Challenge 2: Discovery Learning
Theory: You Learn Better If You Discover Things for Yourself Rather than Having Them Explained to You by Others
Compiled by Lori Gracey | Excutive Director | TCEA.org
Summary of the Belief: Discovery, active, or self-discovery learning was created by Jerome Bruner in the 1960s and states that education must be organized in such a way that the learner interacts with the material to be learned in an active and self-investigatory manner. This corresponds closely with the arguments of Piaget who stated “Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.”
Points About the Belief:
- Metastudies on this subject show that discovery learning can have a clear, positive learning effect. The problem is that it is difficult to pin down exactly where its added value comes from.
- Some research has shown that knowledge acquisition is not always optimal with discovery learning and that the focus tends to be more on processes.
- The use of discovery as an instructional method for novice learners ignores the limitations of human working memory. It requires the learner to search for relationships between what is known already and what must be learned. If learners have little or no knowledge about the domain to begin with and also lack a systematic approach to exploration and experimentation, this discovery process becomes almost impossible.
Resources:
Your Analysis:
Is the theory:
- Myth
- Unproven
- Based on truth
What This Should Mean to Teachers:
