Some Context and History

Learning strategy work hasn’t just “been around forever”. It has a history. It exists in context. Learning strategy work emerges as a discipline, or a concern, or a thing in the world, from the much deeper question, “what is an education for?” Is it to transmit culture? To prepare human capital for the workplace? To develop an engaged citizenry? To nurture character? All of these concerns manifest in relative importance according to the prevailing notions of the time, and in the last fifty-years or so, the period out of which learning strategy work as we understand it arrives, perhaps the most dominant force that animates our collective view of education is the idea of achievement. To be a good, successful student is to simply achieve – achieve subject-matter mastery, achieve grades, achieve credits, achieve credentials. And educational institutions measure themselves according to the collective achievements of their students. And the parents and care-givers of students corral their available resources to increase the chances of their child’s achievement. “Learning”, then, becomes entangled in an inter-related set of incentives aimed at optimizing student achievement – everyone looking for an edge. Learning strategy work is an obvious outcome in that context, work that is designed to enhance student chances for maximum achievement.

That’s just one admittedly over-simplified way of understanding the context of learning strategy work. It probably leaves you feeling flat because it rings cynical and empty. What an impoverished view of education that values only achievement over inquiry, outcomes over learning. But none of us can deny that it is part of the story. And not necessarily just a cynical and empty part. After all, achievement is a good thing.

But surely there are other parts of the learning strategy story too. Learning Strategists are more than just technicians offering student tune-ups in the grand achievement rally. Aren’t they? Well, another part of the story I think also involves the shifting ground of how we conceive of the art and science and practice of learning itself. Some thoughts about the evolving field of “Learning Theory” will come up in another section, which is relevant to this story but, for now, it’s useful to simply take a bit of a look back on some of the developments out of which the work of Learning Strategists emerged. Of course, the history of all this is fluid and not easily given over to the arbitrary date ranges listed below. And, what’s being covered here is just a smattering of things that have marked or influenced the learning strategy field – a simplistic overview of a much more complicated story.

Early-

There is some fuzziness about the precise origins of the ‘Learning strategies” concept, but it evolved out of the larger movement in education away from behaviorist approaches championed by BF Skinner and towards the more cognitive/constructivist approaches of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsgy, Jerome Bruner, David Ausubel and others. In a tiny nutshell, the study of learning came out of “the lab” and into the real-world guided by the insight that learning is a process of integrating new information with what is already known, an active process of discovery, of constructing meaning. This view centres the cognitive apparatus of learners as the organizing structure for this process, and learner motivation as the catalyst. We take these insights for granted now, and much of our work is also guided by these ideas – think of the term “activate students’ prior knowledge” or “students construct their own meaning” as cornerstones of current pedagogy. More importantly for the purposes of this conversation are the practical applications that emanate from these perspectives. Notably among these is the so-called “advanced organizer” introduced by Ausubel – a device, intentionally developed to help students make meaningful connections between new information and prior knowledge – a learning strategy if I ever heard one.

More practical than these abstract insights is the focus on the act of study itself – study as the work, the action that leads to learning. In 1956, William Armstrong, a schoolteacher and author, wrote a book called Study is Hard Work. This book captured and codified many of the central concerns of the modern learning strategist – motivation to learn, time budgeting, effective reading of texts, etc. In the contemporary wave of “self-help” and “how-to” books about “being a successful student and acing university” that push the idea of shortcuts, tips, and tricks, Armstrong’s volume published over 65 years ago, reminds us of the longer history of interest in this subject, and the now almost verboten idea that… study is hard work. In recent times, moreover, the word “study” while continuing in common usage among students, has gone out of favour in the field of pedagogy, replaced by the word “learning”, part of what Gert Biesta refers to as the “learninfication of education”. A revisiting of the deeper history of thought about “study” as a field of interest can keep us better connected to foundational ideas that remain relevant and important.

Other preoccupations and interests emerged during these years related to memory skills, early considerations about computer-assisted learning design, reading strategies (comprehension, memory, test-taking). And, interestingly, much of the thinking and research around these topics was happening within the U.S. military, an institution always interested in the dynamics of learning and training. It was really from these theoretical perspectives that the stage was set for the idea of “metacognition”or thinking-about-thinking, a term introduced by John Flavell in the early 1970’s and one that underpins most of what we know and do as Learning Strategists today.

