Glasser categorises five basic human needs: “survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun”. The most important are; love and belonging, as it is through relationships we are able to satisfy all five requirements.Glasser classifies Seven Caring Habits that foster good classroom relationships and build an effective learning environment in which the teacher;”…engages [students] in encouraging dialogues, constantly checking for understanding and growth” creating “an intellectual relationship or conversation with the teacher.”
Glasser believes that effective education is about “using and improving knowledge” not its acquisition. To foster this kind of learning in “Glasser schools” there is total open learning, no “closed tests”. Information is freely exchanged between teachers and students.
Open communication is essential for learning. I am not good at maths or physics, and in high school, often gained the best insight from my classmate who was good in these subjects, and an excellent teacher. One of the reasons for my poor ability in these areas was that I lack basic maths knowledge. I did not begin formal education until I was 10 and because of this there are large gaps in my knowledge base, gaps that I have never been able to fill. So while I agree that learning to learn is essential for education today, the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic are also essential scaffolding, and often require repetitive practice.
References:
“An Interview with William Glasser”
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3960/is_200207/ai_n9097918
http://www.wglasser.com/whatisct.htm
Vygotsky saw development as an ongoing process that was in and of the child’s personal, social and cultural environment. Vygotsky saw development as a contrast between what is already known, and what a learner has the potential to know through collaboration with peers and instructors. He called this “The Zone of Proximal Development”Learning levels should be structured at just above the individual level of the students to a group possible, the level of developmental process rather than the stage of development attained, with the teacher there to facilitate learning.
In the late 1970’s I went to Annandale Public (primary). They had 3 experimental classes that were k-6 inclusive. In these 3 classes there were circular styled desks and any group project would have children from all the different age groups. This was to encourage an exchange of learning between the children. The younger ones where guided, while the older learned to teach as well as learn, with the teacher overseeing the whole. It was effective as a learning environment, and allowed for greater socialisation between the age groups in the playground as well as the class room. The teacher was also able to structure learning on different levels, rather than on pre-set ideas on developmental stages.
With the continual development of ICT the range of collaboration is now so much greater: “…collaboration and peer instruction was once only possible in shared physical space, learning relationships can now be formed from distances through cyberspace…”
References:
Elizabeth M. Riddle, Nada Dabbagh, Lev Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory 3/8/99 https://portal.nd.edu.au/http:/ps.nd.edu.au/portal/dt?JSPTabContainer.setSelected=NDmyUnitsTabPanelContainer&last=false
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vygotsky
Piaget observed that children and adults thought and reacted differently to stimuli. He developed the idea that knowledge is constructed sequentially from base motor skill, to abstract thought, through the interaction between heredity and environment. He classified these stages as four distinct developmental progressions, the first three of which, are egocentric:
The Sensorimotor Period (birth to 2 years): A child build on base motor reflexes, to grasp “...more sophisticated procedures,” through physical interaction with the immediate environment.
Preoperational Thought (2 to 6/7 years): A child “can consider more than one perspective simultaneously.” Can understand concrete thought, but not abstract.
Concrete Operations (6/7 to 11/12 years): “... can use these representational skills only to view the world from their own perspective.”
Formal Operations (11/12 to adult): “… are capable of thinking logically and abstractly. They can also reason theoretically. Piaget considered this the ultimate stage of development,”
However more recent research show that the brain continues to develop through teenage years, at which time it also begins to gain emotional intelligence. Although these four stages are useful tool in recognising that there is no point in trying to make a learner over reach their developmental capability, it is a limited. Multiple intelligence and Digital Native theories suggests that different types of learning will affect the levels of cognitive maturity in different learners, and could make these cognitive periods less defined, and possibly eventually in need of redefining.
References:
Pam Silverthorn, “Jean Piaget’s Theory of Development”, EDIT 704, Summer 1999
https://portal.nd.edu.au/http:/ps.nd.edu.au/portal/dt?JSPTabContainer.setSelected=NDmyUnitsTabPanelContainer&last=false
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
BBC
Gardner, H. A Multiplicity of Intelligences: A Tribute to Professor Luigi Vognolo, 1998/2004. https://portal.nd.edu.au/http:/blackboard.nd.edu.au/courses/1/S-ED4236/content/_66601_1/Gardner_MI.pdf
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
John Hattie
According to Hattie, teachers are able to exert a 30% influence on their student’s ability learning (students themselves = 50%). In this light, a teacher’s ability to teach effectively is extremely important for a student’s progressive development. Hattie found expert teachers showed “…16 prototypic attributes of expertise.”
These 16 attributes distilled into “Three dimensions”:
Expert teachers continually contextualise their lessons for deep representation. According to Fabio’s research web based mapping techniques facilitate interactions and exchange of student/teacher experiences to make information relevant to the syllabus and the student’s deeper understanding.
Expert teachers focus on problem solving, both in the immediate situation and in the future. Through monitoring outcomes and giving/gaining [feedback] they are able to recognise current and potential areas of difficulty in learning and behaviour, in classes and individuals. As a teacher I need to continually ask what I can do so they achieve the desired educational outcome.
References:
Hattie, J. “Teaches Make a Difference: What is the research evidence?” Australian Council for Education research Annual Conference on: Building Teacher Quality, Distinguishing Expert Teachers from Novices and Experienced Teachers University of Auckland, October 2003.
www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/HattieSlides.pdf
Fabio, J. Facilitating Deep Learning in the Adult Online Learner, 2005.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EDU05072B.pdf
Individuals construct meaning through their personal experience. These experiences are physical, linguistic and culturally based, so that the individual’s development moves from primarily egocentric modes “Enactive representation”, to socially interactive ones like simple “Iconic representation” through to the more sophisticated “Symbolic representation”. These stages were “…dominant during each developmental phase, but present and accessible throughout”.
Bruner saw educators primarily as facilitators in the process of learning through personal discovery: “…the student participates in making many of the decisions about what, how, and when something is to be learned…” then classifies the experience into personal meaning through iconic representation and cultural expectation. Where teaching was exclusively one-on-one, this type of system would work, but in the current school system I do not believe this is practical. Teaching programs that included elements of his approach would be useful, for example; it is important to know the student’s developmental levels before trying to teach them so that you do not go too far above their capability. Making learning relevant to the student may be difficult if the curriculum is set on data memorisation, but this could be compensated for by teaching that it is not the information that is important, but that the process of learning that particular information is, and that the process is measurably successful when the data has been manipulated by the student to fit the school’s requirements. This could be achieved by the teachers and students developing and experiencing different educational tools and scaffolding techniques together.
References:
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/construct.htmlthem
Hollyman, D. Jerome Bruner: A Web Overview,
Epstein, M. (Tricia Ryan Instructor) “Maureen Epstein’s Online research Portfolio: Constructionism: Bruner,” Fall 2002. http://tiger.towson.edu/users/mepste1/researchpaper.htm
