Visual Tools

The Constructivist-Cognitive Revolution

Educational historians of future generations will look back on the late 20th century as a time when educators began the slow, institutional transformation away from rote behaviorism, closed definitions of intelligence, and hardened perceptions of a singular, static, "given" structure of knowledge. Initiated in the work of Jean Piaget, the guiding term for this cognitive revolution is constructivism.

Early researchers who influenced this direction - such as L.S. Vygotsky in Russia, J.P. Guilford and Benjamin Bloom in the United States, and Reuven Feuerstein in Israel - have supported the last generation of cognitive skills practice in education. Hilda Taba's concept development approach was one of the first significant training programs to translate

research into concrete questioning strategies for teachers. This early research and practice influenced the broad-based "thinking skills" movement of the past 20 years, which was led by the works of Arthur Costa, Davis Perkins, Edward deBono, Matthew Lipman, Richard Paul, and many others (Costa 1985, 1991).

Up to this time, the focal point of education has been slowly shifting from students remembering "bits" of information to students being able to consciously construct conceptual understandings that link the "bits" into patterns of information. The cognitive revolution is based on building students' capacities to integrate knowledge, in marked contrast to a still popular and slowly fading behavioral learning paradigm. The "case for constructivism" has been made:

• Much of traditional education breaks wholes into parts, and then focuses separately on each part. But many students are unable to build concepts an skills from parts to wholes. These students often stop trying to see the wholes before all the parts are presented to them and focus on the small, memorizable aspects of broad units without ever creating the big picture.... We need to see the "whole" before we are able to make sense of the parts (Brooks and Brooks 1993).

The essence of this statement turns on the phrase "build concepts" and "creating the big picture". Though the case for constructivism has been made, these phrases still represent its outposts and unmet expectations, as we are still struggling in a translational time between paradigms without practical strategies for student-centered construction of knowledge. A shift in paradigms in any field is usually slow; but for several reasons, this shift is difficult for many educators.

The Tree Map enables students to do both inductive and deductive

classification. Students learn to create general concepts, (main)

ideas, or categories headings at the top of the tree, and supporting

ideas and specific details in the branches below.

http://socrates.mps.ohio-state.edu:80/LabAssignments/Visual/visual1.html

KNOWLEDGE and THINKING - THE FORGOTTEN THEORY

Author - Douglas Craigie, UWS Nepean

Cognitive investigators J.T. Bruer (1993) and D. Perkins(1995) have examined the research to

date, and identified the following important findings:

• domain specific knowledge is crucial to better thinking;

• general thinking skills dominate only where the problem requires little factual knowledge;

• memory is an important factor in successful problem solving;

• when comparing the memories of experts and non-experts, the former have better memories

only in their area of expertise, not generally;

• generally, skills learnt in one context have little impact in another context unless the new

context is very similar to the initial context;

• metacognitive awareness, ie awareness of oneself as a problem solver (thinking about one's

thinking) is crucial to improving problem solving;

http://www.nepean.uws.edu.au:80/education/educational/doug/knowthink.html

Application Software and Thinking

Do I need to change everything I do?

Introducing data bases and spreadsheets can be done effectively through existing school programs. It is not necessary to change the curriculum at all, especially in math, science and social studies. In fact, whenever students are required to organize and use information, a data base or spreadsheet can be an efficient technological tool.

Why should I do this?

Application software, like multimedia software, allows the user to record and arrange data for specific purposes. In problem-solving activities incorporating application software, the stored data may be manipulated through search strategies (sorting and finding) and new perceptions of the meaning of the data can appear. Intellectual processes and problem-solving strategies are applied to information that has been carefully collected by students working on assigned tasks.

How do I do this?

The teaching strategies incorporate modified direct instruction and the inductive model as well as cooperative group learning. Obviously, the teacher’s role in planning for problem-solving activities using data bases and spreadsheets needs to be thought of in terms of teaching units, rather than individual lessons. It is important to realize that the units require many hours of class time to complete. Each phase in the inductive model will take at least two one-hour lessons. Separate lessons will be required to teach the data base itself, but introductory lessons on the data base can be taught once and then reinforced through building a class data base. All this will become clear in the practice that follows.

