Teaching–Learning
Philosophies: Essentials and Practicum
It is often said that good educators are lifelong learners but not that lifelong learners are good educators. This précis suggests that, in the 21st century's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, all should embrace both learning and teaching for personal growth and performance; makes the case for teaching–learning philosophies; and closes with an example.
Olivier Serrat 10/03/2023
We Are All Learners
The Bible enjoins well: "The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out" (New International Version, 1973/1984, Proverbs 18:15). Taken to heart, it follows, learning is "a relatively permanent change in behavior as a consequence of experience" (Haselgrove, 2016, p. 2). If so, granted, we are all learners albeit for different reasons, at different moments, in different fashions, and to different extents. Aiming to shed light on the art and science of learning by spanning physical, cognitive, and social and emotional development, developmental psychology began to explore from the late 19th century how people grow, change, and adapt during their lives. The discipline uncovered a rich seam to mine.
Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, Vygotsky (1978) "view[ed] human development as a socially mediated process [emphasis added] in which children acquire cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society" (Mcleod, 2023, para. 2) Vygotsky's (1978) so-called zone of proximal development encompassed tasks a learner could accomplish with guidance, as distinct from those a learner can do unaided or cannot do Eschewing social factors, Piaget (1936, 1957) hypothesized four discrete stages of cognitive development in children involving the development of schemas and processes for accommodation and assimilation of new knowledge: (a) sensorimotor (birth to age 2); (b) preoperational (ages 2 to 7); (c) concrete operational (ages 7 to 11); and (d) formal operational (ages 11 to 15). Taking into account all learners, Erikson (1958) described eight predetermined stages of psychosocial development, each entailing specific existential struggles that contribute to a major aspect of personality: (a) infancy (birth to 18 months); (b) toddlerhood (ages 2 to 3); (c) preschool years (ages 3 to 5); (d) early school years (ages 6 to 11); (e) adolescence (ages 12 to 18); (f) young adulthood (ages 19 to 40); (g) middle adulthood (ages 40 to 65); and (h) late adulthood (age 65 on).1 Shunning predictability, Riegel (1975) opined that four interrelated internal and external dimensions condition development: (a) internal psychological; (b) internal biological; (c) external cultural–sociological; and (d) external environmental. Apropos adult development among men, Levinson et al. (1978) postulated seven seasons of life framed by transition or stability: (a) early adult transition (ages 17 to 22); (b) entering the adult world (ages 22 to 28); (c) age 30 transition (ages 28 to 33); (d) settling down (ages 33 to 40); (e) mid-life transition (ages 40 to 45); (f) entering middle adulthood (ages 45 to 50); and (g) late adulthood (age 60 on). Because what people learn impacts their organizations, scholars and practitioners have also investigated the links between individual learning and organizational learning (Britton & Serrat, 2013a, 2023b, 2013c; Senge, 1990; Serrat, 2010, 2017a, 2017b, 2021a).
A socially mediated process, stages, struggles, dimensions, and seasons are so many axes along which the pioneers mentioned above framed their theories, based on which educational psychologists such as Bloom then formulated behavioral, cognitive (in the main), and social
1 The struggles that characterize Erikson's (1958) eight stages and associated basic virtues or maldevelopment are, in turn: (a) trust versus mistrust (cf. hope versus withdrawal); (b) autonomy versus shame, doubt (cf. will versus compulsion); (c) initiative versus guilt (cf. purpose versus inhibition); (d) industry versus inferiority (cf. competence versus inertia, passivity); (e) identity versus role confusion (cf. fidelity versus repudiation); (f) intimacy versus isolation (cf. love versus distantiation); (g) generativity versus stagnation (cf. care versus rejectivity); and (h) ego integrity versus despair (cf. wisdom versus disdain). For sure, Erikson's (1958) existential struggles confront us with either/or alternatives: in reality, less equivocal states populate the space between the two extremes.
approaches to promote learning (Bloom et al., 1956).2 On reflection, it appears that the great questions of development psychology have emanated from distinct understandings of nature–nurture, continuity–discontinuity, and stability–change but there could be others: religion and spirituality which have to do with morality and virtue certainly constitute another axis along which to study learning; this underscores the immense scope of the discipline.
