How People Learn Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 131-154
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From page 131... ...
A fundamental tenet of modern learning theory is that different kinds of learning goals require different approaches to instruction (Chapter 31; new goals for education require changes in opportunities to learn. After discussing changes in goals, we explore the design of learning environments from four perspectives that appear to be particularly important given current data about human learning, namely, the degree to which learning environments are learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered.
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From page 132... ...
In the early 1900S, the challenge of providing mass education was seen by many as analogous to mass production in factories. School administrators were eager to make use of the "scientific" organization of factories to structure efficient classrooms.
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From page 133... ...
The remainder of this chapter is organized around Figure 6.1, which illustrates four perspectives on learning environments that seem particularly important given the principles of learning discussed in earlier chapters. Although we discuss these perspectives separately, they need to be conceptualized as a system of interconnected components that mutually support one another (e.g., Brown and Campione, 19961; we first discuss each perspective separately and then describe how they interrelate.
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From page 134... ...
A key strategy is to prompt children to explain and develop their knowledge structures by asking them to make predictions about various situations and explain the reasons for their predictions. By selecting critical tasks that embody known misconceptions, teachers can help students test their thinking and see how and why various ideas might need to change (Bell, 1982a, b, 1985; Bell et al., 1986; Bell and Purdy, 19851.
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From page 135... ...
In another example of connecting everyday talk and school talk, African American high school students were shown that many of their forms of everyday speech were examples of a very high form of literacy that was taught in school, but never before connected with their everyday experience (Lee, 1991, 19921. Like Proust who discovered he had been speaking prose all of his life, the students discovered that they were fluent in a set of competencies that were considered academically advanced.
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From page 136... ...
Chapter 7 illustrates how these bridges can be built. KNOWLEDGE-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS Environments that are solely learner centered would not necessarily help students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to function effectively in society.
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From page 137... ...
characterized American curricula in mathematics and science as being "a mile wide and an inch deep." (Examples of teaching for depth rather than breadth are illustrated in Chapter 7.) As discussed in the first part of this book, knowledge-centered environments also include an emphasis on sense-making on helping students become metacognitive by expecting new information to make sense and asking for clarification when it doesn't (e.g., Palincsar and Brown, 1984; Schoenfeld, 1983, 1985, 19911.
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From page 138... ...
The National Research Council (1990:4) notes that "To the Romans, a curriculum was a rutted course that guided the path of t~vo-wheeled chariots." This rutted path metaphor is an appropriate description of the curriculum for many school subjects: Vast numbers of learning objectives, each associated with pedagogical strategies, serve as mile posts along the trail mapped by texts from kindergarten to twelfth grade.
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From page 139... ...
ASSESSMENT-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS In addition to being learner centered and knowledge centered, effectively designed learning environments must also be assessment centered. The key principles of assessment are that they should provide opportunities 139
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From page 140... ...
Issues of summative assessment for purposes of national, state, and district accountability are beyond the scope of this volume; our discussion focuses on classroombased formative and summative assessments. Formative Assessments and Feedback Studies of adaptive expertise, learning, transfer, and early development show that feedback is extremely important (see Chapters 2, 3, and 41.
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From page 141... ...
In addition, many standardized tests that are used for accountability still overemphasize memory for isolated facts and procedures, yet teachers are often judged by how well their students do on such tests. One mathematics teacher consistently produced students who scored high on statewide examinations by helping students memorize a number of mathematical procedures (e.g., proofs)
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From page 142... ...
Theoretical Frameworks for Assessment A challenge for the learning sciences is to provide a theoretical framework that links assessment practices to learning theory. An important step in this direction is represented by the work of Baxter and Glaser (1997)
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From page 143... ...
Characterizing assessments in terms of components of competence and the content-process demands of the subject matter brings specificity to generic assessment objectives such as "higher level thinking and deep understanding." Characterizing student performance in terms of cognitive activities focuses attention on the differences in competence and subject-matter achievement that can be observed in learning and assessment situations. The kind and quality of cognitive activities in an assessment is a function of the content and process demands of the task involved.
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From page 144... ...
Assessment tasks can involve many possible combinations of content knowledge and process skills; Table 6.1 illustrates the relationship between the structure of knowledge and the organized cognitive activities. COMMUNITY-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS New developments in the science of learning suggest that the degree to which environments are community centered is also important for learning.
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From page 145... ...
THE DESIGN OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS TABLE 6.1 Cognitive Activity and Structure of Knowledge Organized Cognitive Activity Structure of Knowledge Fragmented Meaningful Problem Representation Strategy Use Self-Monitoring Explanation Surface features and shallow understanding Underlying principles and relevant concepts Undirected trial-and-error Efficient, informative, and problem solving goal oriented Minimal and sporadic Ongoing and flexible Principled and coherent Single statement of fact of description of superficial factors nity, the school as a community, and the degree to which students, teachers, and administers feel connected to the larger community of homes, businesses, states, the nation, and even the world. Classroom and School Communities At the level of classrooms and schools, learning seems to be enhanced by social norms that value the search for understanding and allow students (and teachers)
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From page 146... ...
For example, some groups rely on learning by observation and listening and then becoming involved in ongoing activities; school-like forms of talking may be unfamiliar for the children whose community has only recently included schools (Rogoff et al., 19931; see Box 6.3. The sense of community in classrooms is also affected by grading practices, and these can have positive or negative effects depending on the students.
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From page 147... ...
We say more about this in Chapter 8. Connections to the Broader Community An analysis of learning environments from the perspective of community also includes a concern for connections between the school environment and the broader community, including homes, community centers, after-school programs, and businesses.
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From page 148... ...
If students spend one-third of their nonsleeping time outside of school watching television, this means that they spend more time watching television in a year than they spend in school. (We say more about television and learning in the next section.)
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From page 149... ...
TELEVISION For better or for worse, most children spent a considerable amount of time watching television; it has played an increasingly prominent role in children's development over the past 50 years. Children watch a great deal of television before entering school, and television viewing continues throughout life.
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From page 150... ...
One group of preschoolers aged 2-4 and first-grade students aged 6-7 watched about 7-8 hours of noneducational programming per week; the preschool children also watched an average of 2 hours of educational programming per week, and the older students watched 1 hour. Despite the low ratio of educational to noneducational viewing, the educational programs seemed to have positive benefits.
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From page 151... ...
Furthermore, the benefits of informative viewing occur despite the fact that the ratio of young children's viewing tends to be 7:1 in favor of entertainment television. These findings support the wisdom of continued attempts to develop and study television programs that can help students acquire the kinds of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that support their learning in school.
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From page 152... ...
Teaching for understanding and problem solving may be "what we do on Fridays"; collaborative learning may be used to promote memorization of fact-based tests; and formative assessments may focus on skills that are totally disconnected from the rest of the students' curriculum. In addition, students may be given opportunities to study collaboratively for tests yet be graded on a curve so that they compete with one another rather than trying to meet particular performance standards.
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From page 153... ...
Four perspectives on the design of learning environments the degree to which they are student centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered are important in designing these environments. A focus on the degree to which environments are learner centered is consistent with the strong body of evidence suggesting that learners' use their current knowledge to construct new knowledge and that what they know and believe at the moment affects how they interpret new information.
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From page 154... ...
Students may receive grades on tests and essays, but these are summative assessments that occur at the end of projects; also needed are formative assessments that provide students opportunities to revise and hence improve the quality of their thinking and learning. Assessments must reflect the learning goals that define various environments.
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