Role Of A Teacher In Learning And Human Socialisation - Case Study Example

Role Of A Teacher In Learning And Human Socialisation Abstract There have been numerous theories about learning by scholars including the Behaviourist, Humanist, Cognitivist, but the ones to gain most prominence in recent years are the constructivist and social learning theories for their individual-centred propositions encompassing new dimensions of human learning which, they offer, is affected mostly by one’s cultural experiences, individual achievement and differences. Following is a review and comparison of Novak’s (1978) and Cobb’s (1998) commentary on the different learning theories by scholars like Jean Piaget and Ausubel, particularly intellectual development in terms of Mathematics and Science education in a classroom scenario. Duit and Treagust’s (1998) draw on the behaviorist, constructivist and social learning theories in regards to the classroom techniques employed by the teachers in teaching Mathematics and Science in ways that foster better individual understanding of the concepts taught. At the end is an evaluation of the effectiveness of considering students’ viewpoints that come to the class with their pre-constructional ideas and the effects of a two-way discourse to facilitate the development of concepts on the effectiveness of the assimilation of what is taught to the students. Part 1: An Overview of Learning Theories, and the Role of a Teacher Learning, a vital aspect of every human’s socialisation has been under much study since a long time. Jean Piaget’s theory of children’s development of mental strategies in learning constituting maturational stages of cognitive growth in the early 20th century have been very helpful in the development of many other constructivist and social learning theories. Novak in his article (1978) compares Piaget’s cognitive theory of learning with the different assumptions of Ausubel’s assimilation theory of learning. We will use this comparison to evaluate better ways of teaching mathematical and scientific concepts to students to be employed by Math and Science teachers. Piaget’s work, as Novak states, gained popularity in the 1960s as American educators ‘rediscovered’ the significance of his views as a result of the report Piaget Rediscovered (Ripple and Rockcastle, 1964). ‘Inquiry’ and ‘discovery’ oriented science and mathematics curriculum innovations reflected in his works gained quite a lot of significance in the educational sector and were promoted with large federal grants. Curiculum reform movements were brought about in part by this re-emergence of Jean Piaget’s learning theories that emphasize on the need for children to manipulate materials and thus spontaneaously advance in ‘cognitive operations’. Previously, textbooks and teachers were often out-of-date in subject matter and much of what was presented was a catalogue of factual information to be learned by rote. This was one of the reasons why the public supported such curriculum improvement so much as educators had confused the rote-meaningful continuum for learning with the reception-discovery continuum for presentation. Knowledge acquired by rote learning is soon lost, and even before it is forgotten, this knowledge cannot be used effectively in problem solving. In an effort to reduce teaching practices that encouraged rote learning, new curriculum reforms and support federal agencies adopted a dogmatic adherence to ‘discovery approaches’ (Novak, 1969). Novak states that what we see in events occurring in nature is largely a function of the concepts we use to interpret these events and that concepts are inventions of man used to describe observed regularities in events. Thomas Kuhn (1962) and especially Toulmin (1972), lucidly point out that concepts, not methods of inquiry, are at the core of rational human thought, including the rational basis of science and mathematics. Facts, in turn are only records of events, and events are anything that happen or can be made to happen. To acquire a concept, for example mathematical concepts, (and not just to memorize in parrot-like fashion the concept label), a person must acquire the meaning of the regularity in some set of events reffered to as concept assimiliation where reqularities required to describe concepts are in the form of prepositions. This is the teacher’s responbility to clarify the concept using all relevant examples and not just focusing on making the students memorize its label. In Novak’s article we see that Ausubel’s (1968) assimilation theory basically revolves around his famous saying that, “the important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows” (p. vi). Ausubel distinguishes between meaningful and rote learning where meaningful learning involves a conscious effort on the part of the learner to relate new knowledge in a substantive. Concepts are acquired idiosyncratically which varry from learner to learner and rote-meaningful learning as a task influenced by the relevant cognitive differentiation of the learners. Ausubel’s concept of subsumption of new knowledge, the process of which differs from Piaget’s concept of assimiliation in that (1) new knowledge is linked to specifically relevant