Technology-Based Cognitive Apprenticeship For Empowering Children With Disabilities

Vol. 2 No. 4

Year: 2009

Issue: February-April

Title: Technology-Based Cognitive Apprenticeship For Empowering Children With Disabilities 

Author Name: H.M. Kasinath 

Synopsis: 

The cognitive apprenticeship approach has been applied in a good deal of conceptual, quantitative and qualitative studies in various settings including technology integration.  It has proved successful in promoting student’s higher order thinking skills as well as in shaping the social interactions between teachers and students to goal-oriented problem solving.  This model can also be used to teach disabled children through distance learning.  It is felt that cognitive apprenticeship approach based on technologically rich learning environment provides a prescriptive method for analyzing and sequencing content and developing suitable strategies for learning, a tool for incorporating communities of practice in multimedia solutions, and a framework for building and reinforcing cognitive understanding among children with learning disabilities.  Thus, in this paper an attempt has been made to explain in a deliberately speculative way, why activity and situations are integral to cognition and learning.  Perhaps, by ignoring the situated nature of cognition, education defeats its own goal of providing usable, robust knowledge.  Hence, it is argued that approaches such as cognitive apprenticeship that embed learning in activity and make deliberate use of the social and physical context will enable students with learning difficulties to acquire, develop, and use cognitive tools in a more authentic practices.  Thus, it is important not only to solve problems in a learning environment that uses real-world contexts, but also to allow learners to witness the practitioners of that culture in solving problems and carrying out tasks.