Gatekeepers, Midwives and Fellow Travellers

Learning Alignments and Pedagogy in Adult Education

Gerald Jones
Head of Humanities, Mary Ward Centre

Introduction: The Conventional Debate

“The plain, monotonous vault of a school room…the little vessels then and there arranged in
order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the
brim.” Charles Dickens ‘Hard Times’ Ch 1

Should pedagogy be teacher-centred or learner-centred? Where does responsibility

for learning most lie: with the teacher or learner? Is learning made more effective by
focussing resources on the teacher or the learner? This tussle between traditional and
progressive pedagogies raises questions that are of interest to all the anti-vampiric (or
anti-gremlin) stakeholders in education: teachers, quality managers, inspectors,
funders, teacher trainers, educationalists and, of course, learners.

Dickens’ stultifying description of a teacher-centred approach, with Gradgrind the

pedagogue ready to fill up those empty vessels, offered a crude starting point for
debates of this kind. The adoption by educationalists of the ‘Transmission Model’1
(wherein learners are seen as analogous to telephone handsets) and Behaviourism2
(wherein learners are seen as analogous to starving pigeons) did no favours for the
cause of teacher-centred teaching. As the new discipline of psychology, with its
scientific pretensions, evolved through the last century so theories of learning became
more sophisticated. A reaction to the perception of learners as information
receptacles was inevitable, and from the 1960s onwards3 the emphasis was on a more
learner-centred (‘right everybody, let’s push the desks against the wall and form a
circle’) approach.

The legacy of these debates, which were grounded in the field and lab work of
psychologists, is still with us. Traditionalists and progressives occasionally still fling
proverbial mud from their ideological playing fields at one another, exaggerating their
opponents' position in a tabloid frenzy. The debate echoes Rousseau's account of how
a child is usually raised:

"Either we do what pleases him, or we exact from him what pleases us. Either we submit to
4
his whims, or we submit him to ours. No middle ground..."

1
C.E. Shannon and W. Weaver The Mathematical Theory Of Communication University of Illinois
Press 1949
2
See for example E. L. Thorndike The Fundamentals of Learning Teachers College Press1932
3
Although Carl Rogers’ was touting the idea of student-centred teaching in the early ‘50s (see Client
Centred Therapy, Houghton Mifflin 1951), and Lev Vygotsky back in the 1920s, although his work
wasn’t widely read until the publication in English of Thought and Language in 1962.
4
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Emile or On Education trans. Allan Bloom Basic Books 1979 p48

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It is politely pointed out by educationalists that these contrasting approaches aren’t

simply two poles, but form a continuum (figure 1.) with the right approach falling
somewhere in between the two depending on the context (e.g. ‘Discovering your
Inner Adolescent’ classes tend to be learner-centred, whilst, for Health & Safety
reasons, 'Tai Chi Short Form with Sword' classes lean towards being teacher-centred).

Figure 1. The Teacher-Learner continuum

Teacher- Learner-
Centred Centred

But it is sometimes forgotten5 that there is a third element of the teaching-and-

learning process that is just as influential in determining the pedagogical decisions
and approaches taken by a teacher. This third element is the material – the subject
matter. Introducing this element complicates the simple teacher-student bipolarity,
and an additional (subject-centred) stance enters the fray. It is usually in higher
education that a subject-centred approach predominates, with academics placing their
chosen scholastic obsession above both their students and occasionally even their own
ivory towers.6 But Gradgrind himself hadn’t forgotten the importance of the very
stuff of teaching:

“NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are
wanted in life… This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the
principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”7

Three Elements of Teaching and Learning

The process of teaching and learning, in an educational context, consists of three

necessary elements (more formally, teaching is a triadic relation8): there is always
someone doing the teaching, someone on the receiving end of the teaching, and some
thing that is being taught. Or, from the student’s perspective, someone doing the
learning, someone guiding the learning and something (they know not what) that is
being learnt. In short teaching involves a teacher, a learner and some material. Given
that teaching is a triadic relation, it seems wrong-headed to ignore any of these
elements. A robust pedagogical model must consider all three elements and the
relative positioning of them within a teaching and learning context.

