Set-Up Directions End time: 5:40

Set-Up DirectionsEnd time: 5:40 • Please sit in your teams. • Please complete the questionnaire.

Cognitive Development

Anyone feeling like this…?

Class Overview • Self-Assessment Activity • Modified Jigsaw with Numbered Heads • Team Report-Out • William Perry • Baxter-Magolda • King and Kitchener • Lecture • Whole Group Analysis • Implications for Instruction

Review and Self-Assessment • Epistemology • Theories of Adult Development • Ages and Stages: Levinson, Erikson • Positions: Intellectual Development • Questionnaire

Intellectual Growth • How do learners think? • How do they: • Perceive • Organize • Evaluate experiences/events? • How do they behave/feel in response to these experiences/events? • How do they learn?

Modified Jigsaw with Numbered Heads • Team member number assignments (1-4) • Review team member roles: • 1’s – Facilitator • 2’s – Recorder • 3’s – Reporter • 4’s – Coach • Review team packet (10 minutes) • Discuss team-assigned theory

Team Activity Directions On chart paper: • Create visual/graphic for theory • Record major stages or categories • Extension: • In text and/or graphic for each major stage or category, identify how learners see: • Themselves • Instructors • Other learners

Team Report-OutPerryBaxter-MagoldaKing and Kitchener

Comparison of Theories • Class Synthesis • Commonalities

Dualism • Instructor: • Seen as the only legitimate source of knowledge • Themselves: • Seen as receivers & demonstrators of knowledge • Other learners: • Not seen as legitimate sources of knowledge • Support: • Need high degree of structure • Dualistic learners like lectures, hate seminars

Voices of Dualism • Cornell undergrad (NY Times): “Every lecture course, no matter how bad, has taught me more than any seminar, no matter how good. In a lecture, you get taught by an expert, which means the information is credible. But in a seminar, most of the information is from other learners like yourself, which leads to discussion that is irrelevant & suspect in accuracy. [In seminars,] profs don’t like to tell students directly that they are ‘wrong,’ [or] ‘correct,’ so one can leave a seminar confused & not knowing any more than when one entered.”

Voices of Dualism • “I’m lost in class; the professor lacks a clue.” • I.e., it’s the professor’s fault; he’s the authority

Early Multiplicity • Instructors: • Seen as source of right way to get knowledge • Themselves: • Seen as learning how to learn • Seen as working hard • Other learners: • Seen as in the same boat • Support: • From peers, some structure

Late Multiplicity • Instructors: • Seen as source of the thinking process or else seen as irrelevant • (*everyone’s entitled to their own opinion) • Themselves: • Seen as learning to think for themselves • Seen as expressing opinions • Whether believed/supported or not • Other learners: • Seen as legitimate • Support: • From diversity/lack of structure

Voices of Multiplism • “…I like that there are many ways to solve or code a program… • Late multiplism • “…I feel like I’m programmed to program—not learning how & why.Why does everyone else get it? I feel stupid.” • Dislike of dualism! • Late multiplism  Contextual Relativism

What category am I in? • Dualistic question! • How many people are in each category? • Multiplistic question!

Contextual Relativism • Instructors: • Seen as source of expertise as long as they follow contextual rules for good thinking • Themselves: • Seen as studying different contexts • Seeing different perspectives • Other learners: • Seen as legitimate if they follow contextual rules for good thinking • Support: • From instructor • From diversity

Voices of Contextual Relativism • Cliff Stoll @ UB: • “The answer is Markus Hess; now go home. If you’re only interested in the solution, leave. If you’re interested in good science & want to know how I solved the puzzle, stay.” • Gauss (1808): • “It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.” • Einstein: • “The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”

Commitment • Instructors: • Seen as bringing expertise and perspective to the subject matter • Themselves: • Recognize that all knowledge is relative • Seek to construct their own knowledge • Other learners: • Bring additional experiences and perspectives • Support: • From variety of sources of knowledge

Learners Make Their Own MeaningWhat Teachers Say vs. What Learners Hear Teacher: Today we’ll discuss the theories of cognitive development. • Learner 1: Which is the correct one? • Learner 2: Why bother with the wrong ones? • Learner 3: Only 3? Heck, I can think of a dozen! • Learner 4: What principles underlie the three theories? • Learner 5: Which is the most successful? • Learner 6: Which should I believe?

