From: cfrnb@UX1.CTS.EIU.EDU ((Bob Barger))
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.erl-l
Subject: Re: Ed. Research: All Played Out? (82 lines)
Date: 5 Nov 92 21:57:44 GMT
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Comments: To: ERL-L@VM.TCS.Tulane.EDU
              "P30JWP1%NIU.bitnet@VM.TCS.Tulane.EDU" at Nov 2, 92 11:00 pm

> Educational Research: All Played Out?
> Gary Shank, Northern Illinois University
.........
> 2) Educational research is more and more classroom-oriented.
> This is a lot less okay than it looks on the surface.  It is also
> why most qualitative research is not very good -- it is largely
> if not exclusively focussed on what hapens in either the classroom,
> in the school environs, or to students qua students.  What is wrong
> with being classroom-oriented exclusively?  Well, being oriented
> exclusively in any fashion is not good.  Also, focusing on the
> classroom centers us on schooling, and not on the larger domain of
> education.  Finally, taking a classroom orientation tends to make
> the field reactive instead of proactive.  When was the last time
> anyone turned to educational researchers to show new ways of doing
> anything or looking at anything outside of school?  We spend all
> our time applying theories from other branches of the social
> sciences to schooling, or evaluating schooling practices;
.........
> What do we do now?  Several things:  1) Declare a moratorium
> on championing new methods until we have done some serious
> considerations of the foundations of our field.  Pick up any
> philosophy of science journal, and you will see that science
> as we know it is coming to an end.  Should we wait for other
> inquirers to solve all the problems and lag behind, or should
> we lead the way for a change?  I know how I feel;
> 2) What foundations should we look at?  For starters, we need
> to consider whether epistemology, or the pursuit of knowledge,
> is actually the most fundamental basis for our field.  I think
> that the pursuit of meaning will be the challenge of the 21st
> century, and we can contribute to that effort as educational

Gary, it sounds like you were at EDUCOM last week (annual meeting of
the main assoc. for info. tech. in higher ed.). Four speakers made
essentially the same point you are making above:

   Ken Olsen, founder of DEC, pointed out that computing has become
cheap (relatively speaking, of course!) and now the problem is to know
*what it is* we want to do educationally rather than how do we get
hold of the technology to do what we want to do.

   Seymour Papert suggested that the technology of the future (with
its imaging access possibilities) will take us back to the age of
illiteracy (...he sees this this as a positive step, however, not as a
regression) and this will put the traditional school out of business
(because traditional forms of literacy will not be so primary and also
because of the vanishing of the need to assemble at a certain place
and time). He continued that the exploratory nature of children's
learning should bring about a *constructionist* approach to learning
instead of our traditional *instructionist* one (because
instructionalism depends on compartmentalized and "banked" knowledge
[the latter is Freire's term].

   Stan Smith, winner of the 1992 Louis Robinson award, echoed Ken
Olsen in saying that the question now is not about equipment, but
rather about how best to help the student learn. [As an aside, Smith
also related his response to a question that was once asked of him:
"What do you need to do good courseware development?" His answer:
"Tenure."]

   Finally, John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist for Xerox Corporation,
echoed both Smith and Olsen in speaking about the increasing
importance of visually-oriented technology and the need to bring more
community into computing (i.e., the need to make it not only more
cooperative, but less individually oriented).

   With regard to your final question, Gary, about whether there is
something more fundamental than epistemology with which we should be
concerned, I would say yes. The more fundamental focus should be on
questions of metaphysics [...I sense flame-throwers being turned on
all over the network at this point...!]. I say this because
epistemology is concerned with the theory of what knowledge is and
hence how we know, but a particular epistemology is determined by
one's particular metaphysical views. By metaphysics, I mean what one
believes about the nature of reality, or what is the essential basis
or ground of meaning. Note that this has to be a belief/assumption
because it is beyond empirical proof [...linguistic analysts will, of
course, have none of this kind of prattle...but even they would admit
that this doesn't take away from its possible truthfulness!]. Hence,
Gary, I agree with you that the real quest now should be the pursuit
of meaning...and not just knowledge.

  Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!

     All the best, Bob

|~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^|
|  Robert N. Barger      Dept. of Secondary Education & Foundations  |
|  (217) 581-5931                       Eastern Illinois University  |
|  cfrnb@eiu.edu or cfrnb@ecnuxa.bitnet        Charleston, IL 61920  |
|                                                                    |
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