My revelation for the day: Generally I try to be open-minded about different perspectives, blah blah blah, but I'm in the middle of data analysis for a case study I'm working on and I have concluded that cognitivism is no less then pure evil when it is the theory of learning teachers use as their world view. Here's why: Using this mindset, a teacher's job is to present materials in multiple ways (to reach multiple learning styles) and provide students with the opportunity to practice that new stuff. The student's job is to take notes for future reference, and to practice the new stuff. So, the teacher's job is to present it and the student's job is to practice it. The practice leads to the student "getting it" - meaning that it now "sticks" which is demonstrated by students taking a test on which they solve the very nearest-transfer problems (because far transfer requires application to new situations, but we cannot expect students to be able to work with these situations because they cannot 'do it' if they have not 'seen it' before.) Here's where the evil part comes in. IF the students fail to demonstrate that they get it on the test, it is THEIR fault. It cannot be the teacher's fault or the instructional materials fault because they have done their jobs - presented material and provided practice.
So - what does that mean to school reform (given that this is the world view held by most of the teachers I've worked with)
Posted by chandra at September 4, 2003 12:19 PM | TrackBack