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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 May 2020
Not satisfied with existing approaches to teaching American government, the two authors volunteered to participate in an experiment applying the learning theories of Piaget.
What follows is a short explanation of a few selected theories by Piaget, as a forerunner to demonstrating how the noted psychologist's ideas relate to the teaching of American politics. A learning model is then described. Two sample units of this approach to teaching the introductory course on American government are discussed in some detail. Before concluding with a little background on the federal grant involved, there is a section on the advantages and disadvantages of this method for the college instructors as well as their students.
1 Background information for this section came primarily from Piaget's Theory: A Primer, by John L. Phillips, Jr., W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1981, and an article by Robert Karplus called “Piaget in a Nutshell,” pages 115 to 119, in Project COMPAS: A Design for Change, compiled and edited by Leora L. Schermerhorn, Lorraine D. Williams, and Alexander K. Dickison, Seminole Community College, Sanford, Florida, 1982. The latter booklet describes and evaluates the grant program of which the American government courses were only a small part.
2 Torn Campell has written an excellent, concise description of a Learning Cycle, on pages 121 to 123, in Project COMPAS: A Design for Change, described in the previous footnote.
3 Karplus, R., et al.. Workshop on Physics Teaching and the Development of Reasoning; American Association of Physics Teachers, Graduate of Physics Building, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY, 1973Google Scholar.
4 For extra credit students can read in its entirety one of the following books and write a short report. Robert Kennedy's Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Elie Abel's The Missile Crisis, or Graham T. Allison's Essence of Decisions: Explaining the Cuban Crisis.