Have you ever thought about the distinction between thinking and intelligence?Keep in mind this quote: "We think only when some obstacle arises, preventing the satisfaction of our needs and throwing us into disequilibrium" (151).
My conclusion is this: we need to focus on teaching our students how to think. No matter our subject matter, teaching content missing the point. Yes, students do need to have a basic level of content in their brains, but in the end, they need to know how to use that content. Otherwise, what's the point?
2 comments:
Some insane psychology profs did an experiment a few years back where they gave an unsolvable math problem to a junior high math class in Japan. The kids worked diligently on it until the teacher told them to stop. Then, the psychology profs gave the same math problem to a U.S. junior class. The kids stopped working after about five minutes, refusing to go on. The point of this experiment? Those Japanese teachers instilled thinking skills into their students. Those American teachers instilled erroneous beliefs about intelligence into theirs.
I've taught and observed many American classrooms in my time. Most groupwork assignments seem to break down after just a few short minutes. And yet, instructors don't seem to take that into account.
One thought: we're often reminded that lectures shouldn't go longer than 15 minutes; well, maybe any activity, even groupwork, shouldn't either. Or, if you have a groupwork assignment, you have to make sure that you divide it into segments. Otherwise, the group will usually start talking about football, or shopping, or whatever, instead of the assignment...
Post a Comment