1: Learning: From speculation to scienceIn the early part of the twentieth century, educaiton focused on the acquisition of literacy skills: simple reading, writing, and calculating. It was not the general rule for educatonal systems to train people to think and read critically, to express themselves clearly and persuasively, to solve complex problems in science and mathematics. Now, at the end of the century, these aspects of high literacy are required of almost everyone...." (p 4)
[ Note "express themselves clearly and persuasively" -- that's pretty subjective and has as much to do with the audience as the speaker. Consider Blink and the role of sub-concious cues. ]
As Nobel laureate Herbert Simon wisely stated, the meaning of "knowing" has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it. (p. 5)
"formal educational environments have been better at selecting talent than developing it" (p 5)
"the contemporary view of learning is that people construct new knowledge and understanding based on what they already know and believe." (p 10) -- connects nicely to wikis, no? People see, build upon.
p. 10 example of teaching children that world is round. Step 1: Evidence of eyes teach them that world is flat. Step 2: teacher says world is round. Kids picture a pancake. When told that it's a sphere, they picture a pancake on top of or inside a sphere. [Me: Step 3: Full understanding, integrating understanding of scale. ]
Parallel example: Fish is Fish.
Bransford uses these as examples of how people construct meaning on top of what's already in their heads. I also see these as cues for the importance of visualization, which is where technology can come in. Especially when addressing complex ideas -- not just "what does it look like?" but, for instance, the role of scale in understanding that the world looks flat but is spherical.
p. 11: "A common misconception regarding constructivist theories of knowing (that existing knowledge is used to build new knowledge) is that teachers should never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for themselves. This perspective confuses a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing. Constructivists assume that all knowlege is constructed from previous knowledge, irrespective of how one is taught...." (Example of listening to a lecture: listener is integrating new info with old.)
So constructivist theory-of-knowing is about what's going on in the learner's head. Constructivist theory-of-teaching is about teacher behaviors.
p. 13: Modern learning calls not just for understanding (and understanding of increasingly complex situations) but successful TRANSFER to new situations.
p. 14-18:
Key findings - Students come to the classroom with preconceptions.... (these initial understandings must be engaged or there will be no learning or no transfer beyond test) (Does this connect with VanSledright's observation about students' relapse to previous, unsupported viewpoints on history?)
- To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. (This is what separates experts and novices -- grasp of micro within macro context. Allows transfer, allows non-memorization but an understanding (buttressed by key memorized details) that maps to new contexts.)
- A "metacognitive" approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring progress in achieving them.
pp. 19-21: Implications for teaching
- Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting understandings that their students bring with them. (Example: my opening assign in European Hist of asking students to write "The History of the World")
- Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work and providing a firm foundation of factual knowledge.
- The teaching of metacognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of ways.
Kick-butt diagram on p. 22 of "knowledge of how people learn" -- photocopy and post!
pp. 23-26: designing classroom environments.
- Be learner-centered - focus on student's heads, not teacher's ego. Give them "just manageable difficulties" (zone of proximity?)
- Be knowledge-centered - look beyond engagement or just factual recall. Measure understanding, ability to transfer
- Lots of formative evals
- Encouragement of learning in context/extending learning into community environment and not just in the classroom. After all, kids spend 14% of their time at school, 33% sleeping, and 53% in home/community. Make sure the learning takes place outside the 14% slice!
Applying the design framework to adults: most prof devel for teachers is NOT learner-centered, is NOT knowledge-centered include insufficient formative assessment and are not community-centered.
2: How Experts Differ from NovicesExperts notice different things, they know not just facts but facts organized into schema (knowledge), know facts in the context of their application, can retrieve knowledge without significant attentional effort, can't always teach (!), have varying levels of flexibility.
big thing: connection between knowledge and contexts of its application
chessboard experiment: masters can recall real positions, but not meaningless (random) positions
3: Learning and Transferp. 51: Early assumption of "formal discipline": learning Latin helps you learn anything, because you learned how to learn and pay attention. (I guess this goes back to the selecting for talent rather than developing it thing.)
Big thing: no general "mental muscle".
