3.3.5 Self-Validation of One’s Learning

Self-Validation Skills

This module guides faculty in identifying and strengthening the self-monitoring and self-correcting skills that can produce more enduring learning in disciplinary contexts. As such, this module is closely connected with 2.2.1 Bloom’s Taxonomy—Expanding its Meaning, 2.3.4 Cognitive Domain, 2.2.2 Elevating Knowledge from Level 1 to Level 3, and 2.2.3 Developing Working Expertise (Level 4 Knowledge). The module is also complements 4.2.2 Becoming a Self-Grower which focuses on skills that promote self-directed learning and self-managed professional growth.

Each of the process areas in the Cognitive Domain (2.3.4) has a cluster of learning skills that underlie self-validation. These learning skills can be related to different levels of learning as shown in Table 1. Note that these skills are hierarchical in the sense that skills identified with higher levels in Bloom’s taxonomy depend on the existence of skills at the lower levels. It is also evident in Table 1 that there is no upper limit for strengthening one’s validation skills. Opportunities exist at all levels in the curriculum and in all levels of professional practice.

There is often a major gap between students’ level of understanding and the level of understanding that faculty expect. Often students prepare for tests by achieving Level 1 and Level 2 knowledge whereas faculty often test for Level 2 and Level 4 knowledge (2.2.1 Bloom’s Taxonomy—Expanding its Meaning). This gap leads to student frustration and, too often, course dropout or failure. These gaps have been identified by The National Task Force on Student Learning by the American Association of Higher Education in “Ten Principles of Learning” (1998). The first principle of learning is the importance of self-monitoring; this underlies many of the validation skills cited in Table 1. Self-monitoring requires individuals to monitor their own learning; to understand how knowledge is acquired, to discern their own capacities and limitations, and to develop strategies for learning based on them, and to be aware of their own ways of knowing in approaching new bodies of knowledge and disciplinary frameworks.

Barriers to Development

Many barriers may interfere with the development of self-validation skills. These include traditional relationships between faculty and students; students’ self-concept of learning; and aspects of institutional culture, such as reward systems for faculty, traditional measures of student success, and learners’ expectations of faculty. Table 2 delineates these barriers and suggests reasons why each exists. While the culture of an institution is more difficult to change, individual faculty members can change their relationships with their students, students’ self-concepts of learning, and students’ expectations of faculty.

When students can validate their own learning, they are more receptive to higher learning challenges and will have increased confidence that they have reached, and even surpassed, the learning expectations of their instructors. If faculty members are going to have a meaningful impact on validation behaviors, they must accept the challenge to do more in their courses than simply “cover the content to be covered.” This requires faculty to move away from a mindset of “filling vessels with knowledge” toward becoming facilitators of student growth and development.

Role of Students

Role of Faculty

Faculty set the stage for the development of students’ learning skills by making course expectations clear. Faculty members must set high expectations and then help students develop the skill sets needed to be successful in that particular course. Most importantly, faculty members must motivate them to become strong independent learners.

“Motivation is purposeful engagement in classroom tasks and study to master concepts and/or skills. Today’s theories about motivation emphasize the importance of factors within the individual, particularly the variables of expectancy and value. If, for example, you believe expressing yourself well in writing is important (value) but you think you do not have the ability to do so (expectancy), then you will have little motivation to apply yourself to a task you think is doomed for failure.” (Cross, 2001)

By enhancing intrinsic motivation in our students, we prepare them for the challenges of growing new learning skills. As faculty members, we must insist that our students accept responsibility for their learning and we must provide the culture and environment necessary to facilitate such substantive change in our students. “The Learning College engages learners in the learning process as full partners, assuming primary responsibility for their own choices and the Learning College creates substantive change in individual learners” (O’Banion, 1999). It is a difficult challenge indeed to motivate students to strengthen their learning skills if they are not held responsible for their own learning. When a college and its faculty acquiesce to student demands for easier instruction, it significantly lowers the bar on student learning, and a college degree does not prepare students for life beyond school (4.3.5 Differentiating Growth from Acquiescence). Instead, students need to be responding to the demands of the college and its faculty by rising to meet learning expectations. Doing so requires students to improve their learning skills. When students are struggling with their work, faculty members should resist the temptation to intervene by offering content. They should rather encourage students to try using more effective learning processes. Instead of validating students’ work for them, faculty members can choose to help students further develop their own validation skills. Instead of modeling problem after problem, faculty members can choose to help students develop a better understanding of the Problem-Solving Methodology. Faculty members are responsible for ensuring that students understand their own current level of learning as well as the expectations of the course.

Self-Validation Techniques

There are seven self-validation techniques for learning:

Concretize the knowledge.

Transfer contexts.

Generalize the knowledge.

Create a general model.

Identify the critical issues.

Use in problem solving.

Teach others.

Concluding Thoughts

Shulman (1999) underscored the importance of self-validation when he observed that “learning flourishes when we take what we think we know and offer it as community property among fellow learners so that it can be tested, examined, challenged and improved before we internalize it.” However, to develop the ability to self-validate one must make a change in attitude, acquire special skills, and employ the discipline to use these skills on a continuing basis. The journey is long, challenging, and filled with pitfalls. Many of today’s students are not accustomed to the idea that they are responsible for their own learning and must develop the skill sets needed to succeed in higher education and in life. Yet, even within a single course, students can develop a profound respect for the skill of self-validation as can be seen in the following quotes.

“Because of the emphasis on self-validation in this course, I’ve dramatically increased my level of confidence in my work. Talking with others about validation is also a new and refreshing way to communicate with my friends, classmates, and instructors.”

“During this semester I learned to take control and initiative toward my studies. I now recognize that resources provided through the course are not the only ones available. If I need more information I will go and find it.”

“Being a self-learner is very important in my personal and professional life. If I don’t push myself to learn to grow, nobody else will, and I won’t excel to my full potential.”

Faculty and administrators, working together, must exercise “tough love” when it comes to student development. A good place to start is to set high expectations, and then to help students cultivate the validation skills they need to be strong independent learners.

References