Reuven Feuerstein
I love Feuerstein’s way of thinking. He has broken down the very basics of how we think and gone through a step by step process to demonstrate to others how they too can think for themselves. Brilliant!
Feuerstein’s model is a very internal way of learning – Laurillard’s ‘conversation’ or Yacci’s ‘interactivity’ in the learning here is mainly done within the student himself. There is also feedback from the class and tutor, but the most important work here is done internally within the student i.e. reviewing and learning.
Muirhead and Juwah say “However, to support authentic learning as well as enhance the learner’s educational experience in distance and online courses, it is imperative to provide adequate scaffolding.” The scaffolding that they discuss contains conceptual, procedural, strategic and metacognitive learning. So according to M&J, metacognition is only part of the scaffolding whereas Feuerstein believes that metacognition is the most important part of the learning. They are both right. Metacognition is a huge part of learning; until you know how to learn, it is pretty pointless learning anything at all!
So how would I apply what I have learnt tonight? We have a lot of mature students at UCB who lack confidence using computers in general. As I was reading Feuerstein I could immediately see how I could help them to be able to use software more effectively. I can create a step-by-step guide for them, telling them to slow down and look at the application that they are using, think about how the tabs are arranged and how the name of the tab will give a clue as to its purpose, then open a tab and explore it, and so on … I think I would do this as a face-to-face session initially but may try to find a way to put it online.
That’s it for one day – gonna watch the Steve Jobs program on C4 now. Blog ya later! 🙂
jubarutumbleweeder 
I wish I could get Channel 4 over here in Holland 😦
I’m with you on your thoughts about Feuerstein, Julie. You have also drawn my attention to something I might have missed, that “according to M&J, metacognition is only part of the scaffolding whereas Feuerstein believes that metacognition is the most important part of the learning”. In my own post on Feuerstein http://craigbellsblog.wordpress.com/loops-in-metagconition/ I say, like you do, that F and M&J overlap in their views on metagcognition, but I only focused on M&J’s notion of metagcog. as an element of scaffolding, and not the Conceptual, Procedural and Strategic aspects it. But don’t you think the Feuerstein’s use of Induction and Socratic questioning embodies M&J’s aspects of scaffolding? I must say I’m a bit confused about this, so would love to air this with and anyone else who wants to enter the discussion.
http://www.teacherstoolbox.co.uk/T_Teaching_Intelligence.html
Yes Craig, I agree that both F and M&J use scaffolding, but I think that the difference between the two is that F uses scaffolding to ‘teach’ metacognition whereas M&J use metacognition as part of the scaffolding process.
Thanks Julie. I think I talked myself into a hole when I was writing about them. When I looked back at the texts, I saw you’re spot on!
Imagine what happens when we combine the two … ?