Example of college student building ability to memorize number strings (chunked by numbers significant in track records) -- didn't transfer to letter strings.
p. 53: Key characteristics of learning and transfer for classroom/trad education contexts:
- Initial learning is necessary for transfer, and a considerable amount is known about the kinds of learning experiences that support transfer
- Knowledge that is overly contextualized can reduce tranfer; abstrat representations of knolwedge can help transfer
- Transfer is best viewed as an active, dynamic process rather than a passive end-product of a particular set of learning experiences
- All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning, and this fact has important implications for the design of instruction that helps students learn.
pp. 53 & 55: Refs LOGO experiments noting non-transfer to other "thinking & problem-solving" activities. But didn't assess how well students learned LOGO (the initial learning) -- the non-transfer was because they didn't know LOGO well enough in the first place to transfer any of the skills involved. Not enough skill to transfer.
pp. 54-55: More fun: such a thing as negative transfer exists. Can condition people to NOT do well on a related task -- just get them in the habit of doing something the same way every time.... (Liquid problem, using direct or Einstellung solution)
p. 59: preparation for learning matters. Students given advance organizer then lecture, students allowed to wrestle with data then lecture, students with just data. Students with data (constructivist?) and then lecture kicked butt.
p. 64: Cool box on flexible transfer problem (general sending troops on multiple roads to converge on target; doctor using rays from multiple angles to converge (and concentrate) on tumor)
pp. 71-73: Interesting stuff on cultural impacts: pumpkin pie example throws Af-Am student (who is familiar with sweet potato pie, but without that reference he's stuck on "What's pumpkin pie like?"); patterns of language/interaction/attentional focus between blacks and whites ("Look at that red fire truck!" vs. "Isn't that a pretty toy? Doesn't it make you feel happy?") - white parents far more into naming/counting/describing, black parents more into affective focus.
pp. 73-77: transfer between school and community: community tasks use tools far more often than in school. School version wants student to do more "mental work", therefore lack of transfer (two different contexts: tool-rich vs. tool-poor). Example: How can you get 3/4 of 2/3 cup of cottage cheese? School = fractions, real world = measuring, dumping, forming circle, cutting into quarters, taking 3 quarters.
4: How Children LearnSurprising commonalities with adults. Study of very young yield major insights into how brain works.
History
- tabula rasa / blooming, buzzing confusion / no attentional capability
- Piaget: stages of development
- perceptual learning theory
Bottom line: children are learners, they are intentional.
Box on p. 81: Vygotsky, zone of proximal development: ZoPD = "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined by problem silving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers." In other words, distance between "what I can do by myself" and "what I can do with assistance/coaching"
pp. 81-82 Trends in infants: predisposed to learn certain things, the privileged domains (biological concepts, causality, language, number concepts, etc.), use of strategies and metacognition, their own theories of mind, and connections with the community (as they provide support in the zone of proximal development).
pp. 82- cool methodogical advances (use of sucking, detection of gaze). Show compentency, intentionality, habituation, etc.
p. 89: Interest fact in number concepts. Children get the idea of bigger number = bigger quantities. But fractions are a stumbling block, because they don't fit that pattern. (Wonder what might be a parallel in developing one's understanding of tech?)
p. 94: importance of context clues in learning language: eat the apple vs. throw the apple. (Any potential connections to use of technology?)
pp. 98-99: Strategies in doing simple math problems. Children use different strategies depending on the numbers they're given. (Rings true plus makes me wonder about people's strategies when it comes to learning/using tech. Always have multiple ways to do any one thing -- how do they decide to do it one way one time and another way another time? Or perhaps that's a sign of maturity: once people start developing multiple ways of doing things, and use the different ways depending on the situation rather than always doing it the same way.)
p. 102: Theories of intelligence is interesting: entity theories (it's a fixed quantity) or incremental theories (it's built up over time). The theory one subscribes to will drive one's behavior (entity = look good, avoid looking bad; incremental = build up oneself via challenges, persistence is key)
p. 102: people are problem-solvers and problem-creators. They like a challenge. Jigsaw puzzle, crossword puzzle, nesting cups.
pp. 102- Role of parents: they help manage zone of proximal development, provide scaffolding. Great definition of scaffolding on p. 104:
- interesting the child in the task;
- reducing the number of steps required to solve a problem by simplifying the task, so that a child can manage components of the process and recognize when a fit with task rewquirements is achieved;
- maintaining the pursuit of the goal, through motivation of the child and direction of the activity;
- marking critical features of discrepancies between what a child has produced and the ideal solution;
- controlling frustration and risk in problem solving; and
- demonstrating an idealized version of the act to be performed
Wide variations possible in children's development, depending upon parent/community encouragement to tell stories, label things, speak to adults, ask questions, or play question game (known-answer situations) -- patterns vary by SES, and in classroom this can hurt working-class students. Solution: "The answer is not to concentrate exclusively on changing children or changing schools, but to encourage adaptive flexibility in both directions." (p. 111)
5: Mind and Brain[This isn't my field, so I skimmed. But the highlighted concepts are...]
