The readings for this week delineated a holistic picture of the standards and assessment for American education.
First, I was astounded by “a sea of standards” in this nation – 200 separate standards with 3,093 benchmarks (McREL, 1998) – way too many standards became a growing problem facing American educators. Apparently, there are two primary options for educators to meet the requirements of the various standards documents— increase the amount of instructional time or decrease the number of standards that must be addressed.
Speaking of decreasing the number, a key to narrowing the focus of standards and thereby adding value to them is to develop power standards that feature endurance, leverage, and readiness for the next level of learning. These three criteria enable power standards to give students skills or knowledge that have broad applicability and remains with them long, and help them get ready for the next learning level. Moreover, as perfect curriculum coverage never happens, power standards help educators to choose coverage by default or by design wisely. In order to establish power standards, the leaders must make time for teachers to collaborate within and among grade levels to identify these standards, and create a framework that includes the most important standards along with clear definitions which encourage and value teacher creativity.
When standards are established, the performance task and assessment should be developed in the following process— Reflect about the students and the standard, consider the purposes of the assessment, brainstorm the performance tasks that might be used then make a preliminary evaluation of the result, develop a scenario for the performance task and the assessment-driven instruction, evaluate the first draft of the performance task and revise accordingly, develop criteria and rubrics for evaluating student performance, systematize all these decisions using a standard format, and finally, have the materials evaluated by other professionals and other students.
I also noticed that one important requirement for educators to accomplish the evaluating task is a thorough understanding of the three key terms—Criteria, standard, and rubric. Based on this understanding, educators develop criteria and rubrics that facilitate quality student performance and valid evaluation process.
Readings:
Marzano, R. J., & Kendal, J. S. (1998). Awash in a sea of standards. McREL.
Reeves, D. R. (2002). The leader's guide to standards. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Multiculturalism and diversity in curriculum development
Today’s educators are responsible for providing all students with a quality, equitable education. This task has become more challenging as the cultural and demographic diversity continues to grow.
In order for education to be preparation for life in multicultural America, individuals must be educated on three levels: as members of the larger society, as members of a particular culture group, and as individual free to explore their potentialities beyond any group membership (Haberman & Post, 1994, p. 108). Each of these three levels, however, could be exclusive to one another when in the extreme.
In order to avoid the negative effect of the learning levels divide and let individual needs interface with various culture groups and societal demands, educators may need to make school curricula more accurately reflect our cultural diversity by understanding multiculturalism as: (a) a culture war; (b) personal values, human differences, and life choices; (c) a nation of diverse culture groups; (d) social justice and equity; (e) a process of making teaching and learning more relevant; (f) total school climate; (g) worldwide environment cooperation; and (h) learning to compete in a worldwide economy (Haberman & Post, 1994).
In terms of developing a quality curriculum at the school level, the following elements such as cultural, leadership, time, technical and material support for curriculum work; evaluation functions; and school goals and vision, are playing pivotal roles (Glatthorn, 1994, pp. 67-69). With all the support required, an ideal environment is created for the planners to start the curriculum work. When evaluating a program of studies, variables such as “goal-oriented”, “balanced”, “integrated”, “skills-reinforced”, “open-ended” and “responsive” should be taken into account as criteria (pp. 74-84).
Developing the school’s vision and goals provides a unifying focus for the faculty and gives a clear sense of direction for curriculum work. Generally speaking, a quality curriculum should be meaningful, technological, socially responsible, multicultural, reflective, holistic, global, open-ended, and outcomes based (Glatthorn, 2000, p. 50). Only when the educational goals are identified and then aligned with programs and subjects, a curriculum that makes the school unique and meets today’s basic needs can be developed successfully.
Readings:
Haberman, M., & Post, L. (1994). Multicultural schooling: Developing a curriculum for the real world. In Our Evolving Curriculum, Part I. Peabody Journal of Education, 69 (3), 101-115.
Townsend, B. L. (2000). Standards-based school reform and culturally diverse learners: Implications for effective leadership when the stakes are even higher. In Including special needs students in standards-based reform: A report on McREL's Diversity Roundtable III.
Ornstein, A. C., Behar-Idocenstein, L. S., & Pajak, E. F. (2003). Contemporary issues in curriculum (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Glatthorn, A. A. (2000). Developing vision and goals. In The principal as curriculum leader: Shaping what is taught and tested. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 47-55.
