How People Learn Bridging Research and Practice (1999) / Chapter Skim
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2 Key Findings
2 Key Findings
Pages 10-24
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From page 10... ...
Children begin in preschool years to develop sophisticated understandings (whether accurate or not) of the phenomena around them (Wellman, 19901.
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From page 11... ...
For example, in a study of physics students from elite, technologically oriented colleges, Andrea DiSessa (1982) instructed them to play a computerized game that required them to direct a computer-simulated object called a dynaturtle so that it would hit a target and do so with minimum speed at impact.
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From page 12... ...
Experts, regardless of the field, always draw on a richly structured information base; they are not just "good thinkers" or "smart people." The ability to plan a task, to notice patterns, to generate reasonable arguments and explanations, and to draw analogies to other problems are all more closely intertwined with factual knowledge than was once believed. But knowledge of a large set of disconnected facts is not sufficient.
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From page 13... ...
Students can become more expert if the geographical information they are taught is placed in the appropriate conceptual framework. A key finding in the learning and transfer literature is that organizing information into a conceptual framework allows for greater "transfer"; that is, it allows the student to apply what was learned in new situations and to learn related information more quickly (see Box 2.11.
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From page 14... ...
Research has demonstrated that children can be taught these strategies, including the ability to predict outcomes, explain to oneself in order to improve understanding, note failures to comprehend, activate background knowledge, plan ahead, and apportion time and memory. Reciprocal teaching, for example, is a technique designed to improve students' reading comprehension by helping them explicate, elaborate, and monitor their understanding as they read (Palincsar and Brown, 19821.
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Class discussions are used to support skill development, with a goal of independence and self-regulation. IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING The three core learning principles described above, simple though they seem, have profound implications for the enterprise of teaching and teacher preparation.
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From page 16... ...
The format of standardized tests can encourage measurement of factual knowledge rather than conceptual understanding, but it also
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From page 17... ...
Evidence from research indicates that when these three principles are incorporated into teaching, student achievement improves. For example, the Thinker Tools Curriculum for teaching physics in an interactive computer environment focuses on fundamental physical concepts and properties, allowing students to test their preconceptions in model building and experimentation activities.
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From page 18... ...
Figure 2.1 depicts them in diagram format: lecture-based teaching, text-based teaching, inquiry-based teaching, technology-enhanced teaching, teaching organized around individuals versus cooperative groups, and so forth. Are some of these teaching techniques better than others?
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From page 19... ...
DESIGNING CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENTS How People Learn proposes a framework to help guide the design and evaluation of environments that can optimize learning (Figure 2.21. Drawing heavily on the three principles discussed above, it posits four interrelated attributes of learning environments that need cultivation.
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From page 20... ...
In contrast, students who think that intelligence is malleable are more willing to struggle with challenging tasks; they are more comfortable with risk (Dweck, 1989; Dweck and Legget, 19881. Teachers in learner-centered classrooms also pay close attention to the individual progress of each student and devise tasks that are appropriate.
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From page 21... ...
valley permit the teacher to grasp the students' preconceptions, understand where the students are in the "developmental corridor" from informal to formal thinking, and design instruction accordingly. In the assessment-centered classroom environment, formative assessments help hots teachers and students monitor progress.
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From page 22... ...
Teachers must attend to designing classroom activities and helping students organize their work in ways that promote the kind of intellectual camaraderie and the attitudes toward learning that build a sense of community. In such a community, students might help one another solve problems by building on each other's knowledge, asking questions to clarify explanations, and suggesting avenues that would move the group toward its goal (Brown and Campione, 19941.
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From page 23... ...
If one-third of their time outside school (not counting sleeping) is spent watching television, then students apparently spend more hours per year watching television than attending school.
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From page 24... ...
Many professional development opportunities are conducted in isolation. Opportunities for continued contact and support as teachers incorporate new ideas into their teaching are limited, yet the rapid spread of Internet access provides a ready means of maintaining such contact if appropriately designed tools and services are available.
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Key Terms
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