We homo sapiens (Latin: wise man) are truly unique creatures with our large, highly developed brains, capable of learning whatever is necessary to flourish in any complex society into which we are born. From time immemorial older and wiser humans have taught us largely by explanation. There is a strong intuitive logic behind it, using language to impart information. Not surprisingly, the most common instructional method used by teachers at all levels of schooling today is explanation [1]. Research shows the relative ineffectiveness of instructional explanations, particularly when they are not tailored to each individual student’s prior knowledge, do not require the active task participation of each student, and do not provide each student with guidance that is appropriate for his or her task performance [2].
Even though educational reforms are being actively pursued, they have involved mostly tinkering with institutional arrangements that have little impact on instruction and learning in the classroom, such as: publicly supported vouchers and charter schools; generous state income tax credits for individual and corporate contributions to public, private and religious schools; home schooling; decentralizing school systems so principals control budgets, set incentives and hire and fire teachers; computer-based online schools; college graduates who majored in academic subjects, and with virtually no training, are teaching school; and, high stakes assessment like the federal No Child Left Behind program that tests students’ minimal achievement, while ignoring average and above-average students who can pass the tests pretty much without instructional assistance—with one expected result being that American schools spend 10 times as much on educating the mentally retarded as educating the gifted [3].
Instructional productivity in schools has not dramatically increased since the dim and distant past for much the same reason medicine’s productivity did not increase much from the time of Hippocrates into the 19th century. Typical medical treatments during that long period consisted of inducing vomiting or diarrhea, and bleeding. There was an intuitive logic behind that; they seemed to be ridding the body of its ills. Medicine’s productivity improved dramatically when its treatments began to be based on science [4]. A similar dramatic increase in instructional productivity can be expected when educators figure out how to base instruction on one of its most basic sciences, cognitive psychology—which can provide an abundance of relevant theory and research. In this blog I will suggest a paradigm that aligns cognitive psychology with the subject matter content and process to be taught, lesson objectives, assessment, and teaching.
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1 Goodlad, J. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future.
2. Wittwer, J., and Renkl, A. (2008). Why instructional explanations often do not work: A framework for understanding the effectiveness of instructional explanations. Educational Psychology, 43, (1), pp. 49-64.
3 Cloud, J. (2007). Failing our geniuses. Time, August 27, pp. 41-46.
4. Leonhardt, D. (2009). Dr James will make it better. The New York Times Magazine., November 8,pp. 30-37
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