Initially it might seem as if our picture of the traditional teacher-learner continuum

can simply be converted into a three-way rivalry between the elements, with a choice
5
Although not always forgotten, see for example Alan Rogers Teaching Adults Open University Press
1986 pp 119-124 and James Atherton ‘Teacher, Learner and Subject: sculpting the system’ Learning in
Higher Education Conference, University of Sheffield March 1999.
6
For an example of how a subject-centred approach can be applied across all educational contexts see
John Wilson 'Two Types of Teaching' in R.D. Archambault ed. Philosophical Analysis and Education
Routledge 1972 pp 157-170
7
Charles Dickens Hard Times Ch 1 Penguin 1994
8
John Passmore The Philosophy of Teaching Duckworth 1980 pp 22-23.

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of three distinct pedagogical approaches arising out of each of these poles (figure 2.).
From this point of view prioritising the subject leads to a subject-centred approach,
placing the learner at the centre leads to a learner-centred approach etc.

Figure 2.
Do the three elements of teaching & learning give rise to three distinct pedagogical
approaches?

Teacher Learner Teacher-Centred Learner-Centred

3 Elements 3 Pedagogies

Material Material-Centred

But the relationships between the three elements are more subtle than this
oppositional model suggests, and the range of pedagogical approaches
correspondingly more complex. The three elements of teaching and learning do not
exist in conflict with one another, and teachers do not generally prioritise one element
completely over the other two. Instead teachers juggle simultaneously with all three
elements: any one element can be positioned more or less closely to each of the other
elements, and this gives rise to a small number of common clusters, or alignments.

It is these various teaching and learning alignments, and the pedagogical model they
generate, that I explore in the rest of this article. This model describes the relative
position, or alignments, of the three elements of teaching and learning in an
educational context, and what this means on the ground in terms of classroom
practice. I shall refer to this model as the Learning Alignments model (in current
parlance it would be termed the ‘Teaching and Learning Alignments’ model, but like
much contemporary edu-speak this sounds too clunky).

The most common learning alignments are formed by the various pairings of the three
elements9. There are three possible pairings: 1) teacher and material; 2) learner and
material; 3) teacher and learner. Pairing up these elements means that in each case
there is another element left free, in the case of 1) it is the learner, in 2) it is the
teacher etc. So exploring each learning alignment means not only analysing the
relationship between the paired elements, but also understanding the nature of the gap
between the pair and the remaining element.

Teachers have long recognised that the traditional framing of the pedagogical debate
(‘teacher-centred’ vs ‘learner-centred’ vs ‘subject-centred’) simplifies and caricatures
their practice in the classroom. Teacher-trainers, educationalists and policy-makers
should now consider alternative models of pedagogy that capture the subtleties and
9
When I constructed this model I had not come across the work of James Atherton, at De Montfort
University. Atherton proposes at least 6 arrangements or ‘sculpts’ as he calls them: see Atherton 1999
or http://www.doceo.co.uk/tools/subtle_1.htm.
http://www.doceo.co.uk/tools/subtle_1.htm

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complexities of a teacher's classroom practice. It is such a model that I attempt to

describe below.

Learning Alignment 1: The Gatekeeper

Interior. Classroom. Day.

This must be the dullest lesson, taught by the least charismatic teacher, to the most bored
students, in the history of the universe. There is not a flicker of response to the teacher’s
monotone drawl:
“In 1930 the Republican controlled House of Representatives in an effort to alleviate the
effects of …anyone?…anyone?…the…anyone?…Great Depression, passed the…
anyone?…anyone?…the Tariff Bill, which…anyone?…Raised or lowered?… anyone?…
Raised tariffs in an effort to collect more revenue for Federal Government. Did it work?
…anyone?
The students’ blank faces asked the blank windows.
It did not work and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have
a similar debate over this…Anyone know what this is?… Class?… Anyone? …the Laffer
curve… Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980?… anyone?…
Something ‘d’…‘o’…‘o’… anyone? …voodoo economics.”10

This scene captures a learning alignment that all of us are painfully familiar with from
our schooldays. Here the teacher is closely aligned with the material, she is the
Gatekeeper to it, whilst the learner is expected somehow to digest the material and
regurgitate it. This is traditionally what's been described as 'teacher-centred' or
‘subject-centred’ pedagogy, but really this approach reveals the strength of the
connection between both teacher and subject (Figure 3).

