This blog is the second to last blog of this series that explains Mosston and Ashworth's Spectrum of Teaching Styles. Today we (Alba and Risto) will talk about Style J-the Learner Initiated Style. This blog is based on episode 267 of the podcast Playing with Research in Health and Physical Education. This blog is almost verbatim from the podcast, so if you prefer the audio version, here is the link for episode 267. You can also listen to the first episodes of this series in the following links #254, #255, #257, #259, #260, #261, #262, #263, #264, #266 or read the first ten blogs #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, and #10. All of the podcasts are listed by category on a google doc that you can find as the pinned tweet on the account @theHPEpodcast on Twitter. Alternatively, you can find it here. You can find the website where you can download the book for free and find more information and resources at the end of this blog.
Today we will talk about Style J-the Learner Initiated Style. This is the last style you may find in an educational setting such as schools and universities. If you think back on our first episodes, we mentioned that in the command style, the teacher is at maximum and the student at minimum. This means that the teacher in the command style makes all the decisions and is followed by the learners. In the Learner Initiated Style the student is at maximum and the teacher at minimum. So, the learning experience is initiated by the learner and all the decisions are made by them as well.
This is typically what we see when you have a teacher as an advisor in a research project. A great example of this style is found in graduate programs. Imagine that a PE teacher is struggling to engage their students in their classes in school. The teacher decides that becoming a graduate student could be a way to improve their teaching strategies to engage and motivate their students. In the realization that research can help the teacher's pedagogical practice, they search for an institution and an advisor that can support their progress. Once the teacher joins the institution as a graduate student, they would start planning how to research new teaching strategies, collect data, design a project to improve practices, evaluate the outcomes of the learning experience, and discuss the findings with the literature existing in the field. The student sets the expectations of how the advisor will support the research and meets periodically with the advisor to update the decisions and receive feedback. This all could take the form of a Master’s/Doctoral Thesis or an independent study depending on where the institution is in the world.
Overall, this style is similar to the Learner-Designed Individual Program Style that I explained in our last episode. The similarities are that the student here also designs, performs, evaluates, and decides how to involve the teacher in their project. The difference is that the teacher does not choose the topic. Very important here. The student initiates the learning experience and chooses the project topic. In our example, the teacher found the need to learn something new and decided the topic of teaching strategies as the focus of their project.
So, the Learner Initiated Style is not a whole class teaching experience. The teacher in this style (or advisor in the example above) acknowledged the individual motivation that the learner has and the cognitive desire to design their own learning experience. The learner not only initiates a request but also pursued the complexities of making all the decisions in the pre-impact, impact, and post-impact set. Meaning, the learner plans, performs, and evaluates their project.
The defining characteristic of the Learner Initiated Style is that the individual learner initiates and takes the responsibility of designing their own learning experience. In the anatomy of this style, the learner takes over all the teaching decisions. This means that the student independently initiates the request to be responsible for their own learning experience and makes all the decisions about how they will accomplish their objectives. The role of the teacher is to accept the request made by the learner and be a stand-by resource to guide the learner when needed. Even though the teacher is a support system and participates in the learning experience as requested by the learner, this does not mean that they do not have responsibilities or that they wait for the student to reach out or make decisions unaware of what is happening. The learner has the responsibility of setting expectations and specifically indicating when and how the teacher will be involved. Additionally, the teacher has the obligation to initiate questions and ask for clarification whenever discrepancies between the intentions of the learner and their actions occur.
If we think back to our advising example above, let’s say the graduate student decides to take over a very complex project and has only one year to complete it. The teacher needs to guide that student to make sure they succeed and that their plan is feasible in that time.
Another case can be if the graduate student plans to change their teaching style in practice to engage students…and when reporting back to the advisor, he or she is taking a disengaging approach or repeating the same teaching strategies over and over again. In that case, the advisor should ask questions and clarify the student's thought process guiding them to understand the discrepancies between what they are saying they want to do and actually delivering in their practices.
When the behavior of the Learner-Initiated Style is achieved, the subject matter objectives are to:
have an individual learner choose to initiate a multifaceted learning experience by discovering, creating, and developing ideas
and to have students set and evaluate standards on their own.
When this style is achieved, the main behavior objectives emphasized are having the students:
choose to be independent, and challenge themselves to create their learning experience,
motivated to go beyond the boundaries of the activities that are taught in the class to the rest of the students,
and to provide the opportunity for students to be self-directed.
It is important to emphasize that the primary objective is to honor the learner’s need to be independent. In this style, the opportunity to engage in independent and creative learning is enhanced. So, this style only happens when a learner approaches a teacher and asks to design their learning experiences. This is most likely possible when the learner has passed through the experience of the other teaching styles in the spectrum and understands that they are capable of making maximum decisions in their own teaching and learning experiences.
