Learning pedagogy - balancing challenge and support

The idea of pedagogically balancing challenge and support in students' learning dates back to the early work of L. Lee Knefelkamp and other colleagues in the 1970s. The idea, and the research that supported it, was that students' responsiveness to learning differed based on developmental level and that modifying the balance to match readiness would result in improved student learning and development.

Assertions by faculty, one advocating improv as a model for increasing freedom and the other proposing music and its structure, beautifully demonstrate the merit of challenge and support in learning. Improvisation and the free expression associated with it, is often seen as very intimidating. In order to create an environment where students are able to deal with this freedom, focusing on students, using pretend to inform reality, supporting everyone, and assuming that all can be successful, serve as principles to enhance not only the improv experience but learning overall. In the music example, releasing the emotional dimensions of a subject and engaging learners with one another in structured interaction, offer additional principles that could deepen learning. Balancing these variables of support and challenge then offer a scale on which pedagogy can move back and forth to enrich learning and development opportunity.

Although these ideas were proposed separately, their combination brought back a simple, and extremely valuable, lesson in how to improve students' experiences both in and out of class. An integrative balance in educational experiences, focus on improving teaching, and integrating more experiential methods offer the most promising means of reimagining undergraduate learning. As experiential learning is enhanced, it's also important to strike a balance by not throwing out the best of other traditional pedagogies. A combination of commitments that faculty can freely make to help students learn to "solve problems, evaluate evidence, analyze arguments and generate hypotheses" will likely meet with the greatest success.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of higher education is the extra or cocurriculum, which offers enrichment outside of or in conjunction with classroom learning. In order to make these experiences more broadly available to all students, rather than those who have the privilege of time and money, institutions should create "for-credit learning experiences that incorporate elements that make extracurriculars educationally purposeful." Providing institution-wide internships opportunities that are not just add-on credits is another way to enhance students' learning experiences. Replacing the focus on selecting lucrative majors and having high grades with a focus on experience, including part-time jobs and internships, will help students develop real-life skills that will benefit them throughout life.

Attending to student engagement in general, while integrating learning experiences and balancing challenge and support, will not only improve learning but it will also help institutions improve their retention and graduation. The Power of Systems initiative is based on this assumption. Campus building design can also encourage student engagement. Combining these ideas with policy changes related to transfer credits, stopping in and out of full-time learning, can all do a great deal to bring students across the finish line of degree completion. But one of the impediments to progress in improving the quality of student learning is the disconnect between what faculty and administrations see as important. The recent American Council on Education's research recommended "elevating the importance of civic skills and global learning; more intentionally focusing curricula on developing student mind-sets, aptitudes and dispositions; establishing equity goals; and increasing transparency." Advancing these ideas will require deeper conversation among all educators, whether faculty or administration, in order to tackle the inertia of current discipline-based curricula on many campuses.