As you work through the text, the lectures, and the TED talks, expect to encounter a variety of Theories of Learning. Each of these suggests certain educational attitudes, choices, and directions. At the same time, you arrive to teaching with educational experiences that may represent, as yet, a largely undifferentiated variety of positions on the natures of knowing and learning.
If we recognize that teaching practice always enacts a theory of some sort, then the work of interrogating the beliefs you hold about theory and practice must figure centrally in your becoming a teacher. This assignment arises out of our broader concern with the questions: When a particular teaching choice is made, what theory is enacted in that choice? Moreover, given a particular theoretical enactment, what “goes without saying?” That is, we wish you to take notice and probe the assumptions and beliefs behind particular teaching acts—to question un-interrogated habits of being and doing in teaching.
You are invited to:
- Attend to the pedagogical decisions made by Dr. Davis within the context of EDUC 311/310. [Keeping in mind the constraints of this institutional environment, not all curricular decisions are open to the teacher.]
- Look for an incident/occasion/fragment that could be interpreted as having arisen out of a pedagogical practice consistent with a coherence theory of learning.
Ask yourself, “What is the ‘coherence theory’ through which this act might be rendered sensible?”
Your 250 word written response should:
- Describe a pedagogical decision and name the theory being enacted.
- Explicate your understanding of how the action is consistent with and potentially informed by that particular theory.
Note: This exercise is NOT premised on your ‘knowing’ with any degree of certainty (and being able to articulate) what Dr. Davis actually intended at any given point or by any given action. Nor is it an invitation to judge the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of the action or the teacher. Consider this an opportunity for you (and us) to engage with the meaning(s), understanding(s), impression(s), and/or resonance(s) that some pedagogical act has had for you in light of, or as informed by, your unfolding experiences in the course. Thus the assignment cannot be an opinion piece, but rather is a considered critique grounded in and guided by deep, prolonged, and recursive engagements with your observations and co-participation in the course readings and activities.
In sum, this assignment is about locating and demonstrating your understanding of a coherence theory in action. This deliberate pedagogical tactic is based on our belief and experience that such understanding dramatically opens the space of possibility in teaching. In short, we wish you to enter the field with a good start at, quite literally, “knowing (deeply) what you are doing!”
