Systematically Using Powerful Learning Environments To Accelerate the Learning of Disadvantaged Students in Grades 4-8

Stanley Pogrow

Goals and preconditions. The primary goal of this theory is to foster the development of thinking skills. The theory was developed specifically for educationally disadvantaged students in grades 4-8.

Values. Some of the values upon which this theory is based include:

1. instruction that is targeted to learning needs,
2. for educationally disadvantaged students in grades 4-8, learning such thinking skills as
   - metacognitive strategies,
   - inferencing from context,
   - generalizing (decontextualizing) ideas,
   - synthesizing and selecting information,
3. acculturating an internal sense of understanding and abstraction,
4. sophisticated forms of student-teacher interactions (conversations), which requires pull-out programs,
5. using computer experiences as a basis for rich conversations (i.e., computer as a metaphor for life),
6. affective arousal (motivation),
7. using computers and fantasy situations to motivate students.

Methods. These are the major methods this theory offers:

1. Pull out disadvantaged students in grades 4-8 into homogeneous groupings of 5-13 students, 35-40 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 1.5-2 years.
2. Have students read interesting, dramatic stories (containing unknown words and culturally familial visuals) on the computer.
3. Use such sophisticated forms of teacher-student interactions as conversations and Socratic dialogue to have students
   1. infer words' meanings from context,
   2. predict what will happen next in the story,
   3. synthesize and select important information,
   4. generalize (decontextualize) concepts to new contexts,
   5. think about what strategy they used to infer or predict or synthesize/select or generalize.
4. Then after 1-2 years place the student in "thinking-in-content" situations with a heterogeneous group of peers.

Major contributions. The identification of specific learning needs of disadvantaged students in grades 4-8-namely deep cognitive skills which can overcome a variety of learning deficits. The identification of some robust, consistent, and systematic techniques for developing those skills and motivating those students, within the present time and fiscal parameters of schools. It also shows that limited and practical customization can dramatically increase learning on a large scale.