208) difficult topics have been structured in easily understood ways
Making sense of complex areas involves, among others, identifying components and the relationship between components. Novices (students) may need the help of experts (teachers) to untangle the web of information or to correlate bits of information.
- Lowe (1997) found that “it's easier for a student to start with a simple, concrete example and then generalize from that.” He also believes that “reducing an explanation to its most important concepts makes the explanation more effective.” He discusses other issues related to providing effective explanations.
- Cranton (2001) proposes transformative-learning as means to promote deeper level understanding. Suggestions to enable this form of learning are given in Chapter 9, “Supporting transformative Learning” (pp. 190-212).
- Graphically representing concepts and their relationships can help in understanding the complex relationships, processes, ideas etc. (Plotnick, 1977).
Cranton, P. (2001). Becoming an authentic teacher in higher education. Malabar, FL:: Krieger.
Lowe, J. P. (1997). Effective explanations [World Wide Web]. Penn State Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Retrieved 9 December, 2002, from the World Wide Web: http://www.psu.edu/celt/PST/LowePST.html
Plotnick, E. (1977). Concept mapping: A graphical system for understanding the relationship between concepts. ERIC Clearinghouse. Retrieved, 2002, from the World Wide Web: http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed407938.html