Glatthorn, A. A. (1994). Developing the school curriculum. In Developing a quality curriculum . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 66-89.
In order for education to be preparation for life in multicultural America, individuals must be educated on three levels: as members of the larger society, as members of a particular culture group, and as individual free to explore their potentialities beyond any group membership (Haberman & Post, 1994, p. 108). Each of these three levels, however, could be exclusive to one another when in the extreme.
In order to avoid the negative effect of the learning levels divide and let individual needs interface with various culture groups and societal demands, educators may need to make school curricula more accurately reflect our cultural diversity by understanding multiculturalism as: (a) a culture war; (b) personal values, human differences, and life choices; (c) a nation of diverse culture groups; (d) social justice and equity; (e) a process of making teaching and learning more relevant; (f) total school climate; (g) worldwide environment cooperation; and (h) learning to compete in a worldwide economy (Haberman & Post, 1994).
In terms of developing a quality curriculum at the school level, the following elements such as cultural, leadership, time, technical and material support for curriculum work; evaluation functions; and school goals and vision, are playing pivotal roles (Glatthorn, 1994, pp. 67-69). With all the support required, an ideal environment is created for the planners to start the curriculum work. When evaluating a program of studies, variables such as “goal-oriented”, “balanced”, “integrated”, “skills-reinforced”, “open-ended” and “responsive” should be taken into account as criteria (pp. 74-84).
Developing the school’s vision and goals provides a unifying focus for the faculty and gives a clear sense of direction for curriculum work. Generally speaking, a quality curriculum should be meaningful, technological, socially responsible, multicultural, reflective, holistic, global, open-ended, and outcomes based (Glatthorn, 2000, p. 50). Only when the educational goals are identified and then aligned with programs and subjects, a curriculum that makes the school unique and meets today’s basic needs can be developed successfully.
Readings:
Haberman, M., & Post, L. (1994). Multicultural schooling: Developing a curriculum for the real world. In Our Evolving Curriculum, Part I. Peabody Journal of Education, 69 (3), 101-115.
Townsend, B. L. (2000). Standards-based school reform and culturally diverse learners: Implications for effective leadership when the stakes are even higher. In Including special needs students in standards-based reform: A report on McREL's Diversity Roundtable III.
Ornstein, A. C., Behar-Idocenstein, L. S., & Pajak, E. F. (2003). Contemporary issues in curriculum (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Glatthorn, A. A. (2000). Developing vision and goals. In The principal as curriculum leader: Shaping what is taught and tested. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 47-55.
Glatthorn, A. A. (1994). Developing the school curriculum. In Developing a quality curriculum . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 66-89.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
constructivism vs constructionism
Ackermann, E. (n.d.). Piaget’s constructivism, Papert’s constructionism: What’s the difference? Retrieved June 4, 2008 from http://learning.media.mit.edu/content/publications/EA.Piaget%20_%20Papert.pdf
What is the difference between Piaget's constructivism and Papert’s “constructionism”? Beyond the mere play on the words, I think the distinction holds, and that integrating both views can enrich our understanding of how people learn and grow.
Piaget’s constructivism offers a window into what children are interested in, and able to achieve, at different stages of their development. The theory describes how children’s ways of doing and thinking evolve over time, and under which circumstance children are more likely to let go of—or hold onto— their currently held views. Piaget suggests that children have very good reasons not to abandon their worldviews just because someone else, be it an expert, tells them they’re wrong.
Papert’s constructionism, in contrast, focuses more on the art of learning, or ‘learning to learn’, and on the significance of making things in learning. Papert is interested in how learners engage in a conversation with [their own or other people’s] artifacts, and how these conversations boost self-directed learning, and ultimately facilitate the construction of new knowledge. He stresses the importance of tools, media, and context in human development. Integrating both perspectives illuminates the processes by which individuals come to make sense of their experience, gradually optimizing their interactions with the world.
For more>>>
What is the difference between Piaget's constructivism and Papert’s “constructionism”? Beyond the mere play on the words, I think the distinction holds, and that integrating both views can enrich our understanding of how people learn and grow.
Piaget’s constructivism offers a window into what children are interested in, and able to achieve, at different stages of their development. The theory describes how children’s ways of doing and thinking evolve over time, and under which circumstance children are more likely to let go of—or hold onto— their currently held views. Piaget suggests that children have very good reasons not to abandon their worldviews just because someone else, be it an expert, tells them they’re wrong.
Papert’s constructionism, in contrast, focuses more on the art of learning, or ‘learning to learn’, and on the significance of making things in learning. Papert is interested in how learners engage in a conversation with [their own or other people’s] artifacts, and how these conversations boost self-directed learning, and ultimately facilitate the construction of new knowledge. He stresses the importance of tools, media, and context in human development. Integrating both perspectives illuminates the processes by which individuals come to make sense of their experience, gradually optimizing their interactions with the world.
For more>>>
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Big Names in Curriculum Theory
John Dewey
Technorationality (behaviorist discourse that focuses on learning outcomes, criticized by MacDonald)
Ralph W. Tyler (the father of curriculum reform)
Tyler (1949): framework for deliberately designing and evaluating curriculum (Tyler rationale)
1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
2. What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purpose?
3. How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?
4. How can we determine whether these purpose are being attained (evaluation)?
Paulo Freire
A combination of existentialism & neo-Marxism
1947 Chicago Curriculum Conference (hosted by Ralph Tyler) - birthplace of curriculum theory.
Social Efficiency Educators
Ross, Bobbitt, Gilbreth, Taylor, Thorndike
Reconceptualists: in opposition to the Tylerian satus quo. The decade of 1960s marks a critical moment of reconceptualization impacted by the 1957 launching of Sputnik and social unrest (the civil rights movements & the Vietnam War protest). 1969 as begining of the "decade of the Reconceptualization" (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman)
William Pinar
Creator of the word "Reconceptualists"
Use "post-critical" to describe the existential/phenomenological work
James MacDonald (reconceptualist) (Teacher of Steve Mann, who mentored William Doll and George Willis): from scientism - person-centered humanism - sociopolitical humanism - transcendentalism. Curricularists could construct discourses and structures to allow for an environment more conducive to personal freedom.
Dwayne Huebner (reconceptualist) (Teacher of Michael Apple at Teachers College)
Curriculum as an educative environment. Rejecting technorationality. The purpose of education is "transcendence" - teachers are to help students grow in their capacity for personal evolution and change. Objected to learning theory because it conceived of education as "doing sth. to an individual", which is in opposition to his Heideggerean notion of a person as "being-in-the-world". Power/knowledge connections.
Paul Klohr (reconceptualist)
Teacher of Pinar and Greene at OSU
Maxine Greene (reconceptualist)
Joseph J. Schwab
“The field is moribund. It is unable, by its present methods and principles, to continue and contribute significantly to the advancement of education” (1970).
Janet Miller
Vice-president of AERA Division B (1997-1999)
Managing Editor, JCT (the offical journal of the "Reconceptualists") (1978-1998)
Emphasizes the importance of a diverse curriculum field, advocating controversy, but with mutual respect
Elliot Eisner
Three curricula that all schools teach (1985)
1. Explicit curriculum: The learning and interaction that occurs that is explicitly announced in schools programs
2. Implicit (hidden) curriculum: The learning and interaction that occurs that is not explicitly announced in schools programs
3. Null (non-existing) curriculum: systematically excluded, neglected, or not considered
Adler
Larry Cuban
Four categories of curricula (1993)
1. Official: in curriculum guide and conform with state-mandated assessment
2. Taught: individual teachers focus on and choose to emphasize (teacher’s knowledge)
3. Learned: all that students learn
4. Tested: tests represent only part of what is taught or learned
Michael Apple
Neo-Marxism & critical pedagogy
Refuses the notion of reconceptualization
Kliebard
Tanner and Tanner
Reynolds
Taubman
Doll
Gadamer
All understanding is essentially dialogue (Truth is not method but simply what happens in dialogue). What we must never forget is that we are always part of what it is we seek to understand. Truth as experience (without method). Being that can be understood is language. Language is about negotiating and making sense of a human world largely of our own construction.
Hermeneutics is a more general procedure for understanding itself. Gadamer is not usually thought of a "postmodern" but he has this in common with postmodern theorists - questioning the foundations of philosophical modernism. Against Descartes' man as a thinking machine capable of arriving at the kind of certainty to be found in geometry.
Giroux
Heidegger
Interpretation of the world is impossible without pre-understanding. Language is the house of being.
Sears
Postmodern curricularists
Michel Foucault
Triple root of power, knowledge and self.
Deleuze
Lyotard
the overarching view of history is one more metannarrative, even thought it is dominant.
Lather
not dissolving differences may be a good thing
Patrick Slattery (student of Pinar)
Technorationality (behaviorist discourse that focuses on learning outcomes, criticized by MacDonald)
Ralph W. Tyler (the father of curriculum reform)
Tyler (1949): framework for deliberately designing and evaluating curriculum (Tyler rationale)
1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
2. What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purpose?
3. How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?
4. How can we determine whether these purpose are being attained (evaluation)?
Paulo Freire
A combination of existentialism & neo-Marxism
1947 Chicago Curriculum Conference (hosted by Ralph Tyler) - birthplace of curriculum theory.
Social Efficiency Educators
Ross, Bobbitt, Gilbreth, Taylor, Thorndike
Reconceptualists: in opposition to the Tylerian satus quo. The decade of 1960s marks a critical moment of reconceptualization impacted by the 1957 launching of Sputnik and social unrest (the civil rights movements & the Vietnam War protest). 1969 as begining of the "decade of the Reconceptualization" (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman)
William Pinar
Creator of the word "Reconceptualists"
Use "post-critical" to describe the existential/phenomenological work
James MacDonald (reconceptualist) (Teacher of Steve Mann, who mentored William Doll and George Willis): from scientism - person-centered humanism - sociopolitical humanism - transcendentalism. Curricularists could construct discourses and structures to allow for an environment more conducive to personal freedom.
Dwayne Huebner (reconceptualist) (Teacher of Michael Apple at Teachers College)
Curriculum as an educative environment. Rejecting technorationality. The purpose of education is "transcendence" - teachers are to help students grow in their capacity for personal evolution and change. Objected to learning theory because it conceived of education as "doing sth. to an individual", which is in opposition to his Heideggerean notion of a person as "being-in-the-world". Power/knowledge connections.
Paul Klohr (reconceptualist)
Teacher of Pinar and Greene at OSU
Maxine Greene (reconceptualist)
Joseph J. Schwab
“The field is moribund. It is unable, by its present methods and principles, to continue and contribute significantly to the advancement of education” (1970).
Janet Miller
Vice-president of AERA Division B (1997-1999)
Managing Editor, JCT (the offical journal of the "Reconceptualists") (1978-1998)
Emphasizes the importance of a diverse curriculum field, advocating controversy, but with mutual respect
Elliot Eisner
Three curricula that all schools teach (1985)
1. Explicit curriculum: The learning and interaction that occurs that is explicitly announced in schools programs
2. Implicit (hidden) curriculum: The learning and interaction that occurs that is not explicitly announced in schools programs
3. Null (non-existing) curriculum: systematically excluded, neglected, or not considered
Adler
Larry Cuban
Four categories of curricula (1993)
1. Official: in curriculum guide and conform with state-mandated assessment
2. Taught: individual teachers focus on and choose to emphasize (teacher’s knowledge)
3. Learned: all that students learn
4. Tested: tests represent only part of what is taught or learned
Michael Apple
Neo-Marxism & critical pedagogy
Refuses the notion of reconceptualization
Kliebard
Tanner and Tanner
Reynolds
Taubman
Doll
Gadamer
All understanding is essentially dialogue (Truth is not method but simply what happens in dialogue). What we must never forget is that we are always part of what it is we seek to understand. Truth as experience (without method). Being that can be understood is language. Language is about negotiating and making sense of a human world largely of our own construction.
Hermeneutics is a more general procedure for understanding itself. Gadamer is not usually thought of a "postmodern" but he has this in common with postmodern theorists - questioning the foundations of philosophical modernism. Against Descartes' man as a thinking machine capable of arriving at the kind of certainty to be found in geometry.
Giroux
Heidegger
Interpretation of the world is impossible without pre-understanding. Language is the house of being.
Sears
Postmodern curricularists
Michel Foucault
Triple root of power, knowledge and self.
Deleuze
Lyotard
the overarching view of history is one more metannarrative, even thought it is dominant.
Lather
not dissolving differences may be a good thing
Patrick Slattery (student of Pinar)
Modernism VS Postmodernism
Modernism
Assumptions
Assumptions
Assumptions
- Life & the world are mechanical
- There exists a stable-state universe
- Curriculum development can be compartmentalized and decontextualized "norm"
- Goals can be separated from the experience designed to address them
- Bobbitt (The Curriculum, 1918): first consider curriculum as a science; curriculum development is precise and predictable, resulting in a tangible product; still the mainstream view in today's schools
- Tyler (Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, 1949): four basic questions (modernist, linear, cause-effect framework
- What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
- What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purpose?
- How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?
- How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?
- Taba (Curriculum Development: Theory and Practice, 1962): There was a definite order to curriculum development; all curricula are composed of certain elements; seven-step model:
- Diagnosis of needs
- Formulation of objective
- Selection of content
- Organization of content
- Selection of learning experiences
- Organization of learning experience
- Evaluation and means of evaluation
Assumptions
- Life is organic, not mechanical
- The universe is dynamic, not stable
- Curriculum development is not passive acceptance of steps, but evolves from action with the system in particular contexts
- Goals emerge oftentimes from the very experiences in which people engage
- Giroux (1991): encourage the achievement and employment of multiple awareness
- Lyotard (1992): play the game without rules, and from the very playing, to invent new rules; our challenge is not that of supplying a clear reality, but inventing allusions to the conceivable and engaging ourselves in the dynamics of the system
- Doll: four criteria (1993, 4 Rs)
- Richness: players include teachers, students, and interested parties from the wider community; curricula must have some disturbing qualities
- Recursion: stability + change; reflective interaction; no fixed beginning or ending; the curriculum is designed to allow for continually going back to and then incorporating previous points and insights into a growing sense of understanding
- Relations: dialogue between students and teachers; social activity full of surprises
- Rigor: critique validity; cultivate new ideas
- Richness: players include teachers, students, and interested parties from the wider community; curricula must have some disturbing qualities
- Slattery (?)
- Pinar (?)
Present and future
Hunkins, F. P., & Hammill, P. A. (1994). Beyond Tyler and Taba: Reconceptualizing the curriculum process. Peabody Journal of Education, 69 (3), 4-18.
Keywords: Tyler rationale, Taba, Bobbit, Modernism, Technocrat, postmodernism
Parkay, F. W., & Hass, G. (2005). Curriculum planning: A contemporary approach (7th Ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. (Chapter 2. Social forces: Present and future, pp. 45-58)
Keywords: social forces, developmental tasks, future planning
Cetron, M, & Cetron, K. (2003). A forecast for schools. Educational Leadership, 61 (4).
Keywords: funding, diversity, technology, lifelong learning.
These three articles provide some basic ideas about “where we are” and “where we are headed.”
In this era of rapid social and technological change leading to increasing life complexity and psychological displacement, the educators have to rethink what modern education is and how curricula should be reformed to suit the future needs.
For decades, the modernism-scientistic tradition has been dominating curriculum and curriculum development. Even today, Bobbitt’s curriculum foundation, Ralph Tyler’s four-question rationale, and Hilda Taba’s seven-step model are still the mainstream views regarding curriculum development. However, the newly-emerged challenges, transitions and transformations, as in a post-modernism point of view, have announced that “there is no structure or master narrative in which we can wrap ourselves for comfort.” Education will be at risk if our educators continue to rely on a positivistic certainty in the procedures that Tyler and Taba advocated.
Examining contemporary social forces that influence the curriculum helps curriculum planners to understand the role education can play in shaping a desired future and thus incorporate an unknown future into their work. Among those ten major trends, I think we would draw special attentions to “increasing ethnic and cultural diversity”, “changing values and morality” and “microelectronics revolution”. Based on the understanding of these three fundamental issues, we should be able to deploy futures planning with considering three levels of social forces.
A forecast for schools projected from futurists provided directions for schools by yielding an understanding of societal and economic trends to help schools implement reforms that prepare students more effectively for the changing world. With all those concerns on funding, student population and diversity, technological transformation in the workplace, and needs in lifelong learning, our schools should make early preparations and careful countermeasures in response to the modern, high-tech world with cautious optimism.
Keywords: Tyler rationale, Taba, Bobbit, Modernism, Technocrat, postmodernism
Parkay, F. W., & Hass, G. (2005). Curriculum planning: A contemporary approach (7th Ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. (Chapter 2. Social forces: Present and future, pp. 45-58)
Keywords: social forces, developmental tasks, future planning
Cetron, M, & Cetron, K. (2003). A forecast for schools. Educational Leadership, 61 (4).
Keywords: funding, diversity, technology, lifelong learning.
These three articles provide some basic ideas about “where we are” and “where we are headed.”
In this era of rapid social and technological change leading to increasing life complexity and psychological displacement, the educators have to rethink what modern education is and how curricula should be reformed to suit the future needs.
For decades, the modernism-scientistic tradition has been dominating curriculum and curriculum development. Even today, Bobbitt’s curriculum foundation, Ralph Tyler’s four-question rationale, and Hilda Taba’s seven-step model are still the mainstream views regarding curriculum development. However, the newly-emerged challenges, transitions and transformations, as in a post-modernism point of view, have announced that “there is no structure or master narrative in which we can wrap ourselves for comfort.” Education will be at risk if our educators continue to rely on a positivistic certainty in the procedures that Tyler and Taba advocated.
Examining contemporary social forces that influence the curriculum helps curriculum planners to understand the role education can play in shaping a desired future and thus incorporate an unknown future into their work. Among those ten major trends, I think we would draw special attentions to “increasing ethnic and cultural diversity”, “changing values and morality” and “microelectronics revolution”. Based on the understanding of these three fundamental issues, we should be able to deploy futures planning with considering three levels of social forces.
A forecast for schools projected from futurists provided directions for schools by yielding an understanding of societal and economic trends to help schools implement reforms that prepare students more effectively for the changing world. With all those concerns on funding, student population and diversity, technological transformation in the workplace, and needs in lifelong learning, our schools should make early preparations and careful countermeasures in response to the modern, high-tech world with cautious optimism.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Branches of philosophy
Webb, L. D. (2006). The history of American Education. Columbus, OH: Pearson. pp. 4-17.
Three Branches of Philosophy
1. Metaphysics: What is the nature of reality (most difficult to answer)?
1. Idealism (oldest philosophy of Western culture, dating back to Greece and Plato)
1. Pragmatism (experimentalism or instrumentalism, focuses on experience)
Three Branches of Philosophy
1. Metaphysics: What is the nature of reality (most difficult to answer)?
- Ontology: meaning of existence (key concept in understanding any philosophy)
- Cosmology: origin & organization of the universe
- Scientific inquiry
- Intuition
- Senses and feelings
- Logic (making inferences, reasoning, or arguing in a rational manner)
- Deductive: reasoning from a general statement or principle to a specific point or example
- Inductive: reasoning from the specific to a more general conclusion
- Deductive: reasoning from a general statement or principle to a specific point or example
- Ethics: human conduct and moral values (right, wrong, good, bad)
- Aesthetics: values in beauty, nature, and the "aesthetic experience"
1. Idealism (oldest philosophy of Western culture, dating back to Greece and Plato)
- Metaphysics: Mind over matter (the Universal Mind)
- Epistemology: the science of logic (deductive in particular); moving closer to Ultimate Truth
- Axiology: Absolute values
- Leading proponents
- Plato (Greek): the father of idealism
- Judaism & Christianity (St. Augustine): influenced by Plato, religious idealism
- Descartes (French): as humans we may doubt everything except our own existence; influenced a number of fields of inquiry, including the sciences
- Kant (German): universal moral laws guide our actions or behaviors; "above all things, obedience is an essential feature in the character of a child" - a primary basis for moral training or character development in education
- Hegel (German): reality as a "contest of opposites" - each idea (thesis) has its own opposite (antithesis) - the confrontation results in a more comprehensive idea (synthesis)
- Educational implications
- Purpose of schooling: promote spiritual and intellectual development, produce competent & self-actualized adults who will become useful citizens of the state
- Curriculum and instruction: stresses the eternal ideas of the past (great works of literature, philosophy, politics, history, & the arts); Preferred methods of instruction: lecture, discussion, reflection, & the Socratic method (dialogue)
- Nature of the learner: every student has a mind, soul, and spirit capable of emulating the Absolute Mind, absorbing ideas from books & teachers
- Role of the teacher: role model with logical thinking and reasoning; authority with extensive knowledge about the Great Books
- Metaphysics: The world of things is superior to the world of ideas; reality is external and can be verified
- Epistemology: perception, rational thinking, sensing; Aristotle: deduction (the establishment of a first or major premise, followed by a second or minor premise, and the drawing of a conclusion (syllogism) from them; the scientific method (the systematic reporting and analysis of what is observed and the testing of hypotheses formulated from the observations
- Axiology: natural law and moral law are the major determinants of what is good
- Leading proponents
- Aristotle: the father of realism; reality, knowledge, & value exist independent of the mind
- Bacon (English): inductive inquiry (scientific form of realism)
- Locke (English): mind as a blank slate; knowledge is acquired through sensory perception
- Comenius (Czech): educator and theologian; universal education
- Rousseau (French) (political & educational theories; Natural Man: The social contract) & Pestalozzi (Swiss) (child-centered; training of the whole man): influential on progressive education
