‘Disruptive Learning’ for the less literate adults in technology assisted learning environment [1855 Home : Annual Conference 2017

Public Group Active 5 years, 4 months ago

Tue, Sep 5 2017, 3:30pm – 5:00pm

Authors: Syed Tarek

Room: Harold Wilson (2)

Theme: Learning Spaces

Type: 20-minute session

Description

Technological artefacts are commonly in use to enhance the learning environment. This usage ranges from providing a supportive role to a more modern approach to reducing (or eliminating) the presence of the teacher (Mitra, 2006; Talbot, 2012). One major problem with the integration of technology in an educational setting is, about 775 million adults in the world are illiterate. There are also over 250 million children who despite attending at least four years of schooling are still unable to read and write or count. A light of hope among this grimy reality is there are almost as many mobile phone subscriptions (6.8 billion) as there are people on this earth (seven billion); penetration rates are impressive even in the poor countries, with an average of 89.4 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. It is also striking that, even illiterates have learnt to use mobile phones that in most cases use a non-native language (Thies, 2015).

In the current time, when the practitioners are trying to include the less literate people in technology-induced learning by reducing various access barriers, it warrants a thorough critical understanding of the learning contexts and variables that are placed within such settings. In what ways, the illiterate and the less literate people use their past experiential (Dewey, 1938, Kolb, 1977) and transformational knowledge (Mezirow, 1990; Kegan, 2008) to engage in a (technology oriented) unfamiliar learning environment is academically less explored. The way they overcome their limitations of cognitive development (due to illiteracy) (Medhi, Lakshmanan, Toyama & Cutrell, 2013) and how the learning environment needs overhauling so that it can be useful for them, requires exploration beyond current understanding. Disruptive learning is not about the disruptive technology, but it is about the learning process which is unknown and unseen to them. It is the process that can break through their perceived negativity with traditional learning experiences and give them an opportunity to engage in meaningful learning with less presence of the traditional teacher.

This presentation seeks to reveal theoretical propositions of ‘Disruptive learning’ which can guide practitioners to overcome the common barriers and challenges in getting the adult illiterates active into knowledge construction process. A clear understanding of the complex cognitive considerations that are to be faced in both ‘design of learning’ and ‘design for learning’ stages of the deployment will be presented. This presentation is supported by empirical findings of two such field research: one tablet based learning environment (running since 2012) and one VR-based learning environment (running since 2016) which led to understanding the ‘Disruptive learning’ process. Attendees of this session will be able to reflect on how contemporary innovations can be made an integral part of an educational environment that caters to the most challenging group of learners.

References:

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. 1st ed. New York: Macmillan.

Kegan, R. (2008). What “form” transforms? A constructive-developmental approach to transformative learning. In: K. Illeris, ed., Contemporary Theories of Learning, 1st ed. Oxon: Routledge, pp.42-43.

Kolb, D. (1977). Learning style inventory. 1st ed. Boston: McBer.

Medhi, I., Lakshmanan, M., Toyama, K., & Cutrell, E. (2013). Some evidence for the impact of limited education on hierarchical user interface navigation. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI ’13, 2813–2823. https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2481390

Mezirow, J. (1990). How Critical Reflection Triggers Transformative Learning. Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401

Mitra, S. (2006). The hole in the wall. 1st ed. New Delhi: New York, NY.

Talbot, D. (2012). Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves. [online] MIT Technology Review. Available at: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/ [Accessed 31 May 2017].

Thies, I. (2015). User interface design for low-literate and novice users. 1st ed. Hanover, Mass.: Now publishers.

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