| Popis: |
As each winter casts its pall over northeastern Pennsyl vania and the Bloomsburg State College campus, my thoughts return to one Appalachian summer. For it was then that I was privileged to lead a group of Bloomsburg State College students through the southern highlands of Kentucky in an investigation of Appalachian culture and education. This experimental off-campus program resulted in a memorable and unique educational experience for me and the eleven students registered in my course, Education in Rural Society. A classroom lecture about cultural differences pales in contrast to this process of total immersion in a culture other than one's own. We do not react to other humans, or learn from them, in a merely cognitive way. Approaches to human studies which rely exclusively on cognitive strat egies often are, therefore, of limited meaning to students who spend most of their waking hours in non-cognitive pursuits. A teaching strategy which blends the cognitive with the affective is more likely to have lasting impact. Since most teaching at the college level relies heavily on a cognitive approach, it is no wonder, no matter how in trinsically significant the material studied, that students have difficulty in discerning the relevance of that which is presented. Material which does not "get students where they live" is perceived as having little meaning and is easily forgotten. Witness the many comments from people who underwent teacher education and say that student-teaching was the only meaningful experience they had in college. Obviously much meaningful material was presented to them during their college careers. It just didn't reach them at the af fective level. In an effort to affect conceptual growth in students, to hone inquiry strategies, and to increase sensitivity to and understanding of their fellows in all their diversity, we have undertaken the development of field-based courses. Initial evaluations indicate that Bloomsburg State Col lege's first Appalachian Term has succeeded in reaching these goals. Our intention was to guide students through a meaningful inquiry process by placing them in a new |