- Educational implications
- Purpose of schooling: teach moral and intellectual value; develop students' power of reasoning and master the principles of scientific inquiry
- Curriculum and instruction: focuses on the natural laws; theoretical subjects such as math & the sciences has a higher priority than the "practical arts"; instructional methods: deductive logic; observation, classification, and categorization; the scientific method; curriculum determined by authority figures or experts
- Nature of the learner: the students as an orderly, sensing, and rational being capable of understanding the world of things; both the teacher and the student are considered learners, and teaching and learning are considered an unending interactive process
- Role of the teacher: to emphasize and model reasoning, observation, and experimentation. To teach student how to think clearly and understand the material world
1. Pragmatism (experimentalism or instrumentalism, focuses on experience)
- Metaphysics: reality as an event, a process, a verb, subject to constant change and lacks absolutes; Meaning is derived from experience
- Epistemology: truth is determined by function or consequences (only tentative truth); Knowledge is arrived at by scientific inquiry, testing, questioning, and retesting, never conclusive
- Axiology (prgamatism's focus): values are tentative; whatever works is ethically or morally good; democracy (Dewey);
- Learning proponents
- Comte (French): science could solve social problems
- Charles Darwin (English): natural selection - reality is subject to change (development)
- Charles Sanders Peirce (American): true knowledge depends on verification of ideas through experience; learning, believing, and knowing as an intimate part of doing and feeling
- William James (American): no absolutes or universals, only an ever-changing universe
- John Dewey (American): influential on American pragmatism; experience, thought, and consequence were interralated
- Comte (French): science could solve social problems
- Educational implications
- Purpose of schooling: to model a progressive democratic society; education is to stress function or experience through problem solving and the scientific method
- Curriculum and instruction: integrates several subjects (history, geography, the sciences); instructional methods: learning by doing, problem solving, experimentation, hands-on activities, collaborative learning, deductive thinking, social interaction, group activities
- Nature of the learner: evolving and active beings capable of interacting with their environment, setting objectives for their own learning, capable of working together to solve common problems, establishing the rules for governing the classrooms, and testing and evaluating ideas fro the improvement of learning and classroom life
- Role of the teacher: to model the most authentic type of knowledge (i.e., experimental knowledge); research or project director; stresses the application of the scientific method
- Purpose of schooling: to model a progressive democratic society; education is to stress function or experience through problem solving and the scientific method
- Metaphysics: existence precedes essence; no meaning or purpose to the physical universe; we must create our own meaning; By our choice we determine reality; cannot escape responsibility to choose, including the choice of how we view our past
- Epistemology: knowing by choice; no absolutes, authorities, single or correct way to the truth; the self is the only authority
- Axiology: determining value by choice; choice is frustrating and exasperating at times
- Leading proponents
- Soren Kierkegaard (Danish): father of existentialism; the reality of God and individual existence
- Martin Buber (Jewish): both the divine and the human are related
- Edmund Husserl (German): father of phenomenology (referring to objects, events, or things we perceive or experience)
- Martin Heidegger (German): father of hermeneutics (interpretation of lived experience); Phenomenology had a major influence on the critical theory and postmodern movements that followed
- Jean-Paul Sartre (French): free choice implies total responsibility for one's own existence; humanity exists without any meaning until we construct our own
- John Holt, Charles Silberman, Jonathan Kozol: open schools, free schools, and alternative schools that flourished druing the mid-1960s
- A. S. Neill: founder of Summerhill School that offered an educational experience built on the principle of learning by discovery in an atmosphere of unrestrained freedom
- Nel Noddings: challenge to care
- Educational implications
- Purpose of schooling: prepare students to take responsibility for, and to deal with, the results of their actions; to foster self-discovery and explain the importance of the freedom of choice and the responsibility for making choices
- Curriculum and instruction: individual and personal learning; student centered; humanities is the preferred subject matter; "personal truth"; instructional methods: nondirective humanistic values education; cognitive discussions along with affective experiences along with the Socratic dialogue
- Nature of the learner: a free individual capable of authentic and responsible choice, of self-discipline and self-discovery and can be responsible for their own learning
- Role of the teacher: an example of authenticity for students; help students achieve their potential while striving for self-autualization; personal and interactive student-teacher relationship; introspective and reflective; imagination and insight
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