Learning to apply: From "school garden instruction" to technology-based learning environments

Abstract

Language English
Discusses alternative instructional models which address the problem of teaching knowledge applicable to later life and the schools' function of enculturation, and relates them to the German Reformpaedagogik (reform education, RP) of the early 20th century. Empirical studies of knowledge application among vocational and university students of economics and medicine are reviewed, which reveal problems of inert knowledge resembling those found in schools. Basic ideas of RP, and in particular G. Kerschensteiner's "school garden instruction" are described and related to three modern instructional theories based on cognitive psychology and a constructivist view of learning: anchored instruction, random-access instruction, and cognitive apprenticeship, allowing an evaluation of the importance of RP and of progress in instructional theory due to use of technology-based learning environments. (V.K. - ZPID)