Page 41 - International Journal of Process Educaiton (Special Issue)

Process Education Philosophy (1993) CT

Process Education is a performance-based philosophy of education which integrates many different
theories, processes, and tools in emphasizing the continuous development of learning skills through
the use of assessment principles in order to produce learner self-development.

Process Education has its roots in both systems philoso- also explicitly teaching 26 learning skills that support the
phy (Laszlo, 1972) and systems engineering (Schlager, successful implementation of these methodologies. During
1956), especially the aspects of systems engineering that the 1993/1994 academic year, a series of papers were
focus on discovering patterns and designing and manag- published that explored the implications of these ideas:
ing complex systems over their life cycles by elucidating Everyone Can Learn to Learn (Arah & Apple, 1993),
and optimizing processes and controls. One of the most Expanding Mathematics Education into a Process (Apple,
powerful tools in systems engineering, is structured dia- 1993b), and Education as a Process (Apple & Lawrence,
logue as defined by Christakis (2006). Structured dialog 1994). This led to the creation of a new Teaching Institute
is one of the central processes evident in the Process Edu- resource, Teach for Learning — A Handbook on Process
cation discussions, collaboration sessions, and workshops Education (Pacific Crest, 1993).
which have taken place over the last three decades. One of
the goals of structured dialogue is to use collaborative in- A major conclusion drawn from this scholarship and
teraction to construct theories or schema that are concise, conversations focused on it was that the shared philosophy
accurate, explanatory, defensible, and powerful; this is a behind these innovative teaching and learning practices
near perfect description of the dynamic and process at the — by this time already referred to as Process Education
Problem Solving across the Curriculum Conferences that (PE) — needed to be further delineated and explicitly
took place in the 1990s (PSAC, 1990 - 1996). defined. Between 1994 and 1999, a series of papers and
documents (see Figure 1) did just that by refining and
Establishing the Philosophy fortifying the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings
of the philosophy.
The first PSAC conference (Kramer & Beery, 1990)
led to the development of Pacific Crest's first Teaching While the list of processes and tools of Process Education
Institute with the intended result of "building confidence continues to grow even now, the core principles, as
in using Process Education" (Apple 1991). Specifically, articulated between 1994 and 1999 remain constant. These
this Teaching Institute focused instructor attention on are enumerated in Figure 2.
the stepwise processes or methodologies underlying
cooperative learning, communication, self-assessment, As Process Education began to be implemented in practice,
discovery learning, critical thinking, and problem solving, its impact was chronicled in a number of reports as shown
in Figure 3.

Figure 1 Scholarship Focused on Process Education: 1994 to 1999

Transforming Engineering Education from a Product to a Process (Neff, Beyerlein, Apple & Krumsieg, 1995)
Process — The Missing Element (Hanson & Apple, 1995)
Concept Map of Process Education (Duncan-Hewitt, 1995)
Process Map for Mentoring (Duncan-Hewitt, 1999)
A Primer for Process Education (Apple & Duncan-Hewitt, 1995)
The Taxonomy of Process Education (Duncan-Hewitt & Apple, 1996)
The Classification of Learning Skills for Educational Enrichment and Assessment (Apple, 1997)
Process Education — A New Educational Mission (Apple, 1997)
A Model of Higher Education (Apple, 1997)
Comprehensive Overview of Process Education Philosophy (Apple & Foreman, 1999)

International Journal of Process Education (February 2016, Volume 8 Issue 1) 39