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campusreview.com.au
Learning
to learn
Countering the rise of
credentialism in universities.
Brian Martin interviewed by Loren Smith
I
n 2016, after three decades of teaching,
Brian Martin hung up his tutor boots.
But he wasn’t nearly done with thinking –
or research. Having had time to reflect
on his experience, the Oklahoma native,
and former professor of social sciences
at the University of Wollongong, grasped
what universities aren’t doing to foster
student learning.
He ordered his thoughts in a piece
titled ‘Promoting learning: What universities
don’t do’, which was published in the latest
edition of the Australian Universities’ Review .
Martin talked to Campus Review about
his essay, which touches on educational
psychology, student behaviour and the rise
of ‘credentialism’ – a learning inhibitor – in
universities.
18
CR : You've written that “the symbols of
learning can displace learning itself". Can
you explain what you mean by this?
BM: Well, the symbol of learning is getting
a mark on an essay, passing an exam, or
getting a degree. In many cases, students
are more fixated on what they get as a
result of submitting an essay or doing an
exam than they are in learning the stuff
being assessed.
I’ve heard lots of students say, “Why do I
have to take this class?” Well, they have to
take it because it’s part of the degree. So
they’re not really interested in learning the
stuff, they’re interested in the outcomes
they get – that’s the symbols of learning.
You mention that most of what you do in
a job, post-university, is different to what
you learn at university. Given that, what’s
the importance of learning content itself at
university?
Well, you have to say, what’s the purpose
and the point of view of the teachers
or the learners or the whole system?
This is the curious thing. University
teaching is done by academics and
postgraduates who do casual tutoring.
They are naturally going to be putting
into the syllabus the things that interest
them, and they’re going to be looking
for the sort of things that basically follow
the same direction that they took. So a
lot of university material is oriented to
the interests of the teacher, rather than
the students. The students determine
the curriculum in light of a very different
sort of enterprise. But that’s really off the
agenda.
Moving on to the ways in which we learn,
and the way in which universities do or don’t
apply this, you mentioned a book called
How We Learn. What are the key takeaways
from that book?
Interestingly, it’s written by a journalist,
and is an accessible treatment of the
latest research on learning. For example,
one of the findings, which has been
reproduced over and over and is widely
known, is that it’s better to space out
learning. So, if you’re going to learn
something in 10 days, it’s better to study
a bit on each of the 10 days, rather than
saving it all up for the night before. This is
obvious enough, but what’s interesting is
that this insight, and all the details of how
this insight applies – for example, how