Island knowledge
As island knowledge piecemeal, not one is context bound in knowledge referred. The phenomenon is explained in particular with the amount and variety of information conveyed by mass media . In the school sector, the term is also used in connection with (excessive) subject-related specialization.
meaning
The infrastructure of the media landscape (i.e. radio , television , Internet ...) has increased in the last few years to such an extent that users can access a wide variety of communication media , but only receive fragmentary knowledge through them. In order to convert this island knowledge into practical knowledge that is directly available on a sustainable basis, many people lack the leisure, the time or the knowledge of a context (prior knowledge) in which the newly acquired knowledge can be embedded. This leads to deficits in assessing the truth of the newly acquired knowledge.
In educational psychology this phenomenon has long been known, but without that it would have its own name. This is how Walter Edelmann describes this phenomenon - without designating it as island knowledge - in the context of his treatises on concept formation . He says that the information disseminated through the mass media “was not 'grasped' by numerous recipients; H. not randomly related to anchoring ideas in a clearly structured cognitive structure ”. He combines this statement with an appeal to the media to use "organizational aids [...] to enable insightful information absorption [...]" (ibid.). By the way, Edelmann also defines 'useless knowledge' (like 'crocodiles are color-blind') as knowledge that “is not randomly related to previous knowledge”.
Island knowledge in the school sector
The school reform of 1972 was intended to change the previous structure of the upper levels in order to remedy incoherent factual knowledge and the resulting inability to study among high school graduates. The students acquired what is known as island knowledge, as the subjects in the upper school were not taught equally. For example, those who attended a technical high school were only offered one foreign language as an optional subject, while those who attended a school that was designed for languages lacked natural science subjects. The reform was intended to secure basic education through three equivalent task fields (linguistic-literary; mathematical-scientific; social-historical) and a differentiation into advanced and basic courses. This form of the creation of “island knowledge” should be counteracted through interdisciplinary communication of the subject matter and project teaching.
The promotion of a well-founded general education in schools and the imparting of a broad educational foundation instead of specialized island knowledge is therefore increasingly being promoted by educators in Germany. The education ministers of the federal states decided on a uniform change to the Abitur regulations, so that every high school student must take the subjects German and mathematics as well as a foreign language up to the Abitur and must also take an exam in at least two of these areas. These main subjects can no longer be deselected.
literature
- Michael Wildt: Learning map instead of island knowledge. Independent learning as a support module. In: Förderkonzepte (= teaching mathematics. Teaching successfully. Concepts and materials. No. 166, ISSN 0175-2235 ). Friedrich, Seelze 2011, pp. 45–49.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Walter Edelmann: Lernpsychologie. Psychologie Verlags Union, Weinheim 2000, ISBN 3-621-27465-0 .
- ↑ Hanna-Renate Laurien : The "island knowledge" must be broken through in: Focus Magazine. dated December 5, 1994.
- ^ Resolution of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of June 6, 2013: Agreement on the design of the upper secondary level in upper secondary level - 2nd objective ( memento of the original of May 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on kmk.org (PDF, p. 5.)
