ABSTRACT
Education is very important in every aspect. Some people say that the school is a second home for the students and it is very likely to be true. Students and teachers spend many hours together, while parents seem to make just a small contribution to what the teaching-learning process intends. The very mere principle of the symbiotic relationship between the teacher and students may be found in. This essay will try to explain the merging point that goes beyond the classroom, where students get what they learnt at school and apply it to real life situations. There are many ways to explain the learning process, each of which adapts somewhat nicely to society. Two of these broad methods are Traditional Learning and Project-Based Learning. These approaches have been widely studied from several different perspectives, coming to comparisons, agreements and disagreements. This essay will present some of those points of view, regarding specific aspects, such as student achievement, professional development, responsibility, assessment and problem solving together with critical thinking. This research has the objective of finding advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches, in order to enrich teachers’ decisions on an appropriate learning approach to obtain the best from their students.
Keywords: Education, Learning Approach, Teaching, Students.
Introduction
Human beings are very complex organisms. They are hard to understand and even more difficult to assess with objective data. Researchers have always struggled to have fact-based results when the investigation topic has to do with human beings’ behavioral patterns, due to the high volatility of the human character.
This instability also reflects in education. It is very difficult to determine the best approach for a certain group of people, since this decision depends on many factors. Therefore, education becomes a controversial science. This ancient battle of whose approach is the best has awoken the creativity of several authors, who have embraced the challenge of proving their beliefs.
The approach that one might choose depends on what personality and professional traits they have and seek to impart to their students. There is a wide variety of choices. Of course, at the end of the day, the teacher is the one in charge of deciding where, when, who and how to study. Even if this means having the student as the center of the classroom, they still have the final say in placing them there.
A teachers’ role has a determining influence on students’ life. His or her good or bad practice models great characteristics of future society, and defines the course of events in a civilization. Moreover, the educational working force should reunite and achieve a consensus, in which people would have the freedom to learn and work, in order to contribute genuinely to their community.
Nonetheless, that same freedom, that could reunite them, is, at the same time, their dividing force. Independence gives men the right to decide on pathways apart, leaving the decision up to them. Therefore, the debate on which method is the best continues.
Education entails a symbiotic relationship between the teacher and his or her students, with some of them creating a bond that goes beyond the classroom, usually filial in nature when they are younger. This is a normal occurrence when teachers are good enough to pay attention to the students’ strengths and flaws that go beyond the traditional classroom. Nevertheless, not all teachers are able to help students build up that sense of achievement.
Project-Based Learning has the quality of letting the student discover knowledge for themselves. Students are able to feel that they are gaining and relating knowledge to previous and real experiences. Some authors propose that children naturally are inclined to do this, and that teachers should only provide them with tools to apply academic knowledge to familiar problems, encouraging them to find the solutions in a controlled, yet possible-to-find environment (Helle, Tynjälä, & Olkinoura, 2006; Larmer, 2014).
Experts assert that the Traditional Learning Approach obeys to the instructional model. It has no connection to students’ lives and frequently takes them out of context to study topics that will not probably take a place in their long term memories (Mergendoller, Maxwell, & Bellisimo, 2000; Helle, Tynjälä, & Olkinuora, 2006).
Choosing a topic is very important to determine if students will feel comfortable or not. Teachers have to master the topic choosing, as well. A correct, relevant and memorable theme will guarantee a memorable class, in which students leave the classroom feeling that they accomplished the objective.
Experts state that, contrary to Traditional Learning, Project-Based Learning is entirely human-sciences oriented. It is a purely student-centered approach, in which teachers take into consideration his or her students’ academic and personal background, in order to create the perfect atmosphere for memorable sessions (Kuykendall, 2004; Flanders, 1961; Barnett, 2005). According to Edutopia (2008), learners under the project-based learning approach, learn to relate academic issues to their own, real life situations. The fact of solving problems on their own, while cooperating with fellow students, raises their confidence towards solving problems in their own life.
