For the 8 pedagogical approaches introduced, all of it has the underlying intention to encourage some sort of articulation from the student about his/her thoughts on the matter at hand. This is a refreshing change from the usual lesson where the teacher goes on and on about new content and at best, hoping the student is interested and motivated in learning it.
Self-motivated learning is unlikely the situation for some students at the start of a new topic, and I see that the 8 pedagogical approaches has its rational in creating awareness to the topic through the students finding solutions to the problem (related to lesson content) and also seeing its basis in real life application. The fundamental hope is that these approaches initiates the student to begin thinking on his/her own accord before any is taught on it.
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Dear Andrea,
ReplyDeleteYour thought inspired me to write the following: there is a concern over whether student-centredness approaches like Jigsaw can be used on topics that are new or unfamiliar to students. Some critics, for example, Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006) believe that the intended limited guidance provided in these approaches are only useful when students have some idea of the content to learn. Cited cognitive theroy, they argue that suffficient guidance should be given for new learners. In other words, a teacher has to know the students' level of prior knowledge before deciding on whether to use the approaches.
In our case, most of you either know or have seen some of these approaches in one way or another. Also coupled with your past working experience, I believe mature students should be able to build relevant knowledge by inferring or inductive thinking. And in many instances, this belief works and is quite consistent with Kirschner et al. findings.
I bring this issue out because there is a balance to attain between "freedom to learn" and "guided to learn".
WooHL
Dear Mr Woo,
ReplyDeleteI would definitely agree with your concluding stand on the need to strike the balance between "freedom to learn" and "guided to learn".
I did remember strikingly at times, when teacher did get us to do activities on new topics. I would be frustrated at times with what expectations of the assignment are we to fulfill, and are we doing it correctly? are we on the right track? - Well this does reflect some degree of student being/feeling afraid to learn without the guidance (clear instruction) of the teacher, emphasizing on one's need to get it right the first time and not wanting to explore the topic along with making mistakes or reaching to wrong conclusions.
Ironically, learning in the real world could be really making mistakes, okay I have strayed from the point I was to make. Basically, students are apprehensive to explore and learn without teacher's guidance due to being results driven and focused. They give emphasis to "ah, I just want to get the correct answers. let's not waste time on going around the bush", such mentality could hinder the effectiveness of the pedagogical approaches.
I would say that at the adolescent level, learning (a new topic) has to be introduced and elaborated by the teacher; thereafter, it could be possible for the in-depth exploration of the topic by using the pedagogical approaches where teachers have previously scaffold and are currently guiding loosely, and students learn through articulating their understanding of the topic and discovering deeper, "the more there is to it". :)