The Artful Science of Instructional Integration.
Carol Rolheiser
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Component Five: Instructional Organizers |
|
Organizers are the metaphorical lenses through which teachers look to understand or make sense of the teaching and learning process and often emerge from philosophies or beliefs about the teaching and learning process. They not only guide decisions, they assist the teacher in understanding why something did or did not work. They are employed before, during, and after the learning event. Common examples include Howard Gardner's (1993) work on Multiple Intelligences; Rita Dunn (1982, 1995 1995) and Bernice McCarthy's (1985) work on learning styles; and Benjamin Bloom et al's (1956) design of the Cognitive Taxonomy. These organizers are specific and have clearly identified components. Other instructional organizers are less specific or much more pervasive in nature, such as the literature on gender, race, culture, children at risk, learning disabilities, and the workings of the human brain. Nonetheless, these organizers have an extensive literature base to guide teachers' decisions about what and how to design learning environments to maximize student learning.
Other instructional organizers are less specific or much more pervasive in nature: e.g., the literature on brain research, gender, race, culture, children at risk, and learning disabilities and the literature on auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning. Nonetheless, they have a rich and extensive literature base that guide teachers' decisions about what to include in designing learning environments and how to apply it to maximize student learning. The book, Research on Educational Innovations, (Arthur & Fouts, 1997) provides one of the rare overviews of the research that connects to Multiple Intelligence, Learning Styles, and Brain Research/Thinking. For each of these bodies of knowledge, their summary statement relates to these areas as recent and emerging. Here are their comments.
Learning styles: This literature makes intuitive sense. The strategies that teachers employ as a result of the learning styles literature have support based on empirical evidence (such as cooperative learning). That said, that does not imply that a focus on learning styles is the reason those strategies work. They sum up by saying that the learning styles advocates need to provide a clearer sense of the beneficial effects of a learning styles approach to learning. They base that comment on their not finding any large-scale evaluation on an in-service program or district-wide intervention related to learning styles.
Multiple Intelligence: The work on Multiple Intelligences is based on an extensive study of intelligence. Considerable work has been done through Project Zero at Harvard to measure intelligence and to implement some ideas in school settings. That said, no hard evidence exists to show that these approaches to the use of the intelligence literature lead to higher academic achievement. Again, the jury is still out; nonetheless, the possibilities for enhancing intelligence seem promising. That is seen in the work of Robert Sternberg, and his Triarchic Theory of Intelligence - also discussed in their book.
Brain Research: Educators should be informed of this research on brain function. Much of what trickles down to educators as seen in the brain-based literature seems to resemble good sense teaching. They recommend that educators continue to be informed; that this will in time come to offer more to teachers than we can today imagine.
Pat Wolf and her work connecting the brain research/literature with effective classroom practices reflect that comment.
|
|
|
 Back |
 Top |
 Next |