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Introduction: It was agreed that Trinity’s educational philosophy must be grounded in the humanist tradition of learning, be inclusive and embrace the European dimension that emphasizes social cohesion and social inclusion. This educational philosophy is based on a common set of fundamental values. These values encompass a shared understanding of the nature of the individual and society. Within the university, the individual is accepted as being intrinsically well-motivated and willing to embrace the group-interest, as opposed to being driven by the more selfish-interest of competitive individualism. In the university setting, this involves a commitment to disinterested inquiry, as opposed to the interested inquiry of the market model ‘corporate university.’ Every student tends to be provided with the same learning experiences focused around an white Anglo-Saxon curriculum. This cookie-cutter approach to learning works for a few students, but many do not learn, or learn only partially. Our classes are already too large to provide individualized learning. Domination of Lecture and Textbook The major learning modes in schools and universities are the lecture and textbook. Lectures date at least since classical Greece, 2,500 years ago; textbooks come from a more recent technological development, the printing press Students need to be able to learn how to become effective problem solvers. They should be able to identify problems, evaluate those problems and then decipher a way to transfer their learning to those problems in a way that will bring about a solution. If a student is able to perform in a problem solving situation a meaningful learning should then occur because he has constructed an interpretation of how things work using preexisting structured. This is the theory behind Constructivism. By creating a personal interpretation of external ideas and experiances, constructivism allows students the ability to understand how ideas can relate to each other and preexisting knowledge. A teacher must then recognize the importance of the cognative and social approaches for learning and teaching so that she may aid the students' development in constructivist learning. Both approaches are valuable because one will emphasize the role of cognative processes and the other will emphasize culture and social interaction in the role of meaningful learning. One, however, may wonder how to go about enforcing these approaches. One method is through scaffolding, providing a student with sufficient information to be able to complete a task on his own or, to present a gradual decrease in the amount of help availible allowing the student the capacity to work independantly. Situated learning will present the student with a set of learning tasks placed in realistic contexts. This will include the abilities to use knowledge in a functioning learning approach and acquiring inert knowledge based on the learning of isolated facts in limited conditions. Lastly, students should, through the use of multiple perspectives, be able to view problems and ideas. These ideas presented will then be able to shed light on the nature of problem solving. There are three most common types of problems, the first being well-structured problems. Well-structured problems are ones clearly stated with known solution procedures and evaluation standards; an example being a mathamatical process. Another type of problem are those that are ill-structured; they are stated vaguely, have unclear solution procedures, and vague standards of evalalution. The third type, issue problems, are ill-structured problems that will arrouse srtong feelings in the students. The first step in helping students become adaquate problems solvers is assuring they realize that a problem does exist. Once a problem is identifiedm students should be expected to understand the nature of the problem. The next logical step would then be for those students to compile all relevant information to their problem allowing them to formulate and carry out a solution. Lastly, the students would then be required to evaluate their solutions working out the imperfections, clarifying the results. Problem solving is a very necessary abilty for a student which will, in a way, garuntee his future abilty to transfer knowledge. The student needs a firm base understanding of the problem solving concepts to induce a positive transfer of his later ideas. He should be able to recognize the need for different problem solving techniques and how to relate and separate theories in his knowledge. The teacher should be able to present the starting grounds to enable her students a method of producing the solutions to their problems. Bibliography Snowman, J., & Biehler, R. (2000). Psychology Applied to Teaching (9th edition) Boston, MA: Houghton Miflin Company. Word Count: 531 Philosophy of Education The term philosophy can be defined in many ways. I like to define philosophy to mean “truth.” When evaluating my philosophy of education, my views are clear and concise. Education should be provided to everyone, free of charge, and free of discriminations. Education today is provided to everyone publicly at no expense. Although free, it does not come without distractions. For instance, public schooling has turned into more of a daycare type setting for teachers and students. With emphasis based on violence, and rightfully so, I feel the learning environment has deteriorated to an extreme extent.
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