Category Archives: Nature of Learning
One Way to Improve Your Teaching
Sometimes I am asked what is the most important part of teaching effectively or what is the one thing that I’d recommend for people to try. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the question can be answered. There is no single thing … Continue reading
What will become of teacher education?
Schools/programs such as Iowa BIG and Waukee APEX reflect efforts to reform education going back more than 100 years. While the people running these programs might not agree, there is a lot of similarity to vocational programs many of us grew … Continue reading
Posted in Education Reform, Learning, Nature of Teaching, Teacher Actions, teacher education
Tagged dewey, PBL, teacher education
4 Comments
Teaching is Design: Cultural Constraints
I’ve written a few posts relating teaching and design (see here, here, here, and here). If teaching is designing, then ideas about design might provide interesting insight into teaching. Last time I wrote about material constraints, but culture and society … Continue reading
Posted in Design, Nature of Learning, Nature of technology, teacher education
Tagged constraints, culture, Design, designthinking, Learning
2 Comments
Teaching is Design: End User
Once we know the outcomes of our design, we need to consider for whom we design? The best designed products clearly considered the end user in the design process. When a product is designed for the end user, the user … Continue reading
Posted in Design, Learning, Nature of Learning
Tagged Design, education, Learning, learning theory, students, teaching
2 Comments
Learning to Walk
The following abstract came across my google reader today. What are the insights you’re seeing for learning/teaching in K-16 education? A century of research on the development of walking has examined periodic gait over a straight, uniform path. The current … Continue reading
Implications for Learning the Nature of Technology (Part 3)
Beyond the extent to which students’ learned about the NOT, the study investigated ways in which the preservice teachers used NOT in broader context. Unfortunately, a minority of students included NOT ideas within the broader context of technology literacy at … Continue reading
Implications for Learning the Nature of Technology (Part 1)
The results of this investigation seem to indicate that teaching and learning about the nature of technology (NOT) may be especially difficult. Given the deeply engrained, ubiquitous, and oftentimes “invisible” nature of technology in our society, coming to understand deep … Continue reading
Technological evolution, not revolution.
As much as people want to believe in the revolutionary power of technology, technology advance more closely resembles evolution than revolution because new technology is developed in light of previous technologies (McArthur, 2007). Usually, new technologies are simply a recombination … Continue reading
Posted in Learning, Nature of Learning, Nature of technology
Tagged Learning, nature of technology, philosophy of technology
3 Comments
Technology’s Deep Impact
Technology’s impact on culture is clear as human historical eras are identified by their dominant technologies (NAE, 2009). Postman (1992, p. 19) summarizes the deep impact technology may have on human beings: We need to know in what ways [the … Continue reading
The Limited Nature of Technology (part 2)
Not only is technology limited in its ability to solve deep problems, technology may actually limit both teacher and students in profound ways. Specifically, technology may limit students thinking and inhibit teachers’ ability to understand student thinking. Technology can effectively … Continue reading
Teaching as Dynamic 