Guides for Learning and Teaching:
Factors that Support Learning
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NTU Centre for Professional Learning and Development
Resources for Learning and Teaching
Factors that Support Learning
Introduction
This guide contains information to help you understand the factors which support
successful learning and how you can create these in the way you teach,
specifically:
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An overview of the 5 factors which Professor Phil Race identifies as
underpinning successful learning
Questions to prompt you to reflect on the implications of these factors for
the way you teach and support your students’ learning
Some suggestions of learning activities to get your students more actively
engaged in achieving learning outcomes
As you read through it:
 Think about how the factors were reflected in your own practice.
 Can you identify things you do that are examples of any of the factors?
 Are there any you’re not conscious of doing – and need to think further
about how it might enhance your approach?
How this guide relates to the UKPSF and NTU Professional Standards
for Teaching and Supporting Learning in HE
Areas of Activity
Areas of Core Knowledge (Ks)
Professional Values (Vs)
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A2, A4
K3
V3
Section 1: What is ‘learning’?
David Baume (26 July 2011) finds the work of Holt helpful on this, referring to it
as his 'desert island' book about higher education. Holt challenges our deep
beliefs about education, and our strange practices that spring from these deep
beliefs: try this:
“...not many years ago, I began to play the cello. I love the instrument, spend
many hours a day playing at it,
work hard at it, and mean someday to play it well. Most people would say that
what I am doing is "learning to
play the cello”. ... But these words carry into our minds the strange idea that
there exist two very different processes:
(1), learning to play the cello; and (2) playing the cello.
They imply that I will do the first until I have completed it, at which point I
will stop the first process to begin
the second ... Of course this is nonsense. There are not two processes, but
one. We learn to do something by doing it.
There is no other way. ... "
Holt (1976, p13)
Baume states that this still prompts him to ask questions, about his own
practice and about the practice of those with who he works, including:
"How does what I am doing as a teacher help students, not to learn the
subject, but rather to do the subject, and to do it well?"
"What can I usefully offer to a student before, during and after their work
that will help the student to do the subject, enjoyably and well?”
What helps us learn – can we identify the factors underpinning successful
learning? There are no shortages of models and theories of learning (see Biggs
and Tang, 2007, Race, 2007, and Kolb 1995). We have recommended Phil Race’s
textbook ‘The Lecturer’s Toolkit’ as a useful starting resource you can explore
further, to consider what helps us learn best, and to use this information to
inform the way we teach and help our students learn successfully. Race (2017
and 2014) identifies 5 factors that help us learn successfully:
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Learning by doing
Getting feedback
Being able to make sense of our experiences
Wanting to learn something
Having a need to learn something
These are explored individually in more detail in the sections to follow, together
with suggestions for how we can achieve these in our teaching.
Factor 1 - Learning By Doing
One of the most common responses when we ask colleagues how they learn
successfully is they learn from having a go at doing something over and over until
they could do it well. Learning by doing (and experiential learning – learning
from reflecting on the experience of doing) is a fundamental factor underpinning
all our learning. As Holt would argue we’re not learning a subject, but doing it and
trying to learn how to do it well. But if we are to learn how to do anything,
(whether think or analyse or create or perform) at some point we have to do it –
we have to have a go.
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Learning by doing can offer learners the opportunity to:
 Experience the thing you are trying to learn
 Practise it more than once
 Have a go without having to worry about avoiding making mistakes
 Learn through trial and error – learn from mistakes
 Experiment doing things in different ways to find the way that works
best
Suggestions for addressing this in our teaching:
o
Be aware of what you intend your students to learn and align your learning
activities to this. Take care to avoid adjusting or
changing the learning
outcomes to the way you like to teach.
o
Review your approach and ask for feedback from one or two colleagues –
does the way you teach enable students practise the learning defined in the
action verbs of learning outcomes? For instance, if you are trying to teach
them to analyse, are they getting the opportunity to analyse or merely listen
to your analysis?
