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Anthony Armstrong

H-Survey Discussion Network - 0 views

www.h-net.org/~survey

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 04 Feb 09 - Cached
  • Anthony Armstrong on 04 Feb 09
     
    Welcome to H-Survey, a member of H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine. The primary purpose of H-Survey is to communicate and exchange ideas about teaching approaches, methods, problems, and resources related to introductory United States history courses, as well as research in the field.
Anthony Armstrong

Contructivist Learning Theory - 0 views

www.stemnet.nf.ca/...cle2b.html

constructivism

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Behaviorial psychology is interested in the study of changes in manifest behavior as opposed to changes in mental states. Learning is conceived as a process of changing or conditioning observable behavior as result of selective reinforcement of an individual's response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment. The mind is seen as an empty vessel, a tabula rasa to be filled or as a mirror reflecting reality. Behaviorism centers on students' efforts to accumulate knowledge of the natural world and on teachers' efforts to transmit it. It therefore relies on a transmission, instructionist approach which is largely passive, teacher-directed and controlled. In some contexts, the term behaviorism is used synonymously with objectivism because of its reliance on an objectivist epistemology
  • Objectivists believe in the existence of reliable knowledge about the world. As learners, the goal is to gain this knowledge; as educators, to transmit it
  • The role of education is to help students learn about the real world. The goal of designers or teachers is to interpret events for them. Learners are told about the world and are expected to replicate its content and structure in their thinking. (p.28)
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  • Classes are usually driven by "teacher-talk" and depend heavily on textbooks for the structure of the course. There is the idea that there is a fixed world of knowledge that the student must come to know.
  • There is little room for student-initiated questions, independent thought or interaction between students. The goal of the learner is to regurgitate the accepted explanation or methodology expostulated by the teacher. (p.3)
  • Where behaviorism emphasizes observable, external behaviours and, as such, avoids reference to meaning, representation and thought, constructivism takes a more cognitive approach.
  • Their role is not to dispense knowledge but to provide students with opportunities and incentives to build it up (von Glasersfeld, 1996). Mayer (1996) describes teachers as "guides", and learners as "sense makers". In Gergen's (1995) view, teachers are coordinators, facilitators, resource advisors, tutors or coaches.
  • The first is to introduce new ideas or cultural tools where necessary and to provide the support and guidance for students to make sense of these for themselves. The other is to listen and diagnose the ways in which the instructional activities are being interpreted to inform further action.
  • The focus of concern with the teacher and in teacher education is not just with the teacher's knowledge of subject matter and diagnostic skills, but with the teacher's belief, conceptions, and personal theories about subject matter, teaching, and learning.
  • Although we can tentatively come to know the knowledge of others by interpreting their language and actions through our own conceptual constructs, the others have realities that are independent of ours. Indeed, it is the realities of others along with our own realities that we strive to understand, but we can never take any of these realities as fixed. An awareness of the social construction of knowledge suggests a pedagogical emphasis on discussion, collaboration, negotiation, and shared meanings
  • Von Glasersfeld (1995) argues that: "From the constructivist perspective, learning is not a stimulus-response phenomenon. It requires self-regulation and the building of conceptual structures through reflection and abstraction" (p.14).
  • "Rather than behaviours or skills as the goal of instruction, concept development and deep understanding are the foci (...) (p.10). For educators, the challenge is to be able to build a hypothetical model of the conceptual worlds of students since these worlds could be very different from what is intended by the educator (von Glasersfeld, 1996).
  • How one arrives at a particular answer, and not the retrieval of an 'objectively true solution', is what is important.
  • learning emphasizes the process and not the product.
  • In this process, students' errors are seen in a positive light and as a means of gaining insight into how they are organizing their experiential world. The notion of doing something 'right' or 'correctly' is to do something that fits with "an order one has established oneself" (von Glasersfeld, 1987, p. 15).
Anthony Armstrong

