Dewey, Gee, Pea, Bransford and
Schwartz all have progressive views on education. As a set, Dewey creates the framework for
this view by comparing and contrasting it to traditionalism. He shows that education for the five is not
like the “filling of a cup”, acquisitional metaphor for learning, but rather a
process that gets students active in their learning. Learners in this view are not handed content,
but rather are given the tools to discover and create learning for
themselves. Gee adds to this by pointing
out that the human mind works best when it can run simulations, not just
memorizing. Bransford and Schwartz with
their idea of transfer show the importance of the process of learning, not just
the product; because the process is more transferable than memorizing a fact,
more focus should be placed on making this an active process. Pea sums it up, simply stating, “Intelligence
is accomplished rather than possessed” (p. 50).
His strong ties to constructivism and creating intelligence through
human activity make him a strong advocate for progressivism.
The five also see how important
prior experiences and knowledge are to future learning. Dewey’s idea of continuity again acts as the
framework for this connection. His idea
that the learner brings their experience to the learning situation, and then
carries this experience into future learning connects to Gee’s concept of the
languages of learning. Here, Gee writes
of how some students come to school with an academic language, while some do
not. For these two types of students to
be on an even playing field, so to speak, in the classroom, they must both have
that academic language; if it was not developed in their home experiences, then
their experiences at school must do double-duty to make up for a lack of prior
experience. Similarly, Pea would see
experience as a tool, another factor that contributes to the learning environment.
One way in which Bransford and Schwartz add to this conversation in the
area of transfer is through their concepts of “letting go” and “lived
experience” (p. 80-81, 84-85). In
letting go, the learner must have some prior knowledge that they can assess (they
use the example of a historian working with an unfamiliar topic). For the learner to show good transfer, they
must be able to reevaluate this knowledge and decide what is useful and what
needs to be “let go” to keep them from making assumptions instead of
learning. With “lived experience”, they
show how important it is for contrasting cases.
Learners can use their experience as a contrast to a new experience,
allowing them to uncover more about it.
Really Dewey, Gee, Pea, Bransford
and Schwartz are all calling for change.
They want to see education change from its traditional approach to one
that focuses on active learning, they want to see prior experience used as a
tool to further the learners understanding, and they want to see the changes to
assessment and learning objectives that come along with them.
In your last paragraph, you note that these authors are all pushing for the same types of change in education. What I find a little humorous is that these authors span quite some time, and that this idea of progressive education has been in existence since at least 1938, when Dewey first published his book. It's not a new idea. Education researchers have written about and pushed for the same ideas about progressive education for years, yet we're still not there. Perhaps Dewey's ideas were too abstract at the time it was first introduced, as Seth mentioned in his post.
ReplyDeleteAdam, I had not considered the timespan between these authors. Is is certainly funny to think that the same conversation is being had with seemingly little progress resulting from them. I would be interested to take a more in-depth look at what teachers around these publication dates did in response to this push for progressivism. I'm not sure that we will ever arrive at a purely progressive teaching approach. With the current surge in technological advances and changing communities, the lag between these advances and the teaching methods to support each one may be inevitable. If we were to email Apple and ask for no more keynotes for a few years, I think we may decrease that lag at least for now. Interesting ideas... Maybe less-developed countries without as much tech capacity are more successful in maintaining a progressive approach to teaching
ReplyDeleteAdam, I had the same thought. And I was so frustrated reading Dewey thinking, "yes! He is so right. Why are we STILL not doing this??" Though, I do notice, at least in the elementary school classrooms I have been in, we are in sort of an in-between now, with less lecture, skill & drill, style activities, and more collaborative, group work and discussions. While it is certainly not the ideal "progressive" and experience-based models that these authors argue for, I do think things have evolved at least a little. What's tough is, at the end of the year, these kids are held to bubble-in, multiple-choice, independent tests, so they must also be taught to think in this manner. As Bransford & Shwartz note, we can't just teach one way and assume it is going to easily transfer to another, especially when the kid being asked to display this transfer is 8-years-old.
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