Running Header: Reading Response 1

Fresno Pacific University

Reading Response 1: Posner

A Class Paper Submitted for

EDUC 694
Curriculum Design & Implementation
Professor: Cara McFadden

by:
Wayne Pedranti
Fresno, California
September, 2015

Reading Response 1

Ask any person over the age of 40, or even most of today's youth, to describe a
classroom, and they will describe the traditional classroom. Their image of a classroom is that of
desks arranged orderly in rows, and the teacher at the front of the classroom lecturing on some
irrelevant topic while students sit quietly and try to hurriedly copy down notes. Freire (1970)
would refer to these students as being oppressed victims of the banking concept of education.
This system works under the assumption that all students are adaptable, manageable, malleable
beings, and the teacher is the all knowing oracle. Students are nothing more than empty vessels
to be filed with information (Freire, 1970). The traditional classroom works under the false
assumption that knowing is understanding.
Another misguided learning theory that leaves students with little or no control over their
learning is that of behavioralism. According to Posner (1992) behavioralist teaching dominated
the math and science classrooms of the 50's and 60's. This is probably why most students hate
math so much. The typical math class is taught with the belief that the teacher can shape the way
the student thinks. These teachers routinely reduce their students to the role of one of Skinner's
(1958) pigeons. This methodology belittles the student, and has no place in the educational
classroom.
Teaching should be holistic and centered around the student. Students should be
consumers and users of knowledge, not collectors of information. Of the five theories that
Posner (1992) describes only experiential, constructivist, and, to a lesser extent structure of
disciplines allow for students to own their learning. These teaching philosophies are centered
around the needs of the student.
The subscribers to structures of discipline any many ways wanted a fall back to the

Reading Response 1

traditional classroom. They were conservative in their view, they brought some interesting ideas
to the table. These theorist believed that students should only be taught the most fundamental
concepts of physics and math, and be allowed to derive their own understanding of more advance
topics from those concepts (Posner, 1992). Furthermore, they believed that education should be
dynamic and evolving. Students need to derive their own meaning through personal inquiry.
Although the structuralist were looking for amore structured thinking in the math and
science classrooms, they recognized several problems that existed in the traditional classroom.
First, they recognized that current math and physics curriculum very seldom taught anything that
was learned after the 1700's for math (Posner, 1992) and the 1870's for physics. They knew in
the 1950's that it may be beneficial to to teach set theory to grade school kids was beneficial
(Posner, 1992). Likewise, a more modern example of this is research that shows that
kindergartners can be taught modern group theory, and that by understanding such theory helps
them with understanding of basic mathematical concepts.
The structures of disciplines theorist showed they were student centered by understanding
that students need to build their own understanding of complex concepts through their
understanding of previous knowledge. In this way, they are similar to the experiential and
constructivists.
The experiential and constructivist offer the most student centered teaching philosophies.
Both theories stress that knowledge should be gained through experiences. However, the two
philosophies differ in the source of the experience. Experiential theorist believe that the
curriculum should give the experience, and should be structured on such a way that the student is
ready for life. On the other hand, the constructivist theorist understood that experiences did not

Reading Response 1

always have to be academic in nature (Posner, 1992).

Experiential theorists such as Dewey understood that earning is not a passive exercise.
Learning requires the student to be actively engaged in activities that are relevant to the material
being learned and the student's personal life (Dewey, 1973). In many ways, Dewey can be
considered the inventor of project based learning (PBL). Students are capable of grasping more
complex materiel through projects that are relevant to the student's life and culture. Since
students learn by drawing upon past experiences, a well designed project helps give experience
when the student does not have any to draw upon. These projects keep the students active and
engaged.
Constructivist, like the experientialist, understand that that knowledge is gained by
processing information through a filter of past experiences. However, the constructivist
understood that these experiences are not strictly academic. They can social and cultural.
Vytogsky (1978) was among the first of the twentieth century scholars to understand the
necessity of speech in the learning process. This is nothing new, the greek scholars such as
Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates also knew this. However, if learning is a social process, then it is
necessary for students to share there experiences through conversation and collaborating with
others in projects.
The constructivist point of view can be summed up with Vytogsky's zone of proximal
development. The idea that the student uses academic, cultural, and social experiences to solve a
problem that is slightly harder than he can do on his or her own, but hard enough that with
prompting from the teacher and reflection on experience, the student can solve it. This concept
however is also seen in the experiential and structure of disciplines methodologies.

Reading Response 1

It is clear that the best methods of teaching allow the student to build upon past
experiences. These experiences can be social, cultural, or academic. These all make up he
schema in which we as people view the world.

References
Dewey, J., & McDermott, J. J. (1973). The philosophy of John Dewey (Vol. 1 & 2). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Friere, P. (1970). The banking concept of education. In Pedagogy of the oppressed. Retrieved
July 28, 2015, from http://learning.fresno.edu/course/view.php?id=8940
Posner, G. J. (1992). Chapter 3: Theoretical perspectives on curriculum. In Analyzing the
curriculum. Retrieved August 31, 2015, from
http://learning.fresno.edu/pluginfile.php/539575/mod_resource/content/1/Posner_Chapter
3_Theoretical_Perspectives.pdf
Skinner, B. F. (1958). Reinforcement today. American Psychologist, 13(3), 94-99.
doi:10.1037/h0049039
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (M.
Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds.). Retrieved July 29, 2015, from
http://learning.fresno.edu/course/view.php?id=8940