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This article extracted from the paper “Modified Lesson Study for Trainee Special Education Teachers: An Approach to Formative Evaluation of Their Teaching Practicum” presented by Mr Norman Kee Kiak Nam and Dr Noel Chia Kok Hwee of the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference 2011 held at the NIE Campus, Singapore, 30May-1 June, 2011. Both Norman Kee and Noel Chia have written and published a paper and a book on the modified Lesson Study approach for special education professionals.

Special Education (SpEd) trainee teachers need a high quality practice-based learning. Researching for such an educational approach surface the challenges faced also by the nursing profession where undergraduate nurses have to be prepared to face complex, unpredicatble and challenging environments of hospitals requiring a practice based learning (Bhoyrub et al., 2010). Their search revealed that “the construct of heutagogy as being a potentially highly congruent framework for undergraduate pre-registration practice-based learning” (Bhoyrub et al., 2010, p.322). Canning and Callan (2010) found heutagogy as spirals of reflection that empower learners in higher education in self-directed study where students are able to demonstrate the following (p.80):

• Being self-aware;
• Being able to articulate feelings, experiences and ideas;
• Engaging in shared discussion with others;
• Investigating appropriate academic sources in developing their own ‘theories” or knowledge; and
• Being confident in their study skills and able to access the facilities of the higher educational institution.

On the other hand, Eberle (2009) shared the finding that heutagogy is the answer to meet the challenges of competition to make e-learning meaningful and worth the students money, time and effort by allowing the students to be self-directed and to learn as well as apply what they need and want to know. The research by Aston and Newman (2006) revealed that “heutagogy prepares students for the self-determined life-long learning which is essential for survival in the 21st cnetury world” (p.825).

The term heutagogy, coined by Chris Kenyon (cited in Hase & Kenyon, 2007), is derived from the ancient Greek word for “self” with some adjustments and the “gogy” or “gogia” - andother Greek word for “to lead” - added. The term arose because of the conceptual debate with Steward Hase (cited in Hase & Kenyon, 2007) that knowledge and skills or competencies acquired do not equate to learning at a deeper cognitive level as existing curricula were very teacher-centric with little opportunity for any real involvement at a micro or even macro level by the learner.

Heutagogy is concerned with the need for immediacy of learning to meet learner perceived needs. The educational approach aims to provide a holistic development by equipping a learner with an independent capability to question one’s own values and assumptions, to examine the critical role of the system-environment interface and knowing how to learn (Kenyon & Hase, 2001).

Heutagogy is the study of self-determined or self-directed learning involving mature learners (Canning, 2010; Kenyong & Hase, 2001). it works based on the understanding that given the right environment, people want to learn and have a natural inclination to do so throughout their lives. It is a student-centric or learner-centric approach with five key hypotheses (Kenyon & Hase, 2001, p.3):

• We cannot teach another person directly; we can only facilitate learning;
• people learn significantly only those things that they perceive as being involved in the maintenance of enhancement of the structure of self;
• Experience, which if assimilated would involve a change in the organisation of self, tends to be resisted through denial or distortation of symbolization and the structure and organisation of self appear to become more rigid under threat;
• Experience which is perceived as inconsistent with the self can only be assimilated if the current organisation of self is relaxed and expanded to include it; and
• The educational system which most effectively promotes significant learning is one in which threat to the self, as learner, is reduced to a minimum.

Heutagogy recognises the need to address rapid changes and information explosion through flexibility in curriculum, knowledge sharing and not knowledge hoarding and creating new knowledge from existing experience (Aston & Newman, 2006).

References

Aston, J., & Newman, l. (2006). An unfinished symphony: 21st century teacher education using knowledge creating heutagogies. British Journal of Educational Technology, 37(6), 825-840. 

Bhoyrub, J., Hurley, J., Neilson, G.R., Ramsay, M., & Smith, M. (2010). Heutagogy: An alternative practice based learning approach. Nurse Education in Practice, 19(6), 322-326.

Canning, N., & Callan, S. (2010). Heutagogy: Spirals of reflection to empower learners in higher education. Reflective Practice, 11(1), 71-82.

Eberle, J. (2009). Heutagogy: What your mother didn’t tell you about pedagogy and the conceptual age. Proceedings of the Europrean Conference on e-Learning, 181-188.

Hase, S., & Kenyon, C. (2007). Heutagogy: A child of complexity theory. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity & Education, 4(1), 111-117.

Kenyon, C., & Hase, S. (2001). Moving from andragogy to heutagogy in vocational education. Retrieved May 29, 2011, from http://www.avetra.org.au/PAPERS%202001/kenyon%20hase.pdf.

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