70’S/80’S/90’S

I see three developments during these years that resulted in a significant shift in pedagogical approaches in higher education. First, the “information-age” began. As information became more and more ubiquitous and easy to access, the traditional approach to teaching and learning that emphasised knowledge-acquisition made less and less sense. Secondly, the shift to more universal access to higher education was in full effect and student populations became much more diverse and varied in their approaches to academic work. And, thirdly, the so-called self-esteem movement lodged itself into the marrow of educational thinking. There were two primary responses from the postsecondary sector to this new context: The first was a pedagogical shift towards student-centred teaching and the inclusion of, not only subject-matter content, but also a focus on critical thinking, information-management, metacognition, learning how to learn. The second was a commitment to student development in addition to academic excellence, and the massive expansion of student support services on campus. There was an unprecedented growth in psycho-educational interventions during this period in response to the self-esteem movement – an idea that had dubious if not downright damaging value. The focus on “the self” had taken root. This made for fertile ground out of which jobs like Learning Strategist emerged, and it was during this time that many of the now familiar foundations for learning strategy work were laid down. In 1977, Don Norman sponsored by the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Virginia, published his Teaching Learning Strategies manuscript, which was a first real coding of what we still teach today as learning strategists. In 1987, Claire Ellen Weinstein, with Richard Mayer, developed the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) instrument, which has been much used, studied, and critiqued, but underpins the increased prominence of study/learning support in the ecosystem of higher education. And, of course, the concept of “Learning Styles” flourished during this period. The most basic idea of “learning styles” had been around in some form or another for centuries – people have different abilities – but it began to be conceived of as a kind of genetic marker – everyone belonging to a specific category of learning type or preference. The idea really took off in the 80’s and 90’s prompted by Howard Gardner’s “multiple intelligences” theory and then Neil Fleming’s VARK questionnaire designed to determine one’s learning style – visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic. And, without much scrutiny at all, it stuck, becoming a kind of cultural truth – an intuitively appealing, benign and, upon further inquiry, largely debunked idea.  Finally, the study and deepening understanding of learning disabilities laudably accelerated during these years. This, of course, is a topic whose history and relevance is worthy of much more than what gets dusted off here, but it is especially important to note that, as learning disabilities became understood as neurological conditions distinct from and un-related to general intelligence, the value and pertinence of learning strategy, and academic support took on new significance.  Outside-the-class support for students flourished during these years and more and more attention was paid to the social/emotional dimensions of learning – self-regulation, learner autonomy, active learning, motivation, affective domains of learning, etc. A new, more nuanced and neuro-cognitive approach to learning strategy work emerged in response to supporting more and more students being diagnosed with learning disabilities, and it was recognized that, what worked well for people with learning disabilities also often had universal applicability. These developments, as well as the dubious claims about “learning styles” began to re-shape the way instruction was designed and delivered.

2000’s to Today

Again, acknowledging the arbitrary time marker, the 2000’s up to the time of this writing (2024) saw more seismic developments in the education system that have shaped the development of learning strategy work.

Consider two central features animating higher education during this time:

First, there were the enduring effects of the self-esteem movement – a cultural norm permeating faculties of education, and schoolyards everywhere. This created a context in which parents and teachers clamored to provide every opportunity for kids to feel uniquely special (with their very own learning style), and over-protected. This, of course, was a movement with good and noble intention that resulted in kinder, gentler school situations, less bullying, more inclusivity, more diverse curriculum, better efforts at universal design, more benevolent places for learning. It’s a movement that has been stunningly successful in altering the ways schools run, how education is perceived, how classrooms are structured, how students are treated, how money for education is distributed. But, many argued, or witnessed that one of the consequences of this shift in educational focus has been a decline in academic rigor and a degradation of basic skills being developed in schools. And, more broadly, a growing backlash of critique towards this self-esteem movement began to emerge, railing against the “participation trophy generation” captured in Greg Lukianov and Jonathan Haidt’s 2018 controversial and influential book “The Coddling of the Americal Mind”. All of this began to draw a (false) division line through the education system – on one side were those arguing that schools need to be safe and on the other, those arguing that schools need to be rigorous and challenging. Developments proceeded as if these things were mutually exclusive.  The idea of “rigor” became conflated with harshness, and  “safety” with freedom from challenge – caricatures both.

The second feature during these years (and the years that preceded them) was the massive expansion of enrollment in colleges and universities amidst a cultural narrative screaming that higher education is the only true way to a good and successful life, and that the barriers to participation there should, of course, be removed.

The collision of these two forces in education has resulted in some interesting developments relevant to the Learning Strategy world. Firstly, despite all the societal hand-wringing and focus on self-esteem versus rigor, there remained the ever-present, persistent theme of achievement. Parents everywhere knew that they could (maybe) feel good about schools that catered to their kids’ self-esteem, but they also knew, in their heart of hearts, that their kids also needed skills and rigor and discipline in order to compete – something they saw lacking in the schools. Enter – the explosion of tutoring centers – Sylvan, Kumon, Oxford, Khan Academy and multitudes of local private tutoring enterprises that promised “an edge”. A whole industry grew almost overnight that targeted this collective anxiety, and it also created a deeply inequitable playing field charactersied by unequal access to these often expensive competitive advantages. The terrain of Learning Strategy work was becoming fertile indeed. And complicated.

Finally, and perhaps as an outcome of this proliferation of outside-the-class academic support, there was a turn towards the findings of psychology, neuroscience, pedagogy, and, more dubiously, a range of pseudo-science bunk to undergird these practices. Concepts like growth- mindset, neuroplasticity, grit, resilience, mindfulness, embodied learning, self-regulation, self-efficacy, etc etc. began to offer more expansive theoretical foundations for learning strategy work still in search of such foundations. Indigenous approaches to learning and knowing also began to find their way usefully into the canon. So, we find ourselves now, struggling to cohere this theoretical foundation from the eclectic constellation of influences, separating the substance from the nonsense, and drawing consistently upon what we learn from the practice of the craft.

The preceding is a decidedly incomplete picture, of course, but it points to a few interesting underpinnings of our work. And in that mix, there have emerged some points of tension and debate about the work that continue to unfold. I’ll turn now to consider a few of these.