TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/061289/06128900.049

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 4KB | 72 lines

EDUCATION, Page 71

An Old Idea Makes a Comeback

Apprenticeship helps teach the skill of problem solving


    The word evokes quaint images of cabinetmakers or alchemists
teaching eager youths the secrets of their trade. Yet
apprenticeship -- the acquisition of knowledge through practice in
the presence of a master -- is a time-tested teaching method whose
applications go far beyond the shop floor. The principle is at work
every time someone takes a total-immersion language lesson, follows
a doctor on his rounds to learn how to practice medicine, or tags
along with a crack dealer to learn the ropes of the drug trade. In
fact, a body of scientists and educators maintains that it is the
primary means by which people learn. "If you look at any successful
learning situation, chances are you will find elements of
apprenticeship," says John Seely Brown of the Institute for
Research on Learning in Palo Alto, Calif.

    Faced with mounting evidence of the failure of efforts to pour
information into students' minds, a number of educators and
researchers would like to see more apprenticeship in the classroom.
Says Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of
Teachers: "Schools are not organized according to the way most
people learn. We might be more successful if we structured learning
in schools more like the way things are done in the real world --
with apprenticeship-type programs connecting abstract symbols to
the solution of real problems."

    Apprenticeship has produced promising results in various
experimental programs. Techniques devised by Ann Brown and
Annemarie Palincsar, while doing education research at the
University of Illinois, raised reading-comprehension scores in a
Springfield seventh-grade class from 20% to 80% in 20 days. The
method was to make the children approach a text the way a teacher
does: by formulating questions, summarizing, predicting what will
come next and isolating problems.

    In mathematics, apprenticeship methods focus less on formulas
than on analyzing the way a mathematician chooses a path to a
solution. The technique is valid for higher math as well as basic
arithmetic. In East Lansing, Mich., Magdalene Lampert's
fifth-graders connect numbers to real-world situations. Instead of
dutifully working out common denominators to compare fractions, for
example, one of her students reasoned that "five-sixths is smaller
than seven-eighths because the piece that is missing in
seven-eighths is smaller than in five-sixths." Says Lampert: "This
reveals more complicated thinking and a better understanding of
symbols than the blind use of rules."

    A century ago, educators differentiated cognitive skills from
the "lower" vocational skills taught by apprenticeship. This
produced a school system in which math, science and reading are
taught through abstractions that, in the words of one expert, are
"void of the complexities of the real world and thus irrelevant and
even boring." The results can sometimes be ludicrous. Alan
Schoenfeld, an expert on math education at Berkeley, notes that
students characteristically answer "seven buses remainder ten" when
asked how many 35-passenger buses are needed to transport 255
students. In practical terms, of course, the answer is eight, since
the remaining ten students will need another bus.

    Although apprenticeship can be a highly effective tool, it
requires greater personal involvement and a deeper understanding
of the subject matter than most conventional teaching methods. To
help make up for the shortage of professionals skilled in this
technique, educators look to a new generation of computer-based
teaching tools that work with students much the way a teacher does,
walking them through incorrect answers to show where they went
astray. The key to these new tools is the concept of
apprenticeship. Says Lauren Resnick, past president of the
14,500-member American Educational Research Association:
"Apprenticeship has the promise of building abstract abilities in
our children that are well grounded in actual experience."