How People Learn:
Brain, Mind,
Experience, and School
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Part III: Teachers and Teaching
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6
The Design of Learning
Environments
In this chapter we
discuss implications of new knowledge about learning for the design of
learning environments, especially schools. Learning theory does not
provide a simple recipe for designing effective learning environments;
similarly, physics constrains but does not dictate how to build a bridge
(e.g., Simon, 1969). Nevertheless, new developments in the science of
learning raise important questions about the design of learning
environments--questions that suggest the value of rethinking what is
taught, how it is taught, and how it is assessed. The focus in this
chapter is on general characteristics of learning environments that need
to be examined in light of new developments in the science of learning;
Chapter 7 provides specific examples of
instruction in the areas of mathematics, science, and history--examples
that make the arguments in the present chapter more concrete.
We begin our discussion
of learning environments by revisiting a point made in Chapter 1--that the learning goals for schools have
undergone major changes during the past century. Everyone expects much
more from today's schools than was expected 100 years ago. A
fundamental tenet of modern learning theory is that different kinds of
learning goals require different approaches to instruction
(Chapter 3); new goals for education require
changes in opportunities to learn. After discussing changes in goals,
we explore the design of learning environments from four perspectives
that appear to be particularly important given current data about human
learning, namely, the degree to which learning environments are learner
centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community
centered. Later, we define these perspectives and explain how they
relate to the preceding discussions in Chapters
1-4.
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CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL GOALS |
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As discussed in Chapter 1, educational goals for the twenty-first
century are very different from the goals of earlier times. This shift
is important to keep in mind when considering claims that schools are
"getting worse." In many cases, schools seem to be functioning as well
as ever, but the challenges and expectations have changed quite
dramatically (e.g., Bruer, 1993; Resnick, 1987).
Consider the goals of
schooling in the early 1800s. Instruction in writing focused on the
mechanics of making notation as dictated by the teacher, transforming
oral messages into written ones. It was not until the mid to late 1800s
that writing began to be taught on a mass level in most European
countries, and school children began to be asked to compose their own
written texts. Even then, writing instruction was largely aimed at
giving children the capacity to closely imitate very simple text forms.
It was not until the 1930s that the idea emerged of primary school
students expressing themselves in writing (Alcorta, 1994; Schneuwly,
1994). As in writing, it was not until relatively recently that
analysis and interpretation of what is read became an expectation of
skilled reading by all school children. Overall, the definition of
functional literacy changed from being able to sign one's name to word
decoding to reading for new information (Resnick and Resnick, 1977); see
Box 6.1.
In the early 1900s, the
challenge of providing mass education was seen by many as analogous to
mass production in factories. School administrators were eager to make
use of the "scientific" organization of factories to structure efficient
classrooms. Children were regarded as raw materials to be efficiently
processed by technical workers (the teachers) to reach the end product
(Bennett and LeCompte, 1990; Callahan, 1962; Kliebard, 1975). This
approach attempted to sort the raw materials (the children) so that they
could be treated somewhat as an assembly line. Teachers were viewed as
workers whose job was to carry out directives from their superiors--the
efficiency experts of schooling (administrators and researchers).
The emulation of
factory efficiency fostered the development of standardized tests for
measurement of the "product," of clerical work by teachers to keep
records of costs and progress (often at the expense of teaching), and of
"management" of teaching by central district authorities who had little
knowledge of educational practice or philosophy (Callahan, 1962). In
short, the factory model affected the design of curriculum, instruction,
and assessment in schools.
Today, students need to
understand the current state of their knowledge and to build on it,
improve it, and make decisions in the face of uncertainty (Talbert and
McLaughlin, 1993). These two notions of knowledge were identified by
John Dewey (1916) as "records" of previous cultural accomplishments and
engagement in active processes as represented by the phrase "to do."
For example, doing mathematics involves solving problems, abstracting,
inventing, proving (see, e.g., Romberg, 1983). Doing history involves
the construction and evaluation of historical documents (see, e.g.,
Wineberg, 1996). Doing science includes such activities as testing
theories through experimentation and observation (e.g., Lehrer and
Schauble, 1996a, b; Linn, 1992, 1994; Schwab, 1978). Society envisions
graduates of school systems who can identify and solve problems and make
contributions to society throughout their lifetime--who display the
qualities of "adaptive expertise" discussed in Chapter 3. To achieve this vision requires
rethinking what is taught, how teachers teach, and how what students
learn is assessed.
The remainder of this
chapter is organized around Figure
6.1, which illustrates four perspectives on learning environments
that seem particularly important given the principles of learning
discussed in earlier chapters. Although we discuss these perspectives
separately, they need to be conceptualized as a system of interconnected
components that mutually support one another (e.g., Brown and Campione,
1996); we first discuss each perspective separately and then describe
how they interrelate.
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LEARNER-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS |
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We use the term
"learner centered" to refer to environments that pay careful attention
to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs that learners bring to
the educational setting. This term includes teaching practices that
have been called "culturally responsive," "culturally appropriate,"
"culturally compatible," and "culturally relevant" (Ladson-Billings,
1995). The term also fits the concept of "diagnostic teaching" (Bell et
al., 1980): attempting to discover what students think in relation to
the problems on hand, discussing their misconceptions sensitively, and
giving them situations to go on thinking about which will enable them to
readjust their ideas (Bell, 1982a:7). Teachers who are learner centered
recognize the importance of building on the conceptual and cultural
knowledge that students bring with them to the classroom (see Chapters 3 and 4).
Diagnostic teaching
provides an example of starting from the structure of a child's
knowledge. The information on which to base a diagnosis may be acquired
through observation, questioning and conversation, and reflection on the
products of student activity. A key strategy is to prompt children to
explain and develop their knowledge structures by asking them to make
predictions about various situations and explain the reasons for their
predictions. By selecting critical tasks that embody known
misconceptions, teachers can help students test their thinking and see
how and why various ideas might need to change (Bell, 1982a, b, 1985;
Bell et al., 1986; Bell and Purdy, 1985). The model is one of engaging
students in cognitive conflict and then having discussions about
conflicting viewpoints (see Piaget, 1973; Festinger, 1957). "To promote
learning, it is important to focus on controlled changes of structure in
a fixed context . . . or on deliberate transfer of a structure from
one context to another" (Bell, 1985:72; see Chapter
7).
Learner-centered
instruction also includes a sensitivity to the cultural practices of
students and the effect of those practices on classroom learning. In a
study of the Kamehameha School in Hawaii, teachers were deliberate in
learning about students' home and community cultural practices and
language use and incorporated them in classroom literacy instruction (Au
and Jordan, 1981). After using the native Hawaiian "talk-story"
(jointly produced student narratives), shifting the focus of instruction
from decoding to comprehending, and including students' home experiences
as a part of the discussion of reading materials, students demonstrated
significant improvement in standardized test performance in reading.
Learner-centered
teachers also respect the language practices of their students because
they provide a basis for further learning. In science, one standard way
of talking in both school and professional science is impersonal and
expository, without any reference to personal or social intentions or
experiences (Lemke, 1990; Wertsch, 1991). This way, which predominates
in schools, privileges middle-class, mainstream ways of knowing and
constitutes a barrier for students from other backgrounds who do not
come to school already practiced in "school talk" (Heath, 1983).
Everyday and scientific discourses need to be coordinated to assist
students' scientific understanding.
In science discourse as
it develops in most classrooms, students' talk frequently expresses
multiple intentions or voices (see Ballenger, 1997; Bakhtin, 1984;
Warren and Rosebery, 1996; Wertsch, 1991). In their narratives and
arguments, students express both scientific and social intentions:
scientific in that the students present evidence in support of a
scientific argument; social in that they also talk about themselves as
certain types of people (e.g., virtuous, honest, trustworthy). If the
responses of other students and the teacher to these multivoiced
narratives are always keyed to the scientific point, it helps to shape
the meaning that is taken from them and relates them back to the context
of the unfolding scientific argument (Ballenger, 1997). In standard
science lessons, the scientific point in the talk of many students,
particularly those whose discourse is not mainstream, is often missed,
and the social intention is often devalued (Lemke, 1990; Michaels and
Bruce, 1989; Wertsch, 1991; see Chapter 7).