All right, show me how?

Objective. Students will learn efficient ways to organize, interpret, and analyze data on the explorers.

Solving problems with application software requires data manipulation. In Part 1 of the Explorers Data Base project, you will actually create the data base. Information needs to be collected, interpreted and classified. In Part 2, information is analyzed, and often evaluated. This is what is meant by data manipulation. The process is highly inductive in that a problem is presented from the data base, students use search strategies and work toward a generalization. Synthesis follows through continued hypothesizing and the creation of unique ways to test data.

Part 1: Building the Concept: What do you know about the Voyages of Discovery?

Note: Students would have acquired some background information prior to your asking this question. Information would be acquired in various ways: reading, lecture, videos.

• Students will volunteer numerous facts about specific explorers that include dates, places, flags under which they sailed, discoveries, goals, accomplishments, motives, and personal characteristics.

• Once a list is made on the blackboard or overhead projector, ask students to group the data in logical categories. You may need to help them get started especially if you are teaching fourth graders. Indicate group membership by circling with colored chalk or marking pens or by assigning numbers.

• Once colored groups are formed, ask students to label the groups and give reasons for the labels. Often labeling causes debate among students. To resolve possible conflicts, create new groups or combine some groups.

• Students should be able to come up with labels similar to the categories that follow: Explorer; Birth Place; Flag; Goal; Year; Discoveries; Accomplishments; Difficulties; Special Notes; and Reasons for Sailing. These labels will be used in the retrieval chart and later as fields in the data base.

Application: Introduce students to the retrieval chart. Set up a chart on a wall in your classroom and show students how to display labels along the top of the 3' by 15' length of butcher paper. Once labels are displayed, they become category headings for specific data about each explorer. Take some of the data from the chalkboard or overhead projector and write it on index cards. Ask students where it should be placed on the retrieval chart.

Assign pairs of students to an explorer and give the class the task of filling in the retrieval chart.

Note: At this point, Ed. TE 232 students may skip this step and begin defining fields in a data base. Our students, however, would complete the retrieval chart.

Use this URL to get information for your data base:

http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/discovery/index.html

Part 2: Interpretation of Data: When the chart is finished, ask students to find relationships between the categories. An obvious relationship will be seen when students compare the "Flag" category with the "Birth Place" of most explorers. Some explorers, however, sailed for a country other than the one in which they were born. Henry Hudson is a good example. See if students can find similar peculiarities.

Students will also see contrasts between the goals of explorers and their discoveries or accomplishments. Discuss these differences and ask students for possible reasons.

Building the Data Base: Once the class understands the retrieval chart system for organizing data, introduce them to a data base. Separate lessons will be required in order to introduce the data base.

As students understand how to enter information into the data base, set a data base up with the same categories as in the retrieval chart. Then assign computer time to student pairs and have students "retrieve" facts from the wall chart and enter information into the data base. This will be good practice for them as they discover the data base privately. Be prepared to help younger students with data entry.

Application of Principles: Teach students how to search (sort and find) data using the data base. A separate lesson will be required, but students will catch on quickly.

•As students become proficient in manipulating data, ask questions that take them beyond the data. These are "What if..." questions that elicit analyzing and predicting from the students. Ask, "What if Columbus had not discovered the New World?" Students can predict what might have happened. By asking students to test their predictions by sorting the "Date" category the class might be able to see that John Cabot followed Columbus in 1497 sailing for England. By arranging the data base, students will find that Cabral accidentally discovered Brazil by going off course on a voyage to India!

•Continue to ask "What if..." questions, each time asking students to locate facts in the data base by searching that support the predictions they make. Eventually, you lead students to make general statements or conclusions that are backed up by the weight of the data.