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Related to the article, "Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed"
available at: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow |
| This article appeared in Adult Education Quarterly, 1993, Vol. 43. No. 3, in response to Mark Tennant's AEQ article criticising the Staged Self-Directed Learning Model. Material in [brackets] is new to the online version. Extra subheads have been added. |
Abstract |
The author welcome's Tennant's point
that a mismatch between teacher and student styles may be at
times more effective than a match. And his reminder that self-direction
should not be considered a generic quality like psychological
maturity. The model, however, does not denegrate directive teaching methods. Also, it has found wide acceptance and has been recently re-invented by others at least twice. Teachers can detect a student's degree of self-direction by observation (though Grow admits that this may be more difficult that it first appeared). The article restates the major claims of the model and identifies new research questions. |
No Prejudice Against Teaching Styles 1 and 2 |
Mark Tennant's critique of my article,
"Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed," misrepresents
a crucial point, gives an unsympathetic reading of two others,
and provides two useful correctives. Tennant presents me as depicting certain teaching styles as "lower level" and describing them in a "stereotyped and damning fashion" (164). This is not what I believe or what I wrote. When I began developing the Staged Self-Directed Learning (SSDL) model, I did briefly consider some teaching methods "lower" and others "higher," but I consciously abandoned that view more than two years before writing the article in question. In the published article, I tried various methods to avoid calling certain teaching styles "low" and others "high"-such as arranging Figures 1 and 2 so that the spatial relations were reversed among the teaching styles--giving directive teaching the "low" position in one, the "high" position in the other. I have searched the disk file of the published article and can confidently affirm that I never described any teaching or learning style as "lower" than another. Tennant used the term "lower level" in quotes (p. 164), implying that I said it; but those are his words, not mine. In a similar manner, Tennant uses the phrase "expert role" in quotes, and, although this quote accurately represents my view on the point, I never used those exact words. If you are going to argue with a quotation from my publications, Prof. Tennant, start by getting the quote right. There is absolutely no truth to Tennant's statement, "Grow, by his own admission, has an antipathy for highly structured, teacher-directed learning methods" (164). The passage Tennant quotes as proof of my "antipathy" comes from a description of the traps teachers of each style are susceptible to. It is not a description of what Stage 1 directive teachers are like -- except when they fail in the manner described. Contrary to Tennant, my article is a defense of a variety of appropriately-applied teaching styles--aimed at adult educators who have focused predominantly on facilitative methods at the expense of directive methods. The article justifies highly-directive, teacher-centered methods--and provides a model for deciding when such methods are appropriate. Indeed, the personal drama that frames the article tells of my own experience in discovering the value, even the necessity, of using highly directive teaching methods with certain students. It is possible that Tennant interpreted the term "authoritarian teacher" as a criticism; it is purely descriptive. I work around many authoritarian teachers, and that is the best word I know to describe their methods, which, with the right students, work well. |
Changing Styles During a Course |
In his "second problem"
Tennant maintains that I have neglected to address "important
questions," such as: In a course that progresses through
several teaching styles, "at what point should teachers
change their style?" Should the teacher "follow or
lead the readiness of students?" (165). While it is true
that the article does not specify such changes in detail, I addressed
this topic on pages 144-5, where this situation is described:
"There will be times when other learning modes are necessary...
When the group (or some of its members) are deficient in basic
skills, they may need drill and practice, which is an S1 [dependent
learner] mode... Sometimes the [facilitative] teacher may determine
that coaching or confrontation are necessary to reach a student....
Sometimes the teacher will have to shift to the salesmanship
mode of [the motivator]." And so on. As for how to change
teaching styles, the example depicts the teacher changing styles
both proactively to lead students toward the skills that enable
them to be more self-directing, and reactively in response to
needs that students present for skill, information, encouragement,
or motivation. The question of when to change teaching style
is not addressed, because the article does not include such level
of detail in the short section on applying the model. In that section, Tennant says something I find puzzling: "setting aside for the moment the unlikelihood of progression towards self-direction given Grow's descriptive categories of teaching styles..." but he never develops the implication that the SSDL approach is inherently unlikely to lead students toward self-direction. Not setting anything aside, why exactly does a progression toward self-direction seem to Tennant to be unlikely under the SSDL approach? He doesn't say, and I find it amazing that an unsupported allegation of such seriousness would be published in the form of an aside. |
The SSDL's Excellent Reception |
Many individual teachers, several graduate students, and some college departments have let me know that they find the SSDL model helpful in teaching and curriculum. For example, it helped an engineering department revise its curriculum to include greater student involvement. It helped a directive teacher think through how she might need to change when assigned to teach graduate students. Minnesota used the model to help new teachers develop self-direction in students. [The SSDL model has been reprinted in course packets around the country, including at Harvard.] Since publishing the SSDL model in AEQ, I have found two other groups (Baker, Roueche, & Gillett, Karam, 1990; Ames & Ames, 1991) who have adapted Situational Leadership to teaching, inventing models closely similar to mine. [See Note 1] If the SSDL model is a partial misconception (most concepts are), it is so far proving to be a fruitful one. |
A Point I Agree With |
On page 165, Tennant makes an excellent
point: I agree that we "need to develop an understanding
of the circumstances under which a mismatch of styles may be
more preferable than a matching of styles." One of the major
strengths of the SSDL model--I quickly add--is that it enables
one to ask that kind of question clearly for the first time.
