
A response to “Learning Wasn’t Meant to Be Easy – Was It?“
I enjoy reading Professor Crossley’s insights. I’ve learnt much through them – including that we are both fascinated by learning and fans of the Stone Roses. In his most recent piece, he presents a compelling argument: learning, like training for a marathon, requires effort, and this effort is tough but rewarding.
I agree that the development of knowledge and skills takes dedication, and that the satisfaction derived from overcoming intellectual challenge is in itself rewarding. However, it was his discussion of a website describing a university’s efforts to move beyond rote learning and traditional exams that caused me pause for thought.
While we both agree that too much rote learning can be problematic, he also argues that institutions that reduce reliance on rote learning and exams are trying to make learning easier. This misses the point. These institutions are making learning better.
As educators, our concerns should not be with effort but with effectiveness – ensuring that students learn in ways that foster depth of understanding and application, rather than require memorisation and recall, which is primarily what exams do.
I’ve run up against the ideas presented in this piece often. They are sometimes used by academics to justify the bad practice that results in poor student outcomes in their courses. It’s not the academic’s teaching or assessment that’s the problem, it’s the lazy/ill-equipped/latest generation of students’ fault that they can’t pass the anatomy/fluid mechanics/morphology exam. Let me explain why I think academics who take this view are often in the wrong.
The Problem with Rote Learning
To be clear, I don’t think Professor Crossley, the above-described colleagues and I are entirely on different tickets. We all agree that rote learning has a place in education. Knowledge – of periodic tables, or in my field of linguistics, of phonetic charts and vocabulary – are necessary. From there students build more complex skills and knowledge to engage with the world through our discipline lenses.
However, when rote learning and exams are presented as the preferred vectors of learning – rather than as a stepping stone – it is a good point to stop and reflect.
Language Learning: A Case in Point
One of the strongest counterexamples to Professor Crossley’s argument comes from an example he uses: language learning. I’m an applied linguist with a background in foreign language learning and vocabulary testing. I’ve used Rasch analysis to develop better screening tests of proficiency – so I’m not principally anti-testing. Exams, like lectures, can be powerful tools when used judiciously. It’s their status as the default assessment tool, irrespective of learning outcomes, that I have issue with.
Learning French by sitting in cafés would be ideal, he notes, yet the practicalities of the world require us to focus in the classroom on the study of grammar and vocabulary. I agree with the problem statement, but not with the proposed solution – nor does the research. While grammar and vocabulary are key to any language, decades of research in pedagogy show that teaching grammar and vocabulary rather than language use is flawed.
A generation or so ago, many of us learned French or German at school through the grammar-translation method – memorizing tables of conjugations and vocabulary lists. Pen-and-paper-exams tested our ability to translate bits of Hugo or Goethe. Rigorous intellectual stuff. Yet, this produced generations of students with very little real-world functional language skills. Sure, we could quote the odd line from Goethe, but few of us could order a meal at a German kneipe, little own ever navigate the most rudimentary conversation in a Paris café.
It was not until the advent of the active-learning-based communicative approach that students began to develop practical language proficiency. Instead of merely learning about the structure of language, students started learning how to use language —through dialogues, role-playing, and immersive activities that mirrored real-life.
This lesson extends beyond language learning: the most effective educational approaches prioritize application over decontextualised abstraction – which is what lectures, rote learning and exams often are.
The Southern Cross Model: A Transformational Approach
Where I work, the pedagogy Prof Erica Wilson, Dr Liz Goode and I advocate for can be seen in the Southern Cross University (SCU) model.
It is how we teach all our courses. SCU has moved away from the traditional lecture-heavy, exam-driven approach in favour of focused, guided and active learning. Instead of listening to lectures and reflecting on them, students are required to be engaged in doing – solving problems, working on projects, and applying their knowledge in practical settings. We’ve replaced lectures with students engaging in online, interactive and responsive learning modules.
Our assessments more often take the form of real-world tasks than exams. SCU has helped students not only retain knowledge but also develop skills to for use in their lives and careers.
This model has had a profound impact on our student success. Our success rates have increased almost 20% on our pre-COVID results. Last year we saw our attrition rates improve by some 9% on the same comparison. Our students now are more satisfied than before. Don’t believe the hype though – read the peer-reviewed research.
Conclusion: The Future of Learning
Professor Crossley and I agree on the value of effort in learning. However, I would emphasise that effort is not enough; it must be coupled with effective, evidence-based teaching and assessment methods. If we want to increase higher education participation and success in Australia, and the Accord calls out this challenge quite clearly, then reducing over-reliance on some core features of the heritage model of university education – lectures, rote learning and exams – will be required. But let’s be clear why. This is not about making education easier – it is about making education more effective.
It is about doing a better job for the students and communities we serve.
Professor Thomas Roche is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic Quality) at Southern Cross University.