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eBook details

• Title: Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, And the Authority of Knowledge by Kenneth Bruffee: A Critical Study (A Defense of Traditional Learning)
• Author : Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council
• Release Date : January 22, 2002
• Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 242 KB

Description

In his very readable book on collaborative learning, Bruffee tells us, "[f]or a decade or more, reports on the state of American higher education have complained that many undergraduates tend to be authority-dependent, passive, irresponsible, overly competitive, and suspicious of their peers" (8). Bruffee's hope is to help overcome these ills by arguing that "knowledge is a socially constructed, sociolinguistic entity and that learning is inherently an interdependent, sociolinguistic process" (8). While I tend to agree with this characterization of the state of higher education, I shall argue that Bruffee's postmodern turn, according to which knowledge is a social construct, is a theoretical dead end. Despite some contrary advertisement, Bruffee is not merely calling for a change in the process of education by providing, for instance, more interdependent student-centered activities. In asking that we re-conceptualize our understanding of knowledge, Bruffee's focus is not merely on method, for his concept of process is heavily theory-laden. In what follows, therefore, I examine not his many excellent techniques for encouraging interdependent student activities, but his postmodern assumptions. Unearthing these assumptions and their logical implications brings out the flaws in Bruffee's view that his "pedagogy of cultural change" is an educational, social, or cultural improvement. My method in what follows is to embed Bruffee's theoretical project in a larger context and distinguish, as he does not, between humanistic and materialistic needs. This will aid us in recognizing that educational woes are not due to a foundational understanding of knowledge, but to a faulty foundational understanding.

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