The Penitenciary System as an Environment of
Modifiability: An Experience in Brazil, Minas Gerais State, With Infractor
Teenagers This work focus on cognitive evaluation and on enhancing learning potential of all infractors / transgressors teenagers from 13 to 19 years-old that are under the responsibility of the Secretary of Justice and Human Rights of Minas Gerais State/ Brazil. This paper is part of the big Project that has the aim to change the penal system in an effective and truly environment of modifiability and it is based on Dr. Reuven Feuerstein' proposal related to his Theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability, Mediated Learning Experience and the two applicative systems, LPAD and IE Program. One of the encouraging developments regarding the dissemination of
Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment in the USA is its inclusion among
recommended School Reform Models. This presentation will focus on the
challenge of this premise. Specifically, how:
This presentation will be based on over two decades of FIE implementation trials that resulted in success or failure at school reform. Le développement cognitif en formation
d'adultes Les entreprises sont confrontées à des changements majeurs qui
viennent solliciter les capacités d'apprentissage de leurs salariés. On
peut établir une typologie de ces changements, et de leurs conséquences,
selon qu'ils concernent la technologie, l'organisation ou la
qualification.
Instructional Conversations in the
Secondary Math Classroom: Effects of Mediated Learning on Short Term Math
Achievement Gains for Low and High Achieving Students The purpose of this research was to quantify and explain the within school and between class effects of cognitive teaching techniques on the mathematics achievement gains for diverse and special populations of high school students. Achievement gains were measured at three to four month intervals using the state standardized criterion-based test. Populations observed included Special Education, Section 504, Limited English Proficient, At-Risk, SES, Gifted/Talented, and High Achieving students. The overarching perspective of this study was a critical view of the popular notion of equality of opportunity in favor of a more easily measured but less easily obtained equity in educational outcomes. Proponents of equality of opportunity bemoan the fact that students who fail to attain educational credentials are disproportionately students whose backgrounds are considered to be disadvantaged. Equal opportunity, entangled with expectancy and equity theories, puts the onus of learning on the developmentally fragile child. On the other hand, the perspective of equity in outcomes considers learning to be a necessary and sufficient component of teaching. Until the average achievement of special populations of students in public schools begins to match that of their dominant culture peers, schooling remains a deficit process. Moreover, while other studies have tested achievement gains for low-achieving students, this study has highlighted effects on students in Gifted/Talented, Honors, and Advanced Placement classes. Cognitive science offers a construct for studying mathematics achievement gains and cognitive teaching techniques. Problem-solving using simulated or real data sets on which operations are performed and from which conclusions are extrapolated provides the structure through which real life problems are modeled. Generative questioning and critical thinking relate the cognitive problem-solving method with social interaction and classroom discourse. The potential for this discourse to tap students' funds of knowledge depends on the teacher's ability and motivation to bridge the students' cognitive map and the intellectual task of mathematics learning. This is accomplished through a process based on Dr. Reuven Feuerstein's work on the development of theories of structural cognitive modifiability and mediated learning. The technique, based on Feuerstein's work requires the persistent use of identifying, questioning, relating, reviewing, task-analyzing, practicing, and evaluating within the context of classroom discourse -- student to teacher, teacher to student, and student to student. Algebra I classes in an urban high school provided data for the study. It is located in neighborhood with similar demographics, 45% African American 46% Hispanic, 9% European American and Southeast Asian. Nine teachers were trained in cognitive techniques, and all used the same, district-mandated math curriculum. The students in the study were ninth grade students in their first high school math course. The original sample included 300 students, but only 174 were followed through the last test cycle. The focus was on special populations(including G/T and Honors) students in inclusion classes. The data source for the level of implementation for the cognitive instructional techniques included three sets of comparable test scores, as well as surveys completed by students and teachers, triangulated with peer observation checklists and scripting to determine efficacy, implementation stages, and expectations. Empowering Adult Learners to Learn: A
Self-Directed Approach The synergy of combining new information and communication technologies with human skills has dramatically altered job content and skill requirements at the workplace. Good jobs have become technologically complex and are demanding sophisticated work skills. Technological innovations are contributing to widening inequalities in income and employment prospects between the skilled and less skilled workers. In order to address the training and retraining needs of the disadvantaged workers UNESCO's Member States have made a commitment to promote equal educational opportunities all. Having equal educational opportunities now means more than just having access to schools, teachers, and textbooks. It also means that individuals have the intellectual and cognitive skills needed to learn. Many individuals lack equal educational opportunity because they have not developed the essential cognitive skills to succeed in a learning environment. This paper presentation will describe an attempt made to address the cognitive divide being created by the knowledge-based economy. A self- instructional and technology-based training material (Learning Enhancement for Adult Retraining Needs, LEARN) was designed and developed to enhance the learning skills of adult learners. The development of LEARN was guided by research conducted to identify the critical cognitive controls that contribute to success in learning. Best practices and adult learning theories also provided the necessary conceptual base for developing project LEARN. A free copy of LEARN will be distributed to delegates after the paper presentation. Using Mediated Learning to Improve the level of
Reflection of Preservice Teachers Teacher reflection is considered one of the most important skills teachers must possess to improve their teaching performance. The last two decades have produced a proliferation of theoretical and philosophical writing on the topic. Considerable research is also being done, mostly of an ethnographic nature. Reflection is currently stressed in most preservice teacher education courses. Reflection, while usually considered a solitary activity, may be enhanced by Mediated Learning Experience as described by Feuerstein and his colleagues. Peer tutors, armed with training in mediated learning, may be able to facilitate their colleagues in learning using reflection. This paper will report on preliminary investigations using mediated learning methods with preservice teachers at a large preparation program in a university in the western part of the United States. Student's level of reflectivity will be assessed pre and post mediated learning. Mathematizing: Problem Solving Strategies
in Everyday Work This is an ethnographic study with a family-working group of house and building painters in Mexico City. Three are the main purposes. First to identify characteristics of the problem solving strategies of a group of painters in natural settings of everyday work of the construction industry in Mexico City. Second, to describe the way a group of painters mathematize everyday working problems in natural settings of their activity; and third, to build a classification of the different individual and collective styles and strategies of mathematizing problems. Adults develop mathematizing personal and collective strategies for solving problems according to the way they are socially organized and to the activity they work on. Results show that adults have strategies for making their work more efficient, for using conventional and personal systems for counting, measuring and represent, and formal schemas and some specific procedures for control. Education and Crime Prevention: Using Mediated Learning in Correctional Settings in Canada There is a distinct and positive relationship between Education and Crime Prevention. Many institutions in the Correctional Service of Canada have chosen Cognitive Enrichment Advantage (CEA), based on Mediated Learning, as our correctional teaching method. The use and successes of the method inside the Correctional Service have attracted the interest of some urban and rural communities looking to intervene with young children to prevent the development of asocial behaviours that can lead to criminal lifestyles. Using IE to Improve Access to Community
Colleges Pikes Peak Community College (PPCC) discovered Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment I (IE-1) program in 1992 when faculty in the Developmental Studies division developed a course designed to meet the needs of significantly under prepared students wanting to enter the community college. Training in Feuerstein's method was offered to any interested faculty, and an interdisciplinary course that included a critical thinking component using the IE-1 materials was developed for students identified as under prepared in English, reading, and study skills. The interdisciplinary continued for three semesters. For this panel discussion, an instructor and a student from that course will share their experiences in working with the IE-1 materials from each of their perspectives. Cognitive Literacy: A 21st Century Imperative
for Education and Community Revitalization
Gwendolyn Gibson Cognitive literacy is a term being introduced to describe what is absolutely necessary for 21st century human activity. It can be described simply as an awareness of one's thinking processes and the conscious usage and application of those processes to learn, to grow, and to become fully human. Professor Reuven Feuerstein's theories of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and Mediated Learning Experience and his applied systems of assessment(the Learning Propensity Assessment Device, teaching (Instrumental Enrichment), and the Shaping of Modifying Environments provide a coherent and comprehensive framework and mechanism for actualizing and validating the existence of cognitive literacy. The need for cognitive literacy has become an imperative as a consequence of a number of issues in society which people must confront and resolve as a part of daily living. Two of the more prominent issues are the proliferation of electronic technology which has catapulted the evolution of a "global society", and the failure of the traditional system of schooling to meet the needs of a growing number of students in the U.S. The statement "students should be capable of approaching problems that do not exist at the moment of their learning" (Kouzlin,1998), characterizes the form of education needed and the orientation of instruction for formal and informal education settings. Cognitive literacy is necessary to decrease the gap between social disparities that perpetuate ignorance and poverty. Professor Feuerstein's theories and applied systems provide a powerful cognitive means for equalizing opportunities for learning and empowerment for all humans, regardless of age, gender, ethnic, socio-economic status, etc. Cognitive literacy impels people to acquire the necessary prerequisites for meaningful human interactions, a necessary ingredient for social, emotional, and spiritual growth. This paper will discuss: 1)the idea of cognitive literacy in more detail and further