Instructional Strategies
Practical Andragogy with the Four Directions
The instructor of adult students can have good success when teaching with the Four Directions of the Sacred Medicine Wheel. Many of the already developed instructional strategies will address the student’s needs in a particular direction. The key to using this method is first a deep understanding of the process by the instructor, and then careful selection of instructional strategies to support each direction in sequence. Elizabeth Barkley in her book, Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (2010) outlines numerous steps to nurture the Emotional, Physical, and Mental domains in a holistic manner. See Chapter 11, pages 135-148
The East: Nurturing the Spirit of the Learner
Teaching in the Spiritual domain can be easily misunderstood. When we speak of the spiritual, we most often think of faith, prayer, and worship in a church, synagogue or mosque, and those are very spiritual practices. Yet, there are many other important and non-religious ways to use this domain in your teaching. The spiritual domain is when the student takes time to vision, or “see”, the importance of learning the material presented. Bell (2016) recommends routine, even daily, talking circles. This process gives the student a ‘voice’, and allows each to reflect on past learning. With good facilitation by the instructor, the student can also then re-start the daily learning process by visioning what they hope to learn this day. You can learn more about this at First Nations Pedagogy Online (see resource tab). Another way to support the spiritual domain is to collective nurture each student’s spirit as well as the class spirit by thoughtful team building and community development. Some of my favorites are “Who Am I?” exercises, and challenging (not childish) games in the first few days of class.
The South: Nurturing the Emotions of the Learner
Barkley (2010) explains Krathwohl’s taxonomy that identifies the needs of the student in the affective (emotional) domain. “This taxonomy addresses the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivation, and attitude.” (Barkley, 2010) Bell describes this as “relating” to the lesson. (2016) The student will not succeed if they are just willing to learn, they must also want to learn, and this is the intrinsic student motivation that each instructor hopes for. Talking circles work well for this domain as does reflective journal writing. Peer review is an excellent affective exercise. Most students (even adults) are their own worst critic.
The West: Nurturing the Physical Skills of the Learner
The psychomotor domain or the physical aspect of learning is the stage of “figuring it out”. According to R. H. Dave, in this stage, the student is practicing, demonstrating, replicating, or inventing from the lessons given by the instructor. (Barkley, 2010) This can be a time of great frustration as some students take longer than others to figure out how to become proficient at the given task. It can be difficult to implement the psychomotor domain in arts courses such as history or English, but with careful planning, the instructor can introduce movement techniques. One example could be the Cocktail Party discussion where students mingle with their peers as they participate in the required discussion. (Barkley, 2010)
The North: Nurturing the Mental Skills of the Learner
The cognitive or mental domain is the stage when the learner knows how to “do it” and is ready to implement the task or idea. Anderson and Krathwohl revised the original Bloom’s taxonomy by replacing the terms “knowledge and synthesis” with “remember and create”. This domain is where the learner has confidence to successful complete the task alone, or the confidence to apply the knowledge in higher order thinking situations.
Teaching With the Four Directions
The teaching of the Sacred Medicine Wheel is a belief system of many of the Indigenous groups of North America. It supports the belief that every action a person makes should be one that creates balance in the emotions, mind, physical body and the spiritual soul of the person. These concepts can be effectively used as an instructional strategy to create situations whereby students can learn holistically. (Barkley, 2010) John Ratey (2002) indicated that the current understanding is that the brain and body systems are intertwined throughout the entire “self” of the person. The instructor must be aware that the learner cannot separate emotion, cognition, and the physical body. (from Barkley, 2010). The Sacred Medicine Wheel teachings add the fourth element of the spiritual to this concept. Every person, child, adolescent, adult, or elder learns best when these aspects are considered by the instructor or learning facilitator.
Nicole Bell, an Anishinabe Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Professional Learning at Trent University explains the pedagogical value of the Medicine Wheel. With some adjustments these concepts are successful in andragogy. Bell explains, “In the east the gift of vision is found, where one is able to “see”. In the south one spends time in which to “relate to” the vision. In the west, one uses the gift of reason to “figure it out”. Finally, in the north the learner uses the gift of movement to “do” or actualize the vision. Bell argues that the learner cannot “do” or actualize the learning until the learner understands who they are and the learning material from the other three elements.
Barkley (2010) explains that the instructor of adults must consider how the student “feels” about themselves and the content the instructor wishes to impart. Barkley goes on to indicate that the psychomotor domain is required to plan, calculate and form the intent to learn the content. The cognitive or mental domain is vital for making the decision to “do” or actualize the learning. Bell argues that first the learner must spiritually “see” how this new content has meaning and importance. How all of this can be achieved in the classroom is explained in the next post.
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