So, again, this style requires the student to initiate the request. So, if the teacher proposes to a student to start a project it cannot be considered that they are using the Learner-Initiated Style. So, can we find this teaching style in a school setting? Yes, but not as a whole class teaching experience. To include this style of teaching in a PE setting the teacher can introduce and explain the Learner-Initiated Style and inform students that this style is a possibility.
Let’s think of another example. Imagine a PE teacher explains the Learner-Initiated Style and delivers a chart to the students that explain the roles of the teacher and the students. You can find an example of this type of chart in the book that is linked in the notes. Imagine that the PE teacher has a martial arts background that is known by the students, but this content is not included in the standards of learning and so is not part of their PE experiences. Let’s say that after learning about the Learner-Initiated Style, a student called Bob decides to reach out to the teacher and ask if the teacher could support him to learn the sport of Boxing, an activity that he has always been curious about but has not had the opportunity to practice. The teacher, who is confident that she can support the student agrees to engage in the project. The learner will design multiple episodes for his learning experience including the decisions for the pre-impact, impact, and post-impact set for each episode. Say that Bob has already learned about the history, main rules, and characteristics of boxing and got to the point of practicing his first skill. He decides that the first punch he wants to learn is the jab punch. The decisions that Bob planned for this episode are:
In the pre-impact set, he will
initiate the general and specific intentions of the subject matter and behavior. Meaning that the objective of the episode is to learn how to punch with accuracy and use the correct critical elements.
Make general subject matter decision that is the jab punch.
Decide the specific focus of the episode and the questions that will guide the learning experience. In our example that will mean deciding how to learn the skill and developing the criteria that will be used by the teacher to evaluate his performance.
Select the teaching style to be used. Considering that this is the first time ever that Bob will perform the punch, the command style or the practice style could be a good option to be used to help him learn. At this point, it is important to have more help and guidance from the teacher since the student is not proficient at the skill.
Sequence the next episodes that might be to move to the self-check style practicing in front of a mirror and using the criteria sheet developed in this episode to improve the performance.
Make the logistical decisions related to the time and day dedicated to the project that also fits the teacher’s schedule, how he will research the skills and design the evaluation criteria, choose the equipment needed, etc.
And decide how the teacher will be involved. In our example, this means asking the teacher to teach the jab punch, using the criteria developed to assess the performance and provide feedback.
The teacher does not have a role in the pre-impact set in the Learner-Initiated Style.
During the impact set, Bob implements the plan designed above. So, in our example, this can mean
Meeting with the teacher at the selected time,
Engage in the learning experience through the teaching style selected,
Practicing the jab punch,
Listening to the teacher’s feedback, etc.
The main role of the teacher here is to accept the student’s decisions and provide the general conditions to enhance the possibility of success.
In the post-impact set, Bob uses the evaluation criteria that were previously developed by him.
This will allow Bob to make post-impact decisions related to his behavior and about the attainment of the objectives of the episode. In our example, this means looking at the data collected by the teacher and reflecting on the episode to make the decision if he will keep practicing the same punch (a jab) or add another skill (for example the hook).
The role of the teacher here is to accept the decisions made by the student and alert him if there are any discrepancies between the learner’s intentions and actions.
Producing and planning one's own learning experience can be way more challenging than it may seem. For this reason, this style is most appropriate for students who are curious, can make decisions, are emotionally resilient to follow through with a plan and overcome obstacles, have experienced the other teaching styles in the Spectrum, and have the patience to achieve the final product.
Students may want to give up and stop the process. If this happens, the teacher should not punish or criticize the student but advise them in a way that will help them understand where the challenges came up. Additionally, it is important to support the student so they can recognize that not accomplishing what was expected is an important learning experience in itself. Being able to overcome failures and grow will help the student develop tenacity, resilience, patience, persistence, endurance, and other relevant attributes. So, the Learner Initiated Style provides a very rich learning experience because it is based on the need that individuals have to independently and cognitively initiate a learning experience. This style provides a fundamental step toward the autonomy of students who can recognize and express their needs and search for the support of a specialist to accomplish their life goals.
That’s all we have for you on this one. Once again, we encourage you to download the book that is free. You can find great examples of how the spectrum is applied in PE and resources that can help you successfully integrate the different styles of teaching in your classes. The next blog is the last one in this series. It will come out next week.
Thanks for reading!
Alba and Risto
For more resources see below:
Full Cite: Mosston, M., & Ashworth, S. (2008). Teaching physical education: First online edition, 2008. https://spectrumofteachingstyles.org/index.php?id=16
Visit: https://www.spectrumofteachingstyles.org
Twitter: @spectrumots