Lack Of Significance Of School Knowledge And Recovery

With the latest development in the research on learning as its background, the dissertation aims at analyzing the fundamental problem of absence of meaning of knowledge in learning in school setting, exploring the affordances of the learning theories in approaching and solving the problem and explicating the implications of these affordances in innovating curriculum and instruction. The focus of the dissertation lies at exploring the problems of how the meaning of knowledge get lost in traditional teaching and learning which is characterized by teacher telling and students listening and drilling, and how we can recover the meaning of knowledge in learning to overcome the estrangedness of learning and innovating learning in school setting.The dissertation includes five chapters:In the first chapter, the dissertation analyzes the construction of knowledge of mankind and summarizes its characteristics as object-oriented, socially situated, socially negotiated and socially selected. Based on these analyses and the viewpoints from research in philosophy and linguistics on meaning of knowledge and language, the dissertation puts forward here that the meaning of knowledge lies in several relations including the relation between knowledge and world, knowledge and its presenter and listener, knowledge and the situation in which it is used and relation between components of knowledge system. In learning in natural setting, the meaning of knowledge can also be seen.The dissertation then analyzes the absence of meaning of knowledge in learning in school setting. The organization of schooling system, the development of knowledge and perspectives on learners and instructional models combine to lead to the prevalence of the absence of meaning of knowledge and the estrangedness of learning. Two kinds of efforts in recovering meaning of knowledge are analyzed and compared then. The chapter then puts forward the suggestion that the meaning of knowledge should be recovered on the base of the link and dialogue between what Karl Popper called the three worlds.Recovering the meaning of knowledge in its relation with the real world is discussed in the third chapter. It is argued here that the emphasis on the link betweenknowledge and the real world is determined by educational aim and can be found in reform in curriculum and instruction. The dissertation claims here that there can be double ways of building the link, with the first one on the level of what knowledge refers to in real world and the second one on the level of the real way in which knowledge builders and users build the link. Modern information technology provides us with unprecedented support.It is discussed in chapter four how meaning of knowledge can be recovered by taking into account the social and cultural nature of learners and their prior knowledge and experiences. The research on relation between culture and curriculum is turned into discussion of relation between culture and learning and the knowledge-dependent nature of learning is extended to subject's situation dependent. Subject's situation is in turn shaped by the social and cultural nature of learners. It is thus advocated that instruction should be regarded as re-development of curriculum and textbook and teachers should be sensitive to the nature of culture in which learners live.In the last chapter, the dissertation takes the approach of activity theory and unfolds the pedagogical implications of the idea that learning is activity. It is suggested here that knowledge should be turned into task in which knowledge is embedded, that teachers should have both individual learner and learning community in mind and that process of learning and teaching should be dynamical and could not be prescribed. The chapter mainly discusses the social nature of learning as activity and the way to realize the nature. In the end, the dissertation concludes that learning is a process of social practical activity characterized by activity as conformation, practice as orientation and social nature.What might be c...