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13489 results in Education, history, theory

Page 269 of 675

  • Chapter 4 - Intelligence

  • Catherine Scott, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Learn to Teach
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    10 September 2014, pp 64-81

  • Summary

    Chapter objectives

  • Theories of intelligence

  • Culture fair tests

  • One ability or many?

  • The Cattell-Horn-Carroll Model

  • Sternberg

  • The Flynn effect

    • Introduction

    ‘It’s not just in the genes.’

    James Flynn

    I’d like you to take a moment to think about intelligence and how we know if someone is ‘smart’.

    It’s a trick question. Eminent American theorist on intelligence Robert Sternberg has noted: ‘Viewed narrowly, there seem to be almost as many definitions of intelligence as there were experts asked to define it’.

    Theories about IQ (intelligence quotient) abound – what it is, how it is structured, how much is innate, and how much is the result of experience. These debates and disagreements have not stopped people from attempting to measure it. If you haven’t studied the theories about and measurement of intelligence, you will be forgiven for believing that the debate over the roles of heredity versus experience has been settled in favour of the former. The ‘common-sense’ model of intelligence that prevails is that it’s all about genes – good genes equals big IQ; however, many of those who study intelligence would disagree.

    While there is some good evidence that brain-based attributes influence aspects of intelligence, there is also a fund of findings that support intelligence (or what we define as intelligence) as being a culturally shaped set of cognitive tools.

Learn to Teach
  • Teach to Learn
  • Catherine Scott
  • Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    10 September 2014
  • Learn to Teach explores the most up-to-date findings on how children learn, to help teachers create effective learning environments and plan for teaching. Drawing on a neo-Vygotskian approach to learning, it covers the purpose of education; socio-cultural approaches to human cognition; attention and intelligence as cognitive tools; and the role of mindsets, memory and language in learning. It promotes the idea that the mind is a cultural product and that education is best understood as fostering the development of valued cognitive tools appropriate for the twenty-first century. To provide readers with a holistic understanding of learning, the book explores the significant contributions to the study of learning and teaching from psychologists, sociologists and cultural theorists. Readers are encouraged to critically engage with - and challenge - some of the prevailing learning theories in order to better understand their students. Each chapter features classroom observation exercises, discussion questions and links to further reading.

  • Chapter 5 - Cognitive tools in the classroom

  • Catherine Scott, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Learn to Teach
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    10 September 2014, pp 82-96

  • Summary

    Chapter objectives

  • Understanding the structure of human memory

  • Sensory memory

  • Working memory

  • Working memory in the classroom

  • Tracking down g

  • Long-term memory

  • How school improves memory

    • Introduction

    In this chapter we will discover something about how the human cognitive system – that is, the mind – works, with a focus on memory. Understanding memory will help you to use teaching methods that ensure your students learn well. Learning is memory, after all, so understanding how it works is essential for educators.

    Memory is the essence of what it means to be human. Our identity depends on our fund of personal memories; and our ability to imagine ourselves in the future and our ability to plan for that future depend on what we have learned and remembered. Much of what we know about memory, how it is structured and how it works is the result of studying cases where people have suffered illnesses or brain injuries that have affected their memories. In many of these cases, the experience of being human is profoundly altered and disrupted by the damage to their memory processes or structures.

    Structures and processes

    Theories about how memory works use two sets of explanatory concepts: structures and processes. Structures are used to explain where material contained in memory is stored, while processes explain how material enters, is retained in and then retrieved from these storage modules.

  • Chapter 3 - Natural pedagogy

  • Catherine Scott, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Learn to Teach
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    10 September 2014, pp 48-63

  • Summary

    Chapter objectives

  • Nature and nurture: What makes us human?

  • Vygotsky and the role of culture

  • The role of schooling

  • Language and learning

  • The Zone of Proximal Development

  • Culture and school

    • Introduction: Nature and nurture – yes, again

    Our society has, as has been discussed, two central grand ideas that are used to validate our beliefs, help decide between courses of action and generally make sense of the world. We look to science for guidance, but we also value the natural very highly. Indeed science is understood as the formal search for the laws of nature. Often placed in opposition to nature are things that are believed to be artificial – chiefly, human culture. In some traditions of debate that have influenced educational thought, describing cultural practices or beliefs as ‘socially constructed’ is regarded as sufficient to dismiss their validity.

