Abstract
Noting that skills and knowledge taught in schools have become abstracted
from their uses in the world, this paper clarifies some of the implications
for the nature of the knowledge that students acquire through a proposal
for the retooling of apprenticeship methods for the teaching and
learning of cognitive skills. The paper specifically proposes the
development of a new cognitive apprenticeship to teach students the
thinking and problem-solving skills involved in school subjects such
as reading, writing, and mathematics. The first section of the paper,
after discussing key shortcomings in current curricular and pedagogical
practices, presents some of the structural features of traditional
apprenticeship, detailing what would be required to adapt these characteristics
to the teaching and learning of cognitive skills. The central section
of the paper considers three recently developed pedagogical models
that exemplify aspects of apprenticeship methods in teaching thinking
and reasoning skills. The section notes that these methods--A. S.
Palincsar and A. L. Brown's reciprocal reading teaching, M. Scardamalia
and C. Bereiter's procedural facilitation of writing, and A. H. Schoenfeld's
method for teaching mathematical problem solving--appear to develop
successfully not only the cognitive, but also the metacognitive,
skills required for true expertise. The final section organizes ideas
on the purposes and characteristics of successful teaching into a
general framework for the design of learning "environments," including
the content being taught, pedagogical methods employed, sequencing
of learning activities, and the sociology of learning--emphasizing
how cognitive apprenticeship goes beyond the techniques of traditional
apprenticeship. Tables of data are included, and references are appended.
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