- Learning changes the physical structure of the brain
- These structural changes alter the functional organization of the brain; in other words, learning organizes and reorganizes the brain
- Different parts of the brain may be ready to learn at different time
Observes that people love to make mountains out of molehills with this topic (left-brain/right-brain; we only use 20% of our brains; neural branching).
Key technology = PET, FMRI snapshots of brain
6: The Design of Learning EnvironmentsGreat section on "mission creep" in education. It's not so muc that schools are getting worse as expectations are getting higher. Examples writing instruction moved from taking dictation to expressing oneself; reading competency measured not just by rectitation literacy but extraction literacy. Consider that today all students (all young people!) are expected to read (and not just recite) Shakespeare and to write about (not copy) what they read and connect it with the rest of the world. (p. 133) Break it down by subject areas: complex literacy mentioned in lang arts, plus critical reading and evaluation of hist docs in social studies, testing theories in science, experimenting and observing....
Set up four lenses for looking at environments for learning:
- learner-centered environment, aka culturally responsive or culturally appropriate, etc.: takes time to understand learners and engage their patterns of speech, thinking, constructing meaning. Example of talk-story in Hawaii as a starting point.
- knowledge-centered environment: learners need to head somewhere, can't just study themselves, so...need a well-organized body of knowledge, building responsively and critically off learners' initial assumptions. Some great criticism of curricula: math curriculum is a mile wide and an inch deep and includes "not so much a form of thinking as a substitute for thinking"; Amer Hist texts that omit info critical for understanding; science curricula emphasize facts over doing science. Interesting alternatives: consider Mathematics in Context -- "students use their own words, pictures, or diagrams to describe mathematical situations"...builds toward using formal symbols and equations. Fun fact: :to the Romans, a curriculum was a rutted course that guided the path of two-wheeled chariots" -- kids get stuck, can't really roam the landscape because knowledge isn't taught properly to achieve transfer, students can't make connections between points A and C (much less point X') in the scope-and-sequence chart. Note: you do need some reps/rote excercises, because a certain level of automaticity is desired for certain skills (reading, writing, calculating -- without these, progress in any field is difficult).
- Assessment-centered environments: assessment = "opportunity for feedback and revision"; trad classroom contain too little feedback, too few (or no) opportunities for revision. Use assessment heavily for summative, not for formative. Also those assessments that are used are fact- and recall-heavily. Effective assessment will probably require re-shaping what parents and students (and teachers) think of as learning. Note role of new technologies to provide more frequent, more useful feedback. Note: good assessment, by eliminating teachers' assumptions about students and their knowledge and ability to do, can end up radically changing one's teaching style or even the curriculum. Thinking outside the box on assessment: present problems but don't ask for solutions; ask students to compare/contrast problems, explain processes involved. Portfolios: neat idea, great potential; usually implemented poorly. Again: insufficient feedback/revision. Classification tool for assessments: process constrained (step-by-step or process is explained) vs. process open (minimal explicit cues on how to reach solution), content knowledge rich (draw heavily on prior knowledge) vs. content knowledge lean (require no previous knowledge or all necessary info is given).
- Community-centered environments: Community can = classroom, school, or wider community. Again, issues of clash of the cultures (ex. of [silent] Inuit students and [talkative] non-Inuit students being viewed differently by lower-48 speech pathologist vs. Inuit teacher; Japanese classroom practices [learning from listening to whole-class discussion of errors] vs. American classroom practices [minimal listening to each other, mostly competing to say the right answer first/fastest/best]). Dewey: great waste of school is lack of transfer from school to world and from world to school. Separate spheres. Learning from TV: benefit (vocab, school-readiness), espec in early childhood, of watching educ programs, even if it's a minority of the total viewing time. Also huge impact on attitudes (learning stereotypes or learning tolerance).
All four areas should be "aligned": knowledge with learners, assessments with knowledge, all three integrated into community.
