Alvin M. White

Bio: Alvin M. White is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Informal education & Informal learning. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 2579 citations.

The Process of Education

Abstract: Geoffrey Vickers advocated and illustrated the efficacy of informal education. Children and older students can and do learn within the contexts of tasks and questions that are meaningful to them. This article is about surprisingly successful learning in informal settings. Informal learning has often been encouraged because of the failure of more traditional approaches. Mathematics has been assumed to be certain and the model of describing truth. The certainty of mathematics and the formal mode of discussing mathematics are being reconsidered. Connections between mathematics and humanistic disciplines are the bases of a worldwide movement of mathematically minded scholars.

The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.

Abstract: Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.

Effects of Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching on Student Achievement:

Abstract: This study explored whether and how teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching contributes to gains in students’ mathematics achievement. The authors used a linear mixed-model methodology in which first and third graders’ mathematical achievement gains over a year were nested within teachers, who in turn were nested within schools. They found that teachers’ mathematical knowledge was significantly related to student achievement gains in both first and third grades after controlling for key student- and teacher-level covariates. This result, while consonant with findings from the educational production function literature, was obtained via a measure focusing on the specialized mathematical knowledge and skills used in teaching mathematics. This finding provides support for policy initiatives designed to improve students’ mathematics achievement by improving teachers’ mathematical knowledge.

Cognitive Flexibility, Constructivism, and Hypertext: Random Access Instruction for Advanced Knowledge Acquisition in Ill-Structured Domains

Abstract: A central argument of this chapter is that there is a common basis for the failure of many instructional systems. The claim is that these deficiencies in the outcomes of learning are strongly influenced by underlying biases and assumptions in the design of instruction that represent the instructional domain and its associated performance demands in an unrealistically simplified and well-structured manner. We offer a constructivist theory of learning and instruction that emphasizes the real-world complexity and ill-structuredness of many knowledge domains. Any effective approach to instruction must simultaneously consider several highly intertwined topics, such as:• the constructive nature of understanding; • the complex and ill-structured features of many, if not most, knowl-edge domains;• patterns of learning failure; and • a theory of learning that addresses known patterns of learning failure.

Reform by the Book: What Is—or Might Be—the Role of Curriculum Materials in Teacher Learning and Instructional Reform?

Abstract: Commercially published curriculum materials dominate teaching practice in the United States (Goodlad, 1984).' Unlike frameworks, objectives, assessments, and other mechanisms that seek to guide curriculum, instructional materials are concrete and daily. They are the stuff of lessons and units, of what teachers and students do. That centrality affords curricular materials a uniquely intimate connection to teaching. Not only are curriculum materials well-positioned to influence individual teachers' work but, unlike many other innovations, textbooks are already \"scaled up\" and part of the routine of schools. They have \"reach\" in the system. At the local level, text adoptions are the primary routine in most districts for updating the curriculum every five to seven years (Carus, 1990). In our fragmented school system, textbooks are also one way that educators strive for a common curriculum across diverse settings. Despite their central role in the instructional system, however, curriculum materials have played an uneven role in practice.

Designing Educative Curriculum Materials to Promote Teacher Learning

Abstract: Curriculum materials for Grades K‐12 that are intended to promote teacher learning in addition to student learning have come to be called educative curriculum materials. How can K‐12 curriculum materials be designed to best promote teacher learning? What might teacher learning with educative curriculum materials look like? The authors present a set of design heuristics for educative curriculum materials to further the principled design of these materials. They build from ideas about teacher learning and organize the heuristics around important parts of a teacher’s knowledge base: subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge for topics, and pedagogical content knowledge for disciplinary practices. These heuristics provide a context for a theoretically oriented discussion of how features of educative curriculum materials may promote teacher learning, by serving as cognitive tools that are situated in teachers’ practice. The authors explore challenges in the design of educative curriculum materials, such as the tension between providing guidance and choice.