2009/03/23
How People Learn Critical Analysis Paper
How People Learn is a research book written by multiple authors cooperating together in two National Research Council committees: Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning & Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice. They both cover different aspects of learners and learning and teachers and teaching. Chapter 2, How Experts Differ from Novices introduces, besides all others, the distinction between novice and expert teachers. Novice teachers possess only content knowledge (they know the subject matter in depth); expert teachers also know the kinds of difficulties that students are likely to face, and they know how to tap into their students’ existing knowledge in order to make new information meaningful plus assess their students’ progress (How People Learn, p. 49-50). Naturally, expert teachers are more desired since they can guide students to achieve better proficiency of a topic. Although a later chapter describes the teacher learning (Chapter 8, Teacher Learning), a further consideration of novice and expert teachers is lacking. How can an educational system educate expert teachers rather than novice teachers? Is the entry level of potential teachers crucial? Would an expert of a subject make a better teacher than a novice? Ideally, a novice guided carefully to become an expert, and being taught to teach at the same time, develops into an expert teacher.
Experts in general have acquired extensive knowledge that affects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environment (How People Learn, p. 31). They are aware of meaningful patterns of information, which they can apply to solve given tasks quicker. Chess experts playing the game at rapid pace and thinking a few turns ahead are the most common example. Also, experts organize the content knowledge for future possible retrieving of the knowledge that is relevant to a particular task. They not only take in the information, they understand the whole concept as well. Seeing a physics problem of blocks on an incline plane, they immediately recognize a conversation of energy issue rather than an issue of simple angles and friction (How People Learn, p. 39). Yes, educating students with the aim to accomplish expert levels is essential.
However, many experts forget what is easy and what is difficult for students (How People Learn, p.44). Their minds are full of a vast repertoire of knowledge that always seeks for a correct reasoning of a right answer. Realizing difficulties in others’ ways of comprehending information becomes a problem. After years of expertise, they tend to assume that everybody thinks the same, most efficient way. The conversation of energy issue is seen just as a casual problem similar to plenty of others; the consideration of friction and angles alone emerges to be inferior. Having an expert being educated for a teacher guarantees that he or she becomes a novice teacher: a teacher who understands the subject precisely. However, it is questionable if the content expert is able to recognize sections of curricula that are potentially difficult for students, and thus becoming an expert teacher. In order to educate an expert to an expert teacher, such important parts of taught curricula have to be pointed out. This extra effort does not necessary mean that teachers will remember all of the problematic examples mentioned. They eventually may simplify curricula back to their own experts’ point of view as they have no personal experience with knowledge struggles.
On the other hand, a novice developing into an expert knows where to pay special attention. Suppose that you are an economics student studying the laws of demand at the moment. It is rational that one buys more when a product is cheaper. And now imagine that you are told it is not always so; there exists at least one certain group of commodities violating the laws of demand. You ask yourself how it is possible and why somebody buys more goods when they are more expensive. You cannot find an answer and you conclude that such case is nonsense. Apparently, you cannot grasp the concept of Veblen Goods, for example. They have ostentatious value and thus people buy them to present their status. Once you understand the difference in prices of Toyota and Lexus, not rising from the cars’ technical parameters, you know where you have struggled. You are ready to recognize those obscure parts of taught curricula and you know where and how to give an advice.
If, by any chance, you want to become an economics teacher, you not only know the subject well enough, you already know the difficulties the students are likely to face. ňňňyou have learnt the errors of your previous thinking and are now ready to teach others who might struggle with the same pitfalls. Hence once you become a teacher, you are closer to becoming a 100% expert teacher by the How People Learn’s characterization. A novice, who learns to be a teacher, developing into an expert of a certain subject, grows into an expert teacher with more ease. Even though it might take more time than a mere transformation of an expert into an expert teacher, it guarantees the final success in the long term: such teachers have gone through the same intellectual struggle as their students do; they have personal experiences well-preserved in their minds, and they are ready to serve as role models for their students.
As a result, the educational system educating teachers has to make sure that they can see the subject matter as students do. The system has to allow future teachers their own intellectual development. Educational courses must be offered hand in hand with the courses of a desired subject. Therefore, I believe, the process of educating teachers must start at early stages of intellectual development, preferably at a high school or entry college levels. Then we can be sure that our kids are being taught by expert teachers, and that there are no novice teachers presenting a subject as just proficient lecturers at the first sight.