The Learning Cycle

Insights for Faithful Teaching from Neuroscience and the Social Sciences

Muriel I. Elmer, Duane H. Elmer

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780830855308
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

How teachers teach is not necessarily how learners learn. Educators focus on content delivery, but much of the learning process involves affective and behavioral factors.Veteran educators Muriel and Duane Elmer provide a holistic model for how learning takes place. Their learning cycle moves beyond mere recall of information to helping learners value and apply learning in ways that are integrated into behavior and practice. With insights from neuroscience, educational psychology, and learning theory, they address how the brain can become more receptive, how emotional environments affect learning, and how learning tasks and experiential exercises can help foster the development of skills and habit formation. They do so in the context of a thoroughly Christian framework that emphasizes not just knowledge, but character, integrity, and wisdom.Learning can be accomplished in and beyond the classroom to move from content mastery to life experience. Here are sound avenues for helping your students become the lifelong learners God intends.

Laying the Foundation

I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

3 JOHN 4 (NASB)

Our task in ourselves and in others is to transform right answers into automatic responses in real life situations.

DALLAS WILLARD, THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY

AFTER LAUNCHING my four-year teaching career in a Bible college in South Africa, I (Duane) was invited back ten years later to speak at a conference. It gave me opportunity to reconnect with former students. Moses (his real name) would be the first. I was looking forward to it because I had poured myself into my classes and thought that, for a first-time faculty member, I had done a credible job.

We met over a delicious meal of curry and rice. I asked Moses how he was. He rehearsed how God called him away from managing an automobile dealership to our Bible college and then to ministry. All went well until after graduation. Things had gone badly for him in the pastorate. His son, a police officer, was killed in public for undetermined reasons, and other family tragedies followed. He left the ministry. In spite of all this, he was now a successful insurance salesman but sour on God, the church, and Christianity.

“So, what went wrong, Moses?” I asked, feeling overwhelmed by the tragedies and now his fragile faith.

“I don’t think my Bible school education prepared me for church ministry or the problems I would be facing.” He spoke without anger or criticism, just the facts as he saw it.

The jarring reality hit me: As one of his teachers, I had failed—and, frankly, failed quite miserably. It stung badly not only because of the words but because it came from a mature person of considerable talent, intellect, and potential. I felt responsible though Moses never hinted I was to blame. But I could not escape the fact that I had been a major part of his educational experience.

Moses had stood out from the other students, a sentiment apparently shared by the entire student body. They elected him president his first week on campus, a rarity given the multiracial mix of the people who unanimously voted him into the office. He did not disappoint their confidence. He was re-elected in his second year but then declined the next two years stating that other people should have the opportunity for leadership.

Moses had brought a steadying influence to our campus with mature thinking, dedicated scholarship, a disciplined work ethic—in addition to being humble, articulate, and honorable. All the things a faculty could hope for, especially a new faculty member like myself. Moses and I had connected well and could easily have been best friends were it not for the faculty-student protocol requiring formality and distance in such relationships.

Shuffling the curry and rice around on his plate, Moses continued answering my question. In summary, he said he did not feel that class material was connected to life issues he would be facing. Much of the lecture material, though well prepared and delivered competently, was never perceived as relevant. Little time was offered for class discussion. Students were left on their own to figure out how the material applied to their lives. He was told what to believe, what to memorize, but not how it connected to South African realities of apartheid. Being told what to think did not help him know how to think nor how to solve problems.1

Given the European influence in that region, the emphasis had been on taking good notes on the lecture material and passing the tests. In fact, faculty members were called “lecturers,” indicating the didactic delivery of content. Thinking, reflecting, discussing, and applying truth seemed a remote part of the curriculum. It was assumed learners would make the transfer of knowledge into life on their own. Yet they had never been taught how to do that.

NOT MUCH BETTER

Other students from that time, Samuel, Sally, and Victor, had all shared their bumps in the ministry but somehow persevered and remained faithful to the Lord. In talking with these three former students I hoped the results might be better. They weren’t. They mostly agreed with Moses, using more gracious words. But the meaning was the same.

They credited the teachers with being good role models. Taking weekend ministry assignments in local churches; being together for the weeklong practical ministry activities; laughing, praying, traveling, singing, and worshipping together—these were the things that seemed to help anchor these three lovely servants of God. The classes . . . not so much.

My confidence shaken, I began to wonder if I was really that bad a teacher. Of course, there were other faculty and maybe most of the blame could be shifted to them. But the conversations would not allow an escape. They did not include statements like “We are thankful, Mr. Elmer, that you were different from the others.” My options were gone. I had to face my failure. Gathering the pieces of my shredded ego, I made a vow: I will dedicate my life to being a better teacher and helping others do the same. Better simply means helping people connect knowledge to life whether that knowledge be botany or the doctrine of salvation. In brief, I would like to be and help others to be informed practitioners, scholarly specialists, skillful professionals, insightful shepherds doing their jobs well while revealing the beauty of Jesus, “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (Jas 1:22 KJV).

