Learning by Teaching

Evidence-based Strategies to Enhance Learning in the Classroom

David Duran, Keith Topping

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317302827
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book provides an essential overview of "learning by teaching", unpacking the underpinning theory, research evidence and practical implications of peer learning in a variety of classroom contexts.

It aims to offer practical guidance for practitioners in structuring effective peer learning – between professionals and between students alike. It locates this phenomenon in current conceptions of learning and teaching, far removed from traditional ideas of one-way transmission of knowledge. Exactly what happens to promote learning by teaching is explored. Examples of learning by teaching are discussed and it is noted that this happens in school, university and the workplace, as well as through the Internet. Learning by teaching within the student body is then explored, and many different methods described. The organizational features needed to improve learning by teaching consciously and deliberately are investigated. These can be before teaching, during teaching or after teaching. Evidence-based practical guidance is given.

Of course teachers can deploy learning by teaching for themselves, but what if they also organize their students to teach each other, thereby giving many more opportunities to discuss, practise, explain and question? This takes pedagogical advantage of the differences between students – turning classrooms into communities of learners where students learn both from their teacher and from their peers.

Chapter 1

Learning by teaching

A new game of words?

Who teaches learns by teaching and who learns teaches by learning.

Paulo Freire (1996: p16)

We all have experiences of having learned something by teaching it

Learning requires effort. And learning occupies room. Perhaps that is the reason why our minds, cleverly, tend to learn only what they find interesting or necessary. But in addition, the format of teaching, the format of presenting information and especially the requirements of participation can facilitate or hinder the learning – even when it interests us.

Many times we have taken a plane, and we know that flying is an activity that involves some risk. The airline companies provide us with an explanation about security measures – the crew members planted before us perform a liturgy with vests and emergency exits. There is no doubt that what they say could be vital. That is why companies use all their means to explain security measures.

Of course some may think that if one day the pilot announces that the plane will crash, the best option will be praying. What little will the vest do, when we do not even fly over any sea? But, in reality, we know that aircraft are safe and that such a risk is not very great.

Despite having heard such information so many times, do we know what to do if the plane suffers a depressurization? Do we have a rapid response? If that occurs, are we able to remain calm and put on the oxygen mask in fifteen seconds? If we can, we will arrive (somewhat dishevelled, of course) at an airport. If we can’t, we will lose consciousness and put our lives at risk.

This is a simple example about something that is vitally important about learning, which, however, we often do not learn. Being subject to explanations – texts (in brochures), orally (via speakers), kinetically (with representation or demonstration) or through video (trying to combine all this) – is not always effective.

Years ago a teacher, talking about the theme of this book, said: “Imagine an alternative – instead, as you’re entering the plane the stewardess says: ‘It’s your turn!’ Then she asks you to teach the security measures to the rest of the passengers. In the time before takeoff, with their help and resources, you have mastered the task perfectly. The crew ensured that the passenger explainers understand it exactly”.

This is not just a suggestion to the airline companies, since there are already enough requirements about flying. It is more a prompt to encourage you to reflect on the times when you have learned things through having to explain them to others. Shortly we will discuss some research (Cortese, 2005) which shows that professionals from different fields admit that their maximum learning moments have much to do with real work experiences in which they have had to teach something to a less experienced person. We will see how formal education accepts this principle and, for example, medical students at the University of São Paulo learn to teach first aid to ordinary citizens. These future doctors learn it much better than if it was just explained to them (Fraga, Caravalho, Hirano & Bollela, 2012).

Have you ever learned the name of a street in your city by helping someone to find it? Your knowledge of the environment, the tourist’s map and the tourist’s request allow you to learn. Following that thread, we often take advantage of friends coming from other places to learn about our own environment, when we have to present it to them. Being a tourist friend and guide offers us opportunities to know places better (landscapes, tourist places, museums, etc.) and investigate human activities which, despite the geographical proximity, were formerly little known to us.

