Construction of Knowledge

7/27/2019 Construction of Knowledge

1/12

In the past thirty years, research has provided new information on student

learning. Now, we are interested in more complex learning, in problem solving,

in the application of knowledge to unfamiliar situations. Recent educational

research, particularly on the nature of the brain and how it learns, has made it

clear that we need new approaches to teaching, therefore, to the description

and evaluation of teaching.

Multiple intelligences, collaborative learning and authentic engaged learning

are among the considerations that should be observed in todays classrooms

(Danielson, 1996). The challenge for administrators and teachers involves using

the research on learning to implement these practices into the classroom to

improve student achievement.

The framework is based on the idea that some practices are clearly more

effective than others. The concept of learning, and therefore good teaching,

has gradually shifted from a behaviorist to a more constructivist view. From theconstructivist perspective, the learner becomes the focus or center of what is

going on in the classroom rather than the teacher. The learning of a concept

depends on the learners engagement and ultimate ability to derive the

concept for him/herself. Learners have often developed beliefs about the

concept that are incorrect, and these incorrect preconceptions must be

addressed before students can learn the concept correctly.

In the constructivist classroom, the teacher designs activities and assignments

that anticipate misunderstandings and engage students in constructing

important knowledge. Herein lies the difference from a traditional classroom

where the teachers main responsibility is to present information that studentsare to memorize. More often, students will be engaged in doingsomething with

the information, rather than memorizing it. Note, this does not mean that the

teacher will never present information, or ask students to memorize information.

Memorization is often appropriate (i.e. math facts) as is presentation (an

excellent way to impart needed information). It just means that most of the

work during any given lesson will be done by the student, not the teacher.

Assessment plays an important role in the constructivist classroom. The teacher

needs to continually assess whether or not the students are constructing the

important knowledge. Assessment may look different; it may be moreperformance-based. When students successfully complete the performance

tasks, the teacher has a sense of which students have constructed a deep

understanding of the topic and which are still in the process of constructing the

learning. A key skill of the effective teacher is designing assessments which

allow her/him to determine if learning has taken place.

Think, Pair, Share

1. Students work alone to generate thoughts on an issue, ways to solve a

problem or answers to a question.

2. Students join a partner to discuss and look over each others work.

3. The two students join another two students to complete their assignment.


2/12

4. Groups of 4 may share with the larger group.

BENEFITS:

Students who need more time to process can work alone rather than beoverwhelmed by other more verbal students.

There is some individual accountability. Students can expand their own thinking by hearing other students ideas. Many more ideas and solutions can be generated. Research shows that some of the best ideas come after groups brainstorm

25-30 ideas.

1. Construction of knowledge2. Metacognition3. Educator student partnership4. Collaborative learning5. Meaningful assessment in real-world contexts

In student-centered classrooms, students are directly involved and

invested in the discovery of their own knowledge. Through collaboration

and cooperation with others, students engage in experiential learning

which is authentic, holistic, and challenging. Students are empowered to

use prior knowledge to construct new learning. Through the development

of the metacognitive process, students reflect on their thinking. Curriculum

and assessment are centered on meaningful performances in real-world

contexts. As a partner in learning, teachers intentionally create organized

and cohesive experiences to assist students to make connections to key

concepts.

Construction of Learning: In Creating and Sustaining the Constructivist

Classroom, Marlowe and Page conclude that research on active

constructivist learning is both extensive and consistently supportive.

Metacognition and collaborative learning. Marzano (1998) reported an

effect size of .72 for metacognitive systems vs. .55 for cognitive techniques

(p. 104). He concluded that metagcongnitive strategies are primary

ingredients for improving student achievement. (p. 106). He also sites

research by Johnson et al. that supports an overall effect size for

cooperation as .73

Teacher student partnership in Learning: In Linda Darling-Hammonds

book, Preparing teachers for a changing world, she cites Recent studies

such as those by Tharp, Estrada, Dalton, and Yamauchi (2000)


3/12

(referenced in Darling-Hammond, 2005, p. 337) have suggested that

when teachers and students work together, learning is enhanced.

Meaningful assessment in Real-World Context-Newmann, King, and

Carmichael have done extensive research on the value of engaging

students in Authentic work. While their work expands beyond Value

beyond School, it is a key component in their framework. Their research

shows that students who receive authentic instruction improve student

achievement.

Teaching for Learner Differences

1. Educator appropriately plans for instruction2. Educator makes use of a variety of delivery methods.3. Educator uses appropriate curriculum enhancements4. Educator ensures that students are actively engaged in the learning

process.

5. Educator allows for differences in expression of learning.

HOW CAN WE TEACH FOR UNDERSTANDING?

We've looked at learning for understanding from the standpoint of the learner.

But what does learning for understanding mean from the standpoint of the

teacher? What does teaching for understanding involve? While teaching for

understanding is not terribly hard, it is not terribly easy, either. Teaching for

understanding is not simply another way of teaching, just as manageable as the

usual lecture-exercise-test method. It involves genuinely more intricate

classroom choreography. To elaborate, here are six priorities for teachers who

teach for understanding:

1. Make learning a long-term, thinking-centered process.

From the standpoint of the teacher, the message about performances of

understanding boils down to this: Teaching is less about what the teacher does

than about what the teacher gets the students to do. The teacher must arrange

for the students to think with and about the ideas they are learning for an

extended period of time, so that they learn their way around a topic. unless

students are thinking with and about the ideas they are learning for a while, they

are not likely to build up a flexible repertoire of performances of understanding.

Imagine, if you will, a period of weeks or even months committed to some rich

theme--the nature of life, the origin of revolutions, the art of mathematicalmodeling. Imagine a group of students engaged over time in a variety of

understanding performances focused on that topic and a few chosen goals.

The students face progressively more subtle but still accessible challenges. At the

end there may be some culminating understanding performance such as an

essay or an exhibition as in Theodore Sizer's ( 1984) concept of "essential schools."


4/12

Such a long term, thinking-centered process seems central to building students'

understanding.

2. Provide for rich ongoing assessment.

I emphasized earlier that students need criteria, feedback, and opportunities forreflection in order to learn performances of understanding well. Traditionally,

assessment comes at the end of a topic and focuses on grading and

accountability. These are important functions that need to be honored in many

contexts. But they do not serve students' immediate learning needs very well. To

learn effectively, students need criteria, feedback, and opportunities for

reflection from the beginning of any sequence of instruction (cf. Baron, 1990;

Gifford and O'Connor, 1991; Perrone, 1991b).

This means that occasions of assessment should occur throughout the learning

process from beginning to end Sometimes they may involve feedback from the

teacher, sometimes from peers, sometimes from students' self evaluation.

Sometimes the teacher may give criteria, sometimes engage students in

defining their own criteria. While there are many reasonable approaches to

ongoing assessment, the constant factor is the frequent focus on criteria,

feedback, and reflection throughout the learning process.

3. Support learning with powerful representations.

Research shows that how information is represented can influence enormously

how well that information supports understanding performances. For instance

Richard Mayer (1989) has demonstrated repeatedly that what he terms"conceptual models"--usually in the form of diagrams with accompanying story

lines carefully crafted according to several principles--can help students to solve

nonroutine problems that ask them to apply new ideas in unexpected ways. For

another example, computer environments that show objects moving in

frictionless Newtonian ways we rarely encounter in the world can help students

understand what Newton's laws really say about the way objects move (White,

1984). For yet another example, well-chosen analogies often serve to illuminate

concepts in science, history, English, and other domains (e.g. Brown, 1989;

Clement, 1991; Royer and Cable, 1976).

Many of the conventional representations employed in schooling--for instance,

formal dictionary definitions of concepts or formal notational representations as

in Ohm's law, I = E/R--in themselves leave students confused or only narrowly

informed (Perkins and Unger, in press). The teacher teaching for understanding

needs to add more imagistic, intuitive, and evocative representations to support

students' understanding performances. Besides supplying powerful

representations, teachers can often ask students to construct their own

representations, an understanding performance in itself.

4. Pay heed to developmental factors.

The theory devised by the seminal developmental psychologist Jean Piaget

averred that children's understanding was limited by the general schemata they

had evolved. For instance, children who had not attained "formal operations"

would find certain concepts inaccessible--notions of control of variables and

formal proof, for example (Inhelder and Piaget, 1958). Many student teachers

today still learn this scheme and come to believe that fundamental aspects of


5/12

reasoning and understanding are lost on children until late adolescence. They

are unaware that 30 years of research have forced fundamental revisions in the

Piagetian conception. Again and again, studies have shown that, under

supportive conditions, children can understand much more than was thought

much earlier than was thought.

The "neo-Piagetian" theories of Robbie Case (1985), Kurt Fischer (1980), and

others offer a better picture of intellectual development. Understanding

complex concepts may often depend on what Case calls a "central

conceptual structure," i.e., certain patterns of quantitative organization,

narrative structure, and more that cut across disciplines (Case, 1992). The right

kind of instruction can help learners to attain these central conceptual

structures. More broadly, considerable developmental research shows that

complexity is a critical variable. For several reasons, younger children cannot

readily understand concepts that involve two or three sources of variation at

once, as in concepts such as balance, density, or pressure (Case, 1985, 1992;Fischer, 1980).

The picture of intellectual development emerging today is less constrained,

more nuanced, and ultimately more optimistic regarding the prospects of

education.

Teachers teaching for understanding do well to bear in mind factors like

complexity, but without rigid conceptions of what students can and cannot

learn at certain ages.

5. Induct students into the discipline.

Analyses of understanding emphasize that concepts and principles in a

discipline are not understood in isolation (Perkins, 1992; Perkins and Simmons,

1988; Schwab, 1978). Grasping what a concept or principle means depends in

considerable part on recognizing how it functions within the discipline. And this

in turn requires developing a sense of how the discipline works as a system of

thought. For example, all disciplines have ways of testing claims and mustering

proof--but the way that's done is often quite different from discipline to

discipline. In science, experiments can be conducted, but in history evidence

must be mined from the historical record. In literature, we look to the text forevidence of an interpretation, but in mathematics we justify a theorem by

formal deduction from the givens.

Conventional teaching introduces students to plenty of facts, concepts, and

routines from a discipline such as mathematics, English, or history. But it typically

does much less to awaken students to the way the discipline works--how one

justifies, explains, solves problems, and manages inquiry within the discipline. Yet

in just such patterns of thinking lie the performances of understanding that make

up what it is to understand those facts, concepts, and routines in a rich and

generative way. Accordingly, the teacher teaching for understanding needs to

undertake an extended mission of explicit consciousness raising about thestructure and logic of the disciplines taught.

6. Teach for transfer.

Research shows that very often students do not carry over facts and principles

they acquire in one context into other contexts. They fail to use in science class


6/12

or at the supermarket the math they learned in math class. They fail to apply the

writing skills that they mastered in English on a history essay. Knowledge tends to

get glued to the narrow circumstances of initial acquisition. If we want transfer

of learning from students--and we certainly do, because we want them to be

putting to work in diverse settings the understandings they acquire--we need to

teach explicitly for transfer, helping students to make the connections theyotherwise might not make, and helping them to cultivate mental habits of

connection-making (Brown, 1989; Perkins and Salomon, 1988; Salomon and

Perkins, 1989).

Teaching for transfer is an agenda closely allied to teaching for understanding.

Indeed, an understanding performance virtually by definition requires a

modicum of transfer, because it asks the learner to go beyond the information

given, tackling some task of justification, explanation, example-finding or the like

that reaches further than anything in the textbook or the lecture. Moreover,

many understanding performances transcend the boundaries of the topic, thediscipline, or the class room--applying school math to stock market figures or

perspectives on history to casting your vote in the current election. Teachers

teaching for a full and rich understanding need to include understanding

performances that reach well beyond the obvious and conventional

boundaries of the topic.

Certainly much more can be said about the art and craft of teaching for

understanding. However, this may suffice to make the case that plenty can be

done. Teachers need not feel paralyzed for lack of means. On the contrary, a

plethora of classroom moves suggest themselves in service of building students'

understanding. The teacher who makes learning thinking-centered, arranges forrich ongoing assessment, supports learning with powerful representations, pays

heed to developmental factors, inducts students into the disciplines taught, and

teaches for transfer far and wide has mobilized a powerful armamentum for

building students' understanding.

Teaching for Learner Differences is about planning for and responding to

variances among learners in the classroom in order to create the best

learning experience possible. It also includes processes for determining the

effectiveness of instruction, using data to guide instructional decision-making,

and ensuring access to/success with regard to the core curriculum for all

students.

Educator appropriately plans for instruction

Educator uses evidence to identify learning goals, learning progression,

student needs, and the zone of proximal development. Educator uses

evidence to plan and adapt instruction for core, supplemental and intensive

needs of students.

Educator makes use of a variety of delivery methods.


7/12

Educator provides learners with a variety of ways of acquiring knowledge

through multiple methods of presenting information.

Educator uses appropriate curriculum enhancements

Educator clearly identifies concept to be learned and incorporatesenhancements and tools that align with that concept while highlighting

critical ideas.

Educator ensures that students are actively engaged in the learning process.

Educator provides challenging content and choices that incorporate

learner interests. There is a process in place to ensure accurate practice and

educator provides overt connections to previous learning and real life

situations. Educator provides instruction in classroom routines.

Educator allows for differences in expression of learning.

Educator and learner work together to explore and select an appropriate

modality to demonstrate understanding.