Muriel and I have partnered these fifty years in this educational pursuit—her fields being curriculum, culture, health, and community development and mine being culture, communication, and educational processes. Both of us are trained in and committed to intellectual and biblical integrity in these fields. Thus, the birth of this book.

Both of us have been educators for all of our adult lives, in the home, in the local church, in educational institutions, non-formally, internationally, and domestically. Duane’s first formal teaching came in South Africa in the early 1970s and for Muriel as a nursing instructor at a university in Michigan upon our return from Africa. Since then, both of us have taught at the bachelors, masters, and PhD levels. Muriel has focused more on culture, designing curriculum for community development and health care, much of it in the Majority World. Duane’s education included curriculum and evaluation, human development, and cross-cultural communication. Both of us received our PhDs from Michigan State University at different times, and both of us have a formal Bible education.

Because our lives have been given to educational pursuits, it seemed natural we should coauthor the book drawing on the broad experience base now numbering nearly eighty years (combined) and in about a hundred countries. Readers please note that in the interest of easier reading, the use of “I” or “me” in chapters three through seven will refer to Duane unless otherwise noted. In chapters eight through thirteen, the primary voice will be Muriel’s unless otherwise noted. In the remaining chapters we designate in the text.

We have found the words expressed by the apostle John—“I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (3 Jn 4)—true. This is not to say that teaching is a utopia where only wonderful things happen. It surely is not that. And anyone in education for any length of time knows it. But we all know the effort is worth it. That being said, we are equally convinced that we can do better. That motivation to do better drives the purpose of this book.

WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK AND WHY

Our audience is composed of several groups, but our first audience is educators, especially those in higher education. This includes teachers/faculty, administrators, deans, provosts, and anyone involved in the education of students. Our deep commitment to the local church and the Christian school leads us to also include them as an important audience. Finally, we believe that anyone who teaches either formally or informally is educating. That would include parents, mentors, Sunday school teachers, coaches, consultants, disciplers, and anyone who tries to teach, nurture, or guide others. That’s the who.

We can make this broad claim because we draw from the social sciences and neuroscience as well as the Scripture. The sciences have made enormous gains in recent years that help us better understand the teaching-learning process. We can benefit. That’s the why.

SOME ASSUMPTIONS GUIDING THIS BOOK

While God reveals his truth in an absolute way, we perceive it dimly (1 Cor 13:12). The fall of humans into sin as a result of Adam and Eve eating the fruit in the garden of Eden has affected every aspect of life. Thus, while humans do not have absolute understanding of truth, our relative understanding is sufficient to believe in the Creator and to live God-honoring lives. This, of course, includes believing the trustworthiness of Scripture, the revelation of what the Creator has given to us including knowledge of the life, death, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. What we understand in part should not hinder any from trusting in the Maker of heaven and earth and living his truth to the best of our knowledge.

We also draw from the social sciences, the physical sciences (neuroscience in particular), and the humanities because we believe God reveals himself in these disciplines as well as others. With that in mind, we attempt a synergy of God’s truth from Scripture and creation, that is, truth drawn from the sciences, humanities, and fine arts, all of which inform educational theory and process.

While much of our book assumes Christians teaching in the biblical sciences, we hope some of our illustrations using our Learning Cycle will alert those of you in other professions that the model works in a wide range of academic disciplines. Thus, we have used it with medical workers, community development people, nursing programs, culture sensitivity programs, entire faculties of smaller universities, conflict resolution conferences, multinational corporations, theological education conferences, as well Sunday school classes and even in pastoral roles.

God gives us his truth both from Scripture (special revelation) and from creation (general revelation); the latter, of course, includes truth from the sciences, humanities, and the arts. To this we add the doctrine of common grace, which for our purposes means that God has extended his kindness (grace) to all members of the human race.2 In brief, this means that even those who are outside of God’s salvation may discover and know God’s truth from creation even though they neither acknowledge him nor thank him for it. In Isaiah we read,

When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? . . . [D]oes he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. . . . Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. . . . All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, whose plan is wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent. (Is 28:24-29)

Thus, we gratefully benefit from farmer...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• In Gratitude
• 1 Laying the Foundation
• 2 Weaving Truth and Life
• Level 1: Recall—I remember the information
• Level 2: Recall with Appreciation—I value the information
• Level 3: Recall with Speculation—I ponder how to use the information
• Barriers to Change
• Level 4: Recall with Practice—I begin changing my behavior
• Level 5: Recall with Habit—I do consistently
• The Learning Cycle
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Author and Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Also by Duane Elmer
• Praise for The Learning Cycle
• About the Authors
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright