Click here to view the video transcript
Out-of-class learning is comprised of two elements. First is context. The context refers to the setting or the location in which learning happens. This could be a physical setting or a virtual one. In fact today, more and more learning is happening in virtual contexts and on mobile phones. Second is the resources that students will use out-of-class. Resources might be print or digital, written resources, or they might be audio, video, multimodal such as podcasts, infographics. YouTube, for example, is being used extensively by students as a teaching and learning tool. There are also social resources. Classmates, family members, peers, friends, clubs are all social resources that can create learning opportunities. Print, digital, and social resources range from being naturally occurring to being educationally curated, and I’ll explain what I mean.
Educationally curated resources are those that educators have created and are meant to be used by students within a class or an institution. Library study guides, for example, academic skills workshops or resources that you have created for your students are examples of educationally curated resources. Naturally occurring resources, on the other hand, are those that are available to members of the general public. Novels, websites, local events in local communities are all examples of naturally occurring resources. Both types of resources are valid and potentially effective in creating out-of-class learning.
Let me give you an example. We might design a auto marked multiple choice quiz, which we then set as homework. The quiz isn’t graded and is located on the learning management system. Students receive immediate feedback on their right answers and their wrong answers. And as the teacher, we can see which students have taken the quiz and which haven’t. Now, in this example, we are aware of and we are in control of the context and the resource. The context is the learning management system and the resource is the quiz. Both of which are educationally curated.
Let me give you another example. Let’s say a student is preparing for an exam and asks a generative AI tool to create some questions on the topics that’s covered in the exam. The student works through the AI-generated questions, receiving feedback on correct answers, incorrect answers, all from the AI tool. In this example, the student is fully in control of the out-of-class learning experience. They decide on the context and on the resource that will be significant to their learning. And they decide how and for how long, where and when they will engage with it. This is an example of a naturally occurring context and resource.
The phrase ‘learning beyond the classroom’ refers to learning that occurs outside the context of a classroom. The classroom could be a physical space, with chairs and tables, or an online space where teaching and learning can happen synchronously or asynchronously. What makes out-of-class learning different to in-class learning is that learning can occur without direct observation or intervention by a teacher. The student is in control of their learning beyond the classroom.
In his book Learning beyond the classroom, Tom Bentley (1998) argues that as educators we need to shift our conceptualisation of education away from being a place of learning to education as an experience. The learner is at the core of this experience and has the potential to learn from all resources that are available to them. Accessing information is no longer an issue for many students; rather, students need to learn to use information critically and strategically to meet learning goals.
As educators, we may or may not be aware of all the resources that our students engage with out-of-class, and we most probably will not be aware of how they engage with them. Our role is not to control what our students have access to or to decide on their behalf the ‘right’ way to learn. Instead, our role is to develop students’ capacities to learn ubiquitously and autonomously, as they navigate through uncertainty and change. We can do this by creating out-of-class learning experiences that foster students’ learning of subject matter as well as develop their capacities for lifelong learning.
Benson, P. (2017). The Discourse of YouTube: Multimodal Text in a Global Context (1st edition). Routledge.
Bentley, T. (1998). Learning beyond the classroom: Education for a changing world (1st edition). Routledge.
Discussions
What innovative ways have you observed your students combining educationally curated resources (like course materials) with naturally occurring resources (like AI tools or social media) in their learning process?
Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.