Assessment for learning

1. Understanding of the learning progression2. Descriptive feedback3. Self- and peer-assessments4. Collaborative classroom climate

Rigorous and relevant curriculum

1. Content that is linked to a core concept

2. Construction of knowledge

3. Disciplined inquiry

4. Value beyond school

Teaching for learner differences

1. Plan

2. Instruct

3. Assess and evaluate


8/12

Assessment for Learning:

Assessment for learning is the process of seeking and interpretingevidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the

learners are in their learning, where they need to go next, and how best to

get them there.

Assessment of & for Learning

Summative Assessment

- occurs after the learning

- to prove learning

- measures learning

- done to learners

- widens the ability range

- externally referenced

- outcome focused

Formative Assessment

- occurs during the learning

- to improve learning

- grows learning

- done with learners

- narrows the ability range

- personally referenced

- process focused

What is AfL Based On?

Based on the constructivist view, which says:However neatly we may design, package and deliver learning

experiences, in the end learning is a process that is instigated and managed by

the learner. Its the learner who constructs the learning.

Assessment for Learning is founded upon a Constructivist view of learning,

which strongly recognises that learning is something that happens in the mind of


9/12

the learner its something theydo. No matter what artistry we employ as

teachers, learning is still something that learners have to do for themselves.

Its all too easy to get into the habit of talking about learning as a productas

the outcome of teaching. AfL focuses on learning as a process, giving pupils the

opportunity to reflect and make sense of their recent learning experiences.

It makes sense that if learning is a process that must happen in the minds of

learners, then anything we can do to help them take skilful charge of their

learning is a good idea but its painful to hand over control

Why Use AfL in Your Classroom?

AfL helps pupils to:

understand the reason and focus for learning;

recognise success in learning; identify and work towards a goal; and understand how to make improvements and achieve their goals.

EvidenceBlack and Wiliam

Theres an over-emphasis on grading and giving marks. To pupils, assessment that compares them with others seems to be more

about competition than personal improvement.

Feedback from these comparative assessment approaches reducesmorale.

These benefits, and others, are substantiated by research.

One of the seminal studies on the impact of Assessment for Learning was carried

out by Black and Wiliam in 1998. Their study, Inside the Black Box, reviewed 250

research articles on assessment from 160 journals published over a nine-year

period.

From this lengthy review, they concluded the following:

The giving of marks and the grading function are overemphasised,while the giving of useful advice and the learning function are

underemphasised.

Assessment approaches are often used in which pupils arecompared with one another. Pupils interpret the prime purpose of

these to be competition, not personal improvement.


10/12

Consequently, assessment feedback from these approachesteaches low-achieving pupils that they lack ability, causing them

to believe that they are not able to learn.

EvidenceCarol Dweck

Rewards and rankings encourage pupils to focus on marks rather thantheir learning needs.

Students then avoid risk and difficult tasks.

These findings also correlate with Carol Dwecks research in the USA. Dweck has

spent 20 years researching students motivations for learning.

Dweck found that practice that focuses on rewards like gold stars, grades or

place-in-the-class ranking encourage learners to focus on their performance

rather than their learning.

This suppresses the risk-taking that is part and parcel of new learning because

risk means decreased likelihood of reward. Learners, especially high achievers,

actively avoid extending themselves in the interest of securing rewards.

NoteThis does not suggest that childrens learning should not be celebrated,

far from it. But it does indicate that the celebration should focus on the learning

and not the reward itself.

This will become clearer as the AfL strategies, particularly feedback strategies,

are explained in later units.

AfLs Main Elements

Learning Intentions Success Criteria Formative Feedback Effective Questioning Peer- and Self-Assessment and Self-Evaluation

The main elements of AfL are as follows and will be covered in more detail in

their respective training sessions.

1. LEARNING INTENTIONS inform pupils about what they are going to learn,and why.

2. SUCCESS CRITERIA are the steps or key ingredients that are pertinent tothe new learning. Pupils and teachers negotiate these before the


11/12

learning begins, and it is only these items that the pupils are measured

against.

3. FORMATIVE FEEDBACK provides pupils with information on the successfulareas of their learning performance as well as areas to improve next.

Feedback should be based on the agreed success criteria.

4. EFECTIVE QUESTIONING is about asking questions in a way that providesyou with key information that you can use to determine where learning

currently is, expand learning, and plan for future learning. Its also about

encouraging more pupil questioning.

5. PEER- AND SELF-ASSESSMENT and SELF-EVALUATION consider not only whatthey and their peers have learnt but also how they learn best.

(You may wish to complete the answer to the fourth question on your worksheet:What will I be doing in the classroom thats different?).


12/12

Documents

Construction of Knowledge