Education is the Profession of Building a MindThis is a featured page


Frank J Papa, DO, PhD
Assistant Dean
Curricular Design and Educational Technologies
UNTHSC

  • Those who are called to education have a very hard job. The job is difficult because those that teach cannot directly see or touch how it is that the minds they build are different, better or more useful as a result of their efforts.
  • The only evidence of what they have built, and how well it works, lies in the students’ performance at various tasks – indirect evidence of what they have built and how well it works.
  • All too often, the only tasks teachers ask their students to perform are those tasks involving the recall of facts.
  • While tasks of recall are important, they reveal very little about the mind they have constructed and how well it works.
  • When teachers begin to realize the limitations inherent to traditional methods used to instruct to, and, assess student competencies, a personal journey often begins.
  • It is a journey of awareness, a journey wherein traditional approaches to both assessment and instruction are seen as no longer sufficient, acceptable or desirable.
  • It is a journey wherein simply being a teacher is no longer good enough, it is a journey marking the birth of an educator.
  • One of the primary differences between a teacher and an educator is that teachers are content with instruction towards, and, assessments involving recall; educators are not.
  • Educators know that instruction and assessment towards recall of facts represent only the shadow of what has been built – it does not reveal the substance and function of what they have attempted to construct in the learner’s mind.
  • Educators know that for facts to become useful, they must be woven together, built by the educators’ design into a larger network of interrelated facts - fashioned into a knowledge base which enables the student to perform increasingly complex tasks.
  • Educators know that students, early on, and perhaps for most of their training, are unable to build expert knowledge bases on their own.
  • Educators know that students are nonetheless, intrinsically motivated to perform increasingly complex tasks.
  • Awareness of the critical role that the organization or structure of the learner’s knowledge base plays in subsequent performance gives rise to a greater realization yet that educators are knowledge base engineers, builders of mind.
  • Educators assess their students’ ability to apply their evolving knowledge bases by establishing meaningful tasks for their students to perform, tasks that go far beyond recall.
  • Educators assess what students do with their knowledge base, and with what proficiency they do it.
  • Educators use problem and task oriented assessment as the primary means of determining how well they have functioned as educators, as knowledge base engineers, as builders of mind.
  • How well are current curricula designed to support ‘application’ oriented educational activities?


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DeirdreB
DeirdreB 		Latest page update: made by DeirdreB , Feb 11 2009, 6:35 PM EST (about this update About This Update DeirdreB Edited by DeirdreB


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