… and We Are All Teachers
It is often said that good educators are lifelong learners but not that lifelong learners are good educators.3 Why? Is education not dialogical? In aid of humanization, Freire (2000) challenged that "education must begin with the solution of the teacher–student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students" (p. 72, emphasis in original). Indeed! Teaching and learning are linked together: one can teach all one wants but there will be no learning if the student is not inspired and engaged; conversely, good learners are teachers who enthusiastically share what they have gained knowledge of. Consider children, who expect teachers to teach so they might learn but pose thought-provoking questions and exchange insights without fear of failure (Serrat, 2017d).4
If we are all learners, then it stands to reason that we all are or can be teachers too. "To teach is to learn twice over," Joseph Joubert accepted as true. A posse ad esse: how might we move from possibility to actuality? Inappropriately, lists of the qualities of a good teacher are commonly one-dimensional. For instance, the top five characteristics of a good teacher according to Randstad (2022) a human resource consulting firm are: (a) "patient and approachable", (b) "enthusiastic", (c) "strong communication skills', (d) "strong knowledge and a solid education", and (e) "disciplined and professional" (paras. 2–11). Randstad's (2022) formula suggests a one-sided relationship: more inclusively, teachers should become the partners of students.
Moved by critical pedagogy, Freire (2000) hoped that teachers and students would through dialogue share joint responsibility for sustaining a process in which all grow: self-contained references to teachers and students would end and new terms would emerge: teacher–student
2 In alphabetical order, a representative sample of modern learning theories would include: (a) andragogy; (b) behaviorism; (c) cognitivism; (d) connectivism; (e) constructivism; (f) humanism, and (g) social learning theory.
3 Lifelong learning is "the continuous, voluntary, and self-motivated use of formal, nonformal, and informal learning opportunities throughout people’s lives to develop and improve the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need for professional, personal, social, or civic reasons" (Serrat, 2017c, p. 945) So that we might "develop relevant skills, knowledge, and attitudes for work, citizenship, and personal fulfillment" (Keevy & Chakroun, 2015, p. 28), UNESCO (1996) presented a vision of education based on lifelong learning that is buttressed by four pillars: (a) learning to know ("by combining a sufficiently broad general knowledge with the opportunity to work in depth on a small number of subjects"); (b) learning to do ("in order to acquire not only an occupational skill but also, more broadly, the competence to deal with many situations and work in teams"); (c) learning to live together ("by developing an understanding of other people and an appreciation of interdependence […] in a spirit of respect for the values of pluralism, mutual understanding, and peace"); and (d) learning to be ("so as to better develop one's personality and be able to act with ever greater autonomy, judgement, and personal responsibility") (p. 97).
4 SCAMPER, an ideation technique, uncovers opportunities by mimicking the application of creativity in children (Serrat, 2017e).
and student–teacher 5 To Maslow (1943) self-actualization represented the highest level of psychological development at which personal potential can be fulfilled 6 So that the teacher and the student might correspondingly become teacher–student and student–teacher and selfactualize, teaching should be reinterpreted and enacted as the liberatory process of interactively activating learning. "I like teaching a lot: it makes me connect with youth and understand better the way the word evolves", G. Concari (personal communication, March 3, 2023) affirmed. As it happens, Robert Heinlein is reported to have held that "When one teaches, two learn"
Articulating and Activating a Teaching–Learning Philosophy
In the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment of the 21st century, all should embrace learning and teaching for personal growth and performance in alignment with UNESCO's (1996) vision. On a crowded planet that is beset by ever-greater threats from human activities (e.g., global climate disruption, loss of species and habitats, pollution, resource degradation) we are obliged to learn to know, learn to do, learn to live together, and learn to be, better.7
Student and teacher are roles (or behavior patterns) that people take up: because they are as you would expect influenced by other roles that parties undertake outside the classroom, grounding one's teaching philosophy clarifies goals, directs behavior, enriches scholarly dialogue, and structures reflection (Goodyear & Allchin, 1998). Implicitly rebuffing King's (1993) sage on the stage and guide on the side models, Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens (2018) advanced the concept of a teaching–learning philosophy to move the erstwhile teacher-centered model beyond the newfangled student-centered model to a learning-centered model.8 Explicitly, on the word of Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens (2018), articulating a teaching–learning
5 A student–teacher is not a student teacher (or pre-service teacher), that being a student who teaches under supervision to qualify for a degree in education.