In another example of
connecting everyday talk and school talk, African American high school
students were shown that many of their forms of everyday speech were
examples of a very high form of literacy that was taught in school, but
never before connected with their everyday experience (Lee, 1991, 1992).
Like Proust who discovered he had been speaking prose all of his life,
the students discovered that they were fluent in a set of competencies
that were considered academically advanced.
Overall,
learner-centered environments include teachers who are aware that
learners construct their own meanings, beginning with the beliefs,
understandings, and cultural practices they bring to the classroom. If
teaching is conceived as constructing a bridge between the subject
matter and the student, learner-centered teachers keep a constant eye on
both ends of the bridge. The teachers attempt to get a sense of what
students know and can do as well as their interests and passions--what
each student knows, cares about, is able to do, and wants to do.
Accomplished teachers "give learners reason," by respecting and
understanding learners' prior experiences and understandings, assuming
that these can serve as a foundation on which to build bridges to new
understandings (Duckworth, 1987). Chapter 7
illustrates how these bridges can be built.
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KNOWLEDGE-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS |
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Environments that are
solely learner centered would not necessarily help students acquire the
knowledge and skills necessary to function effectively in society. As
noted in Chapter 2, the ability of experts to
think and solve problems is not simply due to a generic set of "thinking
skills" or strategies but, instead, requires well-organized bodies of
knowledge that support planning and strategic thinking.
Knowledge-centered environments take seriously the need to help students
become knowledgeable (Bruner, 1981) by learning in ways that lead to
understanding and subsequent transfer. Current knowledge on learning
and transfer (Chapter 3) and development (Chapter 4) provide important guidelines for
achieving these goals. Standards in areas such as mathematics and
science help define the knowledge and competencies that students need to
acquire (e.g., American Association for the Advancement of Science,
1989; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989; National
Research Council, 1996).
Knowledge-centered
environments intersect with learner-centered environments when
instruction begins with a concern for students' initial preconceptions
about the subject matter. The story Fish Is Fish (Chapter 1) illustrates how people construct new
knowledge based on their current knowledge. Without carefully
considering the knowledge that students' bring to the learning
situation, it is difficult to predict what they will understand about
new information that is presented to them (see Chapters 3 and 4).
Knowledge-centered
environments also focus on the kinds of information and activities that
help students develop an understanding of disciplines (e.g., Prawat et
al., 1992). This focus requires a critical examination of existing
curricula. In history, a widely used history text on the American
Revolution left out crucial information necessary to understand rather
than merely memorize (Beck et al., 1989, 1991). In science, existing
curricula tend to overemphasize facts and underemphasize "doing science"
to explore and test big ideas (American Association for the Advancement
of Science, 1989; National Research Council, 1996). As noted in Chapter 2, the Third International Mathematics and
Science Study (Schmidt et al., 1997) characterized American curricula in
mathematics and science as being "a mile wide and an inch deep."
(Examples of teaching for depth rather than breadth are illustrated in
Chapter 7.)
As discussed in the
first part of this book, knowledge-centered environments also include an
emphasis on sense-making--on helping students become metacognitive by
expecting new information to make sense and asking for clarification
when it doesn't (e.g., Palincsar and Brown, 1984; Schoenfeld, 1983,
1985, 1991). A concern with sense-making raises questions about many
existing curricula. For example, it has been argued that many
mathematics curricula emphasize
. . . not so much a form of thinking as a substitute for
thinking. The process of calculation or computation only involves the
deployment of a set routine with no room for ingenuity or flair, no
place for guess work or surprise, no chance for discovery, no need for
the human being, in fact (Scheffler, 1975:184).
The argument here is
not that students should never learn to compute, but that they should
also learn other things about mathematics, especially the fact that it
is possible for them to make sense of mathematics and to think
mathematically (e.g., Cobb et al., 1992).