It also gives one kind of answer, for, inherent in the SSDL model
is the concept that the teacher leads students from their comfortable
learning style toward greater self-direction. The teacher's task
is first to work within the student's comfortable style, then
to introduce a creative mismatch that promotes growth. My thinking
here was influenced by Hersey and Blanchard (1988) but additionally
focused by Vygotsky's concept (1978) of the "zone of proximal
development"--a degree of challenge that promotes learning
without producing discouragement. The prospect of using other mismatches effectively is one I thank Tennant for mentioning. Such an approach can be found, for example, in Zen literature (Herrigel, 1953) and in Castaneda (1968), where some of the teaching methods rely on extreme incongruity between what the student asks and what the teacher provides. |
Diagnosing the Stages of Self-Direction |
Tennant's third concern is with
"how the diagnosis of the stage of readiness for self-directed
learning is made." In the absence of an accepted instrument
for making such a diagnosis (and the Self Directed Learning Readiness
Scale shows how complex and controversial the development of
such instruments is), I have the working faith that a teacher
can reasonably estimate a student's learning stage from classroom
behavior and work submitted. I am suspicious of concepts that
draw major conclusions from simple quantifiable measurements,
and I am reluctant to exaggerate the precision of this model
by prematurely offering a way to quantify it. Such quantification
may develop; meanwhile, the model is useful for what it is, without
any more quantification than teachers routinely use when grading.
I hope someone will study whether the Situational Leadership
tests would be useful in quantifying teaching styles and learning
stages. It might even be more useful to measure how students
assess each teacher's style. (Any graduate students reading this?)
But in the meantime, to Tennant's question -- "Who is to
be the judge of ability, the teacher or the student?" --
the SSDL model clearly implies this answer: the teacher. This
is, as it states, a classroom-centered model. Tennant asks, "What are the consequences of a mismatch between ability and willingness?" (165). This mismatch is treated explicitly in Hersey and Blanchard (1988), and anyone interested in the SSDL model should read their book for additional background. It says far more than one article can. But I the article does address one such mismatch explicitly, another implicitly. |
The False Independent Learner |
Tennant asks, "What style should
a teacher adopt if students have a strong desire to learn in
a self-directed manner, but patently do not have the ability
to do so?" He implies that by failing to address this question,
the article fails to serve teachers, who "clearly need to
make much more complex judgments about their students than Grow's
four stage model implies." (165) However, that very question
was raised in my article on page 142: "One kind of student
gives the appearance of being a... self-directed learner but
turns out to be a highly dependent student in a state of defiance..."
My article went on to say what a teacher might do in this situation:
Such students "may benefit from a strong-willed facilitator
who challenges them..." and so on. Tennant asks: What style should a teacher adopt "if the ability is present [in students] but the will is lacking?" This condition is all but explicitly included in my description of Stage 3 learners, who have knowledge and ability, but "may not be experienced or motivated enough to continue on their own" (Grow, 133). The fairly obvious answer is: a facilitative approach. Of course, not every question Tennant raises is answered in my article. Otherwise, it would have had to be a book--which I have solemnly promised not to write. (You're welcome.) |
I Can't Always Judge Self-Direction Correctly |
Although I am not yet convinced
of the need for (or value of) a simple test to measure a student's
degree of self-direction, a recent experience has challenged
my initial conviction that teachers can easily arrive at a correct
diagnosis on their own. In a class consisting mainly of college
seniors, I turned students loose on several projects that, I
thought, would enable them to extend and consolidate the bits
and pieces of their knowledge about magazine design and production.
Following my own teaching model, I withdrew enough from the class
to give them room to exercise what they knew and solve the problems
they created. This freedom worked for two thirds of the class.
But before I detected the problem, a group of students mismatched
to this non-directive approach worked up considerable discontent
and suddenly began attacking me for not teaching them. Ironically, this is the very situation that prompted me to develop the SSDL model in the first place! I should have carefully examined each student early in the semester for clues to the level of self-direction. And I should have continuously monitored the class so I could know when they needed me. But I confess that I don't always take my own advice, even when it works. Still, in such moments--those terrible, awkward moments when you see the experiment failing but have not yet salvaged anything from it--I was never entirely alone. At the lowest point, the Staged Self-Directed Learning Model leaned over and whispered, "I told you so." |
A Useful Clarification on the Meaning of Self-Direction |
Tennant's final concern (p. 165) with "the tension between conceptualizing self-direction as a generic quality, as opposed to a situation-specific ability" provides a genuinely useful clarification. Tennant rightly says that we should not be "too eager to consider self-directed learning to be synonymous with autonomy, psychological growth and maturity, at least without considerable qualification." In describing the self-directed learner, I did indeed focus on the example of the psychologically mature individual, for I had in mind mature graduate and returning students as examples. At the time of the article, I was not so concerned with describing all the characteristics of all learners in every stage as with using typical examples to characterize an overall cycle of stages, in order to emphasize the implications of a mismatch between learning stage and teaching style. It is painfully clear that certain individuals can be intensely self-directed learners without being mature, wise, or even sane. Iago comes to mind as a literary prototype. |
Use All Models with Caution |
Once we agree on such a point, we
have to admit we are not reaching our conclusions by means of
quantitative research methods based on incremental hypothesis
testing and inferential statistics, but with the methods of observation,
insight, and synthesis used by practitioners. We discuss swimming
as swimmers, not as scientists in a fluid dynamics laboratory.
And so I am almost relieved that Tennant thinks the SSDL model lacks explanatory power, internal consistency, and is not capable of handling a range of observations (166). I had feared it did these too well--sure signs of the kind of self-justifying supercoherence that true believers produce. His critique does not establish, however, why a concept like the SSDL model needs any more consistency or explanatory power than it has. It maps new territory well enough, provides useful concepts, and shows you where the path begins. Perhaps he and I have require different things of models. I treat models as ladders to pick fruit with, not as the fruit itself. I briefly considered writing the article in terms of synchronic and asynchronic correllations between instructor-originated pedagogical gambits and student-originated skill-acquisition-oriented behavior initiatives. But obfuscation rankles me. More people have thanked me for the weeks of rewriting that led to the article's clarity than for any other thing. For Tennant to slight the SSDL model for having an "easy, simplistic explanatory style" (166) is to mistake clear writing for simplistic thinking. I'm glad Tennant agrees that the SSDL model should be approached in a critical spirit; I said so myself in the original article. The idea isn't mine; it isn't even Hersey and Blanchard's any more. Like all powerful ideas, it has a life of its own. It gets inside you and thinks through you; it translates problems into its terms, then solves them in its terms. You must maintain a dual relationship--use it but fear it; depend on it but explore alternatives--to any such idea. I welcome Tennant's comments, and any others that will be helpful in promoting a critical discussion of the appropriate applications of the Staged Self-Directed Learning model. |
The SSDL Model Summarized |
Tennant's reading of my article leads me to paraphrase what I consider the major claims of the SSDL model:
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Research Questions Raised |
The SSDL model gives rise to a number of research questions, listed at the end of the original article. I add these new questions, the first one derived from Tennant's critique:
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Recent Thoughts |
Since writing the SSDL article, I have become more impressed by two things:
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| References | Ames, Russell, & Ames, Carole.
(1991). "Motivation and Effective Teaching." In Educational
Values and Cognitive Instruction: Implications for Reform, Ed.
Lorna Idol and Beau Fly Jones. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Chapter
8, pp. 247-271. Baker, George A., III, Roueche, John E., and Gillett-Karam, Rosemary. (1990). Teaching as Leading: Profiles of Excellence in the Open-Door College. Washington, D.C.: The Community College Press. Especially Chapter 11, "Toward Situational Teaching." Castaneda, Carlos. (1968). The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press. Grow, Gerald. (1991). "Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed." Adult Education Quarterly, 41, 125-149. Herrigel, Eugen. (1953). Zen in the Art of Archery. New York: Pantheon Books. Hersey, Paul, & Blanchard, Kenneth. (1988). Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. McCarthy, Bernice. The 4MAT System: Teaching to Learning Styles with Right/Left Mode Techniques. Barrington, IL: Excel, Inc., 1987 Tennant, Mark. (1992). "The Staged Self-Directed Learning Model.'" Adult Education Quarterly, 42, 3, 164-166. Vygotsky, L. S. ( 1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Ed. M. Cole, et al. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. |