These ways of learning by teaching others have been multiplied by the Internet. In many forums and websites of the Internet there are people learning (e.g. they inform, they solve problems) in order to help others. Peer-to-peer (P2P) proposals are based on the idea of learning from one another, including the possibility that the experts also learn by teaching people who are less expert or who have requested their help. Take, for example, the video tutorials to show you how to play the guitar. When someone distributes one of those videos, even without knowing if anyone will use it, we can be sure that the creator has truly learned to play the tunes in order to teach others how to play them. We will see later how schools can motivate students to make a tutorial video for others, as a mechanism for the creator’s learning: a process of learning by teaching.

It is not hard to find episodes in our lives where we have learned by teaching others. Perhaps that is the reason why famous historical teachers have left us testimony to that effect:

• “Teaching is learning” (Seneca [4 BC–AD 65]).
• “Who teaches others, learns himself” (Comenius [1592–1670]).
• “To teach is to learn twice” (Joubert [1754–1824]).
• “For me, there is no separation between teaching and learning, because when you teach you also learn” (Casals [1876–1973]).

As we shall see in Chapter 2, the activity of teaching, which is exclusively human, requires us to take part in social processes where tutors can participate in the learning that they aim to develop in others.

Is there scientific evidence that teaching is a way of learning?

It seems that there are experiences across times and cultures that testify that teaching others can be a good way to learn. The “pyramid of learning” indicates that teaching is the best way to learn, and it is attributed to the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine, in the United States. This holds that trainees retain

• 90 per cent of what you learn when you teach it to others,
• 75 per cent of what you learn when you practise it,
• 50 per cent of what you learn through a group discussion,
• 30 per cent of what you learn through a demonstration,
• 20 per cent of what you learn through audio-visual means,
• 10 per cent of what you learn through reading, and
• 5 per cent of what you learn through formal instruction.

The curious thing is that such research does not exist. The use and dissemination of such a pyramid reflects only intuition and experience which makes us think. Probably, this pyramid is inspired by the “cone of experience” of Edgar Dale (1946), who argues that the retention of studied material is based on the level of involvement or activity that we deploy as we learn. Thus, effective ways of learning overcome passivity (e.g. read, hear, see) and require action and interaction (e.g. talk, discuss, represent, simulate or make). This approach also helped the introduction of the concept of “learning by doing”, which affirmed the importance of procedures over factual or conceptual knowledge.

Without a doubt, teaching others involves an active role from the tutor. However, asserting that this is the most effective way of learning requires investigation of the scientific knowledge available. Fortunately, we have research that endorses these experiences – that learning by teaching is possible. Chapter 3 reviews such research, noting that the role of tutor has many variations (e.g. supervisor, instructor, trainer, tutor, teacher, mentor) but always meets the condition of offering learning opportunities to the person who plays it. In addition, there are numerous practices in informal education, both in face-to-face and virtual contexts, emphasizing the potential of learning by teaching. Given the importance and effectiveness of this type of learning, Chapter 4 will address these practices and will try to draw some lessons for formal education.

What do teachers think of all this?

Some years ago we asked education professionals – teachers in primary and secondary schools and university – about their perspective of peer learning, from their own experience. When we asked them to indicate if they had experiences of having learned themselves by teaching their students, every one raised their hand. Later we found this was true for teachers of different educational stages and different geographical contexts. Delving into the reasons for such results, teachers seem to report three types of reasons.

The first has to do with the opportunities offered by the practice of teaching to improve teaching competence. Learning through exercising the profession, as one teacher put it. Following concepts based on the importance of practice and professional experience, these teachers suggested that professional practice (teaching) allowed them the possibility of teacher improvement (learning). This math teacher put it clearly:

And that is the beauty of teaching: in fact, it is learning by the teacher; we learn as much as they. While children learn new skills and new mathematical concepts, we learn to create appropriate learning situations, learn to carefully observe the processes that take place in them and learn to correct to help our children whenever they needed it.

