Partnership-directed education: a focus on technology.

Abstract

This paper examines the traditional assumptions of an instructional-centered education and considers the modifications introduced by learner-centered and the more radical student-centered approaches in relation to the applications of instructional technology. Finding limitations in each, a partnership design is proposed, which, seeks the mutual success of instruction and learning as well as accounting for the circumstances of instructors and students.

Introduction

The last decade has resulted in an intensive focus on technology in relation to the pedagogics and didactics of instructional theory and teaching methods, but has largely ignored learning and student life. Currently, efforts are being made to create a more balanced discourse on technology that emphasizes the subtle nuances and complexities of learning within any discussion of teaching (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Love & Love, 1995; Travis, 1995). In a learning paradigm (sometimes called philologics; recapturing the term from linguistics); scholars no longer presume that every student learns the same way or that widely accepted teaching practices necessarily result in optimal levels of learning for students (Barr & Tagg; Guskin, 1997; Rendon, 1994; Rhoads & Valadez, 1996; Stage & Manning, 1992; Tierney, 1993).

In addition, "adult-learner" and commercial versions of higher education have advanced more radical "student-centered" approaches that support market-driven curricula that accommodate student needs and demands, reconceptualize the "student" as "client," and recognize the now-client's agenda as equal if not primary. A more academy-driven approach has been in the nascent field of student studies, sometimes called "mathesics," that examines the lebensweldt of the individual and the community called student (Anderson, 2003).

Traditional Assumptions

Learner centered and student centered sensibilities are most often critically viewed from a traditional instruction-centered standpoint. This standpoint rises on a number of assumptions that (a) clearly differentiate it from the other two, (b) justify the traditional performance and marginalize any others, and (c) have substantial implications for the application of technology in higher education.