught much about about the practical workings of memory.” Here, perhaps I don’t quite share his views. While I will agree that this is usually not part of a teacher training course, teachers who are serious about helping students to remember would have made the effort to learn about memory systems and would have taught their students. Furthermore, from my experience with schools in Singapore (admittedly just anecdotal observations) teachers refused to teach students to remember using memory systems. Only on the rare occasion you will hear a teacher perhaps mentioning “mnemonics”.

I suspect this is due to two reasons. Schools still expect teachers to give traditional notes to students, usually called “concise notes” but in reality is usually anything but concise. Secondly, these teachers are probably the ones who have got away with the “reading-over-and-over” method of memorizing and therefore never saw the need for other more efficient methods. The thinking is probably if these teachers can do it while they were students, they don’t see why their current students can’t.

I think at the end of the day, a lot of the “teaching” that is done in Singapore schools is assumed to be transfered into the minds of students by some invisible hand or invisible osmotic process. Students somehow are assumed to have figured out how to do it.

“Some of the discouragement of our natural inquiry process may come from a lack of understanding about the deeper nature of inquiry-based learning. There is even a tendency to view it as “fluff” learning. Effective inquiry is more than just asking questions. A complex process is involved when individuals attempt to convert information and data into useful knowledge. Useful application of inquiry learning involves several factors: a context for questions, a framework for questions, a focus for questions, and different levels of questions. Well-designed inquiry learning produces knowledge formation that can be widely applied.”

- Thirteen Ed Online

GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers today have become more popular with consumers. They are now commonly found in phones and cars as part of navigation systems. Today, teachers and students can use simple and relatively GPS receivers with built-in dataloggers into the “classroom” to make learning interesting. With these receivers teachers can encourage their students to undertake inquiry-based learning of their own using sophisticated but relatively inexpensive tools. GPS receivers, and its usual partner, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can help teachers and students integrate ICT tools into the educational process.

Students can use GPS receivers like these to also map routes, mark locations and record their observation of things along the route digitally through their digital photographs. Of course the photographs can be tagged accordingly (see here for an example of how photos are tagged to Google Maps) and using these tags students can actually try to discern patterns of spatial distribution with great accuracy. Field work and inquiry becomes easier without losing the discipline that comes with serious inquiry. With such data, it becomes easier for other students to build on data that has been collected earlier and compile new layers of data using GIS for greater in-depth study.

The inquiry-based learning process engages the students innate curiosity to spur their own learning. In inquiry-based learning students learn need to learn what data to collect, how to get that data and make sense of the data that they have collected. This represents a shift from the traditional emphasis on rote-learning, memorization and traditional Trivial Pursuit-like pen-and-paper assessments. Postman and Weingartner wrote about this approach in their biting critique of modern day education, “Teaching as a Subversive Activity”, written about forty years ago.

The inquiry-based learning is not dissimilar to the scientific approach. It begins with deciding what is it that is to be discovered? What are the questions that need answering. The second part of the process is deciding what data is to be collected and how it is to be collected. The third part of the process is the actual collection of the data. Fourthly, the analysis of the data is done to draw the appropriate conclusion of the inquiry based on the data already collected and analyzed. A reflection of the whole process as the last stage is vital too because the reflection is feedback about what went well or otherwise in the whole process. It may also lead to the need for another round of the whole process to be carried out.

Using GPS for inquiry-based learning, teachers and students will undergo the same process mentioned above. The only difference perhaps is that the information will take on a spatial dimension. Students using GPS devices can now log where, for example, different species of butterflies are found. The location where digital photographs of these butterflies are found can be automatically tagged to a very specific location through the GPS receivers.The data distribution patterns can then be studied spatially using GIS software or by displaying them on Google Maps.