Week 10 - Bruner

Kevin Hansen's picture

where is XLearners:

The whole "spiral curriculum" thing has got me thinking about how someone who doesn't know anything about learning would describe the learning process.  I suspect that if you asked, say, lawyer how he learns, you would get an answer along the lines of, "When I find something I don't know, but I need to understand in order to solve a problem, I stop and learn about it.  I don't become an expert on it, but I learn enough to continue on with the original problem at hand."  This sounds somewhat like the "spiral curriculam" idea where the learner is exposed to just what they can grasp at a given time.  If the learner needs to learn more about it later, then the topic will be revisited.  I know I usually don't learn more than I need to in order to get the job done.

Instructors:

...should work to create a situation in which students are motivated to experiment and try new things with lower level of risk (talked about in the reading).  Instructors should strive to promote curiousity in studetns and not worry if a student doesn't at first understand a topic.  Curriculum should be built in such a way that previous topics can be easily revisited and added to.

 

Groups:
Submitted by Kevin Hansen on Mon, 07/13/2009 - 7:27pm
Jennifer Mathis's picture

Kevin, I totally agree.  I

Submitted by Jennifer Mathis on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 8:32am.

Kevin, I totally agree.  I feel lucky teaching math when it comes to revisiting previous topics.  It is so easy to say, "remember when we learned that 1+1=2", because everything in math does build onto one another (with a few exceptions!).  I think as humans we all only want to do what we absolutly have to do, and no more.  I think you're exactly right when you say that we need to provide situations that make the students want to know more, or perhaps where the easy out (so beautifully shown in your image) doesn't work and the student needs to do more indepth thinking.  I think for me, I need to work on the more individual indepth thinking and problem solving.  I have a hard time seeing my students fail when they try something, but I think it is good for them in the long run to fail, but eventually sucseed.

Harold's picture

Kevin, I loved your right

Submitted by Harold (not verified) on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:24am.
Kevin, I loved your right triangle addition. It took me a second to figure out what was going on. I remember some classes when the teacher spoke right over us or showed us examples that we had no clue how they were even related to what we were working on. I wonder how we can dreate an environment where we don't get concerned when a student doesn't understand a topic, especially if it is most of the class. You grow more when you learn it and apply it yourself, but it sure is hard to present it to a class so that they don't get frustrated if they have to grasp a little. Have we made classes too easy and try to spoon feed everyone? I liked your comments. Harold
Kevin Hansen's picture

hmmm

Submitted by Kevin Hansen on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 3:12pm.
The spoon-feeding thing has always been on my mind.  I have personally felt the restrictions in a class where the instructor tries to teach everything to everybody.  Sometimes I'm the fast one, sometimes I'm the slow one, but I dislike the feeling that my progression is controlled by the "common good" of the class at a whole.  I want to learn at my own pace and I suspect most people are this way.
--
Kevin Hansen
 
Brian B.'s picture

your original comment about

Submitted by Brian B. (not verified) on Sun, 07/19/2009 - 6:30pm.
your original comment about just needing to know what you need to know at the time you need to know it is an idea often echoed by human performance technologists- if you remember, a subfield of instructional technology - who call for the use of performance support systems, that give just in time information to people. Of course the big key there is that they are talking about providing information, and not instruction. So that may or may not work to help people learn. But I guess if you have the information you need at your fingertips when you need it, then maybe that does not need to be learned. For example, if you work at a factory, and you can call up the information you need to deal with any possible malfunction of the factory, so you need to learn the sub-routines or can you just be confident that when something goes wrong you can look up how to address it?
Kevin Hansen's picture

hmmm

Submitted by Kevin Hansen on Tue, 07/21/2009 - 7:46pm.
That's an interesting question.  If I think to what I do everyday, web development, I can think of a lot of things I don't know off-hand.  I would know, however, right where to get the information when I need.  There are probably a lot of things like that, where it is questionable as to whether the knowledge needs to be known or findable.
--
Kevin Hansen
 

Disclaimer

Any opinions expressed here, except as specifically noted, are those of the individual authors or commenters and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Department of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, or Utah State University.