Can Heutagogy Save Education?

Blaschke, L.M., 2012 - Heutagogy & Lifelong Learning

Recently, while researching learning spaces to support modern literacies, I came across an interesting term that I was unfamiliar with, heutagogy. Heutagogy is the study of self-determined learning. Introduced in a report by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon, heutagogy emphasizes skill competencies, primarily learning how to learn. Heutagogy also relates to the concept of life-wide learning by acknowledging the learner's opportunity to profit intellectually from authentic experiences and settings.

Unlike pedagogy and andragogy, which place an emphasis on instructor control and direction, heutagogy is indeed learner orchestrated. As information becomes more readily available, providing students opportunities to assume more responsibility for their learning, the role of the pedagogic instructor shifts to that of a facilitating lead learner providing advice, resources, and encouragement.

Over the past few years, my interest in educational disruption has grown to the point where I have been encouraging my teaching colleagues to shift their teaching pedagogies to amplify student-centered learning. I now recognize my ignorance with this concept. Real educational disruption means accepting and supporting heutagogical practices for learners of all ages. What will heutagogy look like in our schools?

Learning will be student centered (content, processes, & goals)
Emphasis will be on learning processes over content mastery
Knowing how to learn will be an essential skill
Learning will be multidisciplinary
Learning will be supported by curricular flexibility
Individualized learning
Provisions for flexible or negotiated assessments
Enable rather than control informal learning

"It's not about making learning happen. It's about letting learning happen," says Sugata Mitra in one of my very favorite Ted Talks.You will notice that the description of his learning interventions begins pedagogical, but by the end of this presentation, he is clearly describing heutagogy supported with his vision of the School in the Cloud.

Apparently, a paradigm shift is needed in education? What is the role of schools in learning? What if "knowing", as Mitra asks, has become obsolete? The resources and mechanisms for self-determined learning are readily available outside the confines of our classrooms. In the words of Terry Heick,

"With the progress of technology and the rise in mobile learning, now more than ever self-directed learning, or heutagogy, isn't just possible, but natural, and almost awkward to not use..."

Can heutagogy save education? If so, what are the barriers that are keeping heutagogy from becoming an everyday reality in our schools?

References and Related Reading

Heutoagogy Community of Practice - Stewart Hase

Heutagogy: It Isn't Your Mother's Pedagogy Anymore - NSSA, Eberle & Childress

Education 3.0 and the Pedagogy of Mobile Learning - Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D.

Heutagogy & Lifelong Learning: A Review of Heutagogical Practice - Lisa Marie Blaschke

A Primer in Heutagogy and Self-Directed Learning - TeachThought, Terry Heick

Pedagogy, Andragogy, and Heutagogy Compared - Lindy McKeown

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