concepts or propositions and (2) this process is continuous and major changes in meaningful learning (or use of knowledge in problem solving) occur not as a result of general stages of cognitive development but rather as a result of growing differentiation and integration of specifically relevant concepts in cognitive structure. The result is that older children are generally capable of solving more complex (abstract) problems than younger children not because they have some unique cognitive capability (structure) but rather because the overall level of differentiation and integration of their concepts is much more elaborate. Obliterative subsumption where specific details will be obliteratively subsumed but a concept’s usefulness for learning will remain to be positively functional element in cognitive structure. Piaget’s maturational stages of cognitive development, in the light of mathematical and scientific education, point to the interpretation that children acquire certain cognitive competencies which vary substantially and we could interpret the relatively uniform increase in percentage of children acquiring competence in each task as the result of composite of stage-wise advances by individuals that add to an appearance of a continuous developmental pattern for the sample groups. We see that Piaget’s maturational stages of mental development, in respect to Mathematical education for students, imply that as a child develops his cognitive operations should the level of teaching concepts rise; the younger the students, the simpler and more detailed with numerous examples and tasks of teaching mathematical concepts should be for better assimilation of their understanding. Cobb (1998) also reviews learning theories in the light of mathematical education for children. Cobb, in his article, explains his view of how mathematical problems can be understood and coped with in a classroom discussion by way of a classroom observation. He shows that the mathematical practice that emerged as the students used the first minitool can be described as that of exploring qualititative characteristics of collection of data points. Cobb presents a classroom scenario to illustrate a theoretical approach that involves analyzing the mathematical learning of the classroom community stressing the changes in public mathematical activity and discourse. He stressed that it should be apparent from the sample episodes that the use of tools and symbols is integral to both mathematical practices and the reasoning of the students who participate in them (cf. Dorfler, 1993; Kaput, 1991). Cobb believes in a diversity of collective practices of a mathematical discourse in a classroom depending on the individual type of students participating. Whitson (1997) emphasizes this point when he proposes that we think of ourselves as viewing human processes in the classroom with the realization that these processes can be described in either social or psychological terms. Cobb and Novak present a cognitivist and constructivist view of mathematical and science education as they delve into the cognitions of the humans participating in learning focusing on their individual interpretation and ways of defining math problems and understanding concepts. Duit and Treagust (1998), in regards to math education, suggest that the nature of the major concepts and the way students develop and discover major principles affect their knowledge and further understanding of concepts in the classroom. If these differences are realized then student-designed experiments and courses can be changed both in mathematical classroom discourses and science education keeping in mind scientists' activities from a historical and social science perspective. There have been powerful developments towards admitting that the complex phenomenon of learning needs pluralistic epistemological frameworks (Greeno et al. 1997) in order to adequately address the many facets emphasized by different views of learning. In math education too, there is a growing number of multi-perspectives of conceptual change which appear to be promising to improve our understanding of Math teaching and learning (Duit and Treagust 2003). Only such frameworks can sufficiently model teaching and learning processes and address the ambitious levels of scientific literacy. Hewson and Thorley (1989) introduce a conceptual status which classifies a conception as being intelligible, plausible or fruitful and is particularly useful for assessing changes in students’ conceptions during learning. For example, in understanding Math, when a competing conception does not generate dissatisfaction, the new conception may be assimilated alongside the old. When dissatisfaction between competing conceptions reveals their incompatibility, two conceptual events may happen. If the new conception achieves higher status than the prior conception, accomodation, which Hewson (1982) calls conceptual exchange, may occur. From the classroom discourses mentioned in Duit and Treagust’s article of Alan, Jane, Mathew and Elaine, we deduce that every individual possesses more than one way for describing objects and processes and this is especially so in Math. Novak believes that most disciplines