Monday, March 10, 2008
Education, American style. Would an educator need to write this passage if passivity were not one of the foundational values of American education?
What stands out in this brief account of remembering is that we rely heavily on structure, and we are the ones who must create this structure. Textbook guides to reading may not be as useful as text writers suppose. Indeed, these guides to reading may prevent readers from becoming absorbed in the text and discourage them from creating their own structures to organize the material. There is some evidence that such guides are better given as aids to review after reading than as preliminary guides to reading. It might be even better to invite students to create their own review structure and then perhaps to complare it to one prepared by the text writer. (The text's guide should be hidden in an appendix!) The idea to get across is that nothing is more powerful in remembering than performing the cognitive acts that structure what one is trying to learn.
Nel Noddings, Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach, 26. [0 & P]
What stands out in this brief account of remembering is that we rely heavily on structure, and we are the ones who must create this structure. Textbook guides to reading may not be as useful as text writers suppose. Indeed, these guides to reading may prevent readers from becoming absorbed in the text and discourage them from creating their own structures to organize the material. There is some evidence that such guides are better given as aids to review after reading than as preliminary guides to reading. It might be even better to invite students to create their own review structure and then perhaps to complare it to one prepared by the text writer. (The text's guide should be hidden in an appendix!) The idea to get across is that nothing is more powerful in remembering than performing the cognitive acts that structure what one is trying to learn.
Nel Noddings, Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach, 26. [0 & P]