Knowledge dissemination
Learners need to be active
participants in knowledge construction. The
image of the teacher as the harbinger of
knowledge and the students as passive
recipients, or what Freire (1993) refers to as
the banking concept of education, is
challenged. The assumption that students
come to the class with blank slates to be
filled by the teacher is no longer true for the
authentic classroom. That learners desire to
be active participants in knowledge
construction is summed up in the following
comment: “Making what I learn my own.
Understanding it in my terms related to my
life” (graduate student), or as another says
“… knowledge that I can use later.
Something learned that will be useful for me
in my daily activities” (graduate student).
Ultimately, the learner should be able to
“apply whatever is learned to new things,
new phenomena” (faculty member