Group items tagged

What knowledge is of most worth (pg. 210)? This is a difficult question that requiresreflection into what is the most at stake for us as teachers and for our students as learners.

The conflict within this text focuses on the loss of power and privilege of teachers over the teaching profession. Pinar (2011) states, "How could we have so fallen in the public's eyethat we are no longer entitled to professional self-governance, the very prerequisite for  professionalism?" (p. 69).

The inability for teachers to have a voice results in an environment in which the professionalism aspect of a professional group has been diminished to a non-existent level.

illiam F. Pinar‟s purpose in writing this book is to ask us [the student] to question this  present moment and our relation to it. In doing so, we are to question the very reason behind what it means to teach, “To study, to become “educated” in the presen t moment (Pinar, 2011)

Pinar vision of schooling is   to "understand, not just implement or evaluate thecurriculum" (Pinar, 2011). He urges educators to know what they are teaching. Reciting from a text and reading from a manual is not teaching in his opinion and it‟s not teaching in ours either. As students we are asked to brainstorm and use our imagination to picture the perfect scenario.Pinar is asking teachers to do the same

Pinar describes curriculum theory as: an interdisciplinary field in which teacher education is conceived as the professionalization of intellectual freedom, fore fronting teachers‟ and students‟ individuality (originality), their creativity, and constantly engaging in ongoing if complicatedconversation informed by a self-reflexive, interdisciplinary erudition (Pinar, 2011)

By tying the curriculum to student performance on standardized test, teachers were forced toabandon their intellectual freedom to choose what they teach, how they teach, and how theyassess student learning (Pinar, 2011). Failure to learn has been the result of separating the   WHAT IS CURRICULUM THEORY? 8 curriculum from the interest of students and the passion of teachers.

Contemporary is referring to a person in thesame field or time period as you. Pinar is trying to emphasize that we are not all moving at thesame speed when it comes to educating middle and elementary students

Teachers are then empowered tohave a voice to influence the curriculum in such a manner that positively contributes to studentlearning. Pinar is urging teachers to take back their classroom. Take the initiative and leadwithout boundaries. Instruct without guidelines and open your mind to learning indirectly fromyour students

Students are set up to fail but it is not really their fault.   They attend school where the system begs for learning to equate to test scores and they become “consumers” of  educational s ervices rather than “students” This system also encourages drop-outs becauseschools only want to teach students that have acceptable test scores which benefits the school‟s accountability. Students do not experience an environment that places importance on the development of ideas and critical thinking but rather the successful completion of atest.

Demonization of the teacher has been the result of the current political and economic powers have placed the teacher in an unimportant position in the educational hierarchy andassume that business leaders know more about the curriculum and teaching than the teachersknow themselves. Teachers have become “technicians” because of school deform and are encouraged to replace ideas and know ledge with “cognitive skills” that will fit into the  jobsettings of the future. According to Pinar, these skills result in historical amnesia, political passivity and cultural standardization.

He invites us to become “temporal” subjects of history, living simultaneously in the past, present, and future  –  aware of the historical conditions that haveshaped the current situation, engaged in the present battles being waged over the course anddirection of public education, and committed to re-building a democratic public sphere.

learners the

learners the

learners the

opportunity for concrete, contextually meaningful experience through which they can search for patterns, raise their own questions, and construct their own models.

engage in activity, discourse, and reflection

take on more ownership of the ideas, and to pursue autonomy, mutual reciprocity of social relations, and empowerment to be the goals.

"knowledge proceeds neither solely from the experience of objects nor from an innate programming

but from successive constructions."

and the effect of social interaction, language, and culture on learning.

This movement occurs in the so-called "zone of proximal development" as a result of social interaction.

disappointed with the overwhelming control of environment over human behavior that is represented in behaviorism.

recognized two

internalization

basic processes operating continuously at every level of human activity

complex mental function is first an interaction between people

becomes a process within individuals

This transformation involves the mastery of external means of thinking and learning to use symbols to control and regulate one's thinking.

the claim is that mental processes can be understood only if we understand the tools and signs that mediate them

the gesture of pointing could not have been established as a sign without the reaction of the other person.

Bruner's key concepts

mode of representing past events through appropriate motor responses

which enables

perceiver to "summarize events by organization of percepts and of images

symbol system which represents things by design features that can be arbitrary and remote, e.g. language

Bruner's influence on instruction

Translating material into children's modes of thought:

enable learners to develop cognitive growth: questioning, prompting

discovery as" all forms of obtaining knowledge for oneself by the use of one's own mind

promote concept discovery, the teacher presents the set of instances that will best help learners to develop an appropriate model of the concept.

cognitive constructivists

emphasizing the social interaction and cultural practice on the construction of knowledge

Promote discovery in the exercise of problem solving

Variables in instruction: nature of knowledge, nature of the knower, and nature of the knowledge-getting process

Feedback must be provided in a mode that is both meaningful and within the information-processing capacity of the learner.

Intrinsic pleasure of discovery promote a sense of self-reward

Knowledge cannot exist independently from the knower;

Learning is viewed as self-regulatory process

Sociocultural constructivists emphasis

in which learners construct their models of reality as a meaning-making undertaking with culturally developed tools and symbols

and negotiate such meaning thorough cooperative social activity, discourse and debate (

Learners are active in making sense of things instead of responding to stimuli.

learners " make tentative interpretations of experience

requires invention and self-organization

Errors need to be perceived as a result of learners' conceptions and therefore not minimized or avoided.

the learners are responsible for defending, proving, justifying, and communicating their ideas to the classroom community.

humans seek to organize and generalize across experiences

Spiral organization:

Going beyond the information given:

Readiness:

learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.

learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.

learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.