Session 1

What is good pedagogy?

I don't think you can answer this question unless you first understand what learning is. What follows here is a summary of a few ideas about learning, from a constructivist perspective.

Humans construct knowledge.

Cognition is a construction and building process, not a retrieval process. Humans learn through mental interaction with the physical and social world, not by merely taking knowledge from that world.

This view of learning is termed constructivism. Constructivism is marked by three key ideas:

• Constructing knowledge is a highly active endeavor on the part of the learner.
• Constructing and understanding a new idea involves making connections between old ideas and new ideas.
• Learning is affected by the context in which an idea is taught as well as by student beliefs and attitudes.

What people learn is organized into schemata.

Schemata are networks of information and knowledge. There are two kinds of schemata:

• data (state) schemata, stored in patterns, structures, and scaffolds. These are like data files, to use a computer metaphor. This is knowing what.
• process schemata, ways of processing and organizing information. To use a computer analogy, these are programs. This is knowing how.

Schemata direct perception.

What we perceive is a function of what we know. The meaning of an event is constructed in terms of a person's schemata.

Perception is defined as attaching meaning to events of constructing meaning from events. What students perceive is a function of what they know (their schemata).

Schemata make learning and comprehension possible. Schemata influence

• the input of information (perception)
• the processing of the input (comprehension)
• the recall of the input (learning)

The new emphasis on the constructive function of perception makes the focus on what a student is doing mentally during instruction important.

Schemata are developed through accomodation and assimilation.

When the mind conforms to the demands of a new environment to learn/develop new schema, this is termed accomodation. It is what an infant does as it explores its world for the first time.

As the child grows, he/she fits the environment to the demands of the mind to add new facts, details, and concepts to existing schema. This is termed assimilation.

Most learning is assimilative (adding detail to existing schema). It occurs through two processes:

• accretion: detail added to a knowledge structure
• tuning: minor modification of an existing schema (rebuilding the knowledge structure)

Learning is a continuum.

Most learning is adding detail to schema. But when existing schemata cannot encompass additions, one fine tunes the schemata. But as new information becomes more and more different than what the student already knows, total restructing is required. This is difficult. People resist change, especially students.