Nate wrote,
>Teacher Centered: Internalization is the goal or prerequisite of the
>community or activity rather than the byproduct.
>
>Student Centered: Appropriation, identity formation, construction,
>ownership is the goal or prerequsite of the community or activity rather
>than the byproduct.
Together with Barbara Rogoff, we distinguish between teaching method (i.e.,
how guidance is organized) and educational philosophy (i.e., what involves
in learning and guidance). We defined three main types of educational
philosophies (there are more than three ed. philosophies and their
combinations but these three are prevail in US schooling):
Adult-run -- or transmission of knowledge;
Children-run -- or discovery learning where adults follows kids' interests
and provides enriched learning environment;
Collaborative -- based on sharing inquires, interests, and ownership for
learning and guidance where kids learn how to learn and adults guide them
how to do that.
We argue for relative independence of teaching method and educational
philosophy. For example, lecturing as a teaching method can be done within
the three ed. philosophies. For the adult-run approach, lecturing is
transmission of knowledge. For the children-run approach, lecturing is
verbal "hand-on" environment. For the collaborative approach, a long
dialogic turn. Teaching methods by themselves do not reveal ed.
philosophies that are behind them.
Although teaching methods relatively independent form ed. philosophies, ed.
philosophies gravitate to some specific methods. For example, the adult-run
approach prefers lecturing and dittos because it is much easier to control
students for transmitting knowledge in these guidance formats than in
groupwork.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nate [mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]
> Sent: Friday, June 18, 1999 1:42 PM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: the calculus wars
>
>
> Tim,
>
> I have no problem, in itself, with lifelong or love of learning for that
> matter. I guess my problem is with the "fostering of the skills"
> which has
> as an assumption that it currently does not exist. I am very much a
> lifelong learner, but what we are talking about is skills for a particular
> type of lifelong leaning. One in which if the economy fails, I,
> the worker
> am at fault because I did not learn a,b,c although I did very much enjoy
> learning x,y, and z, it was personally fulfilling. So, when we speak of
> being student centered what are we talking about. To go back to preschool
> we can watch a child "construct" and label that as student centered or
> "natural", but that environment excludes certain types of learning in the
> process (power rangers for example). I guess I question if the outcome of
> student centered and teacher centered classrooms are really that different
> other than in the end the student centered one is more efficient. I guess
> from personal experience there is some knowledge that is better left
> un-appropriated, so I get a little uneasy with certain assumptions about
> student centered learning. What a child constructs, owns, etc can be
> manipulated and constrained, so there is always a continuum we need to
> focus on. A medical student approriates a certain level of
> assumptions and
> beliefs that are held prior to participating in a PBL community, which is
> not always the case in other communities. So, upon entering a
> community of
> practice I may approriate, identify, or own the activity, but I may also
> chose to ignore, resist or leave in an ideal situation. Where I tend to
> have struggles with the assumptions of student centered
> arrangements is the
> appropriation, identity etc. is often a built in prerequisite to the
> community itself.
>
> Tools, in reference to lifelong learning, have a double nature I believe.
> Again for me its the difference between taking something as a pre-given
> that children construct or identify with an activity or community to
> various degrees, which is a wonderful thing, where it becomes dangerous,
> like internalization, is when it becomes the prerequisite.
>
> Teacher Centered: Internalization is the goal or prerequisite of the
> community or activity rather than the byproduct.
>
> Student Centered: Appropriation, identity formation, construction,
> ownership is the goal or prerequsite of the community or activity rather
> than the byproduct.
>
> Learning/development are beautiful things that occur in most if not all
> activities, but what changes in the educational setting (child
> centered/teacher centered) is they become processes that are
> manipulated to
> various degrees. I think for obvious historical reasons implicit or
> explicit education can turn social processes into something that are
> manipulated and controlled. If we go back to scientific/everyday concepts
> of Vygotsky/Shif we see it was an important pedogogical issue of not so
> much offering something as an alternative to internalization, but
> perfecting it. We see the same logic in some constructivism in
> relation to
> motivation in that learning rather than candy should be the motivation.
> Even Piaget as the quote below Molly offered awhile back demonstrates very
> clearly that what was at task was creating a more efficient model, one
> which the teacher directed model was not very efficient at. Schemes of
> course are very deceptive, because they naturalize internalization to a
> certain extent, but in the end it is about creating a more
> efficient system
> not an alternative to it.
>
> "Piaget was skeptical of schooling's development-enhancing properties. He
> argued that the asymmetrical power
> relations of teacher and student created an imbalance because the pressure
> to accommodate to teachers' views
> far outweighed the pressure for assimilation of instruction to the child's
> already existing schemas. The result
> was learning of a superficial kind that was unlikely to create fundamental
> cognitive change. He believed that
> fundamental change was more likely to occur in informal actions where the
> asymmetry of power relations was
> reduced, allowing for a more equal balance between assimilation and
> accommodation." p. 87, Michael Cole. 1996.
>
> Nate
>