o
Have they repeated opportunities throughout the module or sessions to learn
from trial and error – or are they expected to be
able to work out how to
do it effectively first time? Review whether you are expecting them to
achieve something at a particular standard too soon (or too late) – either can
be demotivating. In other words – build in formative assessment
opportunities.
o
Discuss learning and how to learn effectively with your students.
o
Discuss the type of learning you want them to achieve and why – this helps
give meaning to the learning outcomes and brings them to life.
o
Get their active participation in their own learning – provide them with
opportunities to do something relevant to the learning outcomes they are
expected to achieve
o
Select learning activities that match and align with the learning outcomes – in
other words, ones that enable them to practise what they are expected to
learn!
Factor 2 – Feedback (or feeling the learning!)
Just doing something is not the same as learning. Not everyone instinctively
learns from experience – think of those who repeat the same mistake over and
over. We need to help them learn how to reflect on the experience and learn
from it. Offering timely developmental feedback can contribute to that. Race
argues that “perhaps too little has been invested in exploring the emotions upon
which our motivation (to learn) depends,” (2007, p8). We perceive we have
learned something successfully from the feedback and reactions we receive from
other people. It helps us judge ‘how well we are doing’. Many people seek
feedback and reassurance from others before they have confidence in their own
judgement. Positive acknowledgement and endorsements from other people help
us validate our own judgement of how successful we are at learning to do
something – in turn, it helps us become motivated to continue, and bolsters our
sense of achievement. Successful learning is supported by feedback (both
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extrinsic – from sources external to us, and intrinsic, from within ourselves)
including:
Extrinsic feedback
 Guidance and advice
 Praise from others
 Recognition
 Other people’s reactions
 Grades, marks and formal feedback
Intrinsic feedback
 Our own judgements about how we are doing
 Being able to perceive our progress in right direction
 Being able to perceive positive results and outcomes
 Feeling a sense of worth and pride in what we have achieved
 Acknowledging positive feedback without embarrassment
 Acknowledging negative feedback non-defensively
Suggestions for addressing this in our teaching:
o
Help your students be aware of the different opportunities for feedback – it’s
not just written feedback in response to a formal assessment that counts.
Feedback comes in many forms including points made in discussions in class,
answers to questions posed, your responses to questions, students’ views and
thoughts. It’s not always tutor feedback – it might be peer- and self-feedback.
o
Point out feedback as it’s happening to help remind students of the variety of
feedback being provided.
o
Review our practice – do we use all types appropriately? Or are we overrelying on one type such as formal written feedback in response to formal
assessments?
o
Make more use of formative assessment and feedback ie developmental
feedback - feedback which is constructive and thoughtfully communicated,
and which helps others identify strengths and weaknesses and how to
improve.
o
Demonstrate (not ‘tell’) to students, using examples, what to do with
feedback to help them learn and track their own progress; explain how they
can use it; discuss it with them to test out their understanding of the
messages it conveys.
o
Give them the opportunity to give feedback to themselves and to each other
- feedback does not just have to come from the tutor. You can do this in
several different ways, including getting them to assess their own and each
other’s ideas or written work against criteria, and provide the feedback to
each other. This is a useful way of helping them gain better understanding of
what’s expected of them and their assessment work. Or build in activities in
sessions or online.
o
Help them learn how to provide constructive feedback – model it in your own
practice, and provide opportunity for them to practise designing and giving
feedback (eg in peer and self-assessment activities).
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Factor 3 – Making Sense
Effective experiential learning doesn’t stop at ‘doing something’. We need to be
able to reflect on the experience and make sense of it. Race identifies this as
having 3 aspects (2007, p10):
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Making sense of what has been learned
Making sense of the learning experience
Making sense of feedback received from other people
More than just reflection or thinking about something, ‘making sense’ involves
being able to realise and construct meaning - a tangible understanding. That
moment when inside we know that we REALLY know how to do something, or
what something IS. Something ‘clicks’ or ‘the penny drops’, or the ‘light-bulb
moment’ to name a few expressions that sum up the experience! It boosts
confidence in our ability to learn and cope with something. Race (2007, p10)
describes this as when we ‘realise’ something and are able to explain and
communicate it to someone else.
