I was reading chapter 3 in the book Finding Freedom in the classroom: A Practical Introduction to Critical Theory and it brought up a few questions for me. Most aviation educators are put in an interesting situation if you hold a constructivist view toward education. We are bound by the FAA's rules and regulations on how we teach, how long we teach and what we teach. The FAA holds very much to a positivist view toward epistemology. The tests are standardized, they more or less decicde what is right and what the aviation student needs to know. They have "verified" the information.
That is where the problem lies. What if you want to hold to more of a constructivist philosophy?This is the situation I am in. In aviation terms the FAA wants us to teach students to a correlation level of knowledge as they have defined, yet they don't allow for the students to get there due to the rote level of knowledge in the way they test the students. Providing students with all the questions and answers hardly motivates them to ask why when they can just memorize the answers.
Times are changing and more and more people are adopting a postmodern philosophy which seems to fall more under the constructivist way of teaching. "Designing experiences that will give students an opportunity to develop their own understanding of the data at hand. In addition, it is irrelevant if all the students have the same experiences it is that every student's personal understanding is moved forward, " (pg47).
Most people are more likely to remember something if they go about discovering it on their own and coming to conclusions as opposed to someone just telling them the answers. We are able to do this to some degree in aviation by guiding students with questions so they figure out the answer on their own. These opportunities only present themselves when you are working with a student one-on-one. In the classroom setting due to the structure and constraints this doesn't happen.
Again my struggle lies in finding ways to incorporate more of a constructivist way of teaching into aviation while still complying with the demands of the FAA.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Journal #1 Rethinking what we know
Posted by Julie's Blog at 2:00 PM
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2 comments:
Ah, Jules. This is a very hard one for me as well. The FAA...well they try. I was taught in a contructist way all throughout my earlier schooling. It was difficult to arrive in aviation and have such a rote way of doing things. When I started instructing I took a construvtivist approach similar to the new FITS training. I have had great results. However, until the FAA endorses it fully I feel people stop learning once they memorize the "facts"
You should check out what I posted on Lance's blog, it's probably similar to what I would ask you...
There are restrictions that you must meet, teach, and follow, but does that mean you cannot challenge the status quo in the method of teaching. As long as you are teaching the same things in the same amount of time doesn't mean you have to teach it the same way everyone else does. Like in Lances post, would they even retain the information you made them memorize? I feel the same way about multiple choice tests and have known students to study the necessary items just to get through the test only to forget it minutes after the test.
We can talk about ideas in class but like I posted to Lance, can we incorporate many different hands on activities to help them retain the information needed when they leave the ground. Daily activities that are similar to everyday flying. I don't know the regulations but I'd love to brainstorm about different ways to approach the rigid curriculum.
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