This is taking shape at West Early College, especially with our designation as an early college and pathways school. One of our focuses as a school is to learn-by-doing which includes hands-on learning in our medical-sciences pathways classes and our denver-based internships for students. Our goal by 2025 is for all students to participate in an on-the-job internship where real-world learning comes to fruition. Not only can students "learn by doing", they benefit from seeing themselves in job settings that they otherwise wouldn't have exposure to as low-income, first generation college students.

This begs the question: Is learning math important for applying math? Or for the age-old question: Is math good for one's overall capacity to "reason" and "learn"? I often found myself as a kid wondering why I needed to know math, and many adults justified math for me as a necessity to improve my "reasoning" ability. Anyone else hear this during their childhood?

YES YES YES! This is such a great description of how math becomes real in "chore and job settings." This is a very difficult transition and conversation to have with my math PLCs. Math is so content and procedure-driven; taking the time to let kids practice and apply the procedural knowledge in real-world problems/settings is critical for the memory/application piece. What ways have people found success in working with math folks in shifting their thinking toward real-world tasks for students?

How awesome is this news?! I do appreciate the transition researchers have made toward an integrative, comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to education. I do believe this --the idea that education is an area of application of psychological knowledge -- has led to the shift in math toward processing and modeling as opposed to math as simply procedural knowledge. This is a big, positive shift. This article talks specifically about math and science -- has anyone in the group seen a shift towards integrating psychology/cognition/development in other subject areas? I work mostly with Social Studies and SPED folks. I'm sad to report that I don't feel as though the social sciences have made as great of strides in this area.

Piaget disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait. He regarded cognitive development as a process that occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment. So development has to do with maturation and learning has to do with interaction with the environment. Is this accurate?

Rachel Gilbert - I think this is the central question you're talking about: Should we, as educators, attempt to accelerate learning through practice, training, exercise, etc., when it may not directly correlate to development (?).

So, is Piaget saying "S-->R(S)"? That the brain already has a predetermined response?

I guess this answers my question...The stages vary greatly from one society to another... I'm curious why.

I'm not very familiar with learning theory, but Piaget mentions 0-18 months for the first stage, and then does not list specific timelines for development in the subsequent stages. Is there a window for these? I'm curious when the stages tend to transition...

Very curious how this is described in the article, as this is heart of learning, teaching, and the education system as a whole.

I try and move away from deficit-model thinking at all times. We COULD view his presidency as "shattering the illusion of incremental progress" OR we could view it as a "smog" that inextricably fogs some of the progress we've made. I still believe we've made progress as a country and will continue to work towards social justice and equity despite this smog.

This is so deflating in the wake of the enormous work/strides women have made in the last decade.

Was it "anti-immigrant" or "anti illegal immigrant"? I think this is an important distinction that the authors omit.

This is such an interesting statement to make within the confines of an article that is clearly liberal in nature and has a leftist-angle. Would the authors be open to re-examine their own liberal assumptions? (I LOVE to play devil's advocate and examine the assumptions of authors' own perspectives and the role of the media! :). Both sides of the aisle --liberal and conservative-- are happy to agree with each other's assumptions as long as they don't conflict with their own. Follow me?

What does this mean? Help.

This makes me think about the evolving challenge we have as educators to prepare students for jobs that have yet to be created... Is symbolic processing theory a worthwhile effort given the nature of the rapid evolution of jobs that are students/teachers won't have knowledge of (or be able to anticipate...?) while generating learning activities?

I recently visited Deloitte Digital in downtown Denver on a visit with our TechPathways DPS team. Our goal was to support teachers in thinking about their learning environments and how they can best replicate real-world environments for students. As we walked through Deloitte, it was clear that the software development world is SO FAR beyond the scope and learning environment of the K-12 world. It was deflating in the sense that what we're doing in the classroom isn't really relevant to technology jobs today. While there are small changes we can make as educators in the classroom to mimic the learning environments of tech companies, the reality is, all of our students will lack the realism attached to the technology-job/career fields today. This is very clear to me in the connection between the theory of symbolic processing theory and today's classrooms. If we want kids to TRULY be prepared for jobs today and in the future (especially ones that haven't been created), we have GOT to move away from symbolic processing theory and into theories that more closely align with skill-sets and problem-solving needed in today's most advanced career fields.

What does S--> R mean? I assume "stimuli" --? response?

In what capacity can we think about "students" as part of a situativity perspective? In what ways do teachers facilitate the individual mind within the social context of school?

This makes me wonder about the all-encompassing question of "What is learning?" and "How do people learn?"... And, if cognitive scientists can create these theories, in what way do they impact instruction? Especially within the confines of K-12 public school settings? ...In adult, corporate learning environments?