Professional Documents
Culture Documents
December 6, 2015.
Introduction
common humanity and shared guardianship, help to create a better and more peaceful world. As part
of a term-long interdisciplinary Global Citizenship project for Grade 8 students, I taught a lesson
entitled What Are Global Issues? that was intended to teach students about the key issues that
impact the worlds population. While there were many pedagogy-driven elements within this lesson,
several changes are proposed to improve both the individual learning activity and the unit as a whole.
First, psychologist Lev Vygotsky's concept of social constructivism is considered to address the
collaborative nature of learning within the lesson. Similarly, the entire structure of the unit has been
reimagined after analysis of situated cognition which posits that knowledge cannot be separated from
the context in which it is learned. The restructured unit further takes into consideration game-design
elements to increase the motivation and contributions of the learners. Finally, the information
processing theory is referenced to allow for further elaboration of the new information presented to
students. Overall, significant improvements have been made to the original lesson from a theoretical
perspective.
Social Constructivism
Proponents of the constructivist theory argue that knowledge or truth does not have to conform
to a singular interpretation and that rich learning occurs as a result of a childs own process of
discovery and interaction with their environment (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996, p. 193). Vygotsky
proposed that learning occurs through the process of deliberation and negotiation (Glassman, 1994, p.
190). When an individual participates in joint activities, the social situation transforms the cognitive
development of the individual (Albert, 2012, p. 20). While the original lesson plan promoted a
collaborative learning environment where students were prompted to work together to research and
design a slide to teach their peers, this lesson fails to enable students to authentically experience the
subject in a manner in which encourages them to form their own unique representation of the world.
Students would gain a deeper understanding of the content from mediating a viable path of action for
proposed by ways of a large-scale project to simulate intergovernmental relations. Students are given
the opportunity to choose the country they will represent along with a corresponding budget based on
the gross domestic product per capita of their particular country. Participants will then be prompted to
distribute their countrys wealth in such areas as healthcare, education, military, disaster relief and
environmental issues using a spreadsheet template. Students will collaboratively engage in critical
analysis of global issues and decide how their countrys wealth will be distributed. Periodically,
students will also participate in Model UN discussions with other country groups to experience
diplomacy and international relations for themselves. This sociocultural approach to learning about
global issues aims to simulate how the international relationships and the allocation of global
resources, goods, and services contribute to inequitable levels of development and supports the
constructivist theory where knowledge is not simply transmitted from teacher to student, but actively
constructed by the mind of the learner (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996, p. 7).
Situated Cognition
The original lessons plan implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from
the situations in which it is learned and used thus limits the effectiveness of the activity. Students were
asked to define and represent a global issue that had been removed from its social, cultural and
physical contexts. Though a collaborative learning approach was encouraged in the original lesson,
students were still only required to summarize definitions and facts found during their research. By
ignoring the situated nature of cognition, the lesson defeats its own goal of providing useable, robust
knowledge for students to apply to the real world. Conversely, the aim of the redeveloped unit moves
toward an epistemology of situated cognition where knowledge is constructed within and linked to the
activity, context, and culture in which it is learned (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, p. 32). Brown et al.
state that like tools, knowledge can only be fully understood through use, and using them entails both
changing the user's view of the world and adopting the belief system of the culture in which they are
Theoretical Perspectives Lesson Plan Critique 4
used (1989, p. 33). Just as the case study teacher encouraged his students to work in the culture of
mathematics, not in the culture of schooling, this reimagined unit aims to submerge students in the
culture of international cooperation through situated cognition (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, p. 38).