delineate a definition for cognitive literacy, and 2) a case study of a school community where Professor Feuerstein's theories and systems are applied to highlight the nature of cognitive literacy, its function, and impact. The case study depicts the saga (at a cognitive level), of an inner-city school in a large urban city where the community is currently experiencing significant and substantial regentrification and the uprooting of many of its residents. Finally the paper will discuss implications for further exploration of the idea of cognitive literacy as a critical element of education and community revitalization in general. The paper is related to the experience of indigenous women involved in a program that runs 600 community kitchens in the poorest zones of the state of Oaxaca. Small productive units (vegetable garden, poultry and fishery) have just been added to 75 of those kitchens. The study poses the hypothesis that eventhough most of these women are illiterate and a good number of them speaks very little Spanish, by means of systematizing their work experience and by reflecting on what they have learned in the kitchen and during the implementation process of the small productive unit, their cognitive structure might be stimulated. In consequence, when they become aware that the ability to learn is within themselves and not outside of them, it is expected that self learning might be enhanced among them. Three case studies will be developed from a sample at the Mazateca region. Mediational Strategies for Deaf Students:
Implementing Instrumental Enrichment to Address Cognitive
Deficits
Mary Jo Johnson Because of the nature of their handicapping condition, many deaf students fit into the most severely limited group in terms of need for mediation. They lack the tools needed for learning and they have inadequate access to Mediated Learning Experiences. Cognitive deficits that appear to impact most on deaf students can be categorized into four broad groups based on Reuven Feuerstein's work. These can be described as 1) those that relate strongly to lack of verbal mediation; 2) those that are connected to overdependence on visual cues; 3) those involving impaired temporal concepts; and 4) those that are behavioral or affective in nature. Once these categories and their general causes are identified, educators can analyze them and formulate a bank of appropriate remediational strategies. The Instrumental Enrichment program serves as a structured way to address these. The Role of Self - Regulation and
Epistemological Beliefs About Knowledge and Knowing in Academic Learning
Parvin Kadivar The nature of effective learning has widely been explored in the past, using a number of methodologies. However, few studies have particularly attempted to investigate the role of the learners beliefs and the use of regulatory strategies as mediators in academic learning. A total of 120 students were randomly selected from the secondary schools in Tehran to participate in the study and complete the questionnaires. Multi variable regression analysis, variance analysis, factor analysis and t test were employed using SPSS o.9. The results revealed that: There are significant relationship between epistemological beliefs and using self - regulatory strategies in learning; There are significant relationship between self - regulatory strategies and school achievement; There is significant relationship between epistemological beliefs and students achievement. Other results of the study will come later in detail. Beyond the Looking Glass: An Experiential
Analysis of a Multicultural Learning Adventure The authors share their experience in bringing together American,
Hispanic, and Asian doctoral students in an Organizational Leadership
Interdisciplinary Philosophy course. These students included sixteen
Taiwanese, one Chinese translator, one Korean, three Hispanic, and five
Caucasian students. The level of English literacy ranged from the need for
fairly constant translation to English as the native language. The course
involved not only developing their ability to understand, use, and respect
many philosophical perspectives, but also the development of an
understanding and appreciation for each culture represented. Using a base
of learning theory from Lev Vygotsky's scaffolding model, Jean Lave's
theory of situated learning, and Feuerstein's mediated learning
experience, the authors posited the hypothesis that student mentoring
groups, in-class collaborative writing groups, out-of-class study groups,
discussion circles, current event presentations, and out-of-class email
deliberation would enhance the learning experience for the diverse student
population. Creating Rigorous Mathematical - Scientific
Thinking and Conceptual Development in Inner-city Youths A series of projects has been initiated to equip inner-city youths with an ongoing, perpetuating propensity to do higher-order mathematical and scientific thinking and proactively engage in mathematics and science conceptual development. The paradigm is driven by Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) and Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (FIE), along with a unique blend of the operational concept of rigorous thinking (Kinard and Falik, 1999), the appropriation of culturally derived symbolic "tools" (Kozulin, 1998), and Ben-Hur's model for concept development (1999). This paper presents data from the first project which focuses on: correction of cognitive dysfunctions; development of basic metacognitive structures and concepts; and appropriation of symbolic "tools" to construct abstract representational thinking and higher-order mathematical-scientific conceptual tools. The paper discusses results from pre- and post-cognitive testing, mathematics and science proficiency testing, and case studies of how students solved complex mathematics and science problems. The theory of mediated learning experience (MLE) offers a new perspective on the phenomenon of cultural diversity of the student population. MLE theory makes a distinction between cultural difference that presupposes adequate MLE in the native culture and cultural deprivation associated with inadequate MLE in the native culture. Culturally different and culturally deprived students display different learning patterns when confronted with new educational environment. The proposed integrative model also includes the factor of acquisition of psychological tools associated with formal schooling. The usefulness of the integrative model is confirmed by a number of empirical studies on the educational and psychological integration of new immigrant students from Russia and Ethiopia. A new interpretation of multiculturalism is offered that includes the ability of majority culture to look at itself through the prism of minority cultures. Managing Complex Change: Building an Optimal
Learning Environment and a Positive Future for All Students
James Knoll Summary: PROPOSAL DESCRIPTION This presentation will exam the challenges confronting educators as schools strive to move from ineffective approaches that left some students behind to inclusive positive models. This "new" teacher for the "new" system must have more and better skills than his/her predecessors and be able to meet a wide variety of needs with a high degree of self-sufficiency. The complexity of this profound change in thought and practice requires substantially more than a couple of professional development workshops. We suggest that the reality of current best practice in all areas of education suggests the need for a new conceptual and practical framework: the Optimal Learning Environment (OLE) as opposed to the anachronistic concept of the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) that has been used a yard stick for appropriate special education. In the first part of this presentation we will examine the characteristics of an OLE and the skills needed by all teachers to teach all students with differences, be they socio-economic, intellectual, sensory, educational, behavioral, or physical. A second focus of this presentation is on creating the context for effective instruction looking at the working conditions that are needed to nurture "great teaching." Here we see the central the issue as the development of strong instructional leadership. Using Knoster's (1991) model of change we will examine how strong leaders provides the vision, training, resources, incentives, and concrete planning needed to develop a school faculty willing and able to establish a school-wide, proactive, and positive learning climate where all students and their families are made a part of a community of learners. Mediated Learning in Virtual Learning
Environments This proposal explores what mediation means, when developing virtual learning environments where physically present human mediator is not available but where a humanistic component is highly needed in the learning process. The mediated learning experience is studied when using an interactive tutoring method (IQ-FORM databank) to support students in their learning. IQ-FORM gives information about learner's qualities. Students using IQ-FORM in a Web-based pilot course are going to be interviewed in order to find out if the students have reached a better self-awareness in their learning process. The theory of mediated learning experience of Reuven Feuerstein provides a meta-level theoretical background for this research. This research is a part of a large national research venture in Finland for new tutoring and counseling methods in a Web-based learning for the Finnish virtual university consortia. As principal of She'arim Hebrew Day School in Toronto, a school for children with learning disabilities and ADHD, I introduced the philosophy and practical application of Reuven Feuerstein's approach early in the school's 20 year history. Throughout the years, the methodology was interwoven into every aspect of the curriculum and functioning of the school. New programs were introduced with the express purpose of integrating them into the prevailing philosophy of the school. This paper is an account of how such an endeavor was accomplished, and the areas in which such intervention took place, areas as diverse as the teaching of F.I.E., teacher training, arts-integration, movement therapy, academic remediation, setting student objectives, support team work, report-card development, the writing of unit plans, and parent training. The Roles of Concept Imagery and Phoneme
Awareness in Cognitive Modifiability
Patricia Lindamood Research is validating Feuerstein's theory of Cognitive Modifiability in two ways regarding language learning. When oral and/or written language are inadequate, two functions can be expected to need development: concept imager - the ability to create visual images for ideas expressed by language; and phoneme awareness - the ability to judge the identity, number, and order of sounds within words. These functions are genetic gifts to many individuals, but must be developed for others, irrespective of intelligence. With specific procedures to stimulate concept imagery and phoneme awareness, a processing base emerges enabling significant gains in spoken and/or written language for both children and adults. The key is intensive Socratic questioning which brings language and the processing of sensory information from oral-motor feedback and images into conscious integration until that processing and integration become automatic. Pre and post treatment fMRI measures reveal brain activity which had not occurred during pre treatment measures. "Write It Down!" Literacy-Based Cognitive
Compensatory Interventions for People with FAS/FAE
