Melissa Feedback

Melissa Feedback. Melissa, this is really strong, substantial writing. I hope you will consider publishing this, and steering your final drafting toward that goal even if it means steering away from some of the course requirements. We would love to support you in this. You make a lot of interesting points, really productively going beyond summarizing/recapitulating other voices. A few responses to specific points for now: You are thinking about whether to discuss stages—Piaget’s stage theory has been more contested than his fundamental ideas of constructivism through assimilation and accommodation; a lot appears to depend on context and I’d generally be cautious about relying too heavily on “oh, this kid will gain this ability at this age.” 

You situate Freirian pedagogy really productively in terms of Singapore’s “desperate imagination.” I think there’s a lot of potential here. Vygotsky could be helpful in connecting the constructionist/constructivist accounts of learning with Freire’s social vision. One text that’s been really rich for me in this interplay is Holland et al’s “Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds.” I can share a PDF if you’re interested. 

Reflective abstraction as a driving force for learning is central, but so is (external) mediation. These ideas will be developed much more as we turn our attention to design; it might be valuable to hold off for now. 

Finally, your essay starts off with one main question: what is the relationship between content mastery and innovation? (What pedagogies follow?) If this is your central question, it would be helpful to make sure you come back to it. You might look at Dan Schwartz’s work on this, specifically around “A time for telling.” 

-Chris