ICT Teaching and Learning

The Lifelong Learning agenda of flexibility means that ICT learning opportunities are now available in a range of learning environments, including FE and HE colleges, community centres, employment centres, and company training rooms. The emphasis and nature of teaching and skills content may be affected by these contextual environments (O’Rourke, 2001). For example community learning might traditionally be associated with personal or social inclusion motivations and informal teaching, while FE colleges and work based environments might be concerned with economic motivations and formal approaches. These differing characteristics might be argued to be related to whether they aim for education or training. Arguments surrounding education versus training are contentious and well deliberated. They can be represented by conceptual dichotomies (Stevenson, 2000; Tight, 2002) such as higher-order versus lower-order skills and in recent years have been deliberated within academic versus vocational discourses. As user skills are often referred to as ‘ICT training’, perceived as practically based, and qualifications have clear vocational links (Reffell, 2003) they are worth revisiting briefly through an education versus training lens.

Training has typically been associated with specific, job orientated objectives (Buckley and Caple, 2004; Glaser, 1962), for example machine operation, while education is described as person-oriented with broader objectives. Buckley and Caple (2004) explored definitions in terms of process and effect [Figure 1.10]. They described training as mechanistic, emphasizing uniform and predictable responses to standard guidance and instruction reinforced by practice and repetition. Education they perceived as an organic process with less predicable effects concerned with releasing the potential of the individual (Glaser, 1962). In

Training Education Indoctrination

Goal Narrow

the ‘right’ way to do it; no choice Wide many ways of thinking and doing; choice Narrow only one way of thinking; no choice

More mechanistic More organic More mechanistic

Work orientated Person orientated Power orientated

Low-level knowledge High-level knowledge Right knowledge Process Measurable potential Releasing potential Controlled potential







Specific General Specific

Uniform Variable Uniform

Predictable Less predictable Predictable Effect

Immediate Long term Either

Outcome Skills Understanding Attitude







Figure 1.10: Teaching/learning Spectrum

(Adapted from Buckley and Caple, 2004:7; Rogers, 2002:53)

terms of content they felt training aimed to provide knowledge and skills and to inculcate attitudes which were needed to perform specific tasks. Whereas education provided a more theoretical and conceptual frameworks designed to stimulate an individual’s analytical and critical abilities. Such definitions reflect the dualisms of economic/social developmental aims, procedural/conceptual skills and lower/higher order thinking already discussed. Buckley and Caple (2004) argued that effects of training and education could be considered by time scale. Training’s effect they saw as immediate, observable and short lived. Education was more likely to show influence in the long term, possibly in a more profound way.

Rogers (2002) perceived training and education approaches in terms of ‘wide’ or ‘narrow’ goals. For him all structured learning opportunities lay along a continuum. At one end were narrow goals aimed at demonstrating ‘right’ ways of working which he defined as ‘training’ at the other narrow goals concerned with ‘right’ ways of thinking, feeling or behaving which he called ‘indoctrination’. Between the two extremes was a large area of ‘education’ where the goals were wider, concerned with demonstrating that there are a number of ways of thinking and doing, and encouraging development of choice and self- determination. Rogers suggested that elements of all three came into teaching at different times depending on the situation, learners and subject matter. This idea of a teaching spectrum was also voiced by O’Rouke (2001) who argued that distinctions between training and education derived from misunderstandings about the teaching role within institutions and that both teachers and trainers delivered across a range of knowledge, skills and understandings. This more holistic model would support the skills/knowledge/attitudinal approach for user skills argued throughout this review.

At the core of the debate is how ICT might be perceived as a basic skill, a resource to support other activity, or as a subject in its own right (Tanner, 2003). How teachers and course providers define user ICT could impact on whether

they aim to provide skills, application knowledge or wider subject understandings. For O’Rourke (2001) such notions are redundant. She argued two dimensions to the learning paradigm, content and process, and that the learning process should be aimed at the widest point on the development spectrum. She urged teachers to explore the potential of higher-order learning and holistic pedagogical approaches regardless of subject matter. The ultimate aim for her was always for Roger’s wider goals. This brings discussion to the third area of teachers’ experience; pedagogy. The next chapter will explore how teachers’ professional role may be defined, how they may develop and maintain their professional knowledge and how adult ICT might be taught.

Pedagogy might broadly be defined as ‘any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another’ (Watkins and Mortimore, 1999:3). As this investigation is concerned with teachers’ professional knowledge the exploration of pedagogy will be framed by teachers’ possible interpretations and perspectives of this teaching and learning process. Teachers’ professional knowledge can be seen to include Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), that knowledge pertaining to content and pedagogy (Shulman, 1986) and context (McCaughtry, 2005) that are unique to teachers, and the reality of the teaching situation. How teachers’ professional expertise is defined and acknowledged may impact on teaching style, development and expectations. This chapter will thus explore concepts of teacher professionalism, before exploring PCK in more depth, what practices may be evident in ICT user skills classrooms, and finally how PCK might be enacted in the adult ICT classroom.