learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Samuel Adu Gyamfi et al.
(Grabinger & Dunlap,1995 and Nunes & McPherson, 2003). CTGV, (1993) and Grabinger & Dunlap
(1995) outline the following flaws in approaches to teaching that lead to the development of inert
knowledge in higher education:
Academics tend to fill students with facts, and leave no time for dealing with topics in depth.
Academics expect students to remember dates, formulae, algorithms, quotations and whole
poems, yet show little practical use for that knowledge despite the fact that the students have
difficulty in transferring the knowledge.
Academics rely on decontextualized instructional strategies where the focus is on abstract basic
skills, concepts and technical definitions. Academics believe that decontextualized skills have
broad applicability and are unaffected by the activities or environments in which they are acquired
and used. When this happens students do not learn when to apply those skills or within what
kinds of contexts they work.
Students are given arbitrary, uninteresting, and unrealistic problems to solve when it comes to
providing them with practice. This emphasises the point that academics mistakenly believe that
they must emphasise decontextualized skills that are applicable everywhere.
Additionally, students are treated passively, rarely giving the opportunity to take responsibility for
their own learning, to explore ideas of their own choosing, to collaborate with one another or with
academics, or to make valuable contributions to the learning of others. Hence, the students do not
learn the skills necessary to become life-long learners and daily problem solvers.
Furthermore, students are not evaluated in authentic ways. After teaching in decontextualized
ways academics tend to use paper-pencil tests to measure the quantity of knowledge learned
without examining the quality of students’ thinking and problem-solving performance.
3. New learning environment for the development of PTS
To be able to overcome these flaws in our current teaching and learning in higher education which
produce inert knowledge, our students should operate in learning environments which prepare them
for the complexities of the professional world. These learning environments should utilize instructional
activities that reflect the problem-solving and challenge-meeting processes that professionals use on
their jobs (Grabinger, Dunlap, & Duffield, 1997). And as Grabinger, Dunlap, & Duffield (1997) put it
our higher education students need a learning environment “that places the students in the driver’s
seat of the learning process – involving them in the planning, controlling and directing of learning
activities and the application and assessment of learning processes and outcomes. Such a learning
environment is what Grabinger & Dunlap (1995) refer to as rich environments for active learning
(REALs).
Grabinger & Dunlap (1995) and Grabinger, Dunlap, & Duffield (1997) have outlined five key attributes
of REALs as follows:
Student responsibility and initiative – this attribute explains that REALs are “student-centred
learning environments which place a major emphasis on developing intentional learning and lifelong
learning skills. These skills include the abilities to construct higher-order questions to guide
learning, reflect on consequences and implications of actions, and monitor and modify their
personal cognitive activity. This attribute is critical because students cannot actively construct and
evolve their knowledge structures without taking responsibility and initiative for their learning”.
According to Grabinger & Dunlap (1995) and Scardamalia, et al. (1991) research points to
passive and immature learners possessing certain characteristics that prevent them from
becoming skillful problem-solvers. These characteristics which include their inability to organize
their mental activities around topics ultimately result in their inability to transfer their knowledge to
new problems because they have learned content and strategies in a decontextualised context.
To be able to develop intentional learning and thereby promote transferability of knowledge to
other context, REALs suggest reciprocal teaching strategies. According to Grabinger & Dunlap
(1995), reciprocal teaching promotes social interactions, scaffolding and contextualized, holistic
activities that have relevance for learners.
Generative learning activities – According to Grabinger & Dunlap (1995) generative learning
activities require that students engage in argumentation and reflection as they try to use and then
refine their existing knowledge as they attempt to make sense of alternate points of view.
Students, in a generative learning situation apply the information they learn. Students are
therefore, involved in creating solutions to authentic problems through the development and
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