Response to kim

Could the scientific method still be viable for the constructivist?

I can see why you ask that question. The constructivist relies on subjective experiences to make up their own world and the point of the scientific method is to study things objectively. The scientific method is a way to accurately measure something while cancelling out specific nuisance variables. You have an independent variable, a dependent variable and controls. Yet, one can carry out an objective study and then view it subjectively. The scientific method is important so that those pre-subjective thoughts or predictions do not get in the way of how the results turn out. The article we read a few weeks ago about radical constructivism, argued that radical constructivism should be used in physics classrooms. Physics highly relies on the scientific method to carry out experiments. Just like everyone else, radical constructivists want to discover knowledge and they know that when doing an experiment they cannot let their projections get in their way. The scientific method is viable for the constructivist.

Question: Do radical constructivists face obstacles in daily life that force them to go against their beliefs?

Phenomenology

In class on Wednesday we brought up the idea of social constructivism. I became interested in seeking out another type of philosophy of reality and came across the idea of Phenomenology. It was founded by Edward Husserl (yet he adopted terms and ideas from Kant and Hegel's philosophies.) Phenomenology looks into the conscious experiences of individuals. These experiences include: emotion, imagination, desire, memory, thoughts and most importantly perception.

Phenomenological philosophy terms

1. Lifeworld: the world of lived experience from a person.

2. Intentionality: Consciousness is always conscious of something, that something being whatever a person is focusing on. This can be mental or physical stimuli. Intentionality looks at the aim of consciousness.

3. Evidence: The subjective gathering of truth

4. Noesis and Noema: Noesis is the actual thought and noema is the ideal thought in any act of intentional consciousness.

5. Empathy and intersubjectivity: the phenomenological concept of empathy refers to concentrating on the “subjectivity” of oneself and then applying that to experiencing another’s human body as yours. Intersubjectivity represents objectivity. One must view themselves as a subject among other subjects. At the same time, they must see themselves as existing for the other person.

Phenomenology as an applied pedogological practice allows teachers to discover new meaning in the aspects they teach and allows them to make choices that change personal teaching practices.

In a school reform study sixteen teachers participated in the process of coming up with a shared school pedagogy. This involves teachers sharing their successful experiences with teaching methods so that they may collectively come up with joint pedagogical beliefs. Teachers also shared their personal stories with teaching and this gave other teachers insight to how others perceive things. After these joint beliefs were established they attempted to incorporate them into their everyday teaching.

They used phenomenology as a methodology in addition to these new practices. This implied exploring the knowledge of children: how they perceive, what they think about, and how they view the world. After this incorporation, some, but not all of the teachers felt like they had more insight to the students which helped them teach better. (http://www.aare.edu.au/02pap/mos02453.htm)

Question: How would teachers benefit from understanding how their students perceive, imagine, think, and structure their conscious?

What is Knowledge?

The radical constructivist's two main claims are as follows: Knowledge is not received but actively built up by an individual. Mental processes change and work to adjust the experiential world, not to realize ontological reality.

Ontological reality contains what 'really exists', it is a question of metaphysics. The way that radical constructivist theory protects itself from being called solipsistic is by remaining agnostic to any metaphysical claims. Solipsism is based off of Descartes claim: I think therefore I am. (I can only know I exist). Solipsism is philosophical suicide because it is ridiculous to think that you only exist and everything else may very well be a figment of your imagination.

Radical constructivist theory stresses the importance of perception, how an individual perceives reality to be. Reality does not exist independently of its perceivers. Knowledge is not knowledge until someone perceives it as that way. There is no raw knowledge only interpretations of it. This is why in radical constructivist teaching, the teacher must make a cognitive map of how their student interprets information, because they must understand their reality.

In class on Wednesday, Professor Johnson talked about the theories of radical constructivism and realists. He stated that knowledge = justified/ truth/ belief. Our knowledge consists of what we believe is justified and true. For realists, when a new belief matches an already existing belief, the new belief is true. Yet, for the radical constructivist when a new belief matches a previously existing belief, the new belief is viable, not true.

