Linking cognitive science and technology in the preparation of school administrators

Abstract

As educational systems grow increasingly diverse and decreasingly centralized, integrating the latest finding in both cognitive science and technology can serve as a motivating force in transforming school leadership. Tomorrow's school administrators must be able to function in conditions of paradox, uncertainty, and discontinuity, where their tasks will be continuously modified by a widening arena of community stakeholders. As their roles are reshaped, effective leaders must redefine their significance within a paradox of both flexibility and control. Traditional examinations off instructional leadership have been grounded in learning formal disciplines, general skills, and specific knowledge. A new synthesis argues that pedagogical approaches in how information is presented is equally as important as content of curriculum [Perkins and Saloman 1989]. The most recent cognitive research indicates that the applied meaning of new synthesis in the classroom means teaching school subjects as high-order thinking, critical processing, and real-world applications. This message is equally important in a first grade classroom or in a graduate level university course. A technology-oriented instructional approach to information accessing and processing parallels this new thinking in the cognitive sciences in a way that few traditional classroom resources can claim. It empowers learners of all ages to process new knowledge in more useful and applicable formats that link formal learning with real world problem solving, and perhaps for the first time since the term individualized learning was coined decades ago, technological approaches to learning present the workable structure to actualize this term.