I was so excited to read the two blog posts by Kerr and Kapp!
I have considered myself to be a "mostly cognitivist" for the majority of my exploration into the schools of educational thought; however, I have found myself making excuses for my comments that may tend to trickle over into a gray area between two of the theories. The blogs of Kerr and Kapp helped me to understand that I am not the only one who can see valid arguments in each of the schools of educational thought. The quote from Kerr is one that I will keep and I decided to share it with you to help you better understand how it impacted my thinking and let me know that I am not as confused as I thought I was.
"It seems to me that each _ism is offering something useful without any of them being complete or stand alone in their own right." (Bill Kerr quoted in Kapp's blog)
This quote says it all and helps me to understand that a theory of learning is not solely one school of thought, but a combination. It may be that one theory is incorporated more, but there are gray areas where the theories of learning blend together to create the best possible learning environment. We are complex beings and our minds and thoughts and processes are not easily traced. No one has everything correct and knows how it all works. It takes many skills to teach individuals with various learning styles. We must keep this in mind when we are designing instruction and think about all the schools of educational thought and which theory would be the best to implement for our students.
Please take a look at Bill Kerr and Karl Kapp's blog post links listed below. I think you will find they are excellent insight into the various schools of educational thought and how we "process" (smile) these theories.
Cynthia
Bill Kerr's Blog
Karl Kapp's Blog
Cynthia, I agree that the quote was profound. I actually used the same quote and I found it personally enlightening.
ReplyDeleteJan
Jan,
ReplyDeleteThe more we cover in this course and the other courses, the more I understand and learn that my confusion is okay. I see that even some of the most scholarly individuals find similarities and use for more than one school of thought. This helps me in so many ways because I am growing and adding theories as I progress. It is interesting that we both found the quote enlightening! Thanks for your comments!
Cynthia
That makes three of us that zeroed in on the quote: "It seems to me that each _ism is offering something useful without any of them being complete or stand alone in their own right." (Bill Kerr quoted in Kapp's blog).
ReplyDeleteIdeally, educators would develop the skills to approach learners according to their motivation and learning style. See for example http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/interactions/motivating-students/ which explores effects of motivation on learning styles. We have a long way to go...
Soraya
Cynthia
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that not just one "ism" is correct.....we need to keep in mind each of them and apply a little bit of each ism in order to be successful.
Thanks
Brandy