X-Message-Number: 19194 From: Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 00:41:40 EDT Subject: Re: CryoNet #19186 - #19188 In a message dated 6/2/02 2:00:54 AM, writes: << From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: Constructivism >> Scott Badger is certainly correct in noting that many science educators have embraced this theory in constructing new teaching strategies, loosely grouped under the term 'discovery learning.' I grant that in this context the constructivist theory takes on an aura of plausibility and legitimacy. However, it is the very same theory that has been used in other context to trash empirical science. Regarding discovery learning, per se, I don't believe that the results are fully persuasive, even so. It sounds good and it works perhaps to motivate students to engage more fully with the science curriculum, but as a model for teaching everything there is to know in the sciences, even at the elementary level, it is cumbersome to the point of ludicrousness. We may be motivated to begin a learning process through some sort of rediscovery experience, but we don't absorb all the knowledge we should know about the world through rediscovering it. The Science Education Directorate of the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies have spent tens of millions of scarce tax dollars shoring up the discovery notion over the last two decades, and they have precious little to show for it in improved science education as far as I have been able to tell. They have, however, provided gainful employment for a lot of sociologists and other social scientists and educators of a particular philosophical bent to promote the ideology of social constructivism. This does not serve to strengthen public understanding of what science is all about, IMO. This is rather off topic for cryonics, of course, except that, in the long run, good, solid, science education is going to be a friend of cryonics and other important and future-oriented endeavors such as cloning, understanding the basics of life, extending lives, and searching for extra-terrestial intelligence. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19194