Strategies and Tactics in Education

Based on Strategies and Tactics in Education: Influence on the Design of eLogg, by Jon Hoem (2006) In search for a more diverse understanding of “learning strategies” this paper discusses what Michel de Certeau call strategies and tactics in relation to education, teaching and learning. Introduction

The complexity of society is likely to favour those able to ask the right questions, process information from various sources and construct knowledge by critically evaluating a number of potential answers given by this information. From this follows an assumption that society will need individuals who are able to develop varied, multiple and original skills, making social competences, where the development of individual learning strategies becomes an important part of education in addition to the teaching of basic skills (NOU 2003: Chapter 15).

The development of “learning strategies” and self-regulatory skills by learners is considered one of the central ambitions of contemporary policies on education (DeSeCo, 2005). These competencies support lifelong learning by making people independent learners, more able to transfer knowledge and methods to different learning situations (Zimmerman, 2002).

The extensive use of computer networks makes information increasingly difficult to control, encouraging new ways of information retrieval, questioning accepted knowledge and challenging the educational institutions’ traditional authority (Säljö, 2001). When the power of formal authorities diminishes, learners become able to act upon parts of the educational system in new ways, adding new meanings to our understanding of the different aspects of “learning and studying strategies”.1

Strategies and Tactics – two different approaches

The traditional way of speaking about the relationship between strategies and tactics in education seems to be an understanding of “learning strategies” as general plans formulated by learners to accomplish an academic goal. A strategy then consists of several components, including metacognition, analysis, planning, implementation of plans, monitoring progress, and modification of the strategy (Snowman and Biehler, 1997). From the chosen strategies follow learning tactics, that is, specific techniques that may help learners move towards the goals defined by strategies (ibid. 354).

Self-regulation is where strategies and tactics are used for practical purposes in education, in the sense that learners are aware of and knowledgeable about their own thinking about how they learn, with continual self-observation, self-judgement and self-reaction in their own problem-solving processes (Zimmerman, 2002). Zimmerman proposed a three-part, cyclical model of self-regulation,

- Forethought: Task analysis, selection of strategies and methods, and self motivation
- Performance control: Focusing attention, self-control and self-observation of progress
- Self-reflection: Self-evaluation, self-reactions and adaptation

Following this perspective on strategies and tactics, some studies indicate that Norwegian students perform poorly on “self-regulation” and the desired “learning strategies”. They seem to lack good methods of controlling the information they receive, and relating this information to previous knowledge in a critical way (Knain, 2002:45).

However, there are other ways of understanding strategies and tactics in a cultural system like education. Michel de Certeau states that the mediation, presence and circulation of any cultural representation (e.g. as taught by educators) do not tell all about the significance of these cultural objects to their users (e.g. the learners). If we are going to understand the use of cultural artefacts we have to analyse the manipulation of these objects by users who are not the object’s initial producer (de Certeau, n.d.). To help us understand and investigate such objects de Certeau introduce strategies and tactics as concepts in analysing the nature and politics of cultural production within “the practice of everyday life” (de Certeau, 1984: xix). de Certeau do not refer to the use of this terminology by the military, where tactics are the manners of conducting each separate combat; and strategy serves the general objective of a war (von Clausewitz, 1873/2003). Carl von Clausewitz book Vom Kriege is probably not an appropriate reference when it comes to the education of young people, but -nevertheless a source widely used outside the armed forces, like in higher -business education etc.

Strategies are manifested by institutional means of control that become possible through the constitution of social and technological systems, made possible by the control of “space”. Strategies serve as a basis for external relations with competitors, the public in general, students, voters, objects for research, etc. An example of strategies, used by de Certeau, is the appropriation of language through the system of linguistics, where writing becomes the representation of the formal powers of documents (de Certeau, n.d.).

On the other hand, the operation of any economic, political or technological system needs to give some space for movement. Such constraints on the application of strategies allow the development of tactics by individuals, described by de Certeau as individual techniques of knowing how to operate within processes of the dominating system. -Common examples of such techniques are informal communication, improvisations, un-authorized simplification of procedures, “forgetting” orders etc. de Certeau describes tactics as a constant search for situations which become possible to manipulate, and thereby changed into individual opportunities (ibid.)

