Cognitivists cannot account for human (collaborative) learning

1
Cognitivists cannot account for human
(collaborative) learning  because of their narrow
focus on cognitive architectures and  mental
 representations
2
How People Learn...

• By imitating others
• By reading
• By thinking
• By practicing
• By discussing
• By listening
• By trial and error
• By solving problems
• By studying examples

• By negotiating
• By observing
• By working
• By getting feedback
• By reflecting
• By teaching others
• By elaborating
• By questioning
• By being rewarded
• And 1000 more!

3
Levels of Explanation

• some types of learning deal with social processes
  of knowledge construction
• But all types of learning are affected by the
  psychological laws of learning
• In dance, you have limited freedom to design your
  choreography because the movements of dancers are
  determined by the laws of gravity
• Tough ...
• In social constructivist teaching, some
  scientists design learning arrangements without
  bothering about the psychological laws of
  learning

4
Who is Narrow Minded?

• Cognitive architectures are basic to
  understanding all types of human learning
• Social constructivists are not only
  narrow-minded, because they study just a part of
  the many types of human learning, but also
  ignorant, because they seem to be unaware of more
  basic, necessary levels of explanation

5
Social-constructivist methodology leads to
teaching methods that make it impossible to
distinguish science from nonsense
6
Process-focused Research methodology

• Knowledge is socially constructed, and thus
  cannot be true or false
• Teaching scaffolding and supporting the process
  of knowledge construction

7
Implications for Teaching

• Quality of knowledge is determined by the
  constructive process rather than external
  (agreed) criteria such as available evidence
  (science), effectiveness (praxis), elegance
  (arts) ...

Truth is what works William James
(1842-1910) ... And we should teach what has
proven to work (often over many generations...)
8
What it leads to...