Gift 1: Structural Cognitive Modifiability
"Intelligence is not a static structure, but an open, dynamic system that can continue to develop throughout life!" These revolutionary words make an enormous difference in how teachers, parents and psychologists perceive the role of education. If intelligence is modifiable, and if indeed intelligence can be taught and learned, education has a much greater role than might have been previously imagined: the role to grow the intelligence of ALL students, including those labeled as "underachieving" or "learning disabled". Reuven Feuerstein has substantiated this plausibility of this role by proving that learning impairments are reversible with the right mediated learning experiences.
Gift 2: Mediated Learning Experience
"Human beings have the unique characteristic of being able to modify themselves no matter how they start out. Even in born barriers and traumas can be overcome with belief and the right mediation." -Reuven Feuerstein
Teachers are mediators of learning. The word mediate is derived from the word middle. Mediators interpose themselves between a person and some event, problem, conflict, challenge, or other perplexing situation. The mediator intervenes in such a way as to enhance another person's self-directed learning.
Mediation is an interactive process that strengthens the relationship between teacher and student.; a process that is critical for students who have been led to doubt their capacity for learning. Mediators influence the intensity, flow, directionality, importance, excitement, and impact of information coming to the awareness of an individual. One way they do this is through probing questions posed through discussion that includes purposeful links to personal references that engage the learner, enabling him/her to investigate and critically analyze, hypothesize, theorize and elaborate on information or tasks. The questions bring consciousness to the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic systems in which experiences are held. This activates the neural pathways of the original experience, and in looking back, recovers omitted and sometimes valuable information. These neural pathways make the learning process more efficient and effective. Learners become motivated to use "Habits of Mind" that expand their learning; Habits of Mind such as: applying past knowledge to new situations; gathering data through all senses; and remaining open to continuous learning (Costa, and Kallick, 2000). These responses confirm the learner's ability to apply complex cognitive acts and dispositions while strengthening the teacher's confidence in her/his role as a mediator capable of eliciting and growing intelligence.
Gift 3: Mediative Environments
A mediator also intervenes between the individual, or group, and the environment with the intention of creating conditions that will engage and promote intellectual growth (Feuerstein, 1997); "conditions that address factors that are barriers to learning and intellectual growth; factors like poverty, prejudicing perceptions associated with race or ethnicity, feelings of failure, absence of enrichment, and stigma associated with the pernicious marginalizing labels relegated to their underachievers or those with variable learning needs (Jackson, 2011, p. 157). In mediative environments the belief in Structural Cognitive Modifiability is so pervasive that teachers are committed to mediating their practice so these factors are explicitly addressed" (Jackson, 2011, p. 157). The focus of instruction shifts from remediation of what is viewed as weaknesses to an enriching environment in which dialogue, explicit development of cognitive processes and Habits of Mind, and dynamic assessment are provided to identify, amplify and nurture intellectual growth.
These gifts from Reuven Feuerstein have powerfully negated the myths about the capacity of underperforming students for intellectual growth. We have witnessed transformation of students who have been exposed to the diving tools of Reuven Feuerstein; a transformation of not only their intellectual development, but the transformation in their belief in their capacity to apply their intelligence for self-actualization and personal success. This transformation has deemed Reuven Feuerstein's learning system as "the most significant innovation in educational psychology of the twentieth century" (Burgess, 2000, p. 3).
"Intelligence is not a static structure, but an open, dynamic system that can continue to develop throughout life!" These revolutionary words make an enormous difference in how teachers, parents and psychologists perceive the role of education. If intelligence is modifiable, and if indeed intelligence can be taught and learned, education has a much greater role than might have been previously imagined: the role to grow the intelligence of ALL students, including those labeled as "underachieving" or "learning disabled". Reuven Feuerstein has substantiated this plausibility of this role by proving that learning impairments are reversible with the right mediated learning experiences.
Gift 2: Mediated Learning Experience
"Human beings have the unique characteristic of being able to modify themselves no matter how they start out. Even in born barriers and traumas can be overcome with belief and the right mediation." -Reuven Feuerstein
Teachers are mediators of learning. The word mediate is derived from the word middle. Mediators interpose themselves between a person and some event, problem, conflict, challenge, or other perplexing situation. The mediator intervenes in such a way as to enhance another person's self-directed learning.
Mediation is an interactive process that strengthens the relationship between teacher and student.; a process that is critical for students who have been led to doubt their capacity for learning. Mediators influence the intensity, flow, directionality, importance, excitement, and impact of information coming to the awareness of an individual. One way they do this is through probing questions posed through discussion that includes purposeful links to personal references that engage the learner, enabling him/her to investigate and critically analyze, hypothesize, theorize and elaborate on information or tasks. The questions bring consciousness to the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic systems in which experiences are held. This activates the neural pathways of the original experience, and in looking back, recovers omitted and sometimes valuable information. These neural pathways make the learning process more efficient and effective. Learners become motivated to use "Habits of Mind" that expand their learning; Habits of Mind such as: applying past knowledge to new situations; gathering data through all senses; and remaining open to continuous learning (Costa, and Kallick, 2000). These responses confirm the learner's ability to apply complex cognitive acts and dispositions while strengthening the teacher's confidence in her/his role as a mediator capable of eliciting and growing intelligence.
Gift 3: Mediative Environments
A mediator also intervenes between the individual, or group, and the environment with the intention of creating conditions that will engage and promote intellectual growth (Feuerstein, 1997); "conditions that address factors that are barriers to learning and intellectual growth; factors like poverty, prejudicing perceptions associated with race or ethnicity, feelings of failure, absence of enrichment, and stigma associated with the pernicious marginalizing labels relegated to their underachievers or those with variable learning needs (Jackson, 2011, p. 157). In mediative environments the belief in Structural Cognitive Modifiability is so pervasive that teachers are committed to mediating their practice so these factors are explicitly addressed" (Jackson, 2011, p. 157). The focus of instruction shifts from remediation of what is viewed as weaknesses to an enriching environment in which dialogue, explicit development of cognitive processes and Habits of Mind, and dynamic assessment are provided to identify, amplify and nurture intellectual growth.
These gifts from Reuven Feuerstein have powerfully negated the myths about the capacity of underperforming students for intellectual growth. We have witnessed transformation of students who have been exposed to the diving tools of Reuven Feuerstein; a transformation of not only their intellectual development, but the transformation in their belief in their capacity to apply their intelligence for self-actualization and personal success. This transformation has deemed Reuven Feuerstein's learning system as "the most significant innovation in educational psychology of the twentieth century" (Burgess, 2000, p. 3).
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