On the other hand, Traditional Learning Approach students experience a different sense when they finish a school task. This approach follows some premises, which are far from the ones followed in project-based approach. It is a method that involves inductive teaching. Teachers present an unreal situation for the students to find the solution, while applying principles and theories already learnt.
Tasks can be very overwhelming for students, producing a sense of frustration due to the inability to find the suitable solution from the many academic options the teacher taught them. Learners cannot find applicability, which makes the problem even more difficult to solve. In this approach, reality is divorced from academic knowledge.
Hemelo-Silver, Golan, & Chinn (2006), state that it can be sometimes necessary to apply the scaffolding technique, in order to manage the task, and allow students to articulate their ideas, processing their learning. This method could help to low down the level of frustration and digest the new knowledge.
Authors agree that applying the technique of students’ close monitoring can significantly increase the opportunities to achieve the goals inside the classroom. It might also encourage students to develop the tasks without the teacher’s monitoring (Cotton, n.d; Brophy & Good, 1984).
Nevertheless, it is very important to limit the amount of monitoring to when students really need help, as well as applying the correct technique. Teachers must encourage their students to think and discover the answer on their own. The teacher should never make a correction; on the contrary, he or she should propose an analysis when the student is not sure, providing guidance, instead of answers.
Professional Development
One could say that professional development is what comes after finishing higher levels of education; nonetheless, it is not exactly like that. Professional development should be part of every stage in the learning-teaching process. Both components, teachers and students, should engage into their skills’ improvement.
On one side, there are students under the Project-Based Learning approach, eager to learn if the teacher applies the correct techniques. Appropriate teaching methods increase motivation in scholars. Some authors agree that motivational orientation increases when correct and engaging teaching techniques are applied (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Fox, 2013; Rhem, 1998; Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Thomas, 2000). They have found that students can establish the relation between academic knowledge and real life problems from an early age. Therefore, they are able to solve real problems, facilitating the motivational orientation, as they grow up.
In contrast to this idea, teachers have the main role in Traditional Learning Approach.This results in the theory having preference for teachers’ professional development, rather than that of the students. For this approach, the future of students depends on how good their teachers are. They are not encouraged nor motivated to grow.
Responsibility
Responsibility under Project-Based Learning Approach
Some authors believe that students develop a great sense of responsibility under the PBL Approach. They affirm that solving problems makes them react faster in freer environments. This speed to react cultivates responsibility for their own learning issues, as well as the knowledge they acquire (Schmidt & Moust, 1998; Maudsley, 1999; Wood, 2003).
Responsibility under Traditional Learning
The idea of the Traditional Learning Approach is in stark contrast to the one behind the Project Based Learning one. For traditionalists, the only one with enough preparation and education in the classroom is the teacher. Students should only listen and copy. There is no freer practice in controlled, yet real environments.
Some researchers affirm that this approach represents more pressure for the teacher, since they have all the responsibility of the teaching and learning process. The students do not need any knowledge awareness because there is no meaningful theme for the students to relate with (Garret, 2008; Mutlaq Al-Zu’be, 2013; Camp, 1996).
Since the approach is student-centered and project-based, students have to actively participate into their own assessment, as well as to cooperate with their classmates’ assessments. One important characteristic of the PBL method is that assessment has to be formative, respecting the nature of other people.
On the contrary, there are many studies that show how teachers apply assessment techniques in traditional learning classrooms. As it is teacher-centered, students are tested. Teachers intend to measure knowledge with a range of numbers. Therefore, a students’ knowledge is just an out-of-context number (Andrade, Huff & Brooke, 2012; Eliot, 1999; Miller 2015).
Problem Solving and Critical Thinking
This aspect of learning process is, by far, the most remarkable matter. As education is dedicated to passing knowledge from one person to another, it has become necessary to stop this perpetual process for a moment, and provide the student with activities. These activities, always planned by the teacher, should grade the capacity to solve the puzzle. Normally, students under PBL are more capable of thinking critically about their knowledge achievements and error corrections, as well as relating themselves to problems and their real life.
