Carrie Ann’s Reading Log 2/7
Posted by cdelane2 on February 7, 2010
Filed under Reading logs
Are we only scratching the surface of our student’s learning potential in the classroom? This is something that we as educators need to be very cognizant of when it comes to planning, delivery, and assessment. The reading this week really drove that idea home for me. Are we helping our students to make those deeper connections with the material that we impart on them, or do we just glance “over the top” of the material and assume that our students have learned the topic(s) at hand. The Marchese article looks into the idea of learning through areas such as Neuroscience, Anthropology, and Workplace studies…. Some of these scientific areas I never would have considered looking at, but this reading has changed my viewpoints and has grabbed my attention.
When looking at the area of Neuroscience it was addressed that “No scientist has yet come up with a coherent set of ideas about how the brain works that would be persuasive and usable for those of us who teach.” How is this so? In all that we know of how the brain works, we cannot make any connections on the synthesis of learning material and neuro-pathways… I know that learning isn’t a “big money” area in terms of scientific study, but there is room to branch out.
The one area and topic that really has begun the wheels turning for me is in the area of anthropological studies, primarily the idea of apprenticeship. In generations prior to our parents/grandparents, and ours being an apprentice enabled an individual with “real life” learning and hands on experience. Now in the age of textbooks, media, and lecture learning/teaching, we as teachers can take some guidance from our past. To make those “deeper” learning connections having apprenceships in various courses (outside of areas of teaching, which require a student teaching practicum) can guide our students to synthesize the material and apply it to real life experiences and give them a new level of “learning and assessment” that cannot be accomplished in the classroom.
Looking at the area of learning though other scientific fields of study can help us as educators to look deeper into how we impart knowledge to our students. Gliding along the surface is not going to cut it… we need to jump into the deep end of learning, then and only then can we be effective as scholars and educators.
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Darren Cambridge on February 16th, 2010 1:15 pm
The Zull book you’re reviewing for us, which was published after Marchese’s article, has had widespread appeal primarily because it claim to offer that translation from brain science to practical ideas that can be used in education. I’ll be very interested to hear whether you think it lives up to that promise.
There is a huge literature of various versions of apprenticeship. The authors Marchese mentions–Paul Duguid and John Seely Brown and Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger–are particularly seminal and also, particularly for Duguid and Brown, quite accessible. I’d love to learn more about if and how this research has impacted thinking about teaching and learning in your discipline. As an outsider, it seems like there must be a great deal of apprenticeship-like instruction involved in teaching musical performance, at least when you get beyond the basics. I wonder how that model might extend to the kind of introductory course for non-majors you’re teaching now?