School Didactics And Learning: a school Didactic Model Framing An Analysis of Pedagogical Implication of Learning Theory

Schemas have variables;
which means that a concept has “a fixed part (characteristics which are always
true of exemplars of the concept and a variable part). The 
colour
of a dog exemplifies the variable part
and the 
number
of legs the fixed part” (ibid.)
2.
Schemas can embed, one within another;
this means that “a schema consists of a configuration of
subschemas” which “in turn consist in new configuration of subschemas. Some schemas are assumed to
be primitive and to be undecomposable” (ibid.)
3.
Schemas represent knowledge at all levels of abstraction;
meaning that “schemas can represent
knowledge…from ideologies and cultural truths, to knowledge about what constitutes an appropriate …
sentence in our language” (ibid.)
4.
Schemas represent knowledge rather than definitions;
means that “schemas are our knowledge” (ibid.)
5.
Schemas are active recognition devices
whose processing is aimed at the evaluation of their goodness of
fit to the data being processed.
In learning the knowledge structures (i.e. the schemata), a subject has one major job—“the construction of
an interpretation of a new situation” (Glaser, 1987, p. 403). A new representation is formed by the
triggering of schemata; “if a problem is of a very familiar type, it can trigger an appropriate schema; if not,
some more general schema is triggered… Once a schema is triggered it can control learning; it may contain
precisely the right conceptual and procedural knowledge to solve a problem” (ibid.).
This is almost identical to what Ulric Neisser wrote in 1976. But according to Neisser the schema is not
only a mechanism for recognizing but also a mechanism that actively directs the individual’s interest in his
surrounding world. Yet a schema is limited, since information can only be received if there is some
representational format that is ready to do the job (Neisser, 1976, p. 53). We may thus say that Neisser’s
schema contains a plan for receiving information and that it is active in doing this.
In any case, the result of the learning process may be expressed in terms of a mental representation
consisting of some kind of symbolic structure representing an external world. However, it should be clearly
noted that this structure is constructed on the basis of sensations supplied by the sensory system. Thus, the
conceptual structure developed cannot be conceived of as a mirrorlike picture of the external world.
The Learning Paradox and Representational Epistemology
The concept learning paradox has been used to refer to the problem of how individuals are able to construe
a more complex model of reality than they already have access to. I argue that in fact this is not a paradox
or, to the extent that it is a paradox, the argument is based on a very specific idea of the relation between
mind and external reality.
The problem called the learning paradox seems to stem from the inability to include the concept of
construction in a theory which simultaneously holds that the world exists as such. Or the other way round—
the concept of acquisition is an awkward one in constructivist theory, for how can one acquire knowledge
by constructing it? If one constructs knowledge, one constructs it, one does not acquire it. In a constructivist
account of learning there seems to be no place for acquisition.
One reason for this paradox is the belief in two ultimate, metaphysically different worlds, a world of
objects and events and a world in which these objects and events are represented. Learning in this view is,
roughly, the transformation of information from one system into another. This dualist position is described
by Bredo (1994, p. 24):
6. FEATURES OF COGNITIVISM
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…one assumption common to many members of the family is the assumption of a separately defined
individual and environment, which must somehow match one another. Inside and outside, person and
environment are viewed as separable, as independently definable, and then in need of being related.
Ference Marton, the leading phenomenographer, has for years criticized cognitivism for this position
(Marton, 1981).
The problem is close to that of critical realism. According to critical realism, the world out there is given
and preconstructed but nevertheless unknowable as such since we perceive it from our subjective point of
view, being active in constructing an understanding of the world, making sense of it. Like critical realism,
constructivism is situated in the tension between these poles (belief in some kind of autonomous existence of
the world out there and the individual’s subjective ordering of experiences). Yet it is not clear that
constructivism or cognitivism manages to handle this tension successfully.
This suggests that the learning paradox might be solved in terms of how the relation between construction
and acquisition is defined. As I see it, the paradox for cognitivists emanates from the difficulty of believing
in a given world out there and at the same time constructing new knowledge about this world. It is obvious
that a stipulation allowing these two contrasting positions is needed.
Conclusion
It seems evident that cognitivists and constructivists do not always realize the following two relations
concerning the epistemological problem. On the one hand we have the relation between the physical world
and human ability to receive sense impressions of it. On the other hand we have the relation between these
sense impressions and our awareness of these impressions. As long as these distinctions are not made, the
debate will be extremely confused.
The aim of the following chapter is therefore to investigate the epistemological problem by asking the
traditional question of epistemology, i.e. what object do we have access to in perception? I will suggest that
cognitivism accepts a dualist position concerning the relation between presentations and representations,
but a monistic position on the relation between physical objects and presentations.
COGNITIVISM AND REPRESENTATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY
I will now try to summarize the position cognitivism represents concerning the epistemological mind-world
problem by relating it to the classical question of perception and to how the role of a scheme is understood.
The kernel of the epistemological problem can be summarized in the following question: “Which is the
real object of perception, the object in the external world or the form within the perceiver’s mind?”.
Medieval scholastics (e.g. Anselm of Canterbury) made this distinction on the basis of Aristotle’s work
(Sajama & Kamppinen, 1987, p. 12). The point was that after having been perceived, an object can be said
to exist in two ways; as a form in the mind and as a combination of form and matter in the material world.
The similarity between the real object and the mental content would then consist in the form the object has
in these realms. No similarity, however, was to be identified with respect to the matter of the object in the
two realms. The problem can be visualized as in 
Fig. 6.3
.
The answers given since have, exactly as the question presupposes, been presented in an either—or
fashion. According to the first alternative (conception A in the figure below) the perceived reality is considered
to be the object per se. Within the second answer (conception B in 
Fig. 6.3
) it is the content of the subject’s
perception that is conceived.
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The Real Object—the Experienced Object or the Object in the World?
The information-processing approach clearly resembles the second position, i.e. that the perceiver has
access only to perceptual information provided by the senses. In accordance with this the individual is
aware of perceptions, not of the reality as such. 
The sceptics of antiquity (e.g. Sextos Empeirekos) belonged to those who first argued that what we have
access to in experience is a mental picture of an object and not external things (conception B above). The
idea was that we cannot know the things themselves, only their appearances; we can be sure that we really are
aware of a certain mental content, but we cannot be sure of a possible objective referent (“I am sure that I
see a cat, but how can I be sure that there really is a cat?”), i.e. one can be sure that there