As authors have said before, it is necessary to grade the acquired knowledge, to determine the level they had achieved. The level should correspond to the capacity developed by the student. As teachers expose students to a new way to deal with reality and solve problems that are more realistic, it becomes necessary to challenge scholars to go further.
On the other hand, traditional learning dictates that it is necessary for students to measure their knowledge through printed versions of tests. Experts say that traditionalists develop critical thinking and problem solving in a poor manner. The more difficult and distant the task, the more confused and uninterested the students seem to be (Hightower et al, 2011; Salomon, 2003; Imwold, Rider & Twardy, 1984).
Conclusion
Assessing the accuracy of teaching and learning approaches has been present in scientific studies for many decades. However, all methodologies seem to have a level of success. Therefore, it is important to have a constant dialectic between the action and the result. According to some experts, teaching constitutes an important influence when it comes to students’ learning. Teacher performance models the results, whether they reach success or not (Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2000; MacCaffrey, Lockwood, & Hamilton, 2003; Wright, Horn, & Sanders, 1997; Fryer, 2008; Rowan, Correnti & Miller, 2002). Teachers’ main objective is helping students learn, so their achievement is crucial for their education.
Two of the most popular approaches are Traditional Learning and Project-Based Learning. In both of them, the main objective for the students is to obtain knowledge. Furthermore, a teacher is there to orient them through the process. Finally, there is also an established setting that both of them share, usually the classroom.
Nevertheless, they also have many differences between them. For example, in terms of student achievement, Project-Based learners usually find that they obtain more knowledge that they will actually use in real life when compared to those in traditional classrooms. While Traditional learners may have more standardized information, students in Project-Based classrooms usually have learning experiences that are more meaningful, allowing them to remember what they have learnt for longer periods of time.
In this sense, it is also important to take into account the role of monitoring in the classroom, where PBL has the teachers provide helpful orientation, yet allowing the student to analyze and reach the answers for themselves. On the other hand, Traditional teachers would probably just give a correction with the correct answer, which deprives the student of the possibility of actually working towards the information in order to make it more significant.
In terms of professional development, there is also a slight difference between both theories, even though they both imply studying the different theories. Some could think that PBL teachers do not have to study as much as Traditional ones because they do not have to actually impart knowledge to the whole classroom, yet this is false. In this sense, even though teachers of Project-Based Learning do not have to show their knowledge in such an explicit way, they still have to orient the students and help them prepare the projects carefully, which is no easy task. In PBL, the teachers have to work towards the students’ professional development as well, teaching them to be autonomous, something that is not present in traditional classrooms.
Therefore, students have more responsibility in the Project-Based Learning classroom, whereas teachers have the bulk of the share in the Traditional one. In the latter, teachers are expected to be the sole workers towards students learning, something that obviously fails because this usually makes their classes teacher-centered, disregarding the students. On the other hand, by sharing the responsibility with the students, teachers in Project-Based Learning usually make classes more interesting by centering them on the students, yet one could argue that they have more responsibility because they have to keep track of the whole classes’ projects. Furthermore, some could argue that students are not really mature enough to be held responsible for their learning.
Another important difference is in assessment. Traditional classrooms privilege rote memory evaluations and standardized knowledge, giving numerical grades in order to compare the achievements of the different students. Nevertheless, in Project-Based classrooms, students’ projects are taken into account and assessed on how far they went through with the assignment; logically, they are usually all different, so ether is no even ground on which to compare the various accomplishments.
Finally, due to the responsibility and autonomy that PBL gives its students, they are usually more capable at problem solving and critical thinking. Traditional Learning classrooms do not leave room for individual thought, atrophying these capacities. Nevertheless, Project-Based Learning encourages the students to constantly be thinking about how to solve problems that may actually arise in their day to day life.
Therefore, it is important to take into account that both of these theories have different strengths and weaknesses that correlate to the various conceptions with regards to learning. It is up to the teacher and the institution to decide what type of learning model will be imparted, yet it ultimately affects the students and their particular learning processes. Furthermore, it should always be taken into account that, as a whole, this modifies humanity as a whole, as well, because it is the future of society as one knows it.
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