    Early attempts to understand how children develop and how their minds grow were framed by this belief: science must uncover the natural trajectory of human growth. Chapter 1 discussed how this lay behind Piaget’s attempts to chart human cognitive growth, and how it goes a long way to explaining why his ideas are still current, despite the body of evidence that shows that his depiction of the human child as progressing through a universal series of stages is incorrect. Also inaccurate is his depiction of the child as a sort of lonely scientist discovering the world for himself (choice of gender deliberate). The latter idea featured strongly in his theories for, ironically, thoroughly cultural reasons. Western societies were already strongly individualist, and the ‘self-made man’ was a cultural icon.

  • Chapter 9 - Teaching unplugged: Talk for learning

  • Catherine Scott, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Learn to Teach
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    10 September 2014, pp 149-166

  • Summary

    Chapter objectives

  • Social psychology and classroom practice

  • Nurturing autonomy

  • Classroom talk that builds cognitive skills

  • Effective talk

  • Types of talk

  • Dialogic teaching

    • Introduction

    For several decades now there has been a trend to see teaching as inevitably lacking unless it uses a variety of technological devices, the list of which changes as new gadgets enter the market. There’s no doubt that computers and other electronic devices can be very handy tools, but it is possible to teach very effectively without them. Similarly, teaching can facilitate learning very well without a range of gimmicky programs. This is not meant to give you permission to ignore innovations so much as it is a plea for you to remember that teaching is fundamentally about human relations and thus about what happens between you and your class, with or without a computer in the room.

    Language is the teacher’s primary tool, no matter what new technologies appear on the market. We have already seen how language is the main mediator in human learning – in other words, it is the main means by which the tools of a culture become the cognitive tools of an individual. By understanding how language is used in the classroom and how to use it more effectively, you can become better both at classroom management and at helping your students to learn curriculum content and develop their cognitive skills. It’s all in how you talk and how you encourage your students to speak.

  • Chapter 10 - Assessment and feedback: Teaching’s engine room

  • Catherine Scott, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Learn to Teach
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    10 September 2014, pp 167-187

  • Summary

    Chapter objectives

  • Assessment: what is it? What are the characteristics of good assessment practices?

  • The three main types: Formative assessment; summative assessment; diagnostic feedback

  • Designing assessment

  • Feedback

  • Levels of feedback

    • Introduction

    Think for a moment about a time you learned a skill from a friend or relative – that is, not in a classroom. The skill might have been knitting, bowling a cricket ball, using a sewing machine, using a drill or riding a bike. What was that experience like? What were the most valuable things about the experience?

    It is very likely that, for many, the most valuable aspects of any one-on-one learning experience will have been knowing the intended outcome of your learning, and having someone watching as you attempted the skill, providing instant feedback about how you were progressing towards the mutually understood goal. The first characteristic allowed you to have ownership of your learning, to make it ‘self-directed’. The second helped you to make constant adjustments to your technique and thus to avoid the embedding of the types of errors mentioned in the chapter on expertise, which create the ‘expert novice’ whose skill plateaus and becomes resistant to improvement. (That is, of course, as long as your instructor was proficient at the skill being taught.)

    Put in the language of education, you were an ‘autonomous learner’ and your ‘skills instructor’ was employing assessment and feedback to help you to learn and improve your skills. Good teachers know that assessment does more than measure what children have learned: it also provides feedback to both teacher and student on how students are faring. It allows for constant adjustment to the teacher’s practice and the learning strategies that students employ.

  • 9 - The Earliest Years: The Work of Sam Dixon at Brighton College

  • from FURTHER TRADITIONS
  • Edited by Andrew Morris, Taught in secondary modern, grammar and comprehensive schools in London before becoming Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years, Bernarr Rainbow, Widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education
  • Introduction by Peter Dickinson
  • Book:
    Music in Independent Schools
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 August 2014, pp 309-314

  • Summary

    Since the 1950s, pre-preparatory schools (usually called pre-prep) have sprung up in many areas of the UK. Some of these schools are ‘stand-alone’ schools, having no direct affiliation with another institution, while others are part of a pre-existing preparatory school. Almost all these schools are co-educational. In the example below, the Nursery Year is for children of three years old and the Reception Year for children of four, while Years 1, 2 and 3 are for children of five, six and seven respectively. Children in the seven-plus age group proceed to a Preparatory School for their Year 4 education.

    A good example of what can be achieved with these age groups is delivered at Brighton College Nursery and Pre-Prep School, where Sam Dixon, a composer of children's songs and musicals, is Director of Pre-Prep Music. The start of the Music Policy document states:

    The main aim is to make music lessons fun and involve all children in music making, whatever their degree of experience in music outside the school. This is primarily achieved using song, which gives scope to introduce dramatic expression, movement, controlled use of percussion instruments and understanding of basic theory.

