Double journal entry 6

Double Entry Journal #6

Teaching for Meaningful Learning - Meaningful Learning is learning that sticks. You recognize it when students are able to use what they have learned and apply it to new situations.

Read down to the section titled "Implementation Challenges".

1.Read the Introduction. What "dominant paradigm" is showing signs of wear?

The instructional model of the teacher and the textbook as the primary sources of knowledge, conveyed through lecturing discussion and reading.

2. According to the research, how does Project-Based Learning support student learning better than traditional approaches? Describe three benefits and cite the studies.

  Lets them transfer their learning to new kinds of situations and problems and use knowledge more proficiently in performance situations. Shepherd 1998 showed a increase in critical-thinking and increased confidence in their learning. Boaler 1997 and 1998 showed better gains on conceptual problems presented in the national exam and significantly more students in the project-based curriculum  passed the national exam and had a more flexible useful mathematical knowledge. The challenge 2000 multimedia project  showed students earned higher on content mastery sensitivity to audience and coherent design.

3.  According to the research, how does Problem-Based Learning support student learning better than traditional approaches? Describe three benefits and cite the studies.

Students take an active role in building their knowledge while the teacher’s role is to make thinking visible, guide the group process and participation and to ask questions to solicit reflections.  Studies(Vernon and Blake 1993 and Albanese and Mitchell 1993) show that students enrolled in problem based curricula score higher on clinical problem solving measures and on actual ratings of clinical performance.   Similar case based approaches have been used in business law and teacher education to help students learn to analyze complex multifaceted situations and to develop knowledge to guide decision making (Lundeberg Levin and Harrington, 1999 and Savery and Duffy and Williams 1992)

4.  According to the research, how does Learning by Design support student learning better than traditional approaches? Describe three benefits and cite the studies.

Children learn deeply when they are asked to design and create an artifact that requires understanding and application of knowledge. It is ideal for developing technical and subject matter knowledge.   Hmelo, Holton and Kolodner 2000 found that the design project led to better learning outcomes than the traditional approach to instruction they also noted that the design students learned to view the respiratory system more systemically and understood more about the structures and functions of the system than the comparison group. Perkins 1986 saw that design activities are particularly good for helping students develop understanding of complex systems, noting that the systems can be presented as a united whole whose structure is adapted to specific purposes. Fortus 2004 found that both higher and lower achieving students showed strong evidence of progress in learning the targeted science concepts and that students were able to apply key concept in their design work. They also noted a positive effect on motivation and sense of ownership over designs among both individuals and groups.

5. What are the differences between the three approaches?

The difference is in how the inquiry is presented either in real world situation or a series of problems or to design something .

6. In your opinion, what is the most important benefit to learning that is common across the three types of inquiry-based learning approaches?

The most important thing is that the student builds confidence in their ability to trust their learning ability.  They trust themselves to work out the answers based on what they already know and build on it to get to the solution.