can be organized around five or six major concepts and similar number of successively more specific, less inclusive levels of concepts heirarchies. Thus we stay within boundaries of human limitations for simultaneous consideration of 5 to 7 ideas (Miller, 1956; Simon, 1974). Piaget's work on children's development of mental strategies goes back to the 1920's. Because the strategies he studied are concerned with people's abilities to interpret the natural world and to cope with the abstract representations of it, Piaget's theory is highly relevant to learning science. Popularity exacts a price. Only that part of the theory which concerns stages of development has received much attention. Groen (1978) argues that Piaget's theory is too complex and interwoven for parts of it to be separated without distortion, so that when stages (which are not part of the invariant core of the theory) become the focus, new postulates have to be supplied to support them. These additions are idiosyncratic, so what is known as Piagetian theory differs from researcher to researcher . Another consequence of concentration on stages is lack of concern for the individual. Once people are labelled as belonging to a stage, there is a temptation to treat them as identical (887-888). Piagetian and Ausubelian theories of children’s development of mental strategies in Mathematical problems, discovering of concepts in the form of prepositions and assimiliation of knowledge and application in Scientific concepts greatly contribute to the field of Educational strategies in designing such student-friendly techniques that faciliate better reception of knowledge. References Cobb, P. (1998). Analysing the mathematical learning of the classroom community: The case of statistical data analysis. Stellenbosch, South Africa: University of Stellenbosch, 33-48. Duit, R. & Treagust, D. F. (1998). Learning in science - from behaviorism towards social constructivism and beyond. In B. J. Fraser & K. G. Tobin (Eds.), International handbook of science education. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 3-25. Novak, J.D. (1978). An alternative to Piagetian psychology for science and mathematics education. Studies in Science Education, 5, 1-30. Part 2: Critical Evaluation of the effectiveness of Considering Students’ Viewpoints in a Learning Situation in the Light of the Behaviorist, Constructivist and Social Theories of Learning Anderson et al (1997) present two approaches to research in Science education of students through the story of “Juan and his group”, defining a functional scientific literacy and helping students to achieve it. The first being canonical approach, which focuses on the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind of literate individuals and second being sociocultural approach, which focuses on language, values, personal identity, and other factors that affect an individual’s participation in the activities of a community. Both these approaches play a useful role in analyzing events in science education as we see in the case study conducted by Anderson et al on a group of 5th graders where students seem to be orchestrating the complex interplay among 3 types of foci for their attention: interpersonal relationships, scientific activity, and task requirements. From their study using the Canonical approach, Anderson et al deduce that conceptual change research seems to hold significance with a positive effect on science education policy and practice. In particular, this research has helped teachers, curriculum developers, and policy makers to recognize the importance of talking to students about their knowledge and understanding, both as a teaching strategy and as a strategy for curriculum developers. In this, qualitative understanding is seen as a necessary precursor to the development of abstract mathematical models where students’ understanding of scientific ideas are emphasized more than just “content coverage”. This approach uses research results to help students construct canonical scientific knowledge by modifying their prior knowledge, pointing out the need for substantial reductions in content coverage and vocabulary load which is usually stressed upon otherwise in most science courses. However, the limitations of this conceptual change research method is that it did little to show why some students were failing while others succeeded. The case study on Juan and his fellow students to study the effects of an interactive classroom scenario promoting student engagement in scientific activity by using canonical scientific ideas to explain real-world phenomena returned interesting results. It was designed so that students would encounter and hopefully overcome a number of common conceptual difficulties as they constructed their own explanations. Linda was the only participant in the group for whom the activity actually worked as the researchers had intended. Active engagement occurs only if people can “populate a discourse” with their own language, interests, and purposes (cf. Ballinger, 1994) and that’s where the sociocultural theory comes in. Teachers and curriculum developers, who undersand the discourse forms that are valued in the adult world, must provide