Deep learning opportunities in the geography classroom

From a cognitivist theory stance, domain-specific subject knowledge is necessary for deep learning and cognitive advance. What opportunities for deep learning and cognitive advance are provided in geography classrooms? This analysis of teaching in geography classrooms is framed by the concepts of deep learning, pedagogic discourse, and a curriculum of engagement. This article draws on Grade 10 and 11 lessons observed, recorded, transcribed, analysed and qualitatively interpreted. Analysis of pedagogic discourse shows diminished opportunities for deep learning and cognitive advance. Geography is being taught in less elaborated ways and more for compliance, thereby hindering deep learning of the epistemic structure of geography. Furthermore, surface features of the curriculum including knowledge as “given” have displaced attention to underlying principles and conceptual meanings. These practices deny learners access to deep learning of powerful knowledge. Implications for social equality and teacher education are raised.

Deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms

Initial tests of the curriculum design coherence model (McPhail, 2020) indicate that teachers face challenges in relation to engaging deeply with the epistemic structure of their subject. In this study, we discuss the additional difficulty that teachers have in identifying appropriate content and examples that will provide opportunities for students' concept formation. The key question guiding this study was: "What opportunities for deep conceptual learning and cognitive advance are provided in business studies classrooms?" This analysis of the pedagogic practices of teachers is framed by the curriculum design coherence model (CDC) that is informed by deep learning from the cognitivist theory perspective. This article gives an account of observations of grade 11 business studies lessons in two schools. The lessons were observed, recorded, transcribed, and deductively analysed according to an analytical framework based on the CDC model. While there was evidence of concepts that were taught, appropriate subject content necessary for understanding the concept was not evident in most of the lessons. The dominant pedagogy of direct instruction, reading definitions, and copying notes amounted to giving students the definition of concepts and their basic components in a skeletal way. Content that requires students to analyse and infer meanings and make generalisations was lacking. The absence of appropriate content and examples, such as case studies in the textbook, curtailed opportunities for deep conceptual learning and cognitive advance. These practices deny learners access to the formal academic knowledge of the discipline.

Hipermídia, interface e o novo leitor no contexto digital

<p><strong>Resumo</strong>: É inerente ao homem a capacidade de identificar problemas e propor mudanças em busca de soluções, possibilitando avanço cognitivo determinante para a criação de novas técnicas e tecnologias que possam subsidiar demandas específicas na busca do conhecimento. Tendo em vista os impactos sócio-culturais decorrentes do uso e da aplicação da tecnologia informática digital no cotidiano humano, este artigo propõe uma breve reflexão acerca do espaço virtual e das novas formas de leitura e associação de sentidos por meio da interface e da hipermídia.</p><p><strong>Abstract</strong>: It is inherent to man the ability to identify problems and propose changes in a search of solutions, enabling determinant cognitive advance to the creation of new techniques and technologies that can support specific demands in the pursuit of knowledge. Considering the socio-cultural advantages of the use and application of digital computer technology in everyday life, this paper proposes a brief reflection on the virtual space and new forms of reading and association of meanings through the interface and the hypermedia.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: reading; hypermedia; interface design.</p>

Two Ways of Articulating Outsider's Knowledge of Polynesian Culture and Religion: Melville's Typee and Mardi

Two of Melville's early works are contrasting attempts to report on what he saw and experienced during his stay in some islands of the South Pacific. Typee is presented as a sober, philosophical account of mores and religion, thus in keeping with the more ethnographic interests of travelers's reports. Mardi is an avowed work of fiction. While cannibalism serves to focus interest in the first, human sacrifice has this function in the second. Melville could find previous authors to support his approach in the first book but, even though he studied available works on mythologies, found no scholarship to help with the second issue. It is argued that the second work, albeit a fiction, makes the greater cognitive advance and helps discern the perils scholars had to face in the colonialist era.