PATTERNS AND THEMES
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Module7Transcript.docxModule 7 Transcript
Slide 1:
Welcome to Module 7! In this module, we look at how students make meaning of their experiences.
Slide 2:
The Learning Objectives for this module include:
· Recognize the importance of epistemological and intellectual development among college students.
· Assess how the teaching and learning process influences epistemological and intellectual development.
· Illustrate how successful epistemological and intellectual development can be assessed.
· Develop strategies to help facilitate epistemological and intellectual development.
Slide 3:
Cognitive structural theories describe the process of epistemological and intellectual development during the college years. Rooted in the work of Piaget, these theories focus on how people think, reason, and make meaning of their experiences. We will study three cognitive structural theories: Park’s theory of intellectual and ethical development, Belenky et al.’s women’s ways of knowing, and King & Kitchener’s reflective judgement model.
With cognitive structural theories, individuals go through stages that build upon the previous stages. As individuals encounter new information or experiences that create cognitive dissonance, they first attempt to incorporate this new data into their current way of thinking. If they can’t, a new, more complex structure is formed. Neurological maturation in cognitive development is central, but the role played by the environment in providing experiences to which the individual must react is also significant.
Slide 4:
Perry’s theory consists of nine positions outlined on a continuum of development which occurs over time. In Perry’s theory, positions are static, with development occurring not I the positions, but during transitions between them. Though Perry’s theory uses nine positions, the Patton text and this lecture illustrates four of them, which is enough to put this theory into practice.
Dualism represents a mode of meaning making in which individuals view the world as good-bad, right-wrong, black-white. Learning is essentially information exchange because knowledge is seen as quantitative and authorities (including people and books) are seen as possessing the right answers. Dualistic meaning-makers believe that the right answers exist for everything. The transition to multiplicity begins when cognitive dissonance occurs, for example when experts disagree or good teachers or authority figures do not have all of the answers or express uncertainty.
Multiplicity can be thought of as honoring diverse views when the right answers are not yet known. As individuals move through multiplicity, their conception of the student role shifts from working hard to learn what experts are teaching toward learning to think more independently. During this progression, peers become more legitimate sources of knowledge, ad individuals are likely to improve their ability to think analytically.
For multiplistic thinkers, a recognition of what is needed to support opinions initiates the transition to relativism. With relativism, all opinions are no longer equally valid, students acknowledge that some opinions are of little value, but realize that reasonable people can also legitimately disagree on some matters. Knowledge is contextually defined, based on evidence and supporting arguments.
The movement from relativism to the process of commitment in relativism, which involves making choices in a contextual world, exemplifies a shift away from cognitive development because it does not involve changes in cognitive structure. The commitment process involves choices, decisions, and affirmations that are made from the vantage point of relativism.
Slide 5:
The developmental instruction model provides a model for instructional design grounded in an analysis of Perry’s discussion of student learner characteristics which are usable in the classroom and other instructional settings. The four levels of challenge and support described in the model include structure, diversity, experiential learning, and personalism.
Structure refers to the framework and direction provided to students. Examples include placing the course in the context of the curriculum, giving detailed explanations of assignments, and using specific examples that reflect students’ experience. The Patton text notes that students in the earlier stages of Perry’s model will value this support while students who are more advanced may find it limiting and prefer a more open-ended approach.
With diversity, instructors encourage students to consider alternatives and different perspectives. This can be done through a variety of readings, assignments, points of view, and instructional methods.
Experiential learning relates to the concreteness, directness, and involvement contained in learning activities. Experiential learning helps students make connections to the subject matter being taught in the classroom. Examples might include case studies, role-playing, and other exercises that facilitate reflection on and application of the material.
Lastly, personalism reflects the creation of a safe environment in which educators encourage risk-taking. Personalism is manifested in an interactive environment in which enthusiasm for the material, instructor availability, and comprehensive feedback are exhibited.
Slide 6:
Belenky and other researchers formulated our next model of development, Women’s Ways of Knowing. This model came about because of an observed lack of confidence in women’s ability to think, speaking often about holes in their own learning. This model is based off of lengthy interviews with women who were students or recent graduates of college, as well as some human service agency workers who provided support to female parents.
Belenky et al. referred to the different ways of knowing as perspectives rather than stages, and admitted these perspectives might not be all-inclusive. The five epistemological perspectives include silence, received knowing, subjective knowing, procedural knowing, and constructed knowing.
