Activity 5.5
One point I thought was interesting about the video portion of our discussion was Kelly's video. It talked about a man known as H.M, who had sustained damage to the part of his brain that allowed him formulate memories. This led to a discussion on the biological functions of each part of the brain in accordance to memory and then to Jennifer's video on synesthesia. Having little background in psychology, it was enlightening to see biological functions described with psychological implications.
Also interesting was Karen's reaction to my description of my video. Once I described that the man featured in my video pinpointed "learning patterns" (ie. associations and habits as James might call them) as the key to learning new languages, Karen provided insight on that point: even though the man in my video seems completely ignorant of James and his grip on educational philosophy, the man is able to, from his own experiences, come to the same conclusion as James on how people learn. This seems to point to an innate understanding of how learning occurs, no?
We also decided that some subject matters do lend themselves more easily to a minimally guided lesson, such as English or literature. The article by Kirshner, Sweller, and Clark, "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work", did seem to be too final and overreaching with its dismissal of a minimally guided curriculum. They did not research the fact that different subjects can be taught effectively in different fashions: a minimally guided class on literature might be taught successfully, while a science class may flounder.
I really appreciated the relevant connection you made about James' essay on interest in our group discussion about the video I posted-- when you said it was interesting to you and because it was interesting, you wanted to keep learning about it. I thought we had a really good discussion about the article. Interesting that this method of group work is probably considered constructivist learning... I certainly feel like I learned something!
ReplyDeleteHannah,
ReplyDeleteI like that you mentioned different subjects and theoretical perspectives. There seems to be quite a debate on that matter, and I never really thought about it until this class. I liked your insight about teaching literature from a constructivist perspective as well. I always thought that science, for example, would lend itself nicely to a constructivist perspective, yet the article presented evidence against it. I think the article used such strong wording though that for me it serves as a starting point to look into more research on the matter.