More, Different and Better

Guest contribution for Adult Learners’ Week, written by Toni Fazaeli, Chief Executive at the Institute for Learning (IfL).

Is learning about theory dull and practical learning exciting? During Adult Learners’ Week, let’s listen to what the learners have to say.

I have been talking with students and trainees across England to find out the latest views about how theory comes alive.

Geoff Petty, one of IfL’s patrons, talks about research showing that too often vocational tutors are imaginative when teaching hands-on activities – which is good – but revert to an archetypal ‘chalk, talk and copy down’ method when teaching theory.

We would never do that, would we?

Let’s examine our own record in this. Do we ever keep on doing things, hoping for or actually expecting a different result, despite the evidence? Do we boil an egg without timing it, confident that it will be perfectly cooked this time, even though this flies in the face of our experience that this approach is somewhat hit and miss? Do we think we will make it from the bus stop to the office in six minutes this time, for that meeting, yet it takes eight minutes – again?

So what did the young adult learners I met recently have to say about how they are learning theory and what the very best looks like from their point of view?

Francesca, Jordan and Connor – three catering students studying at levels 1, 2 and 3 at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College – described the best theory teaching they had experienced, starting with wine tasting. They enthused about theories linking to acidity, balance, nose and terroir (not my field, as you may have gathered already) and said they got to understand the theory as it was blended and reinforced with actual wine tasting.

They had also learned the theories behind why boiling points vary between different oils and fats, and what this means for cooking (and burning), through hypothesising what they thought would happen, then using a probe to test temperatures as fats and oils heated up.

International educational research shows that estimating an outcome and articulating the rationale for this, followed by testing and reflecting upon the actual outcome, results in powerful learning. Integrating maths and English with the vocational area – for example, calculating portion sizes and costs and profit margins, and reading and writing about restaurant customer service – also works.

At Seetec, I met Emma and Jayshree, who are training in retail and have covered theory in ethics, the environment, health and safety, raw materials to the market, communications, customer service, and equality and diversity.

Their faces lit up when they explained how the tutor got them in groups to guess the significance of different elements of communication: words, body language and eye contact. The trainees were all so confident they had it right – words are the top priority. It was a memorable revelation, indeed a shock, when the tutor revealed research findings showing that body language comes top. They love theory and enjoy the exercises the tutors use to get them to think and reflect, drawing on their experiences and what they know from other areas of their lives.

At BAE Systems in Preston, the engineering apprentices I met grasped complex theories of water flow and dynamics by designing and creating water pumps of their own and gauging very precisely which worked fastest and what this confirmed or challenged about the theories.

Listening hard to explanations from the tutor has its place. But it must be snappy, and tutors should not be tempted to drift down memory lane of how they first learned this theory, bringing it alive for themselves, but not for their students.

So as you boil an egg and it is predictably too runny or hard, or you arrive two minutes late for a meeting, remember how hard it is to change behaviour patterns. If you teach theories in any subject or vocational area, or if you learn or work alongside teachers, let’s agree to be imaginative, look to the educational research, and bring theory alive, with confidence and aplomb.

Adult learners deserve no less.