Teaching Approach in Learning and Teaching With Technology

¶ … Cognitive Approach to Teaching with Technology Throughout the history of the study of education and educational philosophies, many different approaches have been employed. The educational theories developed by John Dewy, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, and Jean Piaget have culminated to create an approach that is known today as the Cognitive Approach to learning.

This particular approach proposes that learning takes place in what is referred to as "the zone of proximal development." It is within this zone that a teacher explores what the child needs assistance with and what he does not. Ideally, the teacher provides a challenge which is slightly harder than the preceding challenge, thus creating a "intellectual scaffolding" which the student will use to climb through their developmental phases.

Generally this approach employs real life problem solving, cooperative groups, and projects which require solutions instead of those which focus on instructional sequences. The cognitive approach feels as if it matters to students that might be apathetic to other forms of teaching. It is because of this that instructional technology has blossomed in this particular field. In the old days, instructional technology referred to stereos, televisions, and overheads. Certainly these are still an element of instructional technology, but the best educational technology is still relatively new.

Computers, CDs, the internet, email, and other interactive technologies have revolutionized what was once thought of as educational technology over the last ten years. One relatively new theory in the cognitive approach studies is the idea of the cognitive apprenticeship. The theory behind this is that students will learn better from "learning-through-guided-experience." Apprenticeship methodology is applied to cognitive skills.

In other words students learn from the modeling of an expert at work, they are coached in their own work, they must articulate their problem solving, they must reflect on their work, and lastly they must explore problem solving on their own. Technology is an excellent tool in this type of teaching. Imagine a student studying political science that may be able to talk to a senator or congressmen via email on a regular basis. This type of technology is becoming available at a rapid rate.

Indeed there is a program at the University of Texas, Austin, called the Electronic Emissary Project. This particular program has been employed to bring subject matter experts, teachers, and students together through an electronic medium. Two such examples were sighted in a recent report on this type of partnership. In one example, fourth and fifth grades from Kansas City had the opportunity to learn about news writing and reporting from Vance Elderkin, a professor in the Department of Communications at North Carolina State University.

In the second example, high school students were provided with an electronic forum so that they might discuss current events with a political science professor at Earlham College in Columbus, Ohio. As technology continues to advance, there will be more and more opportunities for students to connect with experts. Certainly this is merely on aspect of the cognitive approach and it's relation to technology.

A second element that has become more and more popular over the last few years is both access to video cameras and the ability to edit projects developed on film cheaply and easily. Many high school students are involved with hands on filmmaking.