6 Recognizing that values beyond the personal self can motivate a person, Maslow (1971) later posited a need for self-transcendence beyond self-actualization "Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos" (Maslow, 1971, p. 269).
7 Remarkably not to say uncannily UNESCO's (1996) vision of education pre-figured the Inner Development Goals project (https://www.innerdevelopmentgoals.org/) that was launched in 2020 by the Ekskäret Foundation (http://ekskaret.se/), The New Division (https://www.thenewdivision.world/), and the 29k Foundation (https://29k.org/) together with a group of researchers, experts, and practitioners in leadership development and sustainability. The Inner Development Goals framework encompasses five dimensions: (a) "being (relationship to self)"; (b) "thinking (cognitive skills)"; (c) "relating (caring for others and the world)"; (d) "collaborating (social skills)"; and "acting (enabling change)" (Inner Development Goals, 2021, p. 12) Together, the five dimensions of the Inner Development Goals framework organize 23 skills and qualities of human inner growth and development needed to successfully work the complex issues pointed out in Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations General Assembly, 2015), which introduced the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
8 The binary representation of the sage on the stage and the guide on the side quickly became a cliché (Morrison, 2014). The black and white, reductio ad absurdum contrast would have the sage on the stage impart knowledge through lectures and the guide on the side bestow occasional advice students as they explore independently or interactively.
philosophy would have us: (a) identify core values and beliefs;9 (b) interpret inductive experiences;10 (c) incorporate Scholarship of Teaching–Learning (SoTL);11 and (d) elucidate goodness of fit and sustain one's mission.12
To distinguish product from process, Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens (2018) advised how to turn a static statement into an activated teaching–learning philosophy. As recommended by Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens (2018), activating a teaching–learning philosophy calls for: (a) sharing the teaching–learning philosophy with learners and colleagues, this to boost credibility, convey accountability, and engage in SoTL; (b) designing and developing a congruent classroom culture, notably by introducing the teaching–learning philosophy, in as much as possible rooting the latter into the curriculum (and associated expectations for courses) and establishing group guidelines; (c) identifying assignments and activities that showcase indicators of accountability and scholarly professionalism on the part of students; and (d) selecting modes of assessment (e.g., the Kirkpatrick model) that heed the principles of the American Association of Higher Education (1991) for appraising student learning and also "value ideals such as interactive engagement, co-constructed knowledge, and relevant application" (p. 47).13 From then on, an activated teaching–learning philosophy should be ongoingly evaluated using what formative and evaluative assessments best lend themselves to
9 Paraphrasing Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens (2018): What are the major functions of education? What do you deem to be the role of the student and that of the teacher? How do the student, the teacher, and their environment interact? What should the teaching–learning environment feel like? Can you distinguish knowledge from truth? How would you design or facilitate the teaching–learning process? How do your teaching style and methods impact learning?
10 Paraphrasing Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens (2018) further: What did you find effective when learning in the role of student? When did you experience meaningful moments of learning and teaching? How do your core values and beliefs relate to your experiences? What dissonance, if any, do you perceive between your core values and beliefs and your experiences? How do your core values and beliefs and those of your discipline infuse your teaching–learning philosophy?
11 The SoTL concept requires that teaching and learning should be treated like other forms of scholarship: accordingly, instructors should evolve theory and practices involving student learning. Felten (2013) drew five principles for good practice: (a) "inquiry focused on student learning"; (b) "grounded in context"; (c) "methodologically sound"; (d) "conducted in partnership with students"; and (e) "appropriately public" (p. 122)
12 Paraphrasing Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens (2018) again: Are your core values and beliefs congruent with those of your teaching establishment? Do your teaching establishment's vision, mission, and purpose agree with your teaching–learning philosophy?