Learners Make Their Own MeaningWhat Teachers Say vs. What Learners Hear Teacher: Today we’ll discuss the theories of cognitive development. • Learner 1: Which is the correct one? - Dualist • Learner 2: Why bother with the wrong ones? - Dualist • Learner 3: Only 3? Heck, I can think of a dozen! - Multiplist • Learner 4: What principles underlie the three theories? - Relativist • Learner 5: Which is the most successful? - Relativist • Learner 6: Which should I believe? - Commitment

Learners’ Assumptions about Teachers • Basic Dualism: • This teacher knows the answers to my questions. • Full Dualism: • Good teachers know the answers; bad ones don’t.This particular teacher may or may not be that knowledgeable. • Early Multiplism: • I’m going to this teacher to find out if discipline X is advanced enough to answer my questions. S/he will tell me the answers, or give me the procedure (ritual) to work it out on my own. • Late Multiplism: • There are no answers to my questions; what I think is as valid as what the teacher thinks. • Contextual Relativism: • There are a number of answers to my question, depending on how you look at it; maybe this teacher can help me see the alternatives more clearly. • Pre-Commitment: • There are a number of answers to my question, depending on how I look at it; maybe this teacher can help me decide what I should believe (commit to).

Possible Response to Multiplism: ALIENATION • Leading to: • retreat to earlier, “safer” position: • “I’ll study math, not literature, because math has clear answers & not as much uncertainty” • or to: • escape: drop out: • “I can’t stand college; all they want is right answers” OR • “I can’t stand college; no one gives you the right answers”

Sources of Conflict • Dualistic teacher, Multiplistic learner: • boredom, alienation • to be successful in the sciences, do learners need to adapt to the cognitive style of Dualism? • Multiplistic teacher, Dualistic learner: • no understanding • to be successful in the arts/humanities, do learners need to reject Dualism and/or adapt (only) to Multiplism/Contextual Relativism? • Note: Sciences don’t have to be Dualistic! • not if taught properly! • but what about teaching basic facts?

Think-About • If teacher is at Perry position N, & learner is at Perry position N−2, then learner will not understand teacher! • because…

Movement Within the Scheme • Development – moving from stage to stage • Deflection – seeing the need to move ahead, but fears the product of development • Retreat – finding a stage difficult and moves to an earlier stage • Escape – avoid thinking about it

Instructor’s Role • Discover learners’ positions • What was your favorite/least favorite class? Why? • Help learners move to the next position

Which position? • The best class I have taken in recent years was US history. The class was fun for me because the teacher would help us outline her class. We all knew what she expected of us. Her grading system was the same as the rest of the school. She had control of her class. The learners got along with her and had an interesting time learning. We always knew what to study and what would be expected of us. Her voice was never monotone and her appearance was always bright. She was great and easy to get along with. Her interesting manner was fabulous.

Which position? • The best classes that I have engaged in have been calculus and philosophy. I have enjoyed these because the instructors touched something inside myself. I experienced a lot of growth through personal thought and reflection. The instructor usually stimulated the thought through questions or phrases which stimulated strong feelings. The teachers were very open to questions and knew how to motivate the learners. To my surprise these classes always required the most amount of work. I think it was because I wanted to put myself into the class that made it so much work for myself. • The atmosphere was open and there was usually a lot of discussion among the learners. The grading was based on tests, essays, multiple choice, etc. • The teacher plays a very important part for me. If I know a good teacher, usually any class they teach will be excellent. They tell stories and use clever mnemonic devices to help you remember. You can tell they love teaching. It is radiated to the learners.

Dualism  Multiplicity • Help learners develop strategies to identify major concepts or most relevant information in a section of text: • challenge:learning how to learn (rather than learning answers) • support: there are “correct” answers as to what’s important

Multiplicity  Contextual Relativism • Design situations that invite Late Multiplists to: • Encounter multiple views • Synthesize views • via own experiences (biographies, stories), others’ experiences (small groups) • Explicitly identify bases for disagreements among authorities/views • Use low degree of structure • Let learners take responsibility for structuring own learning: • negotiate syllabus, course content, due dates • use teacher as resource

Contextual Relativism  Commitment • Have students encounter several views (support) and take a reasoned stand (challenge) • Support: • Use low degree of structure • Encourage students to take responsibility for: • structuring own learning (support) • their own stands and decisions (challenge) • Recognize that students may have: • anxiety • fear of loss • fear of making a mistake in making a commitment • Reinforce that commitments can be- and usually are- reassessed and changed.

Belenky, M.F., et al. (1986). Women’s Ways of Knowing. Basic Books. • Perry, W.G. (1999). Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. • Rapaport, W.J. (1982), Unsolvable Problems & Philosophical Progress, American Philosophical Quarterly 19: 289−298. • Rapaport, W.J. (1984), Critical Thinking & Cognitive Development, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association. 57: 610−615.

Set-Up Directions End time: 5:40