resources and activities that afford all students opportunities for personal engagement; then they must help students to shape their language and physical activity in ways that are scientifically productive. Teachers must also help students develop a sense of communal activity and knowledge, bringing together their initially diverse ideas, activities, and purposes. All children, regardless of status, race or social class, are curious about the world around them and want to understand it better. Scientific literacy provides one way to satisfy that curiosity and achieve that understanding. The story of Juan and his group, however, helps us to see how difficult it will be to help all students connect their curiosity about the world with our aspirations for their scientific literacy. In classroom, students must satisfy task requirements and their personal needs for roles and relationships that give them status and connection. All too often, the connection between natural curiosity and scientific literacy is made only by those students who were prepared to make it by their experiences at home. One way of understanding the craft of these teachers is to say that they have successfully built up a rich array of material and intellectual resources (including their own understanding of their students). In these resource-rich classrooms, even students who do not bring a predisposition to scientific reasoning with them from home are able to thrive. So it appears to us that the resource needs of classrooms that engage all students in authentic scientific activity will be substantial. However, the costs to society of failing to make these investmetns will also be substantial. Venville’s ( 2003) qualitative research aimted to investigate the extent to which the intervention did, indeed, provide an environment that demonstrated good thinking behaviors in Year 1 students. The qualitative data collection was used to provide fine grain, detailed descriptions of classroom behaviors (Cohen et al. 2000) to generate more general assertions about ways teachers can foster habits of good thinking through science in the early years of schooling. Teachers participating in this research reported that the intervention activities actually helped the students with their spoken English because of the reinforcers to speak more. A lot of anecdotal evidence from teachers suggested that very quiet children ,who rarely spoke in the whole class sessions, often contributed worthwhile ideas during the intervention activities. Development of these activities was based on the theoretical constructs of cognitive conflict, social construction, and metacognition that had previously been developed for a cognitive acceleration project with 12-year-old to 14-year-old students (Adey and Shayer 1994). All activities begin with concrete preparation where the students and teacher negotiate common language for the materials to be used and establish familiarity with the situation in which the task will be set. Cognitive challenge is another important aspect of each intervention activity. The aspects of the cognitive acceleration theory that the teachers are encouraged to promote during the activities are referred to as ‘pillars’; concrete preparation, cognitive challenge, social construction, metacognition and bridging. The explicit linking of theory to practice through the pillars distinguishes this intervention from other Piagetian-based activities popular during the 1960s and 1970s. The pillars provide clear guidance to practitioners and criteria by which they can judge their own and other’s practice. Cobb (1998) believes in the qualitative education of the students at hand keeping in mind both the social and psychological perspectives of perceiving the learner. When adopting a psychological perspective, one analyzes individual students’ reasoning as they participate in the practices of the classroom community. Coversely, when adopting a social perspective, one focuses on communal practices that are continually generated by and do not exist apart from the activities of the participating individuals. The coordination at issue is therefore not that between individual students and the classroom community viewed as separate, sharply defined entities. Instead, the coordination is between two alternative ways of looking at and making sense of what is going on in classrooms. What, from one perspective, are seen as the norms and practices of a single classroom community is, from the other perspective, seen as the reasoning of a collection of individuals who mutually adapt to each other actions. References Venville, G., Adey, P., Larkin, S., & Robertson, A. (2003). Fostering thinking through science in the early years of schooling. International Journal of Science Education, 25(11), 1313-1331. Cobb, P. (1998). Analysing the mathematical learning of the classroom community: The case of statistical data analysis. In A. Oliver & K., Vol 1. Stellenbosch, South Africa: University of Stellenbosch. Anderson, C. W., Holland, J. D. & Palincsar, A. S. (1997). Canonical and sociocultural approaches to research and reform in science education: The story of Juan and his group. The Elementary School Journal, 97(4), 359-383. Read More