Open and student centred learning: Evangelism and Heresy

Summary There is now a mass of publications and both national and local networks concerned with Open Learning, and no shortage of evangelists to endorse the rolling bandwagon. Curiously, there is little awareness of the drawbacks, particularly of the problems of conversion of ‘traditional’ to ‘open'; scant examination of the underlying ideology; and thus no visible critique to discountenance the trumpeters. The object of this paper is (a) to establish a framework and some tools for defining and distinguishing between Open (OL) and Student Centred Learning (SCL); (b) to look briefly at national practice, chiefly the experience of Open Tech (OT); (c) to direct attention to some of the institutional effects both real and potential; (d) to look at how OL innovation operates and why it may fail; and finally (e) to identify the crucial element of Student Centred Learning — human interaction and the principle, not of independence but of interdependence in learning — which is so often the missing element in Open Learning.