Figure 3.
Alignment 1: The Gatekeeper
TEACHER

MATERIAL

LEARNER

This alignment is common in many educational contexts, from driving instructors to

drill instructors, from learning times-tables to studying Thames tidals. The teacher
may act as a trainer, instructor, authority, expert etc. but broadly speaking she adopts
a role as Gatekeeper of the material. As such she introduces the material to the
learners as she thinks appropriate and she takes responsibility for getting learners
through the gate (or refusing them admission should they fail). Because the teacher
aligns herself with the material she generally thinks it’s worth something, and puts it
forward to the class as being of value. The teacher's advocacy for the subject matter
gives students a sense that they're learning something worthwhile, and can inspire
them to continue learning outside of the classroom.

10
From Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, written and directed by John Hughes, 1986.

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This alignment is popular in Higher and Further education because, compared with
the other alignments, it appears to have greater economy, efficiency and focus: more
material can be delivered in less time to more students. However, many adult
educators have been uncomfortable taking such an approach, as it places learners in a
secondary position.

"I don't care a damn what any of you are called, but if there's another word from anyone I
shall keep you all in this afternoon… Meanwhile you will write an essay on 'Self-indulgence'.
There will be a prize of half a crown for the longest essay, irrespective of any possible merit."
11

The learner's position within this alignment may be described as one of an Apprentice.
They quickly realise that they are there to learn from the person standing at the front
of the class, someone who seems to know what they're talking about. Many adult
learners find this reassuring, and a justification of the extortionate fees they might’ve
paid (and certainly will pay in the future): the teacher is getting on with it and not
wasting any time. Some learners enjoy the passivity of their role in this alignment,
particularly if the teacher is charismatic or entertaining; and as this is a role that
they’ve been used to at school, and there is no compulsion to contribute to the class,
they remain safely within their comfort zones.

" 'Who is the greatest Italian painter?"

'Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie.'
12
'That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto, he is my favourite.' "

However, as with Jean Brodie’s set, there is a real danger of indoctrination when
adopting this alignment13. Even adult learners are sometimes liable to conflate their
judgement of the worth of the teacher (as an authority on the material and the
authority figure in the class) with their judgement of the worth of the material. 'Here
is an intelligent person who I like and trust and who has thought about this subject in
far more detail than me: if she tell me it's true, then it probably is true.' Moreover,
within the worst deployments of this alignment, the learner is not allowed the
intellectual space or time to question the material, to prise an opening between the
authority of the teacher and the authority of the material, and there is little room for
critical or sceptical discussion.

So a teacher adopting the gatekeeper alignment must take care to preserve the ‘critical
gap’. This is the intellectual breathing space which allows learners to feel confident
in questioning the material, even when the teacher believes the material is simply true.

Learning Alignment 2: The Midwife

“[I] look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies…I ask questions
of others and have not the wit to answer them myself…It is quite clear that they never learned

11
Evelyn Waugh Decline and Fall Penguin 1937 p38
12
Muriel Spark The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Penguin 1961 p11
13
It was personal observation of an adult education class in the process of indoctrination (because of
the close alignment of the teacher to the material), and a reflection on how a critical space for thinking
might be created and preserved, that originally led me to a Learning Alignments model.

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anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But
to me…they owe their delivery.” 14

Socrates saw his teaching role as one in which he enabled students to discover
philosophical truths for themselves: he might ask students the questions, and probe
more deeply into their answers, but he was only a midwife for their ideas. Figure 4
shows the alignment of the learner with the material, with the teacher acting as
facilitator / midwife. This approach became associated with the learner-centred
‘progressive’ pedagogies of the 1960s and '70s, but ‘learner-centred’ is a misnomer
here for two reasons. First, the teacher is in fact directing the learners towards the
material, and has disguised her position as the director by taking a step back from the
classroom activity and letting the learners get on with it. Secondly, the point of
adopting this alignment is so that the learners grasp the material for themselves: this
approach is determined not just by the nature and needs of the students but also by the
nature of the material.

Figure 4
Alignment 2: The Midwife
TEACHER

MATERIAL
LEARNER

Within this learning alignment the teacher takes the position of facilitator, whose role
it is to enable the learners to discover the material and its processes for themselves:
hence the close alignment of learner and material. The teacher may appear to take a
back seat in the classroom, but she has selected the learning material and set up the
classroom activities, using the appropriate scaffolding, in order to maximise learning
and ensure that the learning objectives are reached. A successful midwife puts in a lot
of effort to constructing appropriate activities, usually through trial and error, and this
makes it the most labour-intensive alignment. In practice teachers that successfully
adopt this alignment are able to draw from a range of activities, which may have been
refined over a number of academic years, and which can be selected in a pick-and-mix
way. This is hardly learner-centred, although it is true that learners do participate
more in this learning alignment than in the Gatekeeper alignment. It is also true that
this alignment compels the teacher to take into account the needs of the learners when
choosing or creating the classroom activities. Finally, many teachers choose the role
of midwife because it enables learners to grasp the processes and structure of the
material, rather than just bare matters of fact.
15
"Knowing how something is put together is worth a thousand facts about it."

From the point of view of the learner this alignment offers a much more active and
engaging learning experience than the Gatekeeper alignment. Learners take the
position of participants who are offered stimulating activities and material to
14
Quote from the character of Socrates in Plato's Theaetetus 150 b-151d
15
Jerome Bruner In Search of Mind: Essays in Autobiography Harper & Row 1983 p 183

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experiment with. They have the chance to contribute to discussions in small groups
and in structured plenary sessions with the whole class. The key feature of this
learning alignment is that the material is put within the grasp of the learners. This
may because of the nature of the material (e.g. it is directly accessible through
introspection, such as when analysing the emotions generated during a confidence-
building course) or it may be because the teacher has constructed activities that enable
learners to reach the material for themselves. As advocates of this alignment (Bruner,
Ausubel and Co.) are eager to point out16 this can help to make the material more
meaningful (because the learner can connect it with what they already know), more
relevant (because the teacher has selected appropriate material in advance), more
memorable (because something discovered is more easily remembered than
something told) and more transferable (because a process or a structure can be
transferred across varying contexts). Moreover, because the teacher has taken a step
back from the material, learners feel able (and encouraged) to take a critical approach
to the material, and the dangers of indoctrination are avoided.

Some learners find this new-fangled approach to teaching (wherein the learner is seen
as actually having something to offer to a class) a bit disorienting.

"i mean in the old days you knew where you were but now they are trying to read your inmost
17
thorts heaven help them."

However, the teacher may be acting more or less sincerely, when taking the role of the
facilitator-midwife. Where the teacher adopts this alignment disingenuously, learners
may feel patronised by the activities, or may feel that they are wasting their time when
the teacher could simply tell them the answers or what they need to know. The
teacher may also be disguising the difficulty of the material by encouraging learners
to explore and experiment with only the most accessible parts of the subject, and this
will have a depressing effect on students once they attempt to tackle the material on
their own. Finally, because activities and discussion take time and are somewhat
unpredictable in the direction they take, this means that less material can be got
through and that learners may miss out on some of the essentials.

Learning Alignment 3: The Fellow Traveller

"When they have moved the tables, Howard has the students arrange their chairs in a neat
little circle, near to but not at the precise centre of the room. 'Right' he says, dragging his
own chair into the circle, 'that should improve interaction. We can't see you properly,
Hashmi. Move your chair forward about two feet.' " 18

In the final of the three main learning alignments the teacher aligns herself alongside
her students, in a more democratic classroom environment. This may occur,
unplanned, in any class where a discussion turns towards a subject in which the
teacher is as equally knowledgeable (or ignorant) as the student. Or, as with the
Midwife, it may be a deliberate strategy chosen to encourage learning. This

16
See for example David Ausubel, Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View Holt, Rinehart &
Winston (1978) or Jerome Bruner The Process of Education Harvard University Press (1977)
17
Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle Down With Skool Collins 1973 p40
18
Malcolm Bradbury The History Man Vintage 1988 p129.

