The following miscellaneous notes are not developed systematically. One day they might be...
Overview (tutor's notes): 'The session uses students' own experience as learners to explore ways in which we learn and from there to consider how own ideas about learning influence us as teachers. Articulation of these ideas (implicit, tacit 'small t' theories of learning) provides a precursor to the consideration of the explicit ('Capital T') cognitive theories of learning and instruction in future sessions.'
'Conclusions': Learners learn in a range of (individual) (categorisable?) ways. Preferred learning 'styles' depend on context: it may or may not be possible to explain how a particular episode of learning occurs. Implicit theories influence both learning and teaching.
Possible informal metaphors for teaching/learning include: transferring knowledge (petrol pump), shaping character (moulding clay), arranging mental building blocks (constructing a building), travelling towards wisdom (journey of life, mountain guide), nurturing growth to full potential (raising a plant). These are familiar enough images.
The supposition is that as learners and teachers our actions are determined by something lying behind what we do/say. What lies behind is held to be a theory. We act in accordance with this theory. Describe the theory accurately and you'll know why you act in the way you do. Criticise and improve on the theory and you'll act better. 'Theory' is misleading. It's far too deliberate. It implies structure and coherence. What 'lies behind' doesn't deserve the name theory if it remains implicit, or unarticulated. Better talk of beliefs and desires. In the plural. Beliefs and desires are fuzzier than theories, less connected. Much that informs actions in everyday activity is certainly fuzzy. And certainly plural. And potentially in opposition. My actions are determined by the vector sum of a complex of beliefs and desires formed within a social context, exerted in the medium of my present mood.
Just because, when I'm put on the spot to explain myself, I choose to espouse a particular metaphor of teaching or learning does not mean that this is the determining cause of my actions at other times (i.e. when learning or teaching). I am driven by much besides, e.g. others' expectations, my estimate of others' judgements, my health and, crucially, 'what one does' in the given situation.
However, all things being equal, what I say that I believe/want is likely to have at least some connection with what I do. And vice versa. So, with imagination and humility, I might be able to ascribe certain (fuzzily articulated) motives to others on the basis of observations of their actions, especially if their first-person descriptions of their beliefs/wants accord with my observations. And the explanation I offer for my actions will be more convincing if others' observations led them to offer an explanation couched in similar, or at least not contradictory, terms.
Gathering others' opinions is not the same thing as revealing their underlying theories: the questioner has to impose his/her own organising principle(s) on top of gathered opinions to infer a theory. But this begs the question: Does there need to be a theory lying behind every opinion? Socialisation and habit may sufficiently determine actions, even 'opinions', if they're not the result of conscious reflection. (We say what 'they' say because that's what 'one' says.)
So-called lay theories do not offer new insights. They cannot be surprising, because they are based on 'commonsense'. If I view and explain a situation that is familiar to me then I cannot recast it in a novel and helpful way because I'm on the inside, sharing the sense that is common both to me and the actors in the situation observed. So nothing new there. That's why so-called lay theories seem so pedestrian and uninteresting. They don't prompt imaginative reaction (Theories can do this); they are not generative. They say what's obvious.
If we talk of a belief, what is its content? Is 'belief' not synonymous with 'theory'? Doesn't one believe a theory? Can you believe anything else? A belief? What's the distinction? Beliefs are simpler, more basic, less supported, less connected. (E.g. 'Children should be seen and not heard.')
Our experiences and thoughts are ordered by some sort of organising principles, call them thinking tools. One fundamental tool is the use of language. Is language therefore a theory? Or is it too deeply buried to be called that? The way language breaks up/articulates the world is certainly not arbitrary but equally not commonly discerned. ('Articulated' in the sense of determining 'where the joints are', i.e. how we conceive the world's structure.) Is a lay theory more like language than a Theory? On a scale of 0 (basic desire) to 10 (Grand Unified Theory) you'd have to put lay theories at about 3, along with beliefs. Better to discard the notion altogether.
I'd like to reserve the word 'theory' for mental structures that are complex and conscious and available for discussion. Something explicitly open for discussion, amendment, acceptance, rejection, defence. About 7 or above on my putative scale.
If I claim to be able to reveal lay theories is this anything more than a rhetorical device to try to influence others to accept my better alternative? Isn't the claim one of being able to understand what's 'really going on', of uncovering reasons for actions hidden even to the actors, of 'seeing through' espoused accounts to a less palatable buried truth - all in order to shape behaviour in a new way more in tune with my 'take' on the world?
'Lay theory' is not a useful concept. It's self-defeating. If I see through to another's hidden theory I necessarily do so from my own viewpoint, in order to make sense of what I observe. This is to claim a privileged position. The platform on which I work - my own foundation of lay theories - is not itself open to examination. If I do not claim a privileged position an infinite regress results.
Better to talk about (largely unconnected) beliefs and desires and work collaboratively to attempt to knit these together into an explicit (if informal and probably rather ragged) hypothesis (say 4 or 5 on the scale). Better to talk detail. Issues. Then 'beliefs', 'desires', 'Theories', 'ideas' all become resources for seeking a better, more coherent account of practice (6?). And, significantly, a prompt for future improvement in behaviour and action.
