Recommended Book: "Enquiring Teachers, Enquiring Learners: A Constructivist Approach to Learning" Catherine Twomey Fosnot

I've completed reading "Enquiring Teachers, Enquiring Learners." There are many notes I would like to share directly from the text, but they require too much context. I would need to copy entire chapters into this blog.

In brief summary, the book challenged teachers to reevaluate our pedagogy. It called for more in-depth study into 'how' children learn and 'how' teachers can identify and accommodate the varied cognitive levels and stages of our students. The author also provided examples and recommendations for mentorship programs to assist the "teacher-as-researcher" with inventing classroom practices that support students in claiming ownership for their learning.

I found this book at a library book sale, so it is slightly dated; published in 1989. That said, it is still a valuable read.

Breadth versus Depth in Institutions: Elementary and Secondary Institutions (pgs 122-123)

The focus on thinking is the result of criticism from many directions. Futurists, for example, assail the schools for teaching facts that will be outdated before they are forgotten by the children learning them. They suggest instead that schools teach learners to access, organize, analyze, and synthesize material, which will be available via computers at simply the touch of a fingertip.

. . .

DeBono (1986), Lateral Thinking: "constructive, generative, and organizing in nature" (1) breadth- making connections or correspondences between various alternatives (2) change- making transformations such as viewing the same thing from different perspectives