Margaret Raymond and Joe Belanger Over a one-year period, this study investigated the contributions made by three literacy-based supports (support circles, cognitive compensatory tools, and cognitive enhancement tools) to the lives of five young adults with FAS/FAE, ranging in age from 16 to 34 years. Each of these support systems was designed to help the young adults cope with daily living challenges such as everyday memory failure, disorganization, and social isolation. At the onset, each subject was assessed using both the Vineland and the SIB-R scales. Four of the five subjects had reported IQs above 70, which placed them above the level which entitled them to assistance from social service agencies, but the Vineland and SIB-R results both suggested that each subject would have major difficulties living without support. Subsequent work with the subjects using the literacy-based supports bore this out. Des outils pour le réforme à l’intérieur duquel ils présentent le rationnel et les outils qu’ils ont élaborés dans le cadre de l’Enseignement par mediation (E.P.M.) L’E.P.M. est une approche intégratrice que M.M. Bissonnette et Richard ont développé avec Giles Noiseux, professeur à l’Université Laval, sur laquelle s’est appuyé le ministére de l’Éducation du Québec pour construire le referential théorique à la base de ses nouveux programmes d’études axes sur l’approche par competences. Quelles sont les interventions à mettre en place pour developer des competences chez les élèves? S’inspirant des plus récentes etudes en sciences de la cognition et des travaux que nous avons realizes depuis cinq ans dans une vingtaine de commissions scolaires québécoises, cet atelier permettra aux participants d’identifier, à travers différentes mises en situation, les elements essentials permettant de répondre à ces questions de l’heure en education. Organizational Flexibility - A Personal
Account Within organizations, now more global than ever, cultural barriers as well political, social, economical and technological developments call for fast adaptability and organizational flexibility. It is clear that new paradigms have to replace conventional customs. The underlying assumption, based on observation and personal experience described herein, suggests that the rate and intensity with which an organization adapts to changing environmental conditions is mainly a function of personal flexibility of incumbent middle managers in the organization. This assumption has led to a proposition that managers are modifiable, to become more flexible in their thinking processes, through the application of Feuerstein's theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and Mediated Learning Experience and his applied systems Instrumental Enrichment and LPAD, the Learning Potential Assessment Device. They gain the cognitive tools and learning capabilities enabling them to face new situations never encountered before, thus coping with the ever-increasing pace of change. As far back as 1994 I developed what I call a new paradigm in education: Maximizing human potential through facilitating lifelong learning. This paradigm views learners with enormous potential to learn and to mediate learning towards maximizing this potential. However, if this potential is to be maximized the mediated learning experience has to contain some crucial generators that will deliver maximum power for the enhancement of learning skills. These power generators for learning is fundamental if learning potential is to be maximized and they are essential for all kinds of learning, all levels of learning and all kinds of learners. This paper will expose these three generators and how they enhance learning skills. Bahia Applies Reuven Feuerstein's
IE We
can see an increasing valorization of presuppositions of a cognitive
society that stimulates all its members to develop, continuously,
knowledge, abilities, competence and attitudes, taking on as a main
challenge to learn how to learn. Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment and the
Development of Wisdom and Character Education that focuses exclusively on knowledge and know-how is limited in its impact--likely to be of restricted value to the learner and to the larger social context to which it is applied. Vocational training in particular has been concerned with enhancing the student's ability to learn and to do. However, we believe that wisdom and character are just as critical at the vocational training level as are knowledge and skills. We will show, using Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment Program (FIE) that the strategies for teaching thinking skills contribute to important elements of problem solving that bring decision-making into the realm of character development, and thus enhance knowledge and know-how. This paper discusses the evidence for such improvement, the theoretical reasons we expect it to be so, and the conceptual and methodological structures to bring it about. Pro-Active e-Learning: Pushing the Limits of
Education Delivery Much of learning today is facilitated through the use of computers.
However, a great deal of e-Learning delivery is simply the presentation of
facts or concepts in an online form. This has greatly improved access to
learning resources but few e-Learning solutions meet the expectations of
learners themselves. In an era of decreased budgets and increased work
turnover, it is imperative that learning solutions be more effective and
efficient. To this end, this talk will focus on the development and
evaluation of the personal e-Learning space, using artificial intelligence
to bring a completely customized learning environment to the student;
anywhere, anytime. This method of optimized instruction predicts learning
behaviour and will decrease learning time and increase retention by
bringing Internet technologies much closer to the instructor-led
experience. A Model for Systemic Implementation of
Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment In
June 2000, the Southeastern center for the Enhancement of Learning was
awarded a Title VI Grant by the Georgia Department of Education for a
Pilot Program for Cognitive Enrichment using Reuven Feuerstein's
Instrumental Enrichment. Since an important goal of the Pilot Program was
to provide support for wider implementation, a "Model for Systemic
Implementation" was developed. The model is designed to foster
continuation beyond the Pilot Program. In addition to the standard teacher
training and follow-up classroom observations, the Model calls for three
additional components which are sometimes not included in a pilot: A
research design component, a public relations component, and a
continuation component which includes providing support for at least one
person to become a trainer. The focus of this presentation will be on the
importance of these last three components. |