Following de Certeau’s perspective on strategies and tactics offers a partial explanation of many Norwegian learners’ poor performance. From the learners’ perspective, “strategies” may be constructed on the basis of a different rationale (i.e. effort versus assessment), sometimes in opposition to “strategies” seen from the educators’ perspective (i.e. effort versus learning outcome).

The traditional construction of strategies, and the following application of tactics, works perfectly as long as the learners are skilled, motivated, and interested in pursuing the goals that correspond to the educators’ objectives. However, if the learners have experienced that parts of the educational system tend to reward those able to repeat or replicate information, they are likely to conclude that the pay-off from critical investigation will not always be worth the effort. If these learners’ strongest motivation is how they perform in relation to others they may conclude that it does not make sense to over-perform, and they adapt in response to an essentially tactical question: “What’s in this for me?” (see Olaussen and Bråten [2004] for a detailed discussion of motivation and self-regulation)

Strategies and Tactics Revised

One could argue that when talking about the learners’ ability to develop individual “learning-strategies” educational authorities often refer to practices that correspond to the results society wants in return for investing in the education system. In other words, they want learners to develop learning techniques in correspondence with the educating system’s strategies. However, when seeking opportunities within the system, the learners behave tacticly and develop techniques in correspondence to their self-interests.

Following de Certeau’s terminology I would like to distinguish between strategies and tactics in education and learning.

Following this logic educational strategies are manifested through a system of national plans for education, the curriculum, routines for evaluation, financial means etc. On the other hand, learning tactics are learners’ individual adaptations to this system, and these adaptations may differ significantly from the behaviour society and educators try to encourage through their strategies.

This does not imply that educators always act strategically, or that learners always behave in ways that can be explained as tactics. It is more like controlling systems versus individuals, and consequently educators also will have to behave tactically when they try to operate within restrictions imposed on them by a system. How educators relate to plans made by education authorities is one example (Bachmann, 2004). We may therefore extend our vocabulary even further by introducing educational tactics, and finally learning strategies. The first being tactics developed by educators having to do their job adapting to regulations enforced by the government and educational institutions. The latter will be learners in situations where they do not have to think about how their performances are evaluated. A typical example would be the freedom of learning as an aspect of a hobby, where individuals make decisions about what and how to learn out of sheer interest, without having to think about someone evaluating their achievements.

When introducing new technologies, methods or systems and plans in education and learning, both educators and learners may benefit substantially if those designing these systems try to find out how to make strategies and tactics come closer together.

Every artefact is a carrier of prescribed meaning and intentions, and these prescriptions have to be considered when introducing technical artefacts. When people engage with technology (like computer software) they do so -following a tradition, a culture-of-use. The result is every artefact contains presuppositions about how it will be used. These mechanisms may be understood as scripts, as described by Madeleine Akrich: “Designers thus define actors with specific tastes, competencies, motives, aspirations, political prejudices and the rest, and they assume that morality, technology, science and economy will evolve in particular ways. A large part of the work of innovators is that of inscribing the vision of (or prediction about) the world in the technical content of the new object. I will call the end product of this work a ‘script’ or a ‘scenario’.” (Akrich, 1992:62).

To facilitate various forms of self-regulation the designers wanted to give learners the opportunity to alternate between accessing information, reflecting on it, and making revisions and re-contextualizations. These are activities with tactical potential, involving questions about authority, the ability to make individual decisions, and a constant awareness of the influence of people’s changing roles and their actions. The individual ability to produce information, and (re-)use this information as a resource for communication are considered central to digital fluency (Resnick, 2002), emphasizing computer mediated communication as a bridge between individual praxes and socio-cultural learning theory.

Learning takes place through the development of shared understanding and collaborative activities that allow individuals to exercise, verify, and improve their mental models by sharing thoughts, ideas, and information with others (Du and Wagner, 2005).

Conclutions

Already, more than ten years ago, more than half of all American teens who use the Internet were also content creators. These youngsters have either created or worked on a weblog or webpage, shared original creative content, or remixed content they found online into a new creation (PEW, 2005a:1). One in five online teens has created their own weblog, and 38 per cent of all online teens say they read weblogs (ibid.).

With the high penetration of personal computers (not to mention smartphones, ten years later, in 2016) in Norway, we should expect a development as youngsters increasingly produce and edit online content. It is something the education system needs to think about urgently, not least because primary schools often have a disproportionately low number of networked computers in comparison with learners’ homes (ITU Monitor, chap. 7). The introduction of personal publishing in education may be one answer to some of these challenges.

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