Ross, Stephen David. Learning and Discovery. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1981.
Learning and Discovery is a philosophy-oriented book, where Ross examines various philosophers (from Plato to Heidegger to Chomsky) to gain insight into teaching and learning. In his book, Ross tackles some more theoretical issues in teaching and learning that he takes to be significant and interrelated. He thinks there is a “paradox of learning” where he finds that although there are some university teachers that don’t teach very well, we still need to assume that students often learn quite a bit by attending school. Ross believes this paradox is ever-present, where we come across learning everywhere, from the work and research we may do, to our own students’ work, but yet we “have no idea” how to teach our students to learn by discovering things on their own. With this paradox, he aims to show that poor teaching and sporadic learning in colleges and universities are no accident, and instead that they are grounded in misconceptions about the cognitive powers of the mind and its very nature. Ross believes a better conception of the mind and the nature of understanding can be found in works from the philosophical tradition, and examines various philosophers to lay down the basis for the paradox of learning and how it may be resolved. After, he looks at more contemporary theories which he thinks provide better theories of the powers of the mind. It’s in this examination that Ross looks to show how learning and teaching may be considerably improved.
Posted: Brandon Lee 12/18/08
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