He talks of making sense in this way through a process of digestion,
characterised by:
 Being able to extract fundamental principles from background info
 Being able to discard what’s not important
 Being able to put things into a perspective
 Being able to ‘own’ our learning – it’s our understanding and
knowledge and we ‘get it!’
Suggestions for addressing this in your teaching:
o
Provide examples and exemplars to illustrate what you mean. Demonstrate
instead of just ‘tell’.
o
Avoid assuming that if the students are engaged in an activity (eg a
discussion or exercise) that they are learning more effectively. Structure the
activity to include reflection, analysing and making sense where they explain.
Use open, and probing questions to help them work their way through an
issue – eg ‘What is meant here?’ or ‘What answers could we give?’
o
Avoid always telling them what something means – and ask them to say what
they think it means. You’ll find out what they do/don’t understand, and can
help clarify.
o
Help them build a sense of achievement over time by getting them to assess
their starting point against each learning outcome, then get them to review
how much they think they have progressed.
Factor 4 – Wanting to Learn
The urge to do something because we want to or feel driven to do so – it’s the
motivation that comes from inside us – driven by our own interests, enthusiasm
and willingness to learn. A powerful emotion much sought after by us in our
students. I don’t know anyone who would say they don’t want their students to
be interested and motivated to learn. We might expect our students to be
interested in our subject – but how realistic is that? The subject might be new
and we have to help them become interested. And, if they are motivated already,
how can we maintain and build that as they go through our course or session?
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This intrinsic ‘wanting to learn’ can be driven by:
 Enjoying learning and study
 Having an interest in working with particular colleagues
 Having an interest in the subject
 Being enthusiastic about the subject
 A desire to want to know more/ inquire/explore – being curious about
something and wanting to investigate it further
Suggestions for addressing this in our teaching:
o
Become aware of the motivation levels of your students, and the symptoms of
low motivation and engagement.
o
Ask them what interests them about our subject or the course – use that as a
starting point for exercises, examples, materials and take them from there
into other relevant aspects.
o
If they seem uninterested – find out why. Get them exploring the subject and
finding things out for themselves. Let them explain to each other what they
have found out, and what questions this has raised in their minds. It’s also a
great opportunity to enable them to make sense by having to explain it to
someone else.
o
Mix interested and less interested students on tasks – sometimes the
enthusiasm rubs off.
o
Then get them involved in helping find the answers to those questions. The
sense of satisfaction that can come from helping others make sense of
something.
o
Talk to them about what they expect from the subject and from you. Discuss
your expectations of them with them to help them understand. They may be
motivated to start with, but suddenly become demotivated because what’s
expected of them is different to what they expected. They may be unsure
how to study in a different way, or lack confidence. Knowing that, you can
design activities that provide them with the opportunity to have a go and
learn constructively from their mistakes – and even get pleasantly surprised
along the way.
o
Show your own enthusiasm for your own subject – for example, what does it
contribute to the wider world and relate to things that students might be more
familiar with?
Factor 5 – Needing to Learn
What if you don’t have an intrinsic ‘want to learn’ – can you create that
motivation in other ways? Necessity is the flip side of want on the coin of
motivation. Desire versus need! When the motivational driver of ‘wanting to’ is
missing, seeing how we can benefit from learning something may be sufficient to
get us to have a go, and to persevere when the going gets tough. Necessities
such as:
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A means to an end - having to learn something difficult or unpalatable
as a precursor to do something we want to learn, or to be able to
move onto another part of the course, or to get to a job/career we
want;
Survival – to avoid the risk of failure;
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Saving face – not wanting to appear unable to learn something;
Sometimes, helping your students see the benefits of doing the
course/module can help provide sufficient motivation for them to put
effort in to completing it.
