Contemporary learning theorists: their approaches and limitations with regard to Religious Education
The relationship between faith and reason
Reason depends upon sense perception and experience which advances by the light of the intellect alone...
Faith is enlightened and guided by the spirit, to recognise God's message of salvation
Both faith and reason are needed for human beings- neither can stand alone
Faith is an adherence to God and a free acceptance of what God has revealed. Because we entrust ourselves fully to God, it is different from the faith we place in a human person
Faith is a free gift from God, which makes it easy to accept and believe the truth
Faith is a human act not contrary to human dignity. We trust the word of others. We can also trust God, with whom he shares an interior communion
Criteria for evaluating learning theories:
- What are they trying to do?
- Are they capable of accounting for the spiritual dimensions of religious eduction?
- What aspects of them may be useful in a religious education classroom?
- Are there aspects that undermine religious faith by subjecting it to false criteria?
Piaget
The idea of developmental stages
Criticism:
Underestimated the complexity of children's cognitive achievements at a particular age
Formal operation abilities: Only a small percentage of the general population appears to have these abilities as Piaget defined them
Piaget missed the crucial role of context in people's judgements
Piaget's training studies, once thought to demonstrate that children could not be taught certain kinds of things before certain ages have been refuted
Links to Religious Education:
Taught that children are incapable of abstraction- they are if a concrete referent is provided
Linked "spiritual" with "abstract" and claimed that children under ten were incapable of abstraction
Piaget's theories of moral development which stated that knowing is doing, is contrary to the understanding of the catholic church and most lived experience
Ausubel
Advance organiser
Valuable for cognitive aspect of religious education
Not capable of dealing with the spiritual dimension
Taught that children are incapable of abstraction- they are if a concrete referent is provided
Links to Religious Education:
Helpful if material is of a cognitive nature
If deeper reflection on content is required, this kind of learning will be inadequate
Gagne
Method can be adapted for use in RE
Evaluative method used to understand the religious content more deeply
Information Processing Theorists
Valuable concepts like "short term memory" and "chunking new information" can be useful in the cognitive aspects of RE
Not capable of dealing with the spiritual dimensions
Linking information together
Links to Religious Education:
Useful concepts to be used in good teaching- especially the terminology above e.g. cognitive load
Does not take into account the spiritual capacity of the human soul and can reduce students to data processing autamatons
Multiple Intelligence Theories
A good balance of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic is as valuable in religious education as it is in other areas of the curriculum
Links to Religious Education:
Can be helpful: should ensure a variety of styles is used for everyone
Contrasts St Thomas: Intelligence in St Thomas describes understanding that comes from using all data available- mental and physical.
Gardener: "intelligence" describes processes involved in data gathering
Neuroscience Research:
Brain development happens in stages in response to an engagement with the environment
Links to Religious Education:
Neuro-science research supports the notion of "sensitive periods" for various activities
The descriptions tie in very well with the underlying Montessori principles and the Cavalletti approaches already referred to
Montessori practices have been demonstrated to work very well in Hattie's effect sizes
Even effect sizes cannot account for spiritual growth, much of which is not measurable in empirical terms
Limitations:
Not able to contribute to the development of the personal relationship with Christ