Since this course covers K-12 distance education, we'll start with a quick re-cap of pedagogy (the art, science or profession of teaching).
For many of you this will be a review, for those new to the K-12 world it will be a launch point to go find further information. Pedagogy brings together what we believe about the physical, mental and emotional development of children, with the ways in which teachers can intentionally help them learn.
K-12 covers 13 of the most fascinating years of life - the child entering Kindergarten is about 5 years old and virtually dependent on the adults around them for everything yet totally enthusiastic and open in terms of what they might be when they grow up. Contrast them with the young adult leaving school at age 18 who is very independent in their thinking and aspirations, yet fully realizing that much of their future has already been determined by their success in school. Somewhere in those 13 years the school system has taught them to sit still and listen, to pay attention and search for the right answer, and to subject them selves to the authority that makes things run in the industrial society. However, many things can happen in those 13 years to make their world change. Imagine someone born in 1952 when sputnik was launched living through the space race to see men walk on the moon in 1969. Imagine someone born in 1995 growing up with the internet, computer games and smart phones. As our students grow up, their world changes quickly, but schools are not quick to change - the subjects and pedagogy often reflects ideas laid down 100 years ago rather current thought. One question that awaits those developing K12 distance education is "Should we merely strive to replicate the quality of education available in a classroom, or should we strive to do better?"
Let's start our very cursory review of pedagogy. The following introductions are not meant to be compete and you are encouraged to read further on your own - first to Wikipedia and then to more authoritative texts. Probably the two most common names you'll hear in K-12 Education are Piaget and Vygotsky. Before their work, children were often thought of as "little adults" with little difference in the way they thought from adults.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist. While marking tests he noticed children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions and he sketched out a stage theory of children's intellectual development. His idea was that as children develop, their view of how the world works will mature. As they start experiencing the world around them they will develop better understanding, and develop better cognitive models to explain everyday phenomena. Piaget described a stage theory of intellectual development with three stages: Pre-operational, Concrete Operations and Formal Operations. For example, a very young child must learn "object permanence" - the idea that an idea that goes out of view does not disappear (and that is why peek-a-boo suddenly loses its interest.) They need to learn that a tall thin glass of water and a short squat glass of water can contain the same quantity (conservation of mass). The most important idea for school-aged children is the concept of "concrete" versus "formal" operations. For most of school age and adulthood, Piaget thought people could more easily think around "concrete" objects rather than "abstract ideas". Indeed few people actually completely shift to formal operations. Thus for teaching, concrete examples make learning easier.
The second key idea of Piaget's was his theory about the two ways in which people learn. Assimilation was the process of hanging new information onto pre-existing mental structures. Accommodation was the process of creating new mental structures. For example, a child might have a mental structure or "schema" of a house, and can happily look at pictures of houses around the world mapping out walls and door, and windows assimilating the different look that houses might have until they see a picture of an igloo. The igloo does not conform to their schema of a house, so the children have to re-define the way they see houses accommodating a new schema for houses that now allows them to map the igloo. Piaget called this process equilibration - the child has a stable schema, the child is then "dis-equilibrated" by confronted with new experience that shows their schema does not account for all the observations, and then the child must search for an explanation to accommodate the new evidence. They can either think it an exception to be ignored, or they can change their schema to assimilate the new knowledge. Thus the fundamental processes for learning are either adding new information to an existing schema or modifying the mental model to creating a new schema. According to Piaget, readiness was important, the child had to go through the stages in sequence, and if presented with dis-equilibrating stimulus at the right time, their curiosity would engage and they would be motivated to learn. Once new schema were built, the child did not back-slide in terms of their schema. The confounding thing about Piaget's ideas is that a growing child has many areas of experience, so it is possible to actually have a mish-mash of concrete and formal models at the same time i.e. the child does not suddenly move entirely to format operations after one id shattering experience, so the ideas are more useful for education of younger children.
Piaget also thought the child evolved from an egocentric (I am the world) baby to a social perspective (I am one of many in the world). The influence of stage theory models and social development can be seen on Lawrence Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development.
Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a prolific Soviet developmental psychologist. Probably his most important ideas concerned the social influence on learning, and the powers of children to observe what others do and internalize behaviour before actually being able to perform them. For example, they might internalize a mental model of riding a horse before they actually try to ride one. One key concept is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) the range of tasks that a child can perform independently or with the aid of others. If the social environment is rich with stimulus and helpers with skills and time to engage in dialogue, then the child's ZPD is larger than for a child living in an impoverished environment. Scaffolding is the process of providing support to the learner, usually an instructor provides sufficient support to help a child perform a task and then reduces the scaffolding until the child can perform on their own. (Simple examples of scaffolds are the training wheels on a bicycles, or a times table for multiplication.) Vygotsky is often thought of as the father of social constructivism - the notion that individuals build their own meaning in interaction with others, and knowledge is shared among members of the group. This has implications for the transmission of culture.
Before completely leaving social constructivism, it is useful to briefly touch on the fairly recent (1987) work of Yrjö Engström on activity theory - how individuals, objects and communities interact. Activity theory stresses the importance of tools in influencing the way we learn and how our learning incorporates the tools into our cognition. Activity theory has been very useful in analyzing human-computer interfaces to describe the interaction roles for successful tool development.
What to take away
1. Children's mental models of the world can and will change as they grow older and gain experience. Some things have to be mastered before other things can be learned.
2. Learning can be hastened by provoking the child with experience that can not be explained by their mental models. In trying to re-equilibrate the child will either reject the dissonant stimulus, or they will assimilate a mew mental model.
3. Most school-aged children and adults function in concrete operations, thus having concrete examples will promote learning.
4. According to social constructivism, the child constructs their personal model under the influence of those around them - the Zone of Proximal Development refers to what they are capable of doing by themselves and learning from others. A rich environment with supportive helpers promotes learning.
5. One can promote learning through scaffolds -like training wheels, these can be removed (faded) as the child becomes more and more independent in performing the task.
6. There are many approaches to developmental psychology and the psychology of learning, none of them have been completely proved nor completely disproved, they are like tools in the toolbox, and provide different ways of approaching the problem of structuring learning activities, organizing content and providing feedback.
For many of you this will be a review, for those new to the K-12 world it will be a launch point to go find further information. Pedagogy brings together what we believe about the physical, mental and emotional development of children, with the ways in which teachers can intentionally help them learn.
K-12 covers 13 of the most fascinating years of life - the child entering Kindergarten is about 5 years old and virtually dependent on the adults around them for everything yet totally enthusiastic and open in terms of what they might be when they grow up. Contrast them with the young adult leaving school at age 18 who is very independent in their thinking and aspirations, yet fully realizing that much of their future has already been determined by their success in school. Somewhere in those 13 years the school system has taught them to sit still and listen, to pay attention and search for the right answer, and to subject them selves to the authority that makes things run in the industrial society. However, many things can happen in those 13 years to make their world change. Imagine someone born in 1952 when sputnik was launched living through the space race to see men walk on the moon in 1969. Imagine someone born in 1995 growing up with the internet, computer games and smart phones. As our students grow up, their world changes quickly, but schools are not quick to change - the subjects and pedagogy often reflects ideas laid down 100 years ago rather current thought. One question that awaits those developing K12 distance education is "Should we merely strive to replicate the quality of education available in a classroom, or should we strive to do better?"
Let's start our very cursory review of pedagogy. The following introductions are not meant to be compete and you are encouraged to read further on your own - first to Wikipedia and then to more authoritative texts. Probably the two most common names you'll hear in K-12 Education are Piaget and Vygotsky. Before their work, children were often thought of as "little adults" with little difference in the way they thought from adults.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist. While marking tests he noticed children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions and he sketched out a stage theory of children's intellectual development. His idea was that as children develop, their view of how the world works will mature. As they start experiencing the world around them they will develop better understanding, and develop better cognitive models to explain everyday phenomena. Piaget described a stage theory of intellectual development with three stages: Pre-operational, Concrete Operations and Formal Operations. For example, a very young child must learn "object permanence" - the idea that an idea that goes out of view does not disappear (and that is why peek-a-boo suddenly loses its interest.) They need to learn that a tall thin glass of water and a short squat glass of water can contain the same quantity (conservation of mass). The most important idea for school-aged children is the concept of "concrete" versus "formal" operations. For most of school age and adulthood, Piaget thought people could more easily think around "concrete" objects rather than "abstract ideas". Indeed few people actually completely shift to formal operations. Thus for teaching, concrete examples make learning easier.
