8845 MOD 2 BLOG POST

Beating-a-Dead-Horse-isms

Last I looked around, the year was 2010. Unless we’ve been suddenly warped backwards in time, debates that argue the merits of one teaching/learning style over another are passé; and at this advanced stage in the 3rd Millennium, amount to nothing more than to beating a dead horse.

This former view is not a discount of the pioneering efforts of Thorndike, Dewey, and Kilpatrick, nor the latter day refinements of Piaget, Skinner, Vygotsky, and Gardner: These have certainly all earned a proper place in education; rather, the point is that, similar to the conclusions of Kerr and Kapp, these arguments have become moot. The global diversity of learners, or as per Gardner, their multiple intelligences, in combination with the 3rd Millennial girth and depth of content, has made it imperative that educators stop wasting time on the trivia of the described discourse, and instead focus on what teaching/learning situations a particular learning theory might best be suited for, and/or when combinations of these might apply.

The references articulated present as a century-old journey. Therein, society has indeed alternately sanctioned behaviorism (in the 60’s and 70’s), cognitivism thereafter, and now again, in the second half of the past decade, a leaning back towards back-to-basics values, a resurgence of behaviorism, if you will. In this regard a microcosmic view within the so-called Math Wars in mathematics education is representative. (O’Brien, 2007)

Typical of the popularity of cognitive learning as noted, the mathematics community had embraced the concept largely due to the persistent recommendations of such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) that had successfully leveraged their reform curricula; that is, curricula based on cognitive learning. In a manner of speaking, cognitive learning was winning the math war against behaviorist teaching and learning.

Research in this past decade (ending with 2009), however, had begun to erode some of cognitive learning’s luster. As a result, President George Bush commissioned the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (NMAP), an eclectic compilation of educators, researchers, et al, to deliberate and make recommendations that would effect a plan for improving existing stagnant student mathematics performance levels. In 2008, while not totally relegating cognitive learning to a subordinate status, NMAP reported a need for students having the ability for “automatic (i.e., quick and effortless) recall of facts;” an emphasis that relates directly to behaviorist concepts of reinforcement. (USDE, 2008, p. xiii)

And so as we come around to the common sense fact for the need of inclusive approaches in the classroom, I offer a final distinction. Arguing which approach is better across the board is not the same as arguing how best to use each, or when to combine them. These are clearly horses of different colors. Arguing the former would be just another horse-ism.

O’Brien, T.C. (May 2007). The old and the new. Phi Delta Kappan. Retrieved from proquest.umi.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org

U.S. Department of Education (2008). Success: The final report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. Retrieved from www.scribd.com