Game-Design Thinking
Furthermore, the proposed unit applies game-design thinking in an effort to engage students in
solving problems and increase users self contributions. Well-designed games allow for players to
construct understanding actively, and at individual paces, and. . . enable players to advance on
different paths at different rates in response to each players interests and abilities, while also fostering
collaboration and just-in-time learning (Klopfer, Osterweil & Salen, 2009, p. 1). While not presented as
a game to students, the global community simulation would enable students to make choices that
have a direct impact on their country. For example, a country would experience an increase in life
expectancy if funds are invested in the healthcare system or a rise in the average years of schooling
for citizens if money is spent on education. Disease outbreaks, natural disasters and drought are all
examples of obstacles that participants must overcome to be successful as a country. Since the cycle
between choice and result is much shorter in the simulation than in life, players can regularly test and
refine their hypotheses, while simultaneously lowering the emotional stake of failing to encourage risk
taking (Jenkins, 2009, p. 85). With this increased willingness to experiment, players continue to make
choices, contextualizing facts and information as tools for problem solving (Gee, 2003). Moreover,
embedding students in this type of game inspired challenge could be a powerful motivator through a
neurologic feedback system in the brain. If students recognize they have made a successful
prediction, choice or behavioural response, a rush of dopamine may be released in the brain as a way
to reinforce the networks used to succeed (Willis, 2011). The motivation to persevere is the brain
seeking another surge of dopamine and can be viewed as a form of intrinsic reinforcement.
Restructuring the unit to employ game-design elements has the capability to increase students
engagement in ways that would be unachievable using the approach of the original lesson.
Theoretical Perspectives Lesson Plan Critique 5
Neuroscience offers educators insight into how students encode, store and retrieve new
information. The information processing theory suggests that if new information is not brought into
memory in a meaningful way, it will not be stored as a permanent memory (Lutz & Huitt, 2003). In
order for information to be stored in our long-term memory and formally learned, the information must
be rehearsed to consolidate the new information. However, the original global issues lesson required
students to passively intake teacher-directed information before offering any opportunities to elaborate
on the new content. The proposed lesson instead offers students a way to explore global issues using
the inquiry process and ongoing elaboration of the content. The mind contains a framework into which
new information can be matched with, compared to, contrasted to, joined with, or modified to fit
existing structures. According to Lutz and Huitt, new information can most effectively be learned if the
material can be matched to memory structures already in place (2003). The restructured unit aims to
offer a familiar framework for new information to be encoded, so that students are not mere recorders
of facts and information but creators of their own unique knowledge structures (Lutz and Huitt, 2003,
p. 32). Von Glaserfeld goes as far as to state that the most reinforcing [thing] for a cognitive organism
is to achieve a satisfactory organization, a viable way of dealing with some sector of experience
(2008, p. 47). More important than the order of content being learned is that students make
connections between facts and ideas and are able to see how the information applies to the real
world. The formation of and continual building of neurological structures is critical for learners to
Conclusion
From a theoretical perspective, the original lesson plan would benefit from a reconceptualized
vision of both the individual lesson and the unit as a whole. Taking on the role of a particular country
would enable students to learn about global issues through an unfamiliar viewpoint. Through acts of
Theoretical Perspectives Lesson Plan Critique 6
deliberation and negotiation, students are encouraged to construct their own knowledge within a
learn through situated cognition as the context is very similar to frameworks found in the real world.
Through increased opportunities to make choices, students gain a greater sense of agency over their
own learning and safe to experiment with new ideas. This application of game-design thinking could
offer increased extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in students. Finally, the proposed lesson takes into
consideration ideas divulged from the information processing theory concerning the brain and
memory. The aforementioned theories embody the idea that meaningful learning is constructive,
situated, motivating and self-regulated. The proposed lesson and unit seek to promote such learning
in students to more effectively develop internationally minded people who recognize their common
References
Albert, Lillie R. (2012). Vygotskys sociocultural historical theory, a primer. Rhetorical ways of thinking:
Brown, J. S., Collins, A. & Duguid, S. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning.
Gee, J.P. (2003). What video games can teach us about literacy and learning. New York:
Palgrave-Macmillan.
Glassman, M. (1994). All things being equal: the two roads of Piaget and Vygotsky. Developmental
Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media Education for the 21st
Theoretical Perspectives Lesson Plan Critique 7
Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S. and Salen, K. (2009). Moving learning games forward: Obstacles,
opportunities & openness. The Education Arcade. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lutz, S., & Huitt, W. (2003). Information processing and memory: Theory and applications.
Educational
Willis, J. (2011). Big Thinkers: Judy Willis on the Science of Learning. Online Video clip. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6FqAiAbUFs.