There are interesting
new approaches to the development of curricula that support learning
with understanding and encourage sense making. One is "progressive
formalization," which begins with the informal ideas that students bring
to school and gradually helps them see how these ideas can be
transformed and formalized. Instructional units encourage students to
build on their informal ideas in a gradual but structured manner so that
they acquire the concepts and procedures of a discipline.
The idea of progressive
formalization is exemplified by the algebra strand for middle school
students using Mathematics in Context (National Center for
Research in Mathematical Sciences Education and Freudenthal Institute,
1997). It begins by having students use their own words, pictures, or
diagrams to describe mathematical situations to organize their own
knowledge and work and to explain their strategies. In later units,
students gradually begin to use symbols to describe situations, organize
their mathematical work, or express their strategies. At this level,
students devise their own symbols or learn some nonconventional
notation. Their representations of problem situations and explanations
of their work are a mixture of words and symbols. Later, students learn
and use standard conventional algebraic notation for writing expressions
and equations, for manipulating algebraic expressions and solving
equations, and for graphing equations. Movement along this continuum is
not necessarily smooth, nor all in one direction. Although students are
actually doing algebra less formally in the earlier grades, they are not
forced to generalize their knowledge to a more formal level, nor to
operate at a more formal level, before they have had sufficient
experience with the underlying concepts. Thus, students may move back
and forth among levels of formality depending on the problem situation
or on the mathematics involved.
Central to curriculum
frameworks such as "progressive formalization" are questions about what
is developmentally appropriate to teach at various ages. Such questions
represent another example of overlap between learner-centered and
knowledge-centered perspectives. Older views that young children are
incapable of complex reasoning have been replaced by evidence that
children are capable of sophisticated levels of thinking and reasoning
when they have the knowledge necessary to support these activities (see
Chapter 4). An impressive body of research shows
the potential benefit of early access by students to important
conceptual ideas. In classrooms using a form of "cognitively guided"
instruction in geometry, second-grade children's skills for representing
and visualizing three-dimensional forms exceeded those of comparison
groups of undergraduate students at a leading university (Lehrer and
Chazan, 1998). Young children have also demonstrated powerful forms of
early algebraic generalization (Lehrer and Chazan, 1998). Forms of
generalization in science, such as experimentation, can be introduced
before the secondary school years through a developmental approach to
important mathematical and scientific ideas (Schauble et al., 1995;
Warren and Rosebery, 1996). Such an approach entails becoming cognizant
of the early origins of students' thinking and then identifying how
those ideas can be fostered and elaborated (Brown and Campione, 1994).
Attempts to
create environments that are knowledge centered also raise important
questions about how to foster an integrated understanding of a
discipline. Many models of curriculum design seem to produce knowledge
and skills that are disconnected rather than organized into coherent
wholes. The National Research Council (1990:4) notes that "To the
Romans, a curriculum was a rutted course that guided the path of
two-wheeled chariots." This rutted path metaphor is an appropriate
description of the curriculum for many school subjects:
Vast numbers of learning objectives, each associated
with pedagogical strategies, serve as mile posts along the trail mapped
by texts from kindergarten to twelfth grade. . . . Problems are
solved not by observing and responding to the natural landscape through
which the mathematics curriculum passes, but by mastering time tested
routines, conveniently placed along the path (National Research Council,
1990:4).
An alternative to a
"rutted path" curriculum is one of "learning the landscape" (Greeno,
1991). In this metaphor, learning is analogous to learning to live in
an environment: learning your way around, learning what resources are
available, and learning how to use those resources in conducting your
activities productively and enjoyably (Greeno, 1991:175). The
progressive formalization framework discussed above is consistent with
this metaphor. Knowing where one is in a landscape requires a network
of connections that link one's present location to the larger space.
Traditional curricula
often fail to help students "learn their way around" a discipline. The
curricula include the familiar scope and sequence charts that specify
procedural objectives to be mastered by students at each grade: though
an individual objective might be reasonable, it is not seen as part of a
larger network. Yet it is the network, the connections among
objectives, that is important. This is the kind of knowledge that
characterizes expertise (see Chapter 2). Stress
on isolated parts can train students in a series of routines without
educating them to understand an overall picture that will ensure the
development of integrