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Cognition and Education

Another frustrating day teaching undergraduates — or rather, reading the papers I make them write so that I can assess the outcome of my teaching — got me thinking about the role of cognitive development in undergraduate instruction.

I feel like I might puke if I have to read another student paper which proffers an argument predicated on their own insight and supported by a few meager quotes drawn from the Bible (or some other authoritative source) without any reference to the very real history of debate on the issues around which the argument turns.

I'd like to compile a list of the typical pitfalls which plague undergraduate thinking, but my mind reels at the thought.

Perhaps it is the well documented lack of cognitive development in people under 25 that makes it so seemingly impossible to get students to express their ideas and do their work in a way that takes seriously the fact that ideas have a history, that academic disciplines have traditions, that real arguments are always situated in actual discourse communities.

In an effort to get my mind around this, I recently read and took notes on an article by Rebecca Jackson, "Cognitive Development: the missing link in teaching information literacy skills", which was published in the Summer 2007 issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly, a trade publication of the field of library science.

I am also going to take note of a recent book by Mark Bauerline of Emory University, called The Dumbest Generation. I haven't had a chance to look at this yet. Bauerline's book was mentioned, rather dismissively, in a worthwhile article from the Washington Post, "The Kids are Alright. But their Parents..." which argues that it is actually Americans in their late 40's (early Xers or late Baby Boomers) who are, by "objective measures," the dumbest people in our society. I don't know if I agree with that, being nearly 40 myself.