Education and Learning: a helpful distinction

While the choice to use ‘education/educational’ or ‘learning’ in terminology describing activities (‘learning design’) and people (‘educational technologist’) is often arbitrary, it shouldn’t be. We can use these terms to add valuable context that better informs our discussion of key areas of Higher Education purpose and operation and I would like to suggest how. 

My research is centered around improving the working relationships between academics, institutional leaders, and a class of Third Space workers that I call ‘educator advisors or ed advisors’: learning designers, academic developers, educational technologists, and people with assorted similar roles. I’m particularly interested in how we can work together more effectively to enable better learning and teaching, and a significant part of this involves examining what currently gets in the way. Sitting high in the list of these barriers is understanding of roles and their purpose, which makes sense given the liminality of the Third Space. Terminology being used inconsistently, role definitions and purposes varying from work unit to unit, and high degrees of overlap between roles all contribute to a haziness around who does what and why in the ed advisor space. 

One of the greatest challenges is that many people inside this space see things from distinctly different positions, so a definition that seems logical in one context is completely inapplicable in another. There are fractures between people in academic and professional roles, between those working in faculties/schools and central units, and even between those with an operational focus and a project focus.  

My official title is Education Innovation Designer, but I see myself more as an Educational Technologist. I see the role of a technologist as someone that acts as a bridge between IT and teaching, bringing pedagogical understanding to the evaluation, implementation and support of technologies that enable good learning and teaching. In addition, these roles support and enable good technology-enhanced learning and teaching practice. 

As a technologist, I have noted the “Learning Technologist of the Year” award offered by the UK-based Association of Learning Technologies (ALT). I read the explanations of why some of the winners won, and think to myself – ‘but they’re not an ed technologist, they don’t do this and that and the other, they’re an educator who uses technology’. But the fault lies in me for assuming that ‘education technologist’ and ‘learning technologist’ are interchangeable descriptors. Or perhaps for assuming that any terminology is used consistently enough to be reliable. ALT states on their website that their “membership is open to anyone with a professional interest in using digital technologies for learning, teaching and assessment”. Following this logic, their learning technologists are a parallel but different beast entirely to me, a professional staff member in a central team doing the things I mentioned earlier. 

So why do I mention this and why do I think it matters? 

From what I have seen (Mitchell et al., 2017; Simpson et al., 2021), there is no meaningful global differentiation between the use of “education/al” and “learning” in role titles or activities. It is perhaps interesting to note that “teaching” appears less frequently in titles, even though in practical terms this is the main activity that support and advice is being applied to. Teaching does appear more often in the names of units dedicated to these activities - to the extent that they are commonly referred to as Centres for Learning and Teaching.

In my own institution, an educational designer is generally a more senior role than a learning designer but even this varies across our ten faculties. Titles are far more likely to be based on the stylistic whims or past experiences of leaders than any kind of established professional identity. 

I have no doubt that I am wandering into a quagmire now because if there is anything people like to do in academia, it is argue endlessly about the correct language to use in any given context. The less practical the discussion and more removed it can be from practical application, the better, it seems.

However, I would like to propose some broad principles that might help to differentiate the terms education and learning when used in relation to supporting and enabling them in Higher Ed. 

“Learning” in this context is related directly to providing opportunities for students to learn. It includes sharing content, facilitating communication, assessing understanding, practicing skills, fostering engagement and allowing for reflection, among other things.

Some may feel that we might more accurately describe this as teaching, as arguably we ultimately have little control over students’ actual learning. This may be true but from a pragmatic position, the idea of learning design (and learning designers) is well entrenched and widely understood. Learning is also the desired outcome, whereas teaching is the process. To be perfectly frank, I suspect that if we did use the term ‘teaching design’, more than a few HE educators might defensively disengage, feeling that their professional practice was being questioned. 

These “learning” activities sit as a subset of “education”, which might be considered as providing opportunities for educators to teach. “Education” adds to “learning” the set of operational conditions that may not immediately appear to affect learning/teaching but without which, it is far more difficult for it to occur. This includes things like scheduling classes at given times and locations, capturing and tracking student grades so that the institution knows when the student has met the conditions of their qualification, providing and maintaining a technology ecosystem, ensuring the protection of student and staff privacy, having mechanisms to support academic integrity and allowing the institution to meet the policy and regulatory requirements to operate. None of these things necessarily assist a student to grasp a new concept but without them their experience is greatly diminished (and may not even be available).

Let’s return to the idea that ed advisors occupy roles with the same titles but a different focus. We might have a Designer brought in on contract to work on a unit uplift project, based in a central team for a fixed term. They are tasked with working with academics to redesign individual units as part of an overall institutional push towards new learning and teaching standards. Elsewhere, we might have a Designer in an ongoing role responsible for providing day-to-day ad hoc support and guidance to educators in a faculty area. This support is commonly learning and teaching focused but may extend to helping educators navigate institutional systems, upload grades and get familiar with teaching venue AV systems. (These responsibilities can vary notably by seniority too). 

In the first (central) instance, we might consider this person to be a Learning Designer, in the second (faculty) instance, an Education Designer. The scope of the work that they do and how immediately applicable to student learning experiences it is is highlighted in the choice of  ‘learning’ or ‘education’ for their title.

I have no doubt that there are some exceptions to the ‘rule’ or flaws in this model. Overall though, I think it is reasonable to say that in the educator advisor space, there are activities and people with a strong immediate focus on student learning and there are those that address the bigger picture issues that enable these. Neither of these are more important than the other because there is no point in having a utopia that has perfected the art of enabling learning if it can’t exist in the real world of ‘education’. Similarly, there is no point in having an ‘education’ system if it doesn’t serve learning. 

Is there blurriness between these terms? Of course, and there always will be. But let’s consider the ways that using ‘learning’ and ‘education’ more meaningfully might add clarity to the discussion of our space over time. 

References

Mitchell, K., Simpson, C., & Adachi, C. (2017). What’s in a name? The ambiguity and complexity of technology enhanced learning roles – ASCILITE 2017. In H. Partridge, K. Davis, & J. Thomas (Eds.), Me, Us, IT! Proceedings ASCILITE2017: 34th International Conference of Innovation, Practice and Research in the use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education (p. 449). ASCILITE. http://2017conference.ascilite.org/program/whats-in-a-name-the-ambiguity-and-complexity-of-technology-enhanced-learning-roles/

Simpson, C., Frawley, J., Markauskaite, L., & Goodyear, P. (2021). Factors associated with edvisor perceptions of their work being understood and valued are not what they seem. ASCILITE 2021: Back to the Future – ASCILITE ‘21 Proceedings ASCILITE 2021 in Armidale, 11–21. https://doi.org/10.14742/ascilite2021.0102