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alignment has also been associated with progressive ‘learner-centred’ pedagogies but
once again that this term fails to capture the subtleties of this approach. The focus of
the class is the material (not the learners) and teachers and students direct much of
their energies towards this (see Figure 5). But nor is it simply a subject-centred
approach, since the teacher adopts a position which enables the learners to develop
their skills as learners of any subject, not just this one.

Figure 5
Learning Alignment 3: The Fellow Travellers
TEACHER

LEARNER

MATERIAL

The Fellow Traveller alignment is most fruitfully taken when exploring subjects in
which there are few ‘givens’: either because of the nature of the material (for
example, within philosophical, spiritual, experiential, emotional or aesthetic subjects),
or because they have yet to be determined (for example, in the uncharted territories of
post-graduate work). For both these reasons the Fellow Traveller is the position often
adopted alongside the Gatekeeper alignment in Higher Education (the classic Lecture-
Seminar combo), where the teacher is genuinely researching new and innovative
material alongside the learners.

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing
19
that is worth knowing can be taught."

In one version of this alignment the teacher steps down from her role as teacher, and
becomes a fellow learner in a class of learners who are out to analyse, refine or
discover the material. Teachers in adult education often profess to value the classes,
despite the low wages, precisely because of the opportunities they have to learn from
their students. The Fellow Traveller alignment enhances this possibility, as the
learners find themselves taking a different role and position in the class: they are now
on an equal footing with the teacher and so may feel liberated and more able to say
what they think. This means that, as with the Midwife alignment where the teacher
also maintains a critical distance from the subject matter, there is a space within which
the learners can doubt and question the material. There is a sense of exciting
unpredictability: when both teacher and learner are on the same journey of discovery
then there is a chance that something startling will be unearthed.

"There are classes where the teacher, not wanting to direct the movement of mind unduly, will
remain silent throughout the class, awaiting spontaneous explosions of intelligence from his
students; there are classes, indeed, where the silence never gets broken."20

In another version of this alignment the learners step up into the teacher role. For
some students this accelerates learning since, in order to teach well, the material needs

19
Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist Sun & Moon Books 1997 p8
20
Malcolm Bradbury The History Man Vintage 1988 p128

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to be digested, rehearsed, made coherent and meaningful for the person delivering it.
Where learners are able to do this, as in a successful seminar series, they then become
fellow teachers alongside the teacher (although sadly it is only the latter who will be
drawing down a salary for their efforts). Learner autonomy is therefore encouraged,
as the teacher can no longer be seen as the source of expertise and answers, and other
methods for arriving at the 'answers' must be sought. Such collective exploration is
empowering for learners, as they become part of a learning community of peers, and
this alignment acknowledges the life experience and insights that all adult learners can
bring to a class.

However, as with the Midwife alignment, the learning journey may meander since the
teacher has relinquished control of the material. There may be boundary issues as the
teacher no longer obviously guides, or ‘holds’, the group and this can be unsettling
and anxiety inducing for some learners. This can lead to a frustrating session for both
students and teacher, as essential ground is missed, and irrelevant backwaters
explored. The frustration can be tempered where the teacher adopts a ‘first amongst
equals’ approach, and establishes and maintains groundrules for the journey. But
because the session is an adventure for both teacher and learner, and as the material
has not been pre-selected or ordered, an element of randomness can creep in and
hence some learners may struggle to make their discoveries relevant or meaningful.