(http://aprendiendomatematicas.com/aprender-ensenando/ Malena Martín, retrieved 8 December 2016)

A second group of teachers reported experiences in which they themselves had to learn what they had then to teach their students. We could call this “learning to teach”. The most powerful experiences here are linked to unexpected questions from the students. A high school teacher commented:

I remember that I learned a lot of contemporary history when I had to teach the subject to high school students. Before each class, it was me who was brooding over the text book and performing all the activities… preparing schema … I learned a lot!

Some teachers used methodologies that allowed them to “learn while they teach”. In this way, they were open to the interests of students and helped turn these questions into learning objectives which were achieved through an open process of teamwork, with the participation of the community. A primary school teacher talked about his work for projects or research groups:

I don’t place myself in front of my students, but at their side in the process of learning to undertake. All together, we make questions, generate projects and I accompany them on the journey of learning. I try to learn with them. In addition to the information available on the network, on a regular basis we invite families, or experts on issues.

In one way or another, the experience of learning by teaching is nothing strange for education professionals. However, sometimes this leads to something more profound and thoughtful – experiences that go in the opposite direction. We could call this “teaching to unlearn”. A university professor exemplified it:

I remember the first few times, when I was preparing themes, I learned it myself. But then, as the years have passed, I think that I have been “slimming” contents, making them more schematic and I have the feeling that I know less than before. And the certainties are that in my classes those who learn are, of course, students, I only teach them.

It seems that the practical knowledge of teachers brings us something that the research also says: it is not always the case that teaching offers learning opportunities for those who teach. Two factors are relevant here.

First, the conception that the teacher has of what teaching and learning is can be crucially important, and the biases or attitudes derived from this. If the teacher has an archaic concept of teaching, seeing their role as simply to transmit information already known by them, they will hardly learn (by teaching). The ancient conception in which the teacher is the (only) one who teaches and the student is the (only) one who learns is well established in the context of formal education and leads some to resist any change. Let us give an example from the perspective of students. For years, our research groups piloted several programs of peer tutoring, through which more competent students learn to teach peers with fewer skills. Despite having empirical evidence of this (for instance, Duran & Monereo, 2008), when we asked peer tutors if they learned, many tended to reproduce the predominant cultural conception and said those who learned were the peer tutees. The conception of learning and teaching thus plays an important role in the possibilities for learning by teaching. We will discuss this further in Chapter 2.

Second, the methodologies adopted by teachers to some extent determine the learning opportunities that teaching holds for them. As we will see in the findings of research in the field, moving away from one-way forms of instruction (e.g. directive, rote, transmissive) to make use of methodologies that promote bidirectionality (encouraging students to interact, ask, suggest topics, etc.), as well as the reflective construction of knowledge from explanations and questions, will promote learning opportunities for those who develop the role of tutor.

If we are able to counter these two features with a more current and evidence-based concept, recognizing the conditions that limit or enhance the tutor’s learning, we will be able to facilitate the extension of peer-led educational practices that are breaking through in the fields of formal and informal education. In Chapter 5 we will outline methodologies and experiences based on learning by teaching: practices of peer tutoring as already mentioned; cooperative learning methods that promote deliberate episodes in which students learn to teach the rest of their teammates; students who make teaching artefacts (such as instructional videos) so that others can learn what they have already learned; experiences of peer assessment in which students learn by editing others’ work, reflecting and offering feedback; and many others.

Such practices, some of them still considered innovations, allow students to learn to teach and teach to learn. Perhaps teaching to learn is one of the emerging skills we need for twenty-first-century citizenship. In our learning and knowledge society that calls upon us to learn throughout our lives, learning to learn seems insufficient. Competences need to be generalized across many contexts.

If all learning came only from teaching, we wou...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgement
• 1  Learning by teaching: a new game of words?
• 2  Teaching and learning in the age of knowledge
• 3  Learning by teaching: what do we know?
• 4  Learning by teaching others informally
• 5  Learning by teaching in formal education
• 6  Teaching others and learning oneself: how can teachers learn by teaching?
• References
• Index