Questions: Are justification, truth, and belief necessary or sufficient conditions for knowledge? Since radical constructivist theory does not believe something can be true, does that mean that they do not have valid knowledge? Can the information in their repertoire only be 2/3 knowledge?

Re: Emily 2/17/11

"Is it valid to reject radical constructivism solely because it makes it very hard (maybe even impossible) to function in society?"

It is not valid to reject RC theory because it makes it difficult to live in society. Yet, that does give reason to adjust the theory and add a missing link. What is it about radical constructivism that makes it very hard or impossible to function in society? In my opinion it is the fact that those living by this theory cannot accept things that they have not experienced. We experiences society, so we should know how to function in it. The missing link may be the addition of societal joint perceptions (that an individual experiences) to an individual's constructed reality.

Carl Rogers, a famous client-centered therapist and humanistic psychologist, believed that experience is the private world of an individual. It is always conscious at some level, yet there are experiences we encounter that are difficult to bring into awareness. The individual is the only one who can know their awareness completely.

For psychological purposes, reality is essentially the inner world of individual perceptions. Yet, for social purposes, reality is made up of perceptions that have a high amount of agreement within a society.

The perceptual field of an individual, how the world appears to them from their specific point-of-view is known as the internal frame of reference. It is based off of the entire span of one’s learning history and experiences in addition to the meanings and feelings attached to them.

Roger’s definitions of experience and reality are very similar. Private world of the individual vs. private world of individual perceptions vs. private world of societal perceptions. Experience is inner awareness, it is all internal because we all have our own set of experiences. Psychological reality is our inner world created by how we perceive external stimuli. Social reality consists of our intake of societal perceptions and projections of our responses to them. The internal frame of reference ties the three theories together by inductively stating that an individual’s view of reality is based off of their experiences. This supports the radical constructivist theory. The missing link in the radical constructivist theory may be the idea of a social reality. In Rodger’s theory it emphasizes the importance of individual experiences and perceptions but also highlights that societal joint perceptions are important too. These joint perceptions and acceptances are needed to function properly in society.

If Ernst von Glasersfeld adopted the theory of social reality would his RC theory still be valid?

A Curricular Solution

In class today I brought up the idea of matching learning styles with curricular topics. Here is a visual demonstration of the process I was talking about.

1. Make a list of the typical curricular topics
2. Make a list of learning styles/ ways to learn
3. Take each curricular topic and match them with all of the learning styles that logically correspond.

*Think of eighth grade when looking at the following*

Curricular topics
Language arts
Math
Social studies

Science

Learning styles (Stahl & Garlikov)
Analytical- learning by parts
Global- learning by whole

Auditory- learning by sound

Visual- learning by sight

Kinesthetic/ tactile- learning by moving body or hands on activities

linguistic- learning by speech and writing

Musical presentation- learning through song

Curricular topics and their corresponding styles
Language arts
Analytical- Interpreting the parts of a book, for example the characters and specific events.
Global- Interpreting a book as a whole, for example the storyline and theme.
Auditory- Hear sentences and point out which sound grammatically incorrect.
Visual- See sentences and correct grammatical errors.
Kinesthetic- role play
Linguistic- reading and writing
Music- Make a parody about the theme of a book or grammar rules using a popular song.

Math
Analytical and Global- Figure out mathematical problems using a formula. (Mathematical problem solving could be seen as either or both).
Visual- seeing the problem
Linguistic- word problems
*tactile in the form of using manipulatives may be helpful in earlier grades, but it is not useful for algebra. Music and auditory also do not apply.

Social studies
Global- for subjects like history, I see it more as learning the whole picture rather than the parts. When you learn about the civil war, you learn about all of the aspects.
Auditory- listening to a recording of a famous speech
Visual- Pictures of past events or watching a movie
Linguistic- reading about history
Kinesthetic- role play an event in history
* I do not really see music as being effective in this area, music history is a large subject on it's own. I guess one could make a song to help remember past events though.

Science
Analytical- Learning the parts of a cell
Global- Learning what the cell as a whole does
Visual- Seeing pictures of cells under microscope as well as diagrams
Linguistic- read about different cells
*Auditory, Kinesthetic, and musical learning do not fit in the science realm.

Questions: Do you think that math is the most difficult to understand? Do you think that it is the most difficult because there are less ways to understand it?

Alternate questions: How do your eighth grade subjects reflect these types of learning? Have you learned each of these subjects through all of or most of the corresponding methods I paired them with? Does this make you think differently about learning styles?

Re: Drew 2/8/11

In Drew's latest post, he humorously addressed how Americans are monotonously confined within boxes, which contradicts the popular proverb: Think outside the box. He ends with the question, "Are we afraid of exiting the box because of our fear of changing social structures?"

To think outside the box is to think in an innovative fashion, unrestrained by the conventional. In short, to come up with ideas that no one else thinks of. Social structure does dismantle unconventional thinking to a large extent. Let's take for example a classroom situation where the students are brainstorming topics to discus throughout the semester. Unconsciously, their ideas are shaped by conditioned conventional thought that has been crystallized throughout their life. Also, before a student raises their hand to suggest an idea, they consider their peers' opinions. If they predict others will not like their thought, chances of them sharing it are lowered. Teachers are partly to blame too because they may give a student an attitude when they do not consider their view to be a good one. When students see this happening, it reinforces their caution.
I do not think that we are afraid of changing social structures, because one person alone cannot change part of or the entire social structure of a society in most cases. (You would have to be trying very hard, or be in a state of political power.) Yet, we are afraid of breaking social structure and norms. Humans are social animals, who feel the need to receive others' approval. It is innate in us to conform. Try to break a social norm, it feels strange and wrong.

Questions: How do we teach students to think outside of the box? Why is it important to think innovatively?

Responce to Jessica 2/3/2011

Jessica ended her post about learning styles with the question: Can a person be taught to be a different kind of learner? If so, who does the teaching?

In Steven Stahl's article "Different Strokes for Different Folks?" he mentions several articles in which the participants (students) are evaluated to their style of learning. Those students then are taught through the different styles of teaching and the researchers see if their style is correlated to the style they learned best from. In most, (if not all) of these studies, the results did not support the hypothesis that students learn better through their matched learning style. Like Garlikov mentioned in his article, people learn different things different ways. The example he gave was riding a bike. No one can learn how to ride a bike by watching someone, they have to do it themselves. Yet, somethings you do not have to learn first hand.
The article also mentioned the Myers-briggs type indicator and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. The Myers-brigg type indicator is a personality test, actually, it is probably the most accurate out of all the personality tests. [(Through 72 questions it tells you if you are Extroverted vs. Introverted, iNtuitive vs. Sensing, Feeling vs. Thinking , and Judging vs. Perceiving. There are 16 possible combinations -- 16 different personality types. (Take it your self at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp .)]Gardners theory of multiple intelligence is criticized for being more of a personality test than a measure of intelligence. There are eight different types (Naturalistic has been recently added) and he is currently coming up with more! So in all of these tests, they are not even using an accurate measure. The type of learner someone is does not measure their ability to learn from a certain style-- it measures their personality traits. As Stahl mentions, personality traits have little to do with how well you learn.
Music was mentioned a lot in the articles as well. Music can be taught visually, like analyzing a piece of music or reading notation. Music is also taught through audio, also analyzing a piece of music or how to tell if an instrument is in tune (listening to the sound waves). And finally, you have to learn how to play an instrument by actually playing it, this would be a tactile way of learning. So it is confusing to me how someone can be a 'musical learner' when music is taught different ways. The same goes for many other lecture hall class, you have to write what is on the board as well as listen to what the professor is saying. Unless someone has a certain type of learning disability that limits them, anyone can learn any way. This can be self taught as well as by someone else. Regardless, it does not matter which way someone learns best, they should learn every way, because we are going to be faced with situations from all these aspects in the real world.

Question: Have you ever been faced with a situation where you could not learn something one way but could learn it another?