TAKS 2003 G8 Social Studies Online Test - 0 views

ritter.tea.state.tx.us/...socialstudies.htm

assessment

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 07 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Anthony Armstrong on 07 Apr 09
     
    Andrew
Anthony Armstrong

NCSS Position Statement on Media Literacy | National Council for the Social Studies - 0 views

www.socialstudies.org/...medialiteracy

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 06 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The multimedia age requires new skills for accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages within a digital, global, and democratic society. The acquisition and application of critical analysis and media production skills are part of what constitutes media literacy.
  • Outside of the classroom young people regularly engage with music and videos via MP3 players, constantly text their friends with their cell phones, check the latest videos on YouTube, and even upload ones themselves. But, upon entering the classroom they are expected to disengage from this interpersonal, producer-oriented, digital world. If we hope to make learning relevant and meaningful for students in the 21st century, social studies classrooms need to reflect this digital world so as to better enable young people to interact with ideas, information, and other people for academic and civic purposes.
  • Likewise, social studies educators should provide young people with the awareness and abilities to critically question and create new media and technology, and the digital, democratic experiences, necessary to become active participants in the shaping of democracy.
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  • These changes in society and the experiences the students bring into the classroom challenge social studies teachers to change both how and what we teach. One reaction is to fear these changes and try to protect our students from things we don’t understand or appreciate. Such an approach is neither helpful nor pedagogically sound.
  • Whether we like it or not, this media culture is our students’ culture. Our job is to prepare them to be able to critically participate as active citizens with the abilities to intelligently and compassionately shape democracy in this new millennium.
  • the 21st century social studies teacher should guide students to explore different sources of information such as independent blogs, open source sites, wikis, podcasts, and numerous new resources that offer alternatives to corporate media. Teaching students to think critically about the content and the form of mediated messages is an essential requirement for social studies education in this millennium.
  • Changes in technology, media, and society require the development of new pedagogy to empower students to adequately read media messages and produce media themselves in order to be active participants in the contemporary democratic society
  • What do young people need to learn to best enable them to participate in this democratic culture, while navigating their way through the emerging media environment?
  • Media literacy is a pedagogical approach promoting the use of diverse types of media and information communication technology (from crayons to webcams) to question the roles of media and society and the multiple meanings of all types of messages. Analysis of media content is combined with inquiry into the medium. This approach is analytical and skill-based. Thus media literacy integrates the process of critical inquiry with the creation of media as students examine, create, and disseminate their own alternative images, sounds, and thoughts.
  • Media literacy includes the skills of accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages as well as the cultural competencies and social skills associated with a growing participatory culture. This participatory culture is characterized not simply by “individual expression” but also by “community involvement,” requiring “social skills developed through collaboration and networking.” (Jenkins et al, 2007, p. 4). Media literacy also includes analysis of ideology and power as students learn how media are used to position audiences and frame public opinion.
  • The horizontal motion entails broadening the definition of what is considered acceptable text to include multiple ways people read, write, view, and create information and messages.
  • Along with analysis, media literacy involves production as students learn to create messages with different media and technology. Students should be presenting their research and learning through interactive multimedia presentations, as Internet blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.
  • Teaching media literacy also requires a vertical movement to help students deepen their questioning of the relationships between information, knowledge, and power
  • The ability to differentiate between primary and secondary sources or distinguish fact from fiction is now intimately connected to the ability to analyze and create media.
  • What social, cultural, historical, and political contexts are shaping the message and the meaning I am making of it? How and why was the message constructed?. How could different people understand this information differently? Whose perspective, values and ideology are represented and whose are missing? Who or what group benefits and/or is hurt by this message?
  • In the 21st century, media literacy is an imperative for participatory democracy because new information/communication technologies and a market-based media culture have significantly reshaped the world. The better we can prepare our students to critically question the information and media they are seeing, hearing, and using, the more likely they are to make informed decisions and to participate as citizens who can shape democracy for the public good.
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