Teaching and learning are two terms that can sometimes be used interchangeably.
And while you cannot have one without the other, they are not the same thing.
Naturally we all think of ‘teaching’ in relation to ‘teachers’ and the profession of those who have taught us, perhaps for as long as we can remember.
But teaching is more than a profession.
It is about sharing knowledge and experience and scaffolding that knowledge so ultimately our learners (no matter whether they are pre-school, of statutory education age, or adults – of any age) can understand and develop and demonstrate knowledge of their own.
And ‘learning’ therefore is about the activity of acquiring that knowledge, experience and understanding.
Teaching therefore needs to happen prior to learning.
And, no matter whether we are using technology to teach or we are teaching face-to-face, teaching needs to be a prerequisite to learning.
One exception to this is where we ask our students, or future learners, what they know before we start teaching them. Perhaps at the start of a session, a term, a topic.
This is a learner-led activity that allows those learning to think and reflect about what they know, and also about what they don’t know, in order that they are prepared to be taught and ready to learn.
One thing that I noticed when distance/remote learning came in for people of all ages in March 2020 was that there was a lot of learning activities that were just being ‘put out there’.
It was tantamount to panic.
Almost as if those in teaching roles were being told ‘just give them something to do!’ and this is fine for a while, as the teaching had been taking place.
And there was some room for understanding as this move to remote learning was not factored into anybody’s teaching plans.
In fact, the learning that pupils and students were being asked to do could be informed by the teaching that had occurred, albeit relatively recently.
But then there reaches a point where the relevance of that teaching has expired and it is time to teach something new or develop the existing knowledge further.
And there was a tendency by some to just keep shovelling activities out via email or via LMS or VLEs and this is where problems have the potential to emerge.
What is important that when we are teaching with technology, there always needs to be a foundation of knowledge shared i.e. taught prior to expecting our learners to learn.
Learning activities alone will not help anyone to flourish.
By teaching first, then the learning can begin and continue.