The second key idea of Piaget's was his theory about the two ways in which people learn. Assimilation was the process of hanging new information onto pre-existing mental structures. Accommodation was the process of creating new mental structures. For example, a child might have a mental structure or "schema" of a house, and can happily look at pictures of houses around the world mapping out walls and door, and windows assimilating the different look that houses might have until they see a picture of an igloo. The igloo does not conform to their schema of a house, so the children have to re-define the way they see houses accommodating a new schema for houses that now allows them to map the igloo. Piaget called this process equilibration - the child has a stable schema, the child is then "dis-equilibrated" by confronted with new experience that shows their schema does not account for all the observations, and then the child must search for an explanation to accommodate the new evidence. They can either think it an exception to be ignored, or they can change their schema to assimilate the new knowledge. Thus the fundamental processes for learning are either adding new information to an existing schema or modifying the mental model to creating a new schema. According to Piaget, readiness was important, the child had to go through the stages in sequence, and if presented with dis-equilibrating stimulus at the right time, their curiosity would engage and they would be motivated to learn. Once new schema were built, the child did not back-slide in terms of their schema. The confounding thing about Piaget's ideas is that a growing child has many areas of experience, so it is possible to actually have a mish-mash of concrete and formal models at the same time i.e. the child does not suddenly move entirely to format operations after one id shattering experience, so the ideas are more useful for education of younger children.
Piaget also thought the child evolved from an egocentric (I am the world) baby to a social perspective (I am one of many in the world). The influence of stage theory models and social development can be seen on Lawrence Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development.
Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a prolific Soviet developmental psychologist. Probably his most important ideas concerned the social influence on learning, and the powers of children to observe what others do and internalize behaviour before actually being able to perform them. For example, they might internalize a mental model of riding a horse before they actually try to ride one. One key concept is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) the range of tasks that a child can perform independently or with the aid of others. If the social environment is rich with stimulus and helpers with skills and time to engage in dialogue, then the child's ZPD is larger than for a child living in an impoverished environment. Scaffolding is the process of providing support to the learner, usually an instructor provides sufficient support to help a child perform a task and then reduces the scaffolding until the child can perform on their own. (Simple examples of scaffolds are the training wheels on a bicycles, or a times table for multiplication.) Vygotsky is often thought of as the father of social constructivism - the notion that individuals build their own meaning in interaction with others, and knowledge is shared among members of the group. This has implications for the transmission of culture.
Before completely leaving social constructivism, it is useful to briefly touch on the fairly recent (1987) work of Yrjö Engström on activity theory - how individuals, objects and communities interact. Activity theory stresses the importance of tools in influencing the way we learn and how our learning incorporates the tools into our cognition. Activity theory has been very useful in analyzing human-computer interfaces to describe the interaction roles for successful tool development.
What to take away
1. Children's mental models of the world can and will change as they grow older and gain experience. Some things have to be mastered before other things can be learned.
2. Learning can be hastened by provoking the child with experience that can not be explained by their mental models. In trying to re-equilibrate the child will either reject the dissonant stimulus, or they will assimilate a mew mental model.
3. Most school-aged children and adults function in concrete operations, thus having concrete examples will promote learning.
4. According to social constructivism, the child constructs their personal model under the influence of those around them - the Zone of Proximal Development refers to what they are capable of doing by themselves and learning from others. A rich environment with supportive helpers promotes learning.
5. One can promote learning through scaffolds -like training wheels, these can be removed (faded) as the child becomes more and more independent in performing the task.
6. There are many approaches to developmental psychology and the psychology of learning, none of them have been completely proved nor completely disproved, they are like tools in the toolbox, and provide different ways of approaching the problem of structuring learning activities, organizing content and providing feedback.
For a broader view take 15 minutes to read Vosniadou, S. (2001) How Children Learn, a UNESCO publication at http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/EducationalPracticesSeriesPdf/prac07e.pdf.