Authentic Learning Experiences

Had an interesting juxtaposition of two emails today.

The first was from Stephen Downes of OLDaily. Stephen was considering the research and arguments around authentic learning or constructivist learning. Essentially the research seems to support direct or guided learning more strongly than it does minimally guided or constructivist learning as sometimes implemented. Here's the link to that blog post: http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/11/kirschner-sweller-clark-2006-summary.html.

The flip side was a link to a YouTube video produced by a Cultural Anthropology course, which is perhaps an example of a minimally-guided, group project more or less panning the current educational system. This one was actually posted on this blog a couple of weeks ago, but I am slow and didn't watch it until now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o



Lisa