Or how important is it to persuade stubborn students they are wrong?
ANALOGIES are very useful things in education. For teachers, they fulfill a vital role in trying to get across the meaning of concepts that are difficult to grasp. One particular area that has the potential to be confusing is the field of cognitive science. Put simply, this is the study of how we learn and how we construct knowledge and a major part of this whole field takes its name directly from this verb: constructivism.
As its name may imply, constructivism emphasises the building (i.e. constructing) that occurs in people’s minds when they learn. It is key to any teacher’s training that they are aware of the implications that this has on learning potential of students and to parents who get frustrated that their children might not grasp ideas as quickly as others. However, to explain what constructivism actually means can be complicated, so it is much better to utilise an analogy to save the day.
Imagine you are looking at a one of those ‘ink-blot’ pictures, so famously employed to gauge what we perceive in apparently random patterns of black ink. Some people see a cat and some the outline of a country. Some might have weird and wonderful images that appear to them, each one unique to their own way of thinking. This is tantalisingly close to what we call constructivism. In our ink-blot scenario, what each person ‘sees’ in the picture depends more on what is already stored in that person’s brain, suggesting that learning from our environment (through our senses) is an active, rather than a passive, process. In a way, we seem to project onto phenomena what we already know about them. In other words, we each construct a unique mental image by combining information in our heads with the information we receive from our sense organs (in this case, our eyes).
And this is also true for students who are in the process of learning new ideas or skills. Educational research shows that students begin their study of topics with pre-conceived notions about concepts teachers want them to learn. This is frequently the case in science since students have had prior experiences about many topics; for example, they have experienced forces (swinging on a swing), living things (pets and houseplants), solar system effects (day & night and seasons) and chemical changes (burning). Furthermore, it might well be that students’ ‘current ideas’ (also called ‘prior knowledge’) often contradict mainstream theories in science. For example, children might believe:
· weeds are not ‘plants’ because plants have to be nurtured and looked after
· steam turns into ‘air’ once it disappears into the air
· light beams travel farther at night than in daytime
· the sun revolves around the Earth
Students cannot, therefore, be treated like their brains are blank slates to be written upon or empty vessels to be filled up. This is a very simplistic and somewhat romantic view of students. Learners are not passive, but active in learning.
WHILE many theorists emphasise each person’s tendency to construct unique meanings, many people believe these are not completely unique. In other words, because we share common languages and conduct much of our thought through language and other communal symbols, many agree that knowledge is actually socially constructed, even while an individual is thinking. In a sense, an individual’s thought is never his or her own. Moreover, just like scientists, students are very reluctant to give up their favoured ideas. For example, if a person tries to convince another that what they themselves see in an ink-blot picture is actually the ‘correct’ image, they often fail. Once a person sees it one way, it’s difficult for them to see it any other. So, if a student thinks that, for example, electricity leaks out of a socket if a plug is not in it, then it does no good at all to say simply ‘No, you’re wrong’. As a teacher, you have to see the problem through the eyes of the student and think of ways of showing them that there is another, perhaps better explanation.
However, students are often emotionally attached to their ideas; they don’t even want to hear that someone may have a ‘better’ explanation. That might threaten their ego, and as a consequence, they may not even want to deal with what others (especially teachers) recommend. To a great extent, children project what they already have in their heads onto phenomena to be observed; they see what they want to see.
Students are frequently not consciously aware of reasons (eg laws and theories) for their actions; they just ‘innately’ know why they do things a certain way. For example, few stop to think how gravity, wind and friction affect how they walk. For the reasons already mentioned, teaching and learning should begin by encouraging learners to express and clarify their existing concepts, and by also providing the students with the vocabulary with which to do it. To use another analogy, it is rather like starting a journey not knowing from where each student is starting.
Sharing ideas or skills with learners by telling or showing is often insufficient for them to learn. Learners need to use and test ideas and skills through relevant activities. Often, this involves concrete experiences that combine with abstract ideas that have just been presented to learners. For example, while a teacher can show students on a blackboard that various atoms can be rearranged to make new molecules in a chemical change, students often need to try such reactions with concrete materials before they fully understand the new ideas and/or skills.
It should be borne in mind that students can’t change their thinking on their own, even if they want to; they lack the understanding of what laws, theories, and resources are available to them. For students to learn, therefore, experiences alone are not enough; they need to receive different ‘lenses’ — different laws and theories — through which to view objects and events, design tests and interpret data.
Teaching is, therefore, about causing paradigm shifts; that is, getting students to see things in new ways. Returning to our original analogy, it would be like getting different people to see the same image in the ink-blot picture. Or in more practical terms, getting our stubborn student to realise that electricity does not leak out of the socket because the resistance of the air is too great. Students may not know, even if they have access to ideas and an urge to change, how to change their thinking. They may lack skills necessary to re-consider their ideas. They may not know how to think about their own ideas, how to learn new ones or how to decide what they believe. Therefore, as with conceptual change, students need others (often teachers) to introduce them to new skills e.g. how to develop concept maps to exhibit ideas, how to produce hypotheses and how to test them.
Finally, it is worth noting that scientists are never, because of the theory-limited nature of knowledge development, absolutely certain that their explanations are correct. There is always a possibility for change, and this should always be borne in mind. Indeed, there have been major paradigm shifts in history (e.g. believing that the Earth is flat).Furthermore, scientists have been known to be influenced by personal and group biases (e.g. an interest in achieving fame). Consequently, we could ask whether or not society (through teachers) has the right (or even ability) to change a student’s beliefs. While getting students to understand new ideas may be society’s right and responsibility, forcing them to accept certain beliefs may be problematic. Who knows the paradigm shifts that are waiting around the corner to throw the proverbial ‘spanner in the works’ of contemporary science? Whether education is about convincing others or about enlightening others therefore remains a question to ponder, but what is certain is that we should take great interest in our children’s view of the world around them, as this holds the key to how they construct their knowledge for the future.
n Dr Andrew Moore is head teacher at Highgate Secondary in Nicosia
