CFI Blog Post #1

Epistomology is the branch of philosophy that tries to define knowledge by explaining what it is to know something.  It also seeks to explain how students come to know something.  A positivist is someone who thinks of knowledge as a physical thing that needs to be passed on to a student.  The reading gave the example that the teacher is like a bank who deposits knowledge into the students and then gives exams as a kind of statement on how much knowledge was passed on.  A constructivist is someone who attempts to deepen a student's understanding by letting the students develop the knowledge themselves.  In this thinking a teacher doesn't posses knowledge, they are just the person who opens the students mind to knowledge.  My experience through school has mostly been shaped by positivist teachers.  They considered themselves the experts in the room and we were lucky to be exposed to their wealth of knowledge.  However, Westminster has exposed me to constructivist learning and I think that I prefer this method.  It does put a lot of the responsibility on the student, but it also allows the student to learn a lot more.

I believe that I learn best with the kinesthetic modality.  In the classroom I can understand a concept as it is explained visually or aloud, but I don't truly understand it until I try the concept out myself.  The most important point that I took out of the article was that the modality of the subject, not the student is the most important.  There will definitely be some parts of instructing where it is best taught in a classroom, and others where it is best taught in the airplane.  The second concept I took from this article is that I should not be too worried about the modality that the student learns best with.  It will probably make flying more interesting for the student if I teach it in a way that they enjoy, but as long as I get the meaning across it won't be that important.