Learning Paradigm Understanding & Implementing It

Dr. M. M. Shahidul Hassan :
From the very beginning of the 3rd Industrial Revolution in the West, educators have called for a change in the traditional paradigm, known as the Instruction Paradigm. This demand is even more pronounced in the 21st century which is called the Information Age or the 4th Industrial Revolution. In this century the world is experiencing unimaginable applications of high technology in industries, huge job opportunities in the IT sector, and the fast-changing labor market.
The global IT outsourcing market size is expected to exceed US$600 billion in 2021. World Economic Forum (2018) reported that about 65% of children entering primary school today will end up in jobs that do not yet exist. For success in such a labor market, graduates must be clever lifelong learners, consistently comfortable in adaptation, and willing to move across the industries. In this labor market, one profession becomes absolete virtually overnight, so workers need to be able to change smartly to another profession. Therefore, today’s graduates must have the competencies like critical thinking, innovation, collaboration and communication, and lifelong learning. Due to some inherent limitations, the instruction paradigm cannot produce such a graduate. In this paradigm, students are passive learners, and it is of lecturing, note-taking, and memorizing information for later recognition or reproduction. Students usually lose focus on listening to the teacher’s 50-minute lectures and become bored, and in case they lose interest in their studies. The way the human brain processes information through short-memory and working memory and stores information in long-term memory does not support long lectures. The short-term memory, the first segment of the memory, can hold only 4 pieces of information depending on the type. Information in short-term memory is also short-lived, disappearing after 10-60 seconds if it is not rehearsed. This short-term memory limit for holding information affects the amount of information working memory has access to for processing. The amount of information that working memory can process at any given time is called cognitive load. When the working memory receives a lot of information, it becomes overloaded and can process a portion of the whole information into long-term memory. This is one reason why educators are questioning the effectiveness of the lecture-based Instruction paradigm. In public universities in Bangladesh, class lecture time is 50-60 minutes and in private universities, it is 80-90 minutes. During such long lectures, learners receive a lot of information and in the end, short-term memory, as well as working memory, can be able to process only a small part of the whole information. There is another problem that the instruction paradigm cannot solve. Teachers face a big challenge in choosing an appropriate teaching method that becomes useful for students attending the class. Due to the massification of higher education, youths from all walks of life are coming to universities to pursue their studies. They have different learning styles. Learning styles are visual, auditory, kinesthetic, logical, linguistic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. So, a single teaching method cannot be applied to all students where they have different learning styles.
Extensive research has been conducted in the West to advance our learning knowledge and to help further improve the education system. The learning paradigm proposed by Barr and Tagg is being considered a valuable framework for teaching and learning in the Third Industrial Revolution and the Information Age. This paradigm is based on the idea that learners must themselves construct and reconstruct knowledge, in order to learn effectively. The tenet of the learning paradigm is based on learning as a lifelong process rather than something done to prepare for an exam. The main responsibility of the teacher is to motivate the students to be aware of their own learning methods and to use their strengths and work on their weaknesses. Here, teachers no longer shoulder the full burden of running the classroom. A form of democratization occurs with students taking on more rights and responsibilities for their own learning.
Individual students in learning can actively participate through group study, real-life projects, challenging problems and activities for students, personalization of learning, field tours, formative assessments, technology-supported teaching, investigative questions in the class, collaborative learning, and problem-solving. This new way of working in a group and collaboration and socialization does not necessarily require face-to-face interaction, but relies on internet-based messaging, using different software and Web tools that enable students to create and share their ideas, views, work, and products in virtual environments online. It is not possible to discuss these matters in detail in this short article. These subjects have been discussed extensively in the literature.
The problems in implementing this new paradigm include the availability of time for teaching, material resources, class size, teachers’ knowledge of the materials transferred, students’ responsibility, and students’ participation in dealing with their choice in the classroom. The shift from the instruction paradigm to the learning paradigm cannot be expected to happen overnight. One reason may be that changing beliefs and behavior takes time. Lack of change will also be a result of the difficulty of translating theory to practical application. That is, new ideas need a great deal of work by teachers to translate into their everyday teaching routines. However, we cannot wait any longer. We are living in a competitive world. Universities in Bangladesh cannot stay behind other universities in the world. The time has come to take initiatives of the change in higher education by academics, UGC, and government. Otherwise, it will be too late to cope with the standard of other universities not only in the West but also in Asia.

(Dr. Shahidul Hassan is Vice Chancellor, East West University, Email: vc@ewubd.edu).