My Theory of Learning Data Collection - Interview with German Language Learner

Here's a first sample of my interviewing language learners & how the best learn - immersed or in-class.

Learning German in Germany - Teresa Buchanan

Discussion of Cognitive Development: Piaget and Bruner

Dr. Lauren Barth-Cohen

One classic research topic in the development of young children's thinking in science is the shape of the earth.  Based on everyday observations it is understandable that one may assume that the world is flat, and many have noted the historical parallel's between young children assumptions of the world being flat and the history of science.  However, upon being told that the world is round, many have noted that young children sometimes then presume that the earth is a flat disk inside a hollow sphere. Based on your reading of this weeks chapters, describe these results in light of Piaget and Bruner's work.  How might you apply these ideas to the design of instruction for the shape of the earth?

The "metaphor of conceptual change as a scientific paradigm shift" put forth by Posner aptly characterizes this childish misconception.  Stretching the analogy a bit, you might look at the evolution of knowledge in the Western world as the Piagetian process of childhood maturation into teen - moving from the pre-operational Pre-Socratic times (& then later re-booted with the Dark Ages) through the concrete operational stage & Golden Age of Greece into the formal operational & European Renaissance & later Enlightenment.

As a whole, general human community, we believed that the Earth was a flat disc at one time.  And, of course, it took no less than a dramatic & painful paradigm shift in Europe to grow past the primitive concept that our plane of existence was not flat but indeed a revolving & orbiting sphere. Children, just as humanity, view the world in the simplest possible manner - very Aristotelian in a way. Young children have not moved into the stage of viewing knowledge of the physical world in the mental, imaginative, constructivist models.  

I agree completely with Bruner that children have a far greater capacity to assimilate knowledge & accommodate the new intellectual "paradigms" they are confronted with as they flow through formal education & their dynamic cognitive development.  

As Bruner suggests, instruction (especially around the idea of physics) optimizes discovery when children are taught:

• How to cut their losses (divest regardless of their stubborn hold to a crumbling foundation)
• Pose good testable results (scientific method & experimentation)
• Persist in seeking appropriate evidence (determination can be a useful ally when bent correctly), &
• Be concise (for, after all, simplicity & brevity are infinitely appealing) 

Having many nephews & nieces (& being a very eager Uncle-babysitter), I have found that guiding kids through Socratic discussions with accompanying physical models to demonstrate phases of the moon & eclipses can be brilliant fun.  I treat these little adventurers as equals & apt discoverers of knowledge - veritable Christopher Columbuses.  The ensuing discovery of knowledge & seeing that light bulb moment sparkle in a child's eye is one of life's necessary, raison d'etre moments for anyone worthy of being called a teacher.