Systems and Conversations:
Pask and Laurillard

Gordon Pask's work stands rather outside the mainstream of the psychology of education, but is immediately recognised by many learners and teachers in adult education as being very significant. He was a cyberneticist rather than an educationalist, and developed a systems approach to learning which is highly abstract and difficult, although rewarding: it is reflected in the �conversational� models of learning of Laurillard and Thomas and Harri-Augstein.

More (Pask�s obituary) And the TIP account And the technical angle in Wikipedia

His most accessible work, however, is based on the recognition of two different kinds of learning strategy: "serialist" and "holist". Note "strategy" rather than "style".

• When confronted with an unfamiliar area, serialists tackle the subject step by step, building from the known to the unknown with the simplest possible connections between the items of knowledge.
• Holists, on the other hand, seek an overall framework and then explore areas within it in a more less haphazard way, until they have filled in the whole.

Serialists Build up their knowledge sequentially  May lose sight of the broader picture  Are impatient with "jumping around"  May be more comfortable with inherently "linear" subjects

Holists Pick up bits and pieces within a broad framework  May leave gaps, or repeat themselves  May make mistakes about the connections between things  May over-generalise  May be more comfortable with "topic" based learning

As with most models of learning style, most people are more or less "versatile", but the implications of the Pask model do not stop with labels for learners. As a systems thinker, he was interested in matches and mismatches within the whole. Thus he found that matched style on the part of both learners and teacher promoted learning, while mismatches inhibited it. Moreover, there are some subjects which lend themselves readily to serial learning on the one hand, or holistic on the other. Thus the initial stages of learning arithmetic must follow a serial sequence�they do not make sense any other way�whereas history or literature need a more holist approach. These different assumptions have led, for example, to quite different ways of learning foreign languages: structural (serialist) and communicative (holist). You can see some parallels with convergence and divergence, but don't push them too far.

Conversational Approach

The conversational approach to learning and teaching is slightly different from others we have considered, because like Pask, it is based on discussion of the teaching/learning system. While this is a feature of some of the humanistic approaches, they are largely interested in the values underpinning teacher/learner interaction. Other approaches focus on learning as an attribute of the learner (as the person who is changed by the experience), and separate out the teaching as simply a process of facilitation, a means to an end.

The conversational approach looks at the on-going learner-teacher interaction, and particularly in Laurillard's model, at the process of negotiation of views of the subject-matter which takes place between them in such a way as to modify the learner's perceptions. From this she develops a set of criteria for the judgement of teaching/learning systems, particularly those based on educational technology. Thomas and Harri-Augstein derive the basis for the learning conversation from an analysis of the personal construct system of the learner.

The Process of the Learning Conversation

This requires the following features of the teaching-learning system

Two levels of the conversation

So the learning conversation operates on two levels:

At the "lower" level (on the diagram) the student is engaged in the goal-oriented behaviour of trying to master the topic of learning, while the teacher is providing the experiential environment within which this can happen, including managing the class or tutorial, setting tests, delivering resources, etc. As this is going on, the teacher and learner are engaged in a conversation about it, exchanging their representations of the subject matter, and their experience of the lower level, and adapting each to the other. This process of talking about what you are doing is one of reflection, and modification of what you are doing in the light of the talk is adaptation.

The critical feature of Laurillard's model is the way she uses it as a means of evaluating technologically-supported teaching, asking of ever-more sophisticated technology just how much it can rise up to the challenge of doing what comes naturally to involved teachers and students. It may not be a simple or intuitive model like, for example, Kolb's experiential learning cycle, but it is powerful and does repay study.

I have made some use of this in a discussion of the process of tutoring, on my other site.

 

To reference this page copy and paste the text below:

Atherton J S (2013) Learning and Teaching; [On-line: UK] retrieved from

Original material by James Atherton: last up-dated overall 10 February 2013

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

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