depth is more important than breadth in teaching science depthbreadth arleni lopez lizet banuelos...
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![Page 1: Depth is More Important Than Breadth in Teaching Science DepthBreadth Arleni Lopez Lizet Banuelos Kevin McMahon SED 625SC](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062518/56649ccf5503460f9499b4d6/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Depth is More Important ThanBreadth in Teaching Science
Depth Breadth
Arleni Lopez Lizet Banuelos Kevin McMahonSED 625SC
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Current Situation:
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E.D. Hirsch, Jr.’s Solution:
• Depth/Breadth binary is a “premature polarity.
• Polarization is a “barrier to progress.”
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Hirsch’s Solution:• Understanding the Four Principles of Learning will resolve the binary.
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The ability to learn something new is not primarily a general, formal skill.
• Is domain specific
• Learning to learn entails acquiring relevant knowledge about specific domains.
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General ability to learn is highly correlated with general knowledge.
• Learning ability depends chiefly on having relevant prior knowledge.
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The best way to learn a subject is to learn its general principles and to study an ample number of diverse examples that illustrate those principles.• Deductive application.
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Broad general knowledge is the best entrée to deep knowledge.
• “I draw this conclusion from the field of psychology called discourse analysis. The most effective way to introduce the meaning of a discourse is to start with a summary…. After students gain a broad context by developing a sense of the whole domain, they can mentally fit the various parts that follow into that whole, and makes sense of them.”
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Problems:
• Conclusions are anecdotal.
• Children start fitting parts into wholes in early childhood in the nascent development of domains.
• Many discoveries made during the early careers of scientists before domain completion— Why?
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Problems (cont.)
• Thinking “inside the box” of domain paradigms
• See Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions
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Solution:
• Don’t wait for domain completion to give opportunities for the depth needed for fitting pieces together.
• It won’t be perfect.
• It may be messy-creative
• It will take time away from breadth.
• They’ll be more engaged.
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Solution• They’ll remember it better.
• Which means they can make more connections and be more creative down the road with it.
• They may not score as well on standardized test— but where is there a correlation between test scores, creativity and good science.
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Solution (a little Philosophy):
• Don’t try to resolve the binary.
• Let the opposing sides battle it out.
• Another words: Quit trying to reform education by resolving binaries such as depth/breadth, etc. Let education be a chaotic mess!
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Say what?!
• That’s right— a chaotic mess!
• To understand this let’s talk about binaries!
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Binaries are a part of many philosophical/religious systems.• Binaries express opposites that defy
resolution, ie: they’re paradoxical Ying—Yang
• One—Many
• Subject—Object
• Good—Evil
• Yada—Yada
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What happens when you resolve a binary?—Nicholas of Cusa:• The Fall introduces binaries: good/evil, life/death,
etc.
• The Divine Logos is the Coincidentia Oppositorum.
• %&$! happens when man
tries to resolve binaries. Resolution
only through “transfiguration.”
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are needed to see this picture.
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What happens when you resolve a binary?—Jacques Derrida
• All reality and knowledge thereof
is a human construction.• Constructed through formation
of binaries.• Resolve binaries results is the
dissolution of meaning.• What you have left is nothing.
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So what we have is the ultimate binary: God and Nothing— Nicholi Berdyæv
• But out of this God-Nothing
complex comes creativity. • You know…Genesis… God
speaking to the void, Let there
be….
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What do we propose:
• Don’t resolve the binary with government imposed solutions!
• Let both poles battle it out.
• In the chaos of nothing (no solution) there is freedom to be creative!
• But right now the balance is swung to far to breadth so….
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Embrace the Chaos!
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However…
• There may come a time when the binary balance may need to be shifted towards depth.
• Keep Big Government out!• Principle of Subsidarity: best & most
representative government is closest to the people.• Local control allow more nimble shifts in balance
and easier for binary poles to “yell” at each other.