Teaching and learning in a community of thinking - challenges and dilemmas

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Teaching and learning in a community of thinking
challenges and dilemmas
Yoram Harpaz and Adam Lefstein August 2004
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overview
Theory pictures of teaching, learning, knowledge
and educational aims (Yoram) Practice
exemplification of the community of thinking
framework (Adam)
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The atomic pictures of traditional education
learning is listening
teaching is telling
knowledge is an object
to be educated is to know valuable content
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The Grand Picture -- a mimetic chain
Scientific knowledge
World
Facts Mathematical Physical Historical
curriculum designers
Disciplines Mathematics Physics History
scientists
Educational knowledge
Lesson plans
Students mind
Subjects Mathematics Science History
new knowledge
old knowledge
teachers
gluing
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Effective learning
Involvement Understanding
Involvement task involvement vs. ego
involvement Understanding to locate (in
context) to perform (thinking operations with
knowledge)
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basic conditions for effective learning

• intrinsic motivation
• authentic problems
• undermining
• contents and process match student profiles and
  styles
• appropriate challenge

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basic conditions for effective learning

• dialogic environment
• informative ongoing feedback
• supportive climate
• constructive attribution ability and will vs.
  other people or luck
• incremental learners vs. entity learners

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alternative atomic pictures
learning is being involved and understanding teach
ing is providing the conditions for effective
learning knowledge is a structure or a story
that works being educated is knowing how to
relate to knowledge
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questions and problems
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Community of Thinking
An educational practice based on the alternative
atomic pictures
Its primary components include Fertile
question Inquiry / research Concluding performance
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Fertile Question
Initiation
Feedback
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A Fertile Question is...
open

• Which is preferable, to be a house-pet or a wild
  animal? (non-disciplinary)
• Why do people marry? (sociology)
• Does competition make us better?
  (interdisciplinary)

undermining
connected
rich
charged
practical
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A Fertile Question is...
open

• Why did the peasants accept a class system that
  exploited and oppressed them? (history)
• Can betrayal be forgiven? (literature)
• What should we wear? (chemistry)

undermining
connected
rich
charged
practical
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Fertile Question
Initiation
Feedback
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A good research question is...

• Open requires that the researcher take a
  position
• Rich requires deep and extensive research
• Connected to the communal fertile question and
  to the disciplinary domain
• Interesting to students, and possibly also
  "objectively"
• Practical can be coped with in the context of
  time, material and other constraints

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fertile question Does competition make us
better?
Can there be a game without competition?
Does testing improve achievement?
?
?
Has business destroyed competitive sports?
Does too much competition lead to cheating?
?
?
What does competition do to friendship?
?
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Fertile Question
Initiation
Feedback
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Inquiry from School subjects to Pedagogical
Discipline
Pedagogic discipline Research discipline School Subject
Developing thinking and understanding Producing new knowledge Inculcating existing knowledge Central aim
Big ideas disciplinary insights and controversies Areas of uncertainty and controversy Basic and accepted knowledge Knowledge focus
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Inquiry from School subjects to Pedagogical
Discipline (continued)
Pedagogic discipline Research discipline School Subject
the world is a text Primary sources privileged by discipline Secondary sources (e.g. text-book) Sources of infor-mation
Personal under-standing Research article Examination Preferred perfor-mance
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research question Has business destroyed sports?

• examples of lines of inquiry
• case study based on news reports
• interviews with athletes and/or fans
• analysis of a teams financial report
• comparison of athletes biographies then and
  now
• critical review of sports films

How would you recommend conducting inquiry?
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Fertile Question
Initiation
Feedback
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Understanding performances

• To explain knowledge in your own words
• To bring examples of knowledge
• To generalize from an item of knowledge
• To identify knowledge in different contexts
• To explain phenomena by the use of knowledge
• To give arguments to justify knowledge
• To predict on the basis of knowledge

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More understanding performances

• To break knowledge into its components
  (analysis)
• To take a stance with regard to knowledge
• To criticize knowledge on the basis of knowledge
• To create knowledge on the basis of knowledge
• To create a simulation, model or metaphor
• To ask a question on the basis of knowledge
• ....

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Concluding performance
A comprehensive understanding performance which
builds and exhibits understandings for an
audience
Dramatic performance
Research paper
Lecture
Policy position paper
Documentary film
Designing a tool
Museum
Mock trial
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examples of communal concluding performances
What should we wear?
Fashion show and information display at shopping
mall
Why do people marry?
Thinking about marriage? Instructions manual
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more examples of communal performances
Why did the peasants accept a class system that
exploited and oppressed them?
Interactive museum
Does competition make us better?
Mock trial with evidence and witnesses
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Fertile Question
Initiation
Feedback
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Initiation
Developing the common knowledge basis necessary
for understanding the fertile question, for
creating questions and for conducting research,
via...

• Clarifying central concepts and ideas
• Creating the fertile question
• Guiding mini-inquiries

• Connecting concepts to the questions that gave
  rise to them (archeology of knowledge)
• Creating a questions bank
• ...

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Fertile Question
Initiation
Feedback
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Feedback
Providing the learner with information and
stimulus to further and deepen his or her
learning providing the teacher with information
to improve his or her teaching

• Listen and converse
• Pose questions
• Probe student understanding
• Dont solve students problems for them

• Orient to what can be realistically improved
• Provide examples, but aim for general issues
• Minimize judgment
• ...

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questions and problems
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for more information
Yoram Harpaz yoramha_at_mandelinstitute.org.il
Adam Lefstein adaml_at_netvision.net.il