With silence, the researchers came to believe it was more appropriate to look at it as “silenced,” being characterized as mindless, voiceless, and obedient. In this perspective, women find themselves subject to the whims of eternal authority, and were observed by researchers as the most socially, economically, and educationally deprived. Though few of the interviewed women were currently going through this perspective, many of them saw it looking back into their past.
Listening to the voices of others is a predominant trait of received knowing. A lack of self-confidence is evident in the belief that one is capable of receiving and reproducing only knowledge imparted by external authorities. This perspective lacks a creation of knowledge independently.
Next, with subjective knowing, a transition occurs where women now see the truth as residing in the self, frequently being as a result of a failed male authority figure, such as a father who committed incest or an abusive husband. Inherent in the process of subjective knowing for women is a quest for the self, often including the element of “walking away from the past.”
Procedural knowing involves learning and applying objective procedures for taking in and conveying knowledge, emerging from the context of personal experience rather than being derived from authorities.
Lastly, constructed knowing involves the integration of subjective and objective knowledge, with both feeling and through present. We can also see this perspective as “the process of sorting out the pieces of the self and of searching for a unique and authentic voice.” Constructivists are often able to listen to others without losing the ability to also hear their own voices.
Slide 7:
Though this model was geared toward women, specifically, it’s implications can have benefits for all college students.
First, advocating connected and collaborative teaching can help educators place emphasis on connection rather than separation, understanding and acceptance rather than assessment, and collaboration rather than debate. Respecting and supporting first-hand experience as a source of knowledge can encourage student-initiated work patterns rather than imposing arbitrary requirements.
Second, faculty members can connect to students and help them produce their own ideas, encouraging an expression of diverse opinions.
Slide 8:
Last, we look at King and Kitchener’s Reflective Judgment Model. This model describes how individuals understand the nature of knowledge and use that understanding to guide their thinking and behaviors. Central to this model is the observation that people’s assumptions about what and how something can be known provide a lens that shapes how individuals frame a problem and how they justify their beliefs about it in the face of uncertainty.
The reflective judgment model is comprised of seven stages, each representing a distinct set of assumptions about knowledge and the process of acquiring knowledge. Each set of assumptions results in a different strategy for solving ill-structured problems. Ill-structured problems have no certain answers, in contrast to well-structured problems for which single correct answers can be identified. Increasingly advanced stages signify increasing complexity and are clustered into three groups: pre-reflective thinking (stages 1 – 3), quasi-reflective thinking (stages 4 – 5), and reflective thinking (stages 6 & 7).
Pre-reflective thinkers do not acknowledge and many not even realize that knowledge is uncertain. Consequently, they do not recognize the existence of real problems that lack an absolute, correct answer, nor do they evidence in reasoning toward a conclusion.
Quasi-reflective thinkers realize ill-structured problems exist and knowledge claims about such problems include uncertainty. Quasi-reflective thinkers can identify some issues as being genuinely problematic, but at the same time, while they use evidence, they have difficulty drawing reasoned conclusions and justifying their beliefs.
Lastly, reflective thinkers maintain that knowledge is actively constructed, and claims of knowledge must be viewed in relation to the context in which they were generated. Relative thinkers maintain that judgments must be based upon relevant data, and conclusions should be open to reevaluation.
Slide 9:
When thinking about how we can apply this model to practice, researchers provide several suggestions.
First, both faculty and student affairs practitioners can show respect for individuals at any developmental level, recognize multiple perspectives, and provide challenge and support to students. Encouraging students to utilize reflective journal writing to promote reflective thinking is one suggestion to help facilitate this. Presenting ill-structured problems in the classroom is another recommendation. An example might be posing a question such as “Which student in our class would make the most effective class leader?” Questions like this require the ability to think across several categories of qualifications to determine the “best” answer. In this example, the faculty member can best help students by giving them feedback on their responses, providing evaluation of students’ arguments, and modeling advanced reasoning about such complex issues.
Slide 10:
To summarize this module’s main concepts:
· Cognitive social theories like the ones we examined in this chapter focus on how people think, reason, and make meaning of their experiences.
· Though these theories and models add a great deal of knowledge to the topic of epistemological and intellectual development, continuing research is important to address the changing college student.
