Mike, Thanks for sharing that anecdote. Unfortunately there is a mirror image in reform teaching to the dysfunctional portrait you presented of direct instruction of procedures disconnected from meaning-making: engagement in activity with no vision on the teacher's part of what or how learning is to be supported. I think there is good evidence that the Math Wars in the US initiated not from ideological resistance (that came later), but from true horror stories of kids in dysfunctional reform classrooms, some of them getting to college unprepared as learners (getting into college is not always a sign of a successful K-12 learning experience). As a community, I don't think we've done a good job of articulating what it is that makes activity-based learning environments effective. This was the topic of my AERA paper in May, "The Incoherence of Contemporary Pedagogical Reform," which I attach in case anyone is interested. (The meat of the paper starts about half way through at the section titled "Theoretical Analysis.") David -----Original Message----- From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 2:39 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity Subject: [xmca] The Grip of "Direct Instruction" Yesterday I presented a longish paper at the American Psych Association meetings here in San Diego. A lot of it was about what here I would refer to as "activity-based" curriculum projects -- their virtues, problems, and apparent inability to gain traction against recitation scrips and direct instruction. A major general finding was that when implemented as designers intend, such program work, but they tend quickly to be undermined by teachers who strongly believe that direct instruction on elements not under control of a meaningful whole is THE only way to be effective. A person from Canada posed a question after prefacing her remarks by saying she agreed with all I said, and thank you, etc. She began by saying that in Canada such approaches had gained a lot of traction in k-12 education, but they were causing a problem at the university level. She phrased the problem roughly as follows: "We get a lot of students who are great at collaborative learning, but it appears to strip them of their attention spans. And, doesn't a subject like calculus REQUIRE direct instruction?" These comments/questions knocked me over. I have long disliked the discourse of short attention span in school kids, which appears to masquerade far too often as a proxy for "the kids will not sit still and control themselves doing stuff they do not understand and do not understand why they should try to understand." But I never expected that the the charge of "reduced attention spans" would be attributed to college students (who have succeeded in getting in to college, after all) with the causal factor inducing this "deficit" being that their former (successful) modes of learning engendered by activity-centered instruction). Moreover, I was surprised that anyone believes that calculus can be taught by "direct instruction" with no effort made to subordinate procedural knowledge to knowledge of the potential motives for learning. I think I was experiencing exactly the challenges confronting the many really interesting and successful innovators in education (we might start here with Dewey, but I have in mind modern scholars) who want to make education a meaningful process to students but who find that their efforts are rapidly deconstructed once they leave the home ground. Anyone else have observations of this kind? mike Two things struck me _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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