Education in the Knowledge Society (Aug 2013)
Knowledge models as agents of meaninful learning and knowledge creation.
Abstract
The educational change that pushes the current context requires a shift in the unfortunately predominant positivist-behaviourist model that favours mechanical memoristic learning, ideal breeding ground for the existence and maintenance of conceptual errors, to another cognitive-constructivist that stimulates meaningful learning to allow students to build and master knowledge, therefore to be more creative and critical. We present here a model of knowledge where students construct new knowledge as a result of significant learning. Students play an active role, learning not only about the product, but also about the process itself (meta-cognition). We also show how to promote teacher activity primarily in order to create the conditions that facilitate the student to transform the information in useful, substantive knowledge, to be incorporated in his knowledge structure and in his long-term memory. Finally, we provide elements to measure what the student knows and to assess how their cognitive structure has changed regarding their ancient knowledge; that is, to assess the necessary conceptual change.