EDUC 6470 Week 5

From our syllabus: "What is the teacher's role in an inquiry-based classroom? What are the challenges?"

Readings

Druger (2006)<bibref>Druger

2006</bibref>

How can I possibly read this without bias against the author after having read his diatribe against students from 2002?<bibref>Druger:2002</bibref>

Druger lists vocabulary as the base of subject matter competency. That there is such a base for learning is questionable, learning, to me, being a complex network of experiences and interpretations and expressions. That vocabulary must come first is also questionable, because it demotes experience to something that can't be learnable without a vocabulary for expression. Such a view of the basis of learning is prevalent perhaps because it is reinforced by our methods of assessing learning, through vocabulary-based checks on expression, rather than evaluating experience or performance.

I do like Druger's second goal, to expose students to the vastness of what is unknown. The earlier, the better, so that students know they can enter a field fertile for inquiry. In his last goal, he seems to be wavering on the importance to him of engendering self-motivated learners. Early, he says it's the most important, later, one of the most important, and his first goal, learning vocabulary, seems to trump this one in his telling.

Pestel (2002)<bibref>Pestel

2002</bibref>

Keys & Bryan (2001)<bibref>Keys

2001</bibref>

Crawford (2000)<bibref>Crawford:2000</bibref>

References

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