Suggestions for addressing this in our teaching:
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If it’s typical to be uninterested in the subject, let them know they are not
alone, or that it’s not abnormal…but then…..explain how your module (or even
one small concept or topic) would be of relevance to the wider course they are
studying – how does it help them achieve the overall learning outcomes?
Explain this to them on several occasions (and not just in the written
material).
o
Work out in conversation with them how it would benefit them beyond the
course and their time at university – for example, how is it relevant to future
work and careers?
o
Or show them convincing evidence which shows the relationship between
performance in the module and participation in sessions to help see a benefit
of turning up.
o
Then when they do turn up, make sure it’s worth their time – let them gain
something additional from the session that they could not have gotten from
reading some materials online. Use your time with them to help transform
their understanding, not transmit information.
o
Find out what does interest them – and see if you can use this to help them
find a ‘way in’ to your subject.
o
Let them experience it for themselves and give them a choice of perspective –
if they are actively involved in finding out about something and able to
choose, they can take more ownership of the task.
o
If they lack confidence – generate activities in such a way that they build up a
fuller picture over a few sessions building on constructive feedback they
receive each time to improve on their work, rather than having to produce a
polished contribution straight away.
To Sum Up
We can view Race’s 5 factors as conditions we should aim to incorporate into our
teaching practice to enable our students to have a better opportunity to learn
successfully. When designing our teaching sessions and activities, we need to
ask:
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What can I do to help motivate my students ‘want’ or ‘desire’ to learn?
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If they don’t want to learn and are not interested in the subject, how can I
help them see how the course addresses something they need to learn or
achieve?
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How can I ensure I’ve built in opportunity for them to do something and
learn from the experience?
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What feedback opportunities can I create and how can I ensure they
realise the opportunities for feedback?
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How can I help them learn to digest the feedback and make sense of what
they are learning, and use this to help them gain a sense of achievement
that, in turn, will help continue to motivate them further.
Links to Further Resources
If you want to read further into learning and teaching literature, here are some
pointers.
CPLD Guide to Designing for Active Learning
John Biggs and Catherine Tang (2007) provide two quotes in the front of
their book, both of which are repeated below: quote Ralph Tyler (1949):
‘Learning takes place through the active behaviour of the student: it is
what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does.’ Ralph Tyler
(1949).
‘If students are to learn desired outcomes in a reasonably effective
manner, then the teacher’s fundamental task is to get students to engage
in learning activities that are likely to result in their achieving those
outcomes….It is helpful to remember that what the student does is
actually more important in determining what is learned than what the
teacher does.’ Thomas J. Shuell (1986).
This clearly reflects Phil Race’s points about learning by doing, and learning
through trial and error. It also highlights that your role is to facilitate learning
rather than transmit information to them about what they should know.
See the NTU resources in the online resources ‘Teaching and
Supporting Learning in HE’ Learning Room in NOW listed under the
staff role on your NOW homepage) – module on ‘Principles of Course
design’
It’s useful to note that John Dewey remarked that although education is an
experience, we cannot assume that experience alone is learning (Dewey, 1933).
Something more has to happen for us to ensure we can reflect on and make
sense of the experience and learn from it. This is also reflected in Race’s points –
it’s not sufficient to ‘have the experience’ or do something – we have to enable
students to make sense of the experience, and use feedback to help them do this.
This is also modelled by David Kolb in his experiential learning cycle (1995) –
and how critical reflection and conceptualisation enable us to analyse and learn
from experience.
References
Biggs, J., and Tang, C., (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University,
McGraw Hill with Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University
Press, 3rd edition
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Dewey, J., (1933) How We Think. A restatement of the relation of reflective
thinking in the educative process, revised ed., Boston: D.C. Heath
Holt, J., (1976), Education, Toronto: Clarke, Irwin.
Race, P., (2007), The Lecturer’s Toolkit: A practical guide to assessment, learning
and teaching, London: Routledge, 3rd edition; 4th edition 2014
Kolb, David, Experiential Learning Cycle
http://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html
CPLD, January 2015
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