Learning to talk the educational psychology talk through a problem-based course

A sociocultural view of learning proposes that learning involves becoming enculturated into a community of practice. A step along the way is learning to use the specialized language of such a community, as language is a crucial tool that regulates participation, mediates cognition and plays a centra...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Instructional science 2004-07, Vol.32 (4), p.319-356
Main Authors: CHERNOBILSKY, ELLINA, DACOSTA, MARIA CAROLINA, HMELO-SILVER, CINDY E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acculturation
Cognitive Development
Collaboration
Collaborative learning
Communities
Communities of Practice
Educational Psychology
Group development
Jargon
Knowledge Level
Language
Language development
Language Usage
Learning
Preservice Teacher Education
Preservice Teachers
Problem Based Learning
Psychology
Resistance (Psychology)
Social Theories
Teaching Methods
Vocabulary
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A sociocultural view of learning proposes that learning involves becoming enculturated into a community of practice. A step along the way is learning to use the specialized language of such a community, as language is a crucial tool that regulates participation, mediates cognition and plays a central role in the development of thought. Problem-based learning (PBL), with its emphasis on collaborative discourse, provides opportunities for students to develop the conceptual language of a discipline, which in turn affects cognition. In a problembased undergraduate Educational Psychology course, many psychological theories, concepts and principles are introduced to pre-service teachers. During the course, as students learn through problem solving, they engage with new knowledge. This evolving knowledge requires new discourse structures that will allow students to express their new ideas and that will ultimately structure students' ways of knowing. The content of group and individual artifacts is analyzed to examine how PBL influences students' language and knowledge development over the course of the semester in an Educational Psychology class (n = 34). The goal of this paper is to present these analyses and to discuss how the change affects students' language and knowledge.
ISSN:0020-4277
1573-1952
DOI:10.1023/B:TRUC.0000026552.14289.2c