    It is important to introduce music theory at the Foundation stage, just as reading and writing in language is introduced at this age.

  • 8 - Girls' Schools

  • from FURTHER TRADITIONS
  • Edited by Andrew Morris, Taught in secondary modern, grammar and comprehensive schools in London before becoming Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years, Bernarr Rainbow, Widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education
  • Introduction by Peter Dickinson
  • Book:
    Music in Independent Schools
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 August 2014, pp 299-308

  • Summary

    In 1838 ‘five little girls sat on five wooden benches, specially made for them, at the Opening Meeting of the School and Home for Missionaries' Daughters … in the charming village of Walthamstow, five miles from London.’ Later, in the 1850s, former scholars of Walthamstow Hall would recall their appreciation of a Miss Hale for her ‘amiable and consistent conduct’. For seven years from 1842 Miss Hale had acted as music teacher, and it is known that she concentrated on singing because it was impossible to cope with the demands for learning piano. Indeed, singing must surely have been the prime musical activity in many schools, whether in chapel or the local church, and this was certainly the case in many of the girls' schools which have kindly given me an insight into their music provision.

    Boarding schools for girls arose during the second half of the nineteenth century and, as far as we can tell, most provided some sort of musical education. Today some schools have opted for weekly boarding and so not everywhere can boast weekly Sunday chapel choirs. Sadly we read that only a few new boys' schools at this time provided music, mainly in their great daily chapel service, whereas the long-established places like Eton, Winchester, Westminster and Harrow appear to have concentrated on singing, just like many of the older girls' schools.

  • 4 - Gresham's

  • from SOME INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM
  • Edited by Andrew Morris, Taught in secondary modern, grammar and comprehensive schools in London before becoming Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years, Bernarr Rainbow, Widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education
  • Introduction by Peter Dickinson
  • Book:
    Music in Independent Schools
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 August 2014, pp 268-276

  • Summary

    Like many schools, Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk, has been fortunate to experience some fine educators over the course of its existence. Through the strengths of their beliefs, the broad scope of their activities, and their desire to make music known, understood, and enjoyed by all, the music masters and mistresses at Gresham's have enriched the lives of many students, parents, colleagues, and friends of the school. During the twentieth century the school has had its fair share of talented pupils pass across the Parade Ground, but it is the ethos of ‘bringing out the best in every child’ that remains a truer philosophy and reflects the nature of its everyday musical activities.

    1900–10: The Shaw Years

    In 1900 George Howson, a scientist, was appointed headmaster of Gresham's. Musically he was no practitioner, but he saw value in the arts and ensured well-staffed departments with the finest teachers. As an early Director of Music at the school, Geoffrey Shaw, once remarked, ‘his conviction that the humanities must form an essential part of education made it possible for music to flourish at Gresham's. No music master ever had a truer friend in his headmaster.’

    In 1900 a small school choir existed and public concerts were given under the guidance of classics master R. Langford James. Concerts were regularly given in Great School, with members of staff usually providing the main body of the programmes.

  • 6 - Uppingham

  • from SOME INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM
  • Edited by Andrew Morris, Taught in secondary modern, grammar and comprehensive schools in London before becoming Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years, Bernarr Rainbow, Widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education
  • Introduction by Peter Dickinson
  • Book:
    Music in Independent Schools
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 August 2014, pp 287-291

  • Summary

    Uppingham School began the second half of the twentieth century blessed with a fine musical legacy. Eighty years of sustained endeavour by two remarkable men, Paul David (for forty-three years) and Robert Sterndale Bennett (for thirty-seven years), gave Douglas Guest a firm foundation on which to build in his five dynamic years at Uppingham before he left to go to Salisbury Cathedral as Organist and Master of the Choristers in 1950. Among Guest's innovations were the establishment of music scholarships and the founding of the Paul David Society and of the Uppingham and District Concert Club. In addition, he appointed the school's first band master, John Allen. He introduced performances of Bach's great choral works and staged a production of Purcell's The Faery Queen, which was favourably reviewed in The Times.

    All three men had been supported by headmasters who believed that music is important and makes a unique and valuable contribution to the education of the young. This established principle continued to develop in the gradually changing social and artistic environment of the next fifty years. It was not necessarily a steady progress, but it was progress nevertheless.

    In the 1950s and 1960s, resources, time and many inspired teachers encouraged the playing of a wide range of chamber music. This was stimulated by the annual Henry Ley Cup competitions, which were organised ostensibly on a house basis in which ensemble players were matched according to ability.

