Re: Theoretical Knowing

Don Cunningham (cunningh who-is-at indiana.edu)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:49:24 -0500 (EST)

I hope some of you will get a chance to look at the Karpov
and Haywood article. My sense was that they had indeed conflated
spontaneous/scientific concepts with discovery/direct instruction.
For example, they identify a strong resemblance between
scientific concepts and Gagne's notion of "defined concept".
Scientific concepts are best taught by demonstrating the
links between concepts and procedures. They worry that if
scientific concepts are taught by guided discovery, errors
will be made and students will be left with misconceptions.
"Theoretically, sooner or later, the teacher in a [discovery]
classroom will have an opportunity to guide students to develop
the correct concept, but in practice it might not happen" (p 31)

I suppose what struck me as much as anything in reading this article
is how the body of knowledge that many of us cite to support
more learner centered, knowing, discursive, semiotic, constructivist,
proscriptive, etc. centered instructional practices can be used
so easily to support teacher centered, transmission, direct,
prescriptive instruction as well. Gordon is surely right that
context is the key, yet the juxtaposition of Gagne and Vygotsky
was jarring. I should add that Karpov and Haywood conclude
that both methods should be used: in an example of teaching
6 year olds to write letters of the alphabet "The children
would work in groups, each of them in turn analyzing the letter
to be copied and constructing its model, whereas the others would be
planning, monitoring, checking and evaluating that child's
performance"

Sounds like Skinner's _Walden 2_ to me.......djc

Don Cunningham
School of Education
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405

Phone: 812-856-8540
Email: cunningh who-is-at indiana.edu
Homepage: http://php.indiana.edu/~cunningh