I have read several of Mayer's articles. I will post citations to them when I get a moment. I just have to get off my chest that while this article was a good read (as are all those I have read), the last page is the most important one, and is only loosely related to the proposition of the paper. I almost want to say that what he wrote there was so important that it invalidates the need to discuss information processing as it serves to bridge what he calls associationism to constructivism.
In other words, if in the future we base our construction of metaphors and theories upon what is politically popular or philosophically ready rather on empirical evidence, we abolish measurement and thereby exile science.
This is the most important issue. As a potential leader, you have to know where you stand on this issue.
Furthermore, I need to read one of his references with regard to education's fourth metaphor (Steffer & Gale 1995).
Chris - I'd like to know more about what you think the politically popular or philosophically ready metaphors that you think theorists have been using. Can you say more about this?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see you responding to the reading in this way.
I was referring to Mayer's explanation of the critical path. The way I read it, Mayer describes a future of education in which policy makers and others might abandon empirical evidence for other ways of making instructional decisions. These new paradigms might be nothing more than sets of facile assumptions, something Jerome Bruner called folk pedagogy.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant to say is that this is the real point. In a world that already devalues and takes for granted our educational system, we can ill afford to allow 100 years of insight to be trumped by people who are out of touch with our educational system.