Towards a New Cybernetic Interdisciplinary Approach to Pedagogic Challenge

Russell Jay Hendel

After reviewing the past half century of definitions of higher cognitive pedagogy, this paper presents a new approach rooted in brain function. We define higher cognitive pedagogy as indicating the presence of executive function. Executive function in turn is defined by the presence of multiple disciplinary areas and multi-parameter subject matter. We show this approach unifies the approaches of the great pedagogists such as Bloom, Anderson, Van-Hiele, Gagne, Webb, Piaget, Marzano, Bruner, Yazdani, Pegg and Hess etc. We illustrate the applicability of this executive function approach to several disciplines including mathematics, writing, law, music, and literary analysis. The proposed executive function definition is simpler to use than previous definitions and approaches and is equally discriminatory.

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