"I recall an allegation that ninety percent of everything is crap. Further, I personally recall that if even ten percent of my classmates were interested and engaged in any particular class, then it was a delightful exception to the general rule."
Now that you mention it, this sounds true. I was reflecting recently on the idea of schools as cartels. That term was used in the panel discussion, but I'm using it in a bit of a different way. I wondered what if we could have free market access, as it were, to the teachers who taught what we wanted to learn, in the way that best suited us? The way many schools have operated is as a "package deal". To become a student you've had to consent to buy in to the whole program, even if there are probably only a few exceptional teachers in it. The only schools I've seen that seem to give you the freedom to take a class here and there are community colleges. At the university level there is the possibility of transfers, but it seems to me this process is hindered by whether one school will give you credit for a course taken at another. If the curriculums diverge this becomes a challenge. The systems are oriented towards school as an institution, though they've had distance-learning programs so it feels a bit less site-based. I imagine if an enterprising student were to try to pick and choose their teachers from different schools now for what they'd need to satisfy a degree they might be able to do it, but it would be time-consuming. Unless they were on-site they wouldn't get the interactivity, either.
There have been visions of "remote lectures" put forward, where distance learners could be part of live lectures, be a part of the class discussion, etc. So far I haven't seen this play out.
Re: attempts with constructivism
I hope you're right. I have heard criticisms of constructivism, based on anecdotes, but I've always wondered whether what's been evaluated is actually constructivism or just some group's ideological interpretation of it (the group that says they're implementing the pedagogy, that is). I haven't studied it in detail, but the ideas behind it, as presented by Kay, make sense to me.
---Mark mmille10@comcast.net
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Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:44:36 -0800 From: Richard Karpinski Subject: [Squeakland] Re:Can the American Mind be Opened? To: squeakland@squeakland.org
Thanks, mmille10, for an interesting discussion. I recall an allegation that ninety percent of everything is crap. Further, I personally recall that if even ten percent of my classmates were interested and engaged in any particular class, then it was a delightful exception to the general rule.
Indeed, it is my understanding, perhaps shallow and incomplete, that the constructionist/constructivist intent behind OLPC is to counter that trend toward useless education by getting students engaged in individual or team projects. With the engagement comes attenti on and intention which together make the learning both deeper and broader as well as very much faster than the typical classroom setting accomplishes.
One hopes that every level of education fosters a love of reading, thinking, conversing, and acting in its participants, no matter how often that turns out not to happen. Literacy, numeracy, and critical thought all demand bi-directionality. One must not only read but also write, not only be able to calculate but also choose to calculate about new topics, not only think and reason but also act in support of those conclusions.
Otherwise, one is a mere observer without a life of her own worth living, worth the air breathed and the space taken in the bio-sphere.
Fortunately, in the first world at least, we have convenient access to tremendous educational resources outside the formal ins titutions putatively dedicated to that purpose. That access is exactly what we hope to spread into and outside of the formal institutions of education outside the first world, is it not?
No wonder politicians are a bit leery of enthusiastic support for this effort in their own domains. It could foster uncontrolled activities by students and even teachers. Pretty scary.
Richard Karpinski, Nitpicker dick@cfcl.com 148 Sequoia Circle, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 Home +1 707-546-6760 Cell +1 707-228-9716 http://cfcl.com/twiki/bin/view/Karpinski
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Mark wrote:
Re: attempts with constructivism
I hope you're right. I have heard criticisms of constructivism, based on anecdotes, but I've always wondered whether what's been evaluated is actually constructivism or just some group's ideological interpretation of it (the group that says they're implementing the pedagogy, that is). I haven't studied it in detail, but the ideas behind it, as presented by Kay, make sense to me.
I think it is worth studying in detail, but I am not sure where to start. First I think we need to learn to distinguish among
1. constructivism the psychological hypothesis - as proposed by Piaget as I understand 2. constructivism the pedagogy 3. constructionism - another pedagogy - and a word coined by Seymour Papert. Note the 3rd syllable.
(There is also constructivism the epistemology, which I can't even spell, that also originates with Piaget.)
I recently read this unsympathetic 2003 article on the US history of constructivist pedagogy in maths http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html But it is largely anecdotal (which is fine for a historian, but not when we are responsible for the education of the next generation.)
However, beyond such material, I get thoroughly confused by an inability to distinguish proven knowledge, accepted wisdom, and pure pseudo-science. It seems that a lot of educational research is done by anecdote rather than by controlled blind large group studies. Any pointers to the good stuff? Or tips to help a natural scientist to understand the research methods of the social sciences?
hi David,
thanks for the link, it looks like an interesting historical study about maths education
some good readings at MIT open courseware: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Media-Arts-and-Sciences/MAS-962Spring-2003/CourseH... The nature of constructionist learning
I'm sure there is bad constructivism (open ended poorly designed discovery learning) and good constructionism. Also there is social constructivism which has become mainstream in my locality (South Australia), a sort of top down "socially aware" DIY-ism with incredibly vague benchmarks
The role of the teacher is a huge variable. I doubt that "controlled blind large group studies" would find satisfactory ways to factor this in
Where does that leave us? Years ago I wrote to MIT and obtained a bunch of PhD studies by Papert students (eg. Idit Harel, Yasmin Kafai, Kevin McGee etc). It was all good work. The method was along the lines of a detailed study of a small group - depth rather than breadth, one of the terminologies was "thick descriptors" rather than "thin descriptors". There has been a lot of good research and practice. Personally I don't doubt that constructionism works - but its a mindset, a world view. It's hard to "prove" that it works because it's a whole environment that can be built and sustained by the right educational leader. But when that leader leaves the environment normally collapses.
There are some real problems - ** the way things are measured in schools - its easy to measure recall but hard to measure or even to define deeper learning. Schools tend to measure mainly recall and so this undermines more creative teaching. I saw some coverage recently about "no child left behind" which featured creative teachers in tears about how standardised testing had destroyed their teaching
** the difficulty of training teachers in creative methods. Papert has written about the competencies required
- Skilled in modern learning theories and psychology - Skilled in relating to a variety of children - Skilled in detecting new, important elements of their student's culture - Skilled in cross curricular applications - Skilled in computing - Able to apply a variety of skills creatively
http://www.users.on.net/~billkerr/a/papert.htm
** the ability of poor teachers to hide behind vague social constructivist standards, which tends to discredit the "good constructivism"
Anyway, just some thoughts for discussion
cheers, - Bill
On Wednesday 21 November 2007 11:02 pm, David Corking wrote:
However, beyond such material, I get thoroughly confused by an inability to distinguish proven knowledge, accepted wisdom, and pure pseudo-science. It seems that a lot of educational research is done by anecdote rather than by controlled blind large group studies. Any pointers to the good stuff? Or tips to help a natural scientist to understand the research methods of the social sciences?
I found Maria Montessori's "The Advanced Montessori Method" (2 vols) to be a good start. It details her own in-depth observation of how children go about learning abstract concepts and the reasoning behind many of her didactic apparatus.
The following link lists some sources http://www.montessori-namta.org/NAMTA/geninfo/rschsum.html
Empirical studies of neurological basis for knowledge and perception is well presented in "The Emerging Mind" by Vilayanur Ramachandran.
Indian literature has many works on the nature of human mind and learning. But few English translations manages to capture the essence of the original. "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" by Swami Venkatesananda is one of the exception. I often refer to it to clear any confusion about the process of learning. Unfortunately, it is also difficult to get in most bookshops. You may have it order it directly from the nearest Divine Life Society.
Hope it helps .. Subbu
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