Learning Alignments and the Expert Practitioner

"To feel or act towards the right person to the right extent at the right time for the right
reason in the right way – that is not easy…Hence to do these things well is a rare, laudable
and fine achievement." 21

You might anticipate finding appended to this paper a Cosmo-style questionnaire in

which you could determine your own ‘preferred learning alignment’22. In other words
there may be an expectation that the three main categories of learning alignments
could be applied at a global level, to a teacher’s approach whatever the course. But
what we have found in researching this model is that, even with the most die-hard
chalk’n’talk lecturer, there are elements of each alignment present in every lesson.
So, unfortunately the learning alignments model cannot take its place alongside other
quick-fix, tick-box, input-output frameworks that are so beloved by parts of the
educational community (Tutor: ‘I’m teaching Intermediate Widgetry to a group of
Over 60s learners this Sunday, which alignment should I adopt?’ Line Manager:
‘Well, according to this chart it should be two-thirds Gatekeeper blended with one-
third Midwife.’ Tutor: ‘Fine, I’ll give them a lecture then a worksheet.’). Instead this
model is more usefully applied at a local level, describing the position of the three
elements during specific segments of a particular teaching session.

21
Aristotle Ethics 1109a26 Penguin 1988 p 109
22
(Mostly ‘A’s: You fantasise about lecturing in giant stadiums to thousands of people hypnotised by
your wit and rhetorical flourishes regarding molluscs; colleagues avoid you in the staff room. Mostly
‘B’s: your class furniture is arranged in an 'It's A Knockout'-style assault course; you’ve sent in
proposals for a number of daytime TV light entertainment game-shows; colleagues avoid you in the
staff room. Mostly ‘C’s: you wear baggy Levi's and a hoody, your classroom is the street, your
textbook is Life; you wouldn’t be seen dead in the staff room, for real.)

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It seems that the ‘expert practitioner’, the adult educator who is working at the peak of
her game, adjusts the learning alignment (consciously or unconsciously) throughout
every class – and achieves the best results by doing so. She is alert to what is going
on in the class: Are the learners holding back, remaining quiet, not participating?
What can I do about their puzzled faces? They’re talking to me, but how can I get
them talking to each other? Did I explain that clearly enough? I don’t know the
answer to that question, but how can we pursue it anyway? Such a practitioner is able
to navigate through a lesson and adopt an alignment that is most appropriate for that
context, to this group of learners, with these needs and directed towards those learning
objectives (a typical example is given in Figure 6). In this sense the skill of the
teacher in aligning the three elements is what Aristotle might have considered a
virtue: an ability to make the optimum and most appropriate decision in every
circumstance.23

Figure 6
Shifting alignments through a lesson: from Gatekeeper to Midwife

TEACHER TEACHER
TEACH ER
TEACHER

MATERIAL

MATERIAL MATERIAL
LEARNER LEARNER LEARNER

Teacher spends some time Learners are encouraged to Learners are given
introducing a new topic ask the teacher questions structured activity to explore
about the material the material for themselves

Conscious shifting of alignments by an expert practitioner enables her to reap the

benefits of each alignment, whilst avoiding their potential pitfalls. So she is able to:
remain an advocate for the material, whilst allowing a critical gap for learners
to interrogate the material;
position the material such that it becomes relevant, meaningful, memorable
and accessible for learners, whilst not understating the potential challenges of
fully grasping the material;
learn alongside the learners, and enable them to teach one another, whilst
guiding and supporting the group and not letting it drift or unravel.

Conclusion: Applying the Learning Alignments Model

"As any teacher knows, as soon as you get in a classroom most of what educationalists have
written seems utterly divorced from reality." 24

There are two main problems with the traditional (teacher-centred, student-centred)
categorisations of pedagogy. First they are too blunt in their privileging of only one
of the three elements of teaching-and-learning; and secondly they are not sensitive
23
For example see Aristotle Ethics 1106 b20 Penguin 1988 p 101
24
John Wilson 'Two Types of Teaching' in R.D. Archambault ed. Philosophical Analysis and
Education Routledge 1972 p 158

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enough to adaptations of a teacher’s practice, in response to variances in the subject,

session, learners etc. The learning alignment model recognises that a teacher’s
approach is fluid and that it changes through a session and over a programme. The
model also captures more of the complexity of the relationships between learner,
teacher and subject, and recognises that these elements are not generally oppositional
but conspiratorial or collaborative. The better fit of the learning alignment model to
classroom practice should make it useful to practitioners and managers in some of the
following respects.

