John Dewey And Progressive Education
John Dewey was a major proponent of a US school of thought called pragmatism, which opposed modern-day dualistic epistemology & metaphysics for a naturalistic approach which regarded knowledge as a result of the active adaptation of the humans to its environment.
Explanation
John Dewey is probably best known for his part in what is known as progressive education. Progressive education is mainly an intellectual approach, and stresses the desire to 'learn by doing'. Dewey believed that people learned by 'hands-on' means. It places Dewey with a pragmatic educational philosophy.
Pragmatics believe reality has to be experienced. In the educational sense, this means that students need to communicate in order to relate and learn about their surroundings. For teachers Dewey thought the same principle existed and that teachers and students needed to work together. His vision of the classroom was profoundly rooted in democratic values, encouraging equal participation for all students.
Dewey's pragmatic & democratic approach to schooling today might not be so radical today, however his theories on education challenged most of the then-existing education structure in the early to mid-1900s. The attitude of Dewey was truly child-centered. A child-centered curriculum approach focuses learning about the children's needs and desires. Dewey suggests that children should be able to discover their environments.
He believed in an interdisciplinary curriculum or curriculum focused on numerous subjects, where students can move freely into and out of classrooms in the pursuit of their interests and develop their own ways of knowledge acquisition. The teacher's function in this setting will be to be a facilitator rather than an educator. The instructor will, in Dewey 's opinion, take into account the students ' needs, observe the paths they take instinctively, and then behave as someone who helps improve problem solving.
A teacher will usually stand in a row in front of a group of students. Typically, the instructor is the knowledge source and the duty of the students is to obtain this information and 'regurgitate' it in some form a written exam.
In comparison, you can watch a instructor provide context material in a classroom which is based on John Dewey 's theories. Additionally, you may watch students interact together, with certain classes exploring different topics within the content. There would be a lot of conversation and a lot of effort. You can also look at student assignments, nevertheless you may also see presentations, student projects, or other differentiated methods of evaluation.
