Re: Discovery Learning and Guided Inquiry (was Re: AP students)

[Robert A Cohen <bbq@ESU.EDU>]

On Tue, 1 May 2001, Mike Ugawa wrote (with subject header "Re: AP
students") in response to my post:

> I was quoting a phrase as used by Hugh Haskell in a previuos posting,
> which I included at the beginning of my response. I agree that
> "constructivist ideas" refers to a theory of how learning occurs, while
> "guided discovery" is a matter of instructional methodology. If I were to
> have edited the quote, I would might have used something like, "guided
> discovery and other instructional methods derived from constructivist
> ideas."

Thanks for clarifying.  I assume your complete sentence would read "guided
discovery and other instructional methods derived from constructivist
ideas may not work well for many students."  I'm not sure I agree but I
suppose it depends on what you mean by "many".  Any specific method may
not work well for all students, whether or not the method utilizes
constructivist ideas.  However, my guess is that methods that utilize
constructivist ideas work for *more* students.

In Mike Ugawa's second response (also with header "Re: AP students") to my
post:

> The bottom line is that we still learned our physics
> well, as evidenced by GRE scores, grad school acceptances, successful
> careers, etc. This is why I wrote that the ability to learn physics well
> from lecture is, in part, what characterizes physicists (of my era or
> earlier--I completed my Bachelor's in 1985).

The assumption here appears to be that lecture is a method that does not
utilize constructivist ideas.  I grant you that many lectures do not
utilize constructivist ideas but that isn't necessarily the case.  Perhaps
the lectures worked because they promoted student inquiry.  The problem
with lecture is not that they cannot be constructivistic but rather that
there is little opportunity for feedback and thus the student must not
only be self-motivated but must also be comfortable constructing their
ideas in a way that matches the way the instructor is presenting the
material.  I suspect the effectiveness of the lecture breaks down when
students have experiences and understandings that are diverse (or
different from the instructor's).

Again, I am no expert in this.  This is just my interpretation of the
current inquiry in teaching philosophy.  I welcome comments from those
with more expertise.

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| Robert Cohen               Department of Physics       |
|                            East Stroudsburg University |
| bbq@esu.edu                East Stroudsburg, PA  18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/   (570) 422-3428              |
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