13 The American Association of Higher Education's (1991) principles for assessing student learning are: (a) "the assessment of student learning begins with educational values"; (b) "assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as multidimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time"; (c) "assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes"; (d) "assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes"; (e) "assessment works best when it is ongoing, not episodic"; (f) "assessment fosters wider improvement when representatives from across the educational community are involved"; (g) "assessment makes a difference when it begins with issues of use and illuminates questions that people really care about"; (h) "assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change"; and (i) "through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public" (pp. 2–3).
the tasks but with close attention to seeking, acknowledging, and integrating feedback before reactivation across, say, faculty role, teaching–learning culture, or structural considerations (Grise-Owens, Miller, & Owens, 2018).
Practicum: A Teaching–Learning Philosophy
Because we are all learners and teachers, it behooves us to articulate, implement, evaluate, and reactivate teaching–learning philosophies. Anchored in the foregoing and mindful of Goodyear and Allchin (1998), what follows is a personal and concise statement of teaching–learning philosophy for activation in an academic setting:14 The key question to be answered in this statement of my teaching–learning philosophy is: ''Why do I teach?" I am reminded of Maya Angelou who declared: "I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back" (Angelou, as cited in Politico, 2014, para. 6) That quote echoes the distinctive expression for "Thank you" in the Malay and Indonesian languages: "Terima kasih" means "I accept and I love" and implies appreciation and gratitude. By the same token, rephrasing another adage of Maya Angelou, I hold that "When we get, we should give; and when we learn, we should teach" A subject of predilection that I have studied is organizational leadership 15 In the VUCA environment we live in, I venture that "leadership is a responsibility that must be shared by all parties to the act of organizing" because we cannot shift the burden to some heroic others (Serrat, 2021b, p. 3) It follows that what motivates me to teach is the felt need "to bring out the best in people so they accomplish more together, in more meaningful ways, than they imagined they might" (Serrat, 2021b, p. 3). I expect enhanced leadership capabilities in individuals, in groups, and in organizations to be the outcome of my teaching. Toward that, with a learning-centered approach to education, I see that my primary role as a teacher–student is to foster development and personal growth. Inspired by Maslow's (1943, 1971) humanistic psychology and Freire's (2000) critical pedagogy, I envisage a relationship of equals between a teacher–student and students–teachers so we all selfactualize synergistically. To create learning opportunities instead of constraints, a good teacher scaffolds experiences and offers support to raise self-esteem and, as Branden (1994) put it, "make victories possible" (p. 221). That said, a teacher's impact is not necessarily measured by standardized test scores: if improving non-cognitive skills (e.g., adaptability, motivation, self-regulation) through active learning is the object, a teacher–student knows capacity for new behavior has been built successfully if all parties listen, respect, and suspend before voicing, aka "The Art of Thinking Together" (Isaacs, 1999) That theme, "The Art of Thinking Together", pervades my teaching and the learning environment The growth of students–teachers through the development of habits of mind at personal and group levels serve as my parallel and mark my teaching
14 Any statements of teaching philosophy should be tailored to specific contexts Details of expertise; integration of responsibilities; learning environment; methods, strategies, and innovation; relationships; and values imparted should reflect the actual academic environment in consideration of the hosting organization's vision, mission, and purpose.
15 My personal philosophy of leadership was submitted in Serrat (2021b) and revisited in Serrat (2021c).
achievement (Serrat, 2017f) 16 Motivating for rich expectations to maximize value and minimize cost,17 I encourage learning constantly and finding humor In line with the code of ethics of the National Education Association (2023), I commit to the student and commit to the profession. To conclude, recognizing that information and communication technology is not a learning model, I prioritize technology that helps build relationships
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16 In alphabetical order, the habits of mind singled out in Serrat (2017f) are: "(a) applying the knowledge of experience to new situations; (b) considering different points of view; (c) demonstrating steadfastness; (d) finding humor; (e) gathering data through all senses; (f) imagining, creating, and innovating; (g) learning constantly; (h) listening with empathy and understanding; (i) managing impulsiveness; (j) questioning and posing problems; (k) responding with surprise; (l) striving for accuracy; (m) taking responsible risks; (n) thinking and communicating with clarity and precision; (o) thinking interdependently; [and] (p) thinking about thinking" (p. 982).
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