The Possibility of Apprenticeship as a Teaching Tool in Schools - Essay Example

Apprenticeship 1.0 Introduction Barbara Rogoff believes that children can develop their thinking as they participate in cultural activity with the guidance and challenge of their teachers, parents and friends. She views development as an apprenticeship in which children engage in the use of intellectual tools in societal activities with parents, other adults, and children. She conducted exhaustive research into the behaviour of children in learning through cognitive, developmental, and cultural psychology. She concluded that children could benefit through learning as an apprenticeship; a social activity that is mediated by parents and peers who support and challenge their child's understanding and skills. Rogoff argues that cognitive development involves much more than the accumulation of skills and knowledge. Cognitive development is better characterised as the growing sophistication with which a child employs cognitive processes such as thinking, remembering, and perceiving in his or her collaborations with the other children and teachers who share in the learning process at school. In other words, Rogoff describes learning as a process of ‘guided participation’ shared between the child and others in contexts of participation. Guided participation helps bridge the varying perspectives and thought process among the more and less experienced participants, and helps in involving every student in class activities. This paper looks at the possibility of apprenticeship as a teaching tool in schools. 2.0 Overview Teaching has become a subject of intense speculation and many views have been expressed to make teaching and learning meaningful and at the same time enjoyable. In ancient times, teaching and learning were accomplished through apprenticeship; parents taught their children how to speak, how to grow crops, how to craft cabinets, or tailor clothes by showing them physically and helping them do it. Apprenticeship is training, training students and workers to perform under the guidance of the learned. A technician who has just passed out of college, undergoes an apprenticeship with his/her new employer for the simple reason; to understand what is to be done and how. Companies normally avoid taking the risk of allowing a new recruit the privilege of operating his machines in the workshop, unless he/she is sure that the employee is comfortable in operating the high-value machine. The same principle was used during the olden times. Teaching and learning was spontaneous and physical. Just as teaching music or painting is physical, so too was the way of teaching. Today, apprenticeship has been replaced by formal schooling, except in cases of learning of language, graduate education, and in on-the-job training. ‘Cognitive apprenticeship’ is the combination of apprenticeship with the elements of schooling (Collins et al., 1989). Apprenticeship involves learning through tangible activities. This is not seen in the way subjects are taught in schools today. The process of problem solving, and reading does not involve any physical activity; it’s not conspicuous to the student, as in the case of apprenticeship, where activities are visible. Thus one sees that the process of teaching and learning are often invisible to both the students and the teacher. Cognitive apprenticeship is a model of instruction that has more appeal and produce better understanding to both, the teacher and the student. 3.0 Literature Review Although there can be no two thoughts about the way schools have been successful in organising and conveying information; both conceptual and factual, little attention is paid to reasoning or strategies when they acquire knowledge or put it to use in real-life situations. In such situations, one finds the ‘learned’ using their formulaic methods for solving problems. For others, conceptual and problem-solving knowledge acquired in school remains largely inert. Schoenfeld (I985) found that in solving mathematics problems, students relied on their knowledge of their textbook, rather than their intuition of problem-solving. When they encountered problems outside their curriculum, these learned students were often than not, found at a loss. Sadly, many students fail to use or understand how resources can be utilised to improve their skills because of their ignorance. Students were not able to incorporate the ‘knowledge-telling strategies’ as said by Scardamalia and Beriter (1985), because they had no plan ‘B’ to fall back on (Collins et al., 1989). The ideal scenario would have been for school students to learn by communicating with experts and with each other in an animated task learning environment. This would enhance perspective-taking, which would lead to critical thinking. Using a framework of cognitive apprenticeship which gives learners a legitimate social context for learning, students can take different roles and ask and answer questions as well as discuss issues with each other. This is what apprenticeship teaching is all about. Such practices could lead to better learning and organisation. Though the methods used in schools can not be termed inefficient, inculcating the practice of apprenticeship can help students innovate, as they will be trained to transfer what they learn to practice. Cognitive apprenticeship presents a wide range of tasks, varying from systematic to diverse, and encourages students to reflect on and articulate elements that are common across tasks. As teachers impart skills, students will be able to vary their skills to make them useful. This way, students will be able to transfer their skills independently when faced with different situations. To translate the teaching process to cognitive apprenticeship, teachers should: 1. Identify the various processes or tasks to make them visible to students 2. Create situations wherein students can interpret or evolve strategies to successfully complete tasks 3. Make students understand the importance of completing the task An ideal situation is the use of good reading habits to improve writing (Collins et al., 1989). In helping a child write a report, an adult can observe and assist the child to the extent to which the child needs help with formulating ideas and use resources to search for information to put their own ideas into practice. This way, a child gets to learn how to seek information, and also understanding the mechanics of spelling and punctuation. The process of involving an adult provides key information on the extent to which a child can learn to manage his/her motivation to sustain involvement in activities, and seek or provide help effectively (Barbara Kogoff, Eugene Matusov & Cynthia White, 1996, p.406). The differences between the current system of education in schools and that of the apprenticeship-model teaching appears to be greatest in a students’ learning that have to do with his/her participation: 1. In apprenticeship, students learn how to coordinate with, support, and lead others, to become responsible and organised in their management of their own learning, and be able to build on their previous interests to learn in new areas and sustain motivation to learn. 2. In the contemporary method, students learn to manage individual performances, measured as it is, against the performance of others, and carry out tasks that are not of personal interest and make any sense to them. They learn to demonstrate their skills in the format of their text books and figure out the criteria by which adults judge their performance with others. Clearly, there is no mistaking that both kinds of learning can be seen to prepare the child for the adult world. However, to judge the worth of the two, requires value judgments related to how one sees the adult world for which the child is preparing. In addition, to judge the value of the two models, one must consider the functions and special interests that these schools and curricula serve in the nation’s political and economic system, such as opportunities and higher studies (Barbara Kogoff, Eugene Matusov & Cynthia White, 1996, p.406). 4.0 Conclusion While every effort has been taken to elucidate the possibilities of attracting apprenticeship-style education has been undertaken in this report, there are a few points that are debatable and should be considered in the context of the subject. The distinctness of the two can be seen in the way the practices can be put into practice. While the standard practice is most comfortable with all students, this may not be true in the case of apprenticeship model. Newcomers to this style can find this method to be difficult to understand and accept. Teachers may find the use of apprenticeship to be quite involving or taxing, making them vary of the consequence of neglect. Equal participation may not be what teachers or parents hope for, and so, there may be difficulty in accepting such rational changes. It can however be said that, apprenticeship-model learning is a very suitable option for the future. 5.0 References Allan Brown, John Seely Brown and Ann Holum, 21st Century Learning Initiative, What implications do this have for educators? http://www.21learn.org/arch/articles/brown_seely.html Barbara Rogoff, Eugene Matusov and Cynthia White, Models of Teaching and Learning: Participation in a Community of Learners, Oxford, Blackwell, UK, http://java.cs.vt.edu/public/classes/communities/readings/Rogoff,Matusov-1996.pdf Read More