Imitation - The First Teaching Technology

We usually take it for granted that technologies evolves forever forward, seldom looking back to practices and procedures believed to be the newest technology in their day. Currently the planet of education is exploding with new technology to meet our altering understanding of how ideal we discover.

But when we study that our students and trainees find out improved by watching someone execute a process than they do by simply reading how you can carry out the job, we are getting advised to reconsider what may have been the really initially teaching technologies inside the history of studying - imitation.

Most scientists would agree that after the brains of our ancestors grew huge adequate to begin to discover to make use of tools to initiate the gradual course of action that would lean to mankind's dominance, a new challenge emerged. How do you transmit what you've discovered to other individuals within your group?

Nobody knows for specific, but it is easy to think about that imitation was the incredibly initial teaching technology. Whoever found how to use a bone as a club merely showed other group members tips on how to use the bone as a tool? Early teachers had been in effect early "subject matter specialists."

Writing had yet to become invented so demonstration followed by imitative practice was in all probability the preferred, and probably the only, teaching technology in the time. We can additional speculate that practice sessions continued till the expert "passed" the novice hunter as ready for the hunt. Following the hunt, did the expert supply feedback on how well the new hunter created use with the tool? Thinking about the truth that survival on the group as a complete was dependent on profitable hunts, it truly is pretty probably that feedback was part of the studying method at the time.

As tools progressed, so did the capabilities required to use them. It takes additional skill to deal with a thrusting spear than it does to swing a club. Do you suppose these early teachers broke down the overall performance with the whole ability into its component parts?

Do you suppose they initial taught their charges the best way to hold the spear correctly, followed by the way to thrust with maximum force? Do you suppose they showed them how finest to set their legs and where on the animal was the very best spot to strike?

It is probable that all these issues occurred once again and once again. For those who permit yourself to reflect on that for any moment, you could possibly agree that in some areas not that much has changed about the core of how we understand. Note that much if not all early finding out was in response to troubles. Right now we're told to structure teaching content material as greatest we are able to into problem-solving approaches.

For early humans, relevant encounter was the only measure from the worth of understanding. Note early man did not find out to draw cave paintings prior to he discovered to hunt. Survival was probably the most relevant encounter of all. These days we are told older students and industrial trainees discover mastering difficult if they fail to view relevance between what they're understanding and their own life experience.

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