As practitioners in the use of technology to support learning, we not only need to acquire understanding from research the learning sciences and through a study of best practices, we also need to apply this understanding in our design and development practice.
We have found that the most successful means for achieving these goals is to model them in the way we support acquisition of knowledge and skill. This instructional philosophy is grounded in the understanding that knowledge can only be acquired successfully if we provide the appropriate structure and setting in which learners can bridge their prior understanding to new concepts in highly situated contexts and let them build knowledge in a personal manner.
To help us achieve these goals, we employ the following cognitive science strategies: situated learning (situating the learning in authentic settings and artifacts), case-based reasoning (comparing contemporary cognitive issues and practices with concrete examples from an ancient culture), and shared cognition (creating shared artifacts on the Web for cooperative learning).
We also take our cue from the growing consensus among scholars and educational advisory groups, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science whose study of science education was conducted by hundreds of leading scholars and led to published recommendations, some of which we are using as part of our rationale (bold reflects our emphasis):
"Some important themes pervade science, mathematics, and technology and appear over and over again, whether we are looking at an ancient civilization, the human body, or a comet. They are ideas that transcend disciplinary boundaries, and prove fruitful in explanation, in theory, in observation, and in design." (p.155)
"Students are likely to learn thinking skills only in the process of coming to understand something substantive about the world, of encountering them in many different contexts and situations, and of using them repeatedly." (p.175)
"Science is more than a body of knowledge and a way of accumulating and validating that knowledge. It is also a social activity that incorporates certain human values. ... In learning science, students should ecounter values as part of their experience, not as empty claims." (p.190)
Science for all Americans
by F. James Rutherford and Andrew Ahlgen
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990
Our response to this challenge is to expand the curriculum to include use of situated cognition and case-based reasoning of concrete examples to bridge understanding, and shared cognition of the educational outcomes.
To achieve this, we will illustrate parallels and contrasts in the learning and teaching aspects between our contemporary culture and that of an earlier culture, especially learning and teaching concepts in the cognitive science literature.
Lessons will be created to examine these aspects of learning and teaching through the perspectives of several topical or disciplinary domains (art, history, music, etc.). Each lesson will examine artifacts for which learning/teaching may be present in the depictions on the artifacts or in (descriptions of) their design, production, and/or use.
Lessons will offer the opportunity to build knowledge rather than simply represent it. They will progress from presenting useful examples to guiding the learner in acquiring concepts and schema that reflect current knowledge in cogntive science and educational technology.
Updated as of January 13, 2008
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