Chambers, Julia
Davidson, C.N. (2011). Now you see it: How technology and brain
science will transform schools and business for the 21st century.
New York: Penguin Books.
Professor at Duke University and
Co-chair of the Ph.D. Lab in Digital Knowledge, Cathy Davidson’s Now You See It makes a strong argument
for transforming the way students are taught in the 21st century. She
leans heavily on recent findings in brain research to suggest that current
teaching practices (which reward linear thinking and rote memorization) continue
to prepare students for industry jobs, not for work in the digital age.
I found two points in her book
particularly insightful as they relate to Educational Practices:
1) Distraction
is key to learning: Pointing to current brain research, Davidson writes that in
infancy, neural pathways form and fuse to create automatic responses for
repeated tasks like walking, running, eating with a fork, etc. -- tasks we don’t
pay attention to. Davidson calls this “attention blindness.” She argues that
the key to learning is to keep our brains away from repetition so we are forced
to pay attention. This is one reason why many educators advocate gaming as a
learning system. If learning tasks are exciting and/or require multiple levels
of thinking at once, they awaken our attention and we’re more likely to
remember and incorporate this new experience or knowledge into our frame of
recognition. She argues that technology is not the source of distraction, as
many pundits argue. The brain is naturally distracted – and that’s a good thing
because it’s how we discover new patterns, new ideas. She advocates teaching
practices that keep the brain distracted, precisely because this distraction
promotes a different kind of thinking that’s based on association,
pattern-recognition, interconnectivity. Using teaching techniques and tools
that promote distraction may cause the brain to develop new neural pathways (new
ways of thinking) throughout life.
2) Current
classrooms promote attention blindness: Davidson writes that most classrooms in
the U.S. haven’t changed in physical appearance or practice in over 100 years
and therefore don’t serve 21st century students. She provides a nice
overview of how our national educational system developed:
a) Horace
Mann championed national educational reform in the early 1800s and was key to
creating “common schools” that served the population. The 1840s to early 1900s saw
the beginnings of public education.
b) By
the late 1800s public education was becoming mandatory and directly linked to
industrialization (school was the best way to cultivate workers by teaching
them how to pay attention, how to be timely, how to focus on one single task at
a time). This was the beginning of standardized curriculum and the focus was on
elementary school level. Prior models of education were abandoned, and this
included the Socratic method (question/answer teaching); the Agrarian method (problem-solving
focused); and the Apprenticeship (imitating the skills of a master).
c) 1900
– 1950s state and regional schools replaced local schoolhouse upstarts. School
became mandatory and the focus had shifted from preparing students for industry
to creating leaders and filling the country with high school graduates.
d) 1950s
ushered in the golden age of education in the U.S., triggered by Sputnik. Focus
was on higher education, science, math. Progressive education and innovative
approaches began to flourish.
e) No
Child Left Behind put an end to widespread educational innovation. Success was
measured by test scores.
Davidson highlights several schools
around the country that are trying innovative approaches to learning, including
Manhattan’s Quest2Learn, in which classes are taught through gaming principles,
and Voyager Academy, which uses the flipped classroom model and has students
work on collaborative projects during class time.
Overall, Davison’s book makes a
strong argument for innovative, differentiated teaching based on recent
research on how the brain learns and through examples of schools that are doing
this with great success. Her overall thesis makes a strong argument that cultivating
associative, collaborative thinking and practices is critical for student
success in the digital age.
ET-Brain Research
ET-New Trends
No comments:
Post a Comment