  • 10 - Preparatory Schools

  • from FURTHER TRADITIONS
  • Edited by Andrew Morris, Taught in secondary modern, grammar and comprehensive schools in London before becoming Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years, Bernarr Rainbow, Widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education
  • Introduction by Peter Dickinson
  • Book:
    Music in Independent Schools
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 August 2014, pp 315-322

  • Summary

    Prep school music-making varies according to the size of the school, and also depends on the value placed on music by the Head. School music departments often have to compete with a thriving sports department, and there can be inevitable clashes between sports fixtures and music events. This illuminates the need for good relations between the two departments. The New Beacon has enjoyed a long tradition of excellence in both music and sport, and has had the good fortune of being supported by past and present headmasters who have held a strong belief in encouraging enjoyment and excellence in both areas. The New Beacon is a fee-paying preparatory school for boys, located on the rural outskirts of Sevenoaks, Kent. The school caters both for day-boys and weekly boarders (Monday to Thursday), from Reception to Year 8 (ages 4–13). Currently there are about 400 pupils.

    The Prep School Music Department

    Most music departments in prep schools have a Director or Head of Music. Depending on the size of the school, and whether the school has a pre-prep department including nursery provision, the Director of Music will be supported by an Assistant Director, and in some cases further staff too. Traditionally, the Director of Music will oversee the running of the department, and this will include organising a group of visiting instrumental, or peripatetic, music teachers to teach individual music lessons.

  • 5 - The Oundle Phenomenon: Performances of Messiah and the B Minor Mass by the School (1922–3)

  • from PART I - Studies from Music and the English Public School (1990)
  • Edited by Andrew Morris, Taught in secondary modern, grammar and comprehensive schools in London before becoming Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years, Bernarr Rainbow, Widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education
  • Introduction by Peter Dickinson
  • Book:
    Music in Independent Schools
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 August 2014, pp 97-103

  • Summary

    The performance of Messiah shared by the whole school to which F. W. Sanderson referred in Music & Letters took place at Oundle on Sunday, 11 December 1921, and was the subject of an enthusiastic review in the Musical Times the following month. Credit for giving the audience an active part in the performance was attributed there to Clement Spurling, the director of music at the school – though how far this was just an extension of Sanderson's determination that ‘the whole school should take part in choral activity’ remains open to debate. Certainly Spurling was left to achieve a result which had never been anticipated elsewhere and which his counterparts in other schools long came to regard as inimitable.

    Once the experiment with Messiah had demonstrated the feasibility of involving the whole school in an elaborate musical performance without hopelessly sacrificing standards, an even more daring adventure followed a year later when Bach's B minor Mass was mounted at Oundle. This proved at least as successful; and thereafter the tradition was maintained with a succession of annual performances of the Christmas Oratorio, Elijah, and several Bach Cantatas, in addition to the two works first performed. For the impact first made by the ‘Oundle Phenomenon’ we turn to the Musical Times review of the original performance. {BR]

  • 13 - The Independent Schools Curriculum Committee

  • from ORGANISATIONS
  • Edited by Andrew Morris, Taught in secondary modern, grammar and comprehensive schools in London before becoming Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years, Bernarr Rainbow, Widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education
  • Introduction by Peter Dickinson
  • Book:
    Music in Independent Schools
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 August 2014, pp 337-360

  • Summary

    Independent schools are, by name and nature, independent both from the state and from each other. However, during the 1960s many schools called for greater communication with each other, particularly between junior (preparatory) schools and senior (public) schools. It fell to A. R. Donald Wright, Headmaster of Shrewsbury, when Chairman of the Headmasters' Conference (HMC), to make the first move. Donald Wright had as his near neighbour, in terms of northern English schools, Roger W. Ellis, Headmaster of Rossall School between 1967 and 1972 (when he moved to become Master of Marlborough College). Ellis was an imaginative teacher who was known to be active in curriculum matters. Wright suggested that Ellis address the HMC at their 1969 gathering in order to illuminate the need for greater contact between preparatory and senior schools, particularly in academic and curriculum matters. The result was the establishing of what became known as ‘Ellis Meetings’ (later known as Independent Schools Curriculum Meetings) in 1972; these meetings became the main forum for debate and curriculum planning in independent schools. Each curriculum subject had its own annual meeting in each local area, and music was certainly one of the more active subjects. The meetings were designed to give teachers at grass-roots level the opportunity to influence curriculum development and, in particular, to consider the transference of children from preparatory schools to senior schools.

Page 269 of 675