The two authors identify some challenges education faces in developing this capacity for sustained creative work, which they refer to as "knowledge building".
One such challenge is when students carry their misconceptions or "naive ideas on into adult life, unexamined and unimproved."
(Interestingly, Jonathan Drori discusses just this idea in his video called 'Why we don't understand as much as we think we do")
I must admit to taking pause when the authors noted that "opinions differ on both the ethics and the practicalities of inducing conceptual change", and when they asked, "To what extent should teachers be concerned about modifying students' naive conceptions?" For some strange reason, my mind conjured up a vision of a little old man in a red suit and the expectant look on the faces of my grade two students...
Scardamalia & Bereiter's discussion links nicely with the whole idea of Authentic Instruction and Authentic Learning.
I agree with Driori when he comments about how we need to view children as being vessels filled with their own ideas and theories. It certainly was alarming to hear students fair better before teaching/schooling when it comes to theories about magnetism and gravity. What does that say about the kind of teaching children are being exposed to.
ReplyDeleteDriori's TED talk also resonated with me. He states that children are not empty vessels and that they come with their own ideas and theories about the world. How often do we, as educators, neglect this fact? What I see at the high school level is that so many students have lost confidence in their own understanding of the world. They are hesitant to share their understandings in case their view is 'wrong'. This neglect of the child's inherent knowledge can truly play a harmful role in the learing process.
ReplyDeleteDriori's comments dovetail nicely with the prior research that I have done into experiential learning. Specifically, Kolb & Kolb in their paper, Experiential Learning Theory: A Dynamic, Holistic Approach to
Management Learning, Education and Development
(http://www.learningfromexperience.com/images/uploads/ELT-Hbk-MLE&D-LFE-website-2-10-08.pdf)highlight the fact that, "all learning is re-learning"(4). This idea of drawing out a student's prior knowledge should be seen as an important and valuable part of the learning process. According to Kolb & Kolb, it is the acknowledgement of this prior understanding that sets the stage for the examination, testing, retesting and integration of more refined ideas(4).
The bookend approach of drawing out prior understanding, and then reflecting on how one's understanding has shifted due to an 'experience' should be (in my opinion) important authentic learning design elements.