In Defense of the Sage on the Stage: Escaping from the “Sorcery” of Learning Styles and Helping Students Learn How to Learn

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1722.2012.01105.x
• Published date: 01 June 2012
• Date: 01 June 2012
• Author: Marianne M. Jennings*

Journal of Legal Studies Education

Volume 29, Issue 2, 191–237, Summer/Fall 2012

In Defense of the Sage on the Stage:

Escaping from the “Sorcery” of

Learning Styles and Helping Students

Learn How to Learn

Marianne M. Jennings*

I. Introduction

Two education researchers once commented that the transition in higher

education from the “sage on the stage” lecture format to the “guide on the

side” instructor-as-facilitator format reminded them of a bumper sticker from

the 1970s when disco was king: “Disco stinks! We want to see the band!”1The

bumper-sticker contrarians to that popular music wave knew that there were

indeed no disco bands, just groups of technicians armed with synthesizers who

created the atmosphere for well-heeled folks grooving under strobe lights

because they were able to replicate prechoreographed dances (think “The

Hustle”). The participants knew nothing about the band performing their

disco tunes, little about music, and less about dancing but looked competent

as they were caught up in the group moment and swept away by a night-club

phenomenon.

Likewise, beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, higher education

was swept up in the theoretical phenomena of mastery learning, cooperative

∗Professor Emerita of Legal and Ethical Studies in Business, Arizona State University.

1Lawrence A. Baines & Gregory Stanley, “We Want to See the Teacher”—Constructivismand the Rage

Against Expertise,82Phi Kappa Deltan 327, 327 (2000). The authors described their analogy as

follows:

When disco was king, protest bumper stickers began to appear that proclaimed, ‘Disco

stinks! We want to see the band.’ Many disco bands at the time actually consisted of a

couple of guys with access to synthesizers and drum machines that could keep a beat.

These bands never went on tour for the simple reason that there was no real band behind

the machinery. Similarly, students today want to see the teacher, although in many cases

the teacher has been banished to the scrap heap by the currently popular educational

theory known as constructivism. Id. at 327.

C2012 The Author

Journal of Legal Studies Education C2012 Academy of Legal Studies in Business

191

192 Vol. 29 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education

learning, and small-group learning. Professors, instructors, and teachers at

the K-12 level became facilitators, guides, supervisors, counselors, and ad-

vocates for all things team and group. The thought of a brilliant lecturer

reaching a student was antithetical to learning theory. Evaluations of teach-

ing effectiveness focused on classroom engagement, as measured by all things

team and group.2Only recently has there been a whiff of rebellion, a move-

ment that could ripen into bumper-sticker phraseology, to wit, “We want to

see the teacher!”

Perhaps the time has come to examine the question again: would it be

in students’ best interests to bring back the lone teacher, that sage on the

stage? Such a proposition seems heretical at this point in higher education

because the lecturer has been portrayed as an uncaring Luddite who needs to

be moved along into retirement in spite of pension plan problems. The “sage

on the stage” has been moved to the junk heap of education methods.3We

are, thereby, moving the Greeks to the junk heap as well. The academically

beloved term “pedagogy” is derived from the Greek pais or boy and agogos

or leader, and translates as one who leads or teaches children.4The hasty

retreat from the Greek pedagogy of the masterful teacher to benign guide

that resulted in the forced retirement of the sage from the stage may not have

been adequately grounded in research. The fuzzy theory of learning styles

and the efficacy of the resulting tools used for student engagement methods

that were substituted for the sage are problematic.5Current research has

revealed flaws in theory and learning results and calls for a reexamination,

2So pervasive is the demand for something more than a sage that academics could no longer

just present a paper at an academic meeting. Consider this example of a call for papers from

the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). AACTE is a national

organization for deans and department heads from colleges of education. AACTE’s announce-

ment read, “A simple ‘transfer of information’ from presenter to participant will not suffice.

. .. Sessions must utilize collaborative learning principles.” Call for Papers, Annual Meeting of

AACTE. 3 (1999) (as cited in Baines & Stanley, supra note 1, at 330).

3Professor Alison King is credited with coining the term “sage on the stage” and its replacement

role of “guide on the side.” Alison King, From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side,41C. Teaching

30 (1993).

4Cambridge Online Dictionary, http://www.cambridge.org (last visited Apr. 3, 2012).

5For example, one clear problem is the definition of “lecture.” In all of the literature evaluating

learning styles, there is no definition of what constitutes a lecture or a sage on the stage except

that a lecturer is defined as a “giver of information.” King, supra note 3, at 30. No one defines

“giver” to include or exclude, for example, amount of time devoted in the class to lecture versus

discussion. One article defined lectures to encompass talk, speech, sermon, oration, address,

panel, symposium, forum, interview, and dialogue. Coolie Verner & Gary Dickinson, The Lecture,

2012 / In Defense of the Sage on the Stage 193

as well as a new perspective, on what has been accepted as settled science in

education.

This article examines how and why learning styles research moved pre-

ferred instructional methodology from the “sage on the stage” approach to

the “guide on the side.” Following this historical perspective is a discussion of

the theoretical and methodological flaws that were used to establish learning-

style theory, which was then used as the foundation for that transition. Finally,

the article proposes a less theoretical and more instructor-centric approach

to learning achievement by employing a more results-oriented approach,

specifically in the business law/legal environment/business ethics areas of

instruction.

II. The Journey from Stage to Guide:

Why and How

The transition from sage to guide was grounded in the good intentions that

sprang from research into learning models that began in the 1950s.6That

An Analysis and Review of Research, 17 Adult Educ. Q. 85, 85 (1967). Verner and Dickinson

present a review of the studies on lecture efficacy, with the lecture defined as a percentage of

total content, ranging from 10 percent to 63 percent, with each study defining differently the

percentage as well as what constitutes “lecture” for purposes of that percentage. Id. at 85–86. Nor

is there discussion of the use of learning tools by a lecturer, such as time devoted to resolution

of problems or technology such as PowerPoint slides or “clickers,” and whether that changes the

sage role. See infra note 55 and accompanying text for more information on such technologies.

It is a fascinating intellectual challenge to realize that an entire body of research and literature

that concludes the lecture is a flawed means of instruction began without a definition or an

acknowledgement of the wide variety of approaches used by lecturers/sages. For more on the

use of problem solving and technology in lecture formats, see infra note 122 and accompanying

text.

6Lee. J. Cronbach is credited with the first work on the learning/teaching process, in 1957.

His work is summarized in Educational Psychology: A Century of Contributions 289–

302 (Barry J. Zimmerman & Dale H. Schunk eds., 2003). Messrs. Zimmerman and Schunk

have become leaders in the movement from stage to side. See Barry J. Zimmerman & Dale H.

Schunk, Self-Regulated Learning: From Teaching To Self-Reflective Practice (1998).

Glasser’s work in the 1960s and Skinner’s work in 1983 were also early research models used in

understanding the learning process. See William Glasser, Schools Without Failure (1969);

Burrhus Frederick Skinner, A Matter Of Consequences (1983). Glasser and his choice

theory would hold that no one learns by nagging, complaining, threatening, punishing, or

bribing. Dr. Glasser obviously never taught a required freshman course. The elimination of

choice, threats, bribery, nagging, and complaining for that crowd takes away the only path

for instructor survival. For that matter, we could go back to Pavlov’s work in the 1920s and