At Cynthia's last visit, she further articulated where Learning Cultures fits in the pedagogical landscape. There are quite a few theories of learning, but generally, they all fall under one of the three umbrellas below.
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| Categories of Learning Theories with Associated Theorists |
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Learning Cultures is rooted in social constructivist theories, particularly the work of Vygotsky. See this graphic that helps pull two theorists apart.
As a social constructivist theory based model, Learning Cultures requires social interactions in order for learning to occur. To quote Cythia, [LC's paradigm] "
recognizes that the moral aspects of relationships to others has an impact on the development of thoughts, beliefs and emotions. That's why so much is made of rules, routines and roles w/in the LC formats. Because they matter a great deal in terms of what gets 'learned'."
In the case of this particular graphic above, see the contrast in the relationship between teacher and student. As the MKO (more knowledgeable other) in picture B, the teacher's role is to use interactions to facilitate the development of understanding. In Learning Cultures, the rules and structures of the formats (and associated rubrics) are aimed at securing these interactions in the classroom
Often, our content teachers get caught between their definitions of learning and the definition of learning as identified in Learning Cultures. In traditional teacher ed programs, most teachers find their beliefs and practices aligned in to Behaviorist and/or Cognitivist theories. Primarily, this has also been the personal experience of our teachers.
These knowledge-centric models are built on the idea that learning happens by acquiring information putting together the pieces into a coherent understanding. This new information comes in pieces via teacher transmission or teacher-coordinated "discovery".
Learning Cultures is rooted in social-constructivist theory and as such, diverges from traditional teacher ed programs and teacher experience. In order to better support our work with teachers in their development in LC, we as coaches need to be more articulate and prepared at helping our teachers recognize when their history/beliefs in knowledge-based theories are getting in the way of the structures of the social-constructivist based rules and formats. The focus of the teacher in LC is to create and in many instances directly facilitate social interactions, and to teach the girls how to optimize these social interactions, and thus learn. To help you get better clarity on this point, Sarah put together a quick one-pager.
Traditional methods have certainly dominated schools and teacher ed programs. However, just looking at our own and at the city's graduation rate, they have not served our population of kids well. People may say that we were crazy to adopt LC, but I tend to agree with Einstein ;-)
“The definition
of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting
different results”. – Albert Einstein
