Papert Post
The Art of Learning; I’m not sure I ever thought about learning in that context. How do we learn to learn? Before we can answer that, we need to know exactly how we learn. Is that possible? Many people learn in different ways. How can we say this is how you learn when a single classroom may have students with several different learning styles?
As I was growing up, this was evident at home. My older brother was a book learner. Give him a book, let him read it and he would be fine. I, on the other hand, am a hands-on person. I learn by doing. I can take something apart, analyze the structure and components, and put it back together. Give me that same information in the written form and I would not have the same understanding. Give my brother the device and ask him to take it apart and put it back together and you will first have a broken device, and second, a lot of extra parts. We learn differently, always have.
It might not be as hard to document the different ways people learn. As shown above, we just documented the best way to teach both me and my brother. The problem comes along when you have a classroom of thirty, or even worse, a secondary teacher teaching the same course to three groups of thirty. How do we separate the students and still teach everything? DeCastro-Ambrosetti and Cho question this as well by highlighting that “teachers find themselves in the predicament of attending to one segment of the population, using with a certain approach to teaching and learning, only to be later faced with the task meeting the needs of another segment” (2005, p.58).
Papert’s article states that we are in the Age of the Computer. The computer or technology in general has the potential to help teach different groups in different ways. While thinking about my post, I remembered the Gooru device from group six’s Wiki assignment. That type of device may be useful in allowing us to teach multiple styles simulations. That technology is on the outer rim though, still a few years away. Until that point, unless we break classes down by a defined learning style or have classrooms of a handful of teachers assigned to one teacher, I’m not sure we can put into practice that which we have learned about learning.
References
Cho, G. & DeCastro-Ambrosetti, D. (2005 Oct/Nov). Synergism in Learning: a Critical Reflection of Authentic Assessment. The High School Journal. 89(1). 57-62.
As I was growing up, this was evident at home. My older brother was a book learner. Give him a book, let him read it and he would be fine. I, on the other hand, am a hands-on person. I learn by doing. I can take something apart, analyze the structure and components, and put it back together. Give me that same information in the written form and I would not have the same understanding. Give my brother the device and ask him to take it apart and put it back together and you will first have a broken device, and second, a lot of extra parts. We learn differently, always have.
It might not be as hard to document the different ways people learn. As shown above, we just documented the best way to teach both me and my brother. The problem comes along when you have a classroom of thirty, or even worse, a secondary teacher teaching the same course to three groups of thirty. How do we separate the students and still teach everything? DeCastro-Ambrosetti and Cho question this as well by highlighting that “teachers find themselves in the predicament of attending to one segment of the population, using with a certain approach to teaching and learning, only to be later faced with the task meeting the needs of another segment” (2005, p.58).
Papert’s article states that we are in the Age of the Computer. The computer or technology in general has the potential to help teach different groups in different ways. While thinking about my post, I remembered the Gooru device from group six’s Wiki assignment. That type of device may be useful in allowing us to teach multiple styles simulations. That technology is on the outer rim though, still a few years away. Until that point, unless we break classes down by a defined learning style or have classrooms of a handful of teachers assigned to one teacher, I’m not sure we can put into practice that which we have learned about learning.
References
Cho, G. & DeCastro-Ambrosetti, D. (2005 Oct/Nov). Synergism in Learning: a Critical Reflection of Authentic Assessment. The High School Journal. 89(1). 57-62.
posted by mcavallaro at 1:34 PM
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