Identifying problems
Every class presents its own challenges, and solutions to these may come by framing
them in terms of learning alignments. Consideration of the alignment that’s currently
being taken, and whether it’s the right one for that situation, can throw light on
questions like: Why aren't learners joining in? Why aren’t the learners bonding with
each other? Why don’t learners interrogate the material more? Why aren’t the group
asking questions? Why haven’t we covered the material we should have? Why aren’t
learners practising outside class? Why are my learners from last year finding more
advanced classes so difficult? Why are learners getting frustrated? Why is there a
high dropout rate with this class? It could well be that these problems have arisen
because a teacher has settled into a single learning alignment, and that this alignment
is inappropriate with this subject matter and for this group of learners. So becoming
familiar with the different uses, strengths and weaknesses of each alignment, can lead
to a shift away from a dominant learning alignment to the deployment of a range of
other alignments that are more suitable.

Session planning
Adult educators are aware that there will be as many learning styles and needs in their
classes as there will be learners. Without determining in advance what this range will
be, a teacher can still plan her classes in order to reach every learner, by ensuring that
a full range of appropriate learning alignments are used in each session. This means
planning activities (see below) that engage learners in a variety of ways. Obvious?
No, not really, because most teachers have preferred teaching styles – preferred
learning alignments – and we are quite happy to settle into the role of gatekeeper, for
example, even if that doesn’t suit this particular subject delivered in this particular
context. So, planning and building in activities which shift gears through the learning
alignments should ensure that the spectrum of learners’ needs and styles are met.

Questioning techniques
Much has been written on the categorisation and uses of questions in classroom
practice25, and although there is some disagreement over an exact taxonomy of
questions there is a consensus that some types of questions (e.g. inferential or
reflective) contribute more to learning than others (e.g. mind-reading or procedural).
The learning alignments model offers a new perspective on this debate, and enables us
to categorise questions according to the three main alignments. We have seen above
that each alignment brings its own benefits and drawbacks, and an awareness of these
should lead to a more careful selection of the type of question used in a class. Below

25
For example see Dennie Palmer Wolf ‘The Art of Questioning’ in Academic Connections pp1-7,
Winter 1987, and D.L. Redfield and E.W. Rousseau ‘A meta-analysis of experimental research on
teacher questioning behaviour’ Review of Educational Research, 51(2) 237-245, 1981.

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is a table indicating how the type of question that a teacher asks reveals the alignment
that she is taking whilst asking that question.

Category of
Description Alignment
Question
Requests for specific details (which are generally closed
Information
questions).
Checks how much learners already know / what they
Assessment
have learnt / how much they remember.
Gatekeeper
The teacher has a particular answer in mind, and will
Mind-Reading
keep rephrasing the question until learners guess it.

Rhetorical No need to answer these.

A series of questions that attempts to lead learners to a

Socratic
specific conclusion.
Learners are asked to make connections, and to see what
Inferential
follows from what they already know.
Midwife
Learners asked to take what they have learnt and transfer
Transferral
it to new examples or situations.
Verifies that learners have understood a set of
Procedural
instructions, e.g. regarding an activity.
Learners and teacher stand back from the material to
Reflective
question it or examine its assumptions.
The teacher is trying to understand what learners are Fellow
Empathetic
thinking, what they mean, what’s in their minds. Traveller
The teacher genuinely doesn't know the answer to the
Acquisition
question, and wants to find it out from someone in class.

Stretching learning
We’ve seen that differing learning alignments contain differing relations between
learners and the material. Understanding how an alignment affects learning is crucial
for challenging learners, and developing their skills as learners. It is easy for a
gatekeeper to indoctrinate students, even without realising it, and to allow certain
orthodox beliefs (which coincide with the beliefs of the teacher) to thrive amongst
learners. Whilst this is flattering, simply 'coming to believe what the teacher believes'
cannot be a goal of adult education, particularly when many adult education courses
quite rightly explore the fringes of established beliefs (and hence should be
approached by learners with a critical, as well as an open, mind). As well as enabling
learners to grasp the subject matter, an adult educator must also promote learner
autonomy: the development of skills, and an understanding of the processes, that lead
to independent learning. So the desire of the Gatekeeper for learners to understand
the material must often be tempered by the Midwife’s and Fellow Traveller’s desire
for learners to become critical thinkers, learners who will eventually be able to arrive
at the material on their own. Learners, if they are to become autonomous, need a gap
within which they can offer their own criticisms, insights and opinions, which means
teachers standing back from the material and encouraging active learning (something
the midwife and fellow traveller alignments provide).

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Reflective practice
The learning alignments model itself grew out of reflective practice (see footnote 12)
and can be used to inform the reflective practice of other teachers. Knowing where
your strengths are; knowing which alignments you tend to adopt and why (is it
because it's the way I was taught? is it because I’m protecting myself/the students/the
material? is it because I don't trust the learners enough? is it because I want my
lessons to be fun? or because this method requires less preparation? etc…);
understanding which alignment might be most appropriate, given your particular
subject matter and students; observing other teachers within the same subject area
who adopt different alignments from yourself; stepping back, in the heat of a session,
and considering where the class can, or should, go from here; becoming aware of
when the learning alignment is shifting, and whether this is deliberate, unconscious or
uncontrolled. These are skills that are honed, through reflection, by the expert
practitioner.

Staff development
As a staff development tool the learning alignments model presents a framework that
is pretty clear and simple, but which nonetheless captures some of the complexities of
a teacher’s practice. The model can be offered to staff as a means of encouraging
reflective practice, course planning and problem solving etc., as outlined above. Of
course it is true that all models of human activities necessarily simplify those
activities, and many teachers are justifiably sceptical of frameworks that claim to
model classroom practice. The learning alignments model will be received with no
less scepticism. However, some frameworks of practice are more fertile than others,
insofar as they generate more ideas and possibilities for practitioners. I hope to have
shown that the learning alignments model possesses this kind of richness because it
touches on so many areas of classroom practice, and because it sketches the
relationships between those areas (for example, between advocacy, indoctrination and
what I’ve termed the ‘critical gap’, or lack of it, in a class). Understanding the model
can also give practitioners confidence in their skills as teachers: for example knowing
that they can work in three different modes; that each of these modes accomplishes
certain goals; that all modes are effective when done well and in the right context; and
that none of them need be avoided.

Selecting activities
Finally, teaching and learning are activities, and in a formal educational context it is
the teacher, and not the learner, who controls and determines these activities. Even
the decision to hand the class over to the learners, to become a genuine fellow
traveller, is a decision made by the teacher. So one of the most fundamental skills
that a teacher needs is the ability to select, construct and evaluate classroom activities:
what she is doing, what the learners are doing, and what is happening to the material
along the way. Understanding the learning alignments will help a teacher choose an
activity that both suits the learners and fits the material. In broad terms the teacher
can deliver the material to the students (as gatekeeper); the teacher can take the
material halfway to the learners, and provide the means for learners to come to meet it
(as midwife); or the teacher may travel with the learners to find the material (as fellow
traveller). Figure 7 offers a suggested taxonomy of educational activities according to
their most common use within a learning alignment.

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Figure 7
A Taxonomy of Educational Activities

brainstorm textual analysis

group / paired work community of enquiry
formal debate experiential activity
mock jury reflective activity
buzz groups seminar
card-sorts carousel workshop
card grouping rainbowing modelling
card ranking demonstrating
applying theory EXPLORATION exampling
DISCUSSION
mystery

ORGANISATION DEMONSTRATION
Fellow Traveller
role-plays TEACHER

LEARNER

movement activities MATERIAL

TEACHER

lecture/lecturette
lining up / continuum
MATERIAL

LEARNER

presentation
auctions SIMULATION Midwife Gatekeeper PRESENTATION instruction
goldfish bowl / triads TEACHER
verbal exposition
thought experiments
MATERIAL
LEARNER

COMPREHENSION
COMPOSITION assignments
word frame creative writing
worksheet posters
comprehension newspapers, slogans
finish the sentence QUESTION
COMPETITION adverts, post-cards
highlighting consequences
data-response flipcharting
games quizzes projects
board games questionnaires case studies
derivative games worksheets journal
games of chance/dice Socratic Q & A sessions
forms
psychometric tests
G Jones 2005

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