What do you think the column on 'acquiring knowledge' may do for those new to teaching?

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  • Sylvia Tiala - 8 years ago

    My experience has been that there are three processes at play. One process is acquiring knowledge. A person needs to have a some content knowledge before they can do research. If they have little or none then level 1 is appropriate. The level at which research is conducted is dependent on the knowledge students bring to a class and it is up to an instructor to decide the level of research that is appropriate for knowledge integration/synthesis for any given class. A second process is walking students through the research process itself. The third phase of implementing the RSD is getting students to think critically about the choices they make as they walk through the research process processes (meta cognition). Adding an additional column is confusing. The "content acquisition" piece, or rather apply content to the research process, is really addressed by the arrow going across the top of the chart and looking at that not just from a "teacher led" /"student led" perspective but also from a pedagogy to andragogy continuum. Malcolm Knowles (1980) laid out dimensions of maturation in his "Modern Practice of Adult Education" (Dependence vs Autonomy, Passivity vs Activity, Subjectivity vs Objectivity, Ignorance vs Enlightenment, small abilities vs large abilities etc, (see page 29). Stephen Brookfield addresses critical thinking skills in a variety of publications. In my opinion faculty should be able to address content. However, getting students to think critically about the content is a different story. The ability to think critically is again a dimension that can be indicated across the top continuum of the chart from little critical thinking to a lot of critical thinking. This is indeed a difficult task. I am running a study with one of my classes on that as we speak.

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