Good afternoon to all. It has been a busy week in Denver, CO. I am very close to the end of the school year with my eighth graders, and I started today with a very wet cold running of the Colfax Half Marathon. The good news is I did find some time this week to do some digging and came up with a couple of interesting resources for this week's blog entry. I chose to look up one web site on the brain and learning, and one journal article on constructivism vs. direct instruction. I have cited the information below including the links if you would like to have a look, as well as a few thoughts on each resource.
Web Page
Brain Connection
This is a very comprehensive and user-friendly web page that deals specifically with brain function and its relationship to education. To me the best part of the web page is the library section. It has articles ranging from general topics on the brain, the brain and education, clinical topics as well as a series of tutorials on brain anatomy, physiology, and brain function. I found value in this web site because I think it is a good starter page for those who are trying to get a stronger grasp of brain-based education. The only drawback is that this site is sponsored by Posit Science Corporation, so it is a bit advertisement heavy.
Journal Article
Kirschner, P., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86.
This article caught my eye, because right now in education inquiry based instruction is all the rage. I have been working with a group over the last couple of years that is facilitating professional development specifically to bring a more inquiry-based approach into our school. The article was pretty interesting. Its goal is to "suggest that based on our current knowledge of human cognitive architecture, minimally guided instruction is likely to be ineffective" (p. 76). The article includes information on the relationship of working memory and long-term memory and discusses how constructivist teaching does not consider this relationship. The article then gives a brief history of constructivism followed by the authors' guidelines for effective direct instruction. The bottom line is the authors' feel that constructivist theories of teaching are ineffective in providing basic skills and content (especially in science) to novice or intermediate learners, and are not as effective for advanced learners when compared to direct instruction.
Though I did not agree with all of the points of the article when it comes to the value of constructivist practices, I did find the article to be a great review of the relationship of working memory and long-term memory. The article also gave me some points to consider as an instructional designer especially when it comes to delivering science content to novice learners (such as eighth graders). Overall, it was interesting reading and I would recommend having a look.
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ReplyDeleteJust two things I would like to add that I found interesting from the text Learning Theories and Instruction by Omrod, Schunk, and Gredler (2010)is that teaching math using personal and social constructivism are two approaches that I am going to expound upon in my own teaching. I do to some degree already, but now that I have this theories to study, I have a new tool in my teacher's toolbox!
ReplyDeleteBriefly, personal constructivism is an approach where a student takes notes either from direct instruction or from a text and rephrases the material into their own words as they reflect on the material they are learning. The other, social constructivism is learning by discovery. Here the "constructivist math teacher creates situations that may be personally meaningful to the students at different conceptual levels" (Omrod, pg.19).