Passive to active: how online lessons create real world learners
Passive to active: how online lessons create real world learners
Matt Parkman
What is the idea?
Necessity is the mother of all invention and there has been no greater necessity during the pandemic than in finding new and diverse ways to engage learners in active learning from afar (Zawicki-Richter, 2020).
One of the beneficial side effects of this has been the rise in ‘passive to active’ learning, with the pandemic providing opportunity (Saxton, 2021) from social platforms and media such as Twitch, TikTok and YouTube. This piece will explore the case study of woodworking during 2020 and 2021 and how accounts such as ‘Woodworking For Mere Mortals’ have created active learning opportunities from what are otherwise passive teaching resources.
Why this idea?
When university lecturers stand at the lectern and begin to speak, they do so to impart specific and defined knowledge to their students. The students, meanwhile, take notes and ask questions and absorb the specific information being given to them. The learning that takes place is facilitated by teaching designed to achieve just that. Whilst an often traditional approach, this does not fulfil the true potential of active teaching and learning. Teachers and learners are engaged with each other, but learners are not learning through doing; there is often no discussion, interaction or participation from learners, nor are there “hands on” activities one might expect to find in a lab-based session (Petress, 2008).
When Jon Peters builds an entryway table in cherry and maple, records it, and uploads that recording to YouTube, he does so for no other purpose than to demonstrate his skill as a woodworker for the entertainment of the viewer. That it is possible to watch that video and learn something (a new technique for measuring dovetails, for example) is merely an unintended consequence. No learning is implied within the relationship between the do-er and the viewer. This teaching is passive.
Where Steve Ramsay and the Woodworking for Mere Mortals YouTube channel comes in is to occupy the space between the two. Building and creating woodworking projects for their own sake, but with an element of active teaching involved in the form of explanations of techniques and skills and the offering of alternative approaches to achieve the same end result. Learners are able to pause videos to ensure time to effectively encode the information, review both the point that Ramsay has reached and reflect on their own project progress – all active learning principles (Petress, 2008).
It is likely this approach would attract autonomous learners, perhaps older or those with the freedom to be able to access materials. The instructional nature of these videos demonstrates andragogy in action (Lambda Solutions, 2020). We understand that adult education often stems from a need for knowledge, should provide opportunities for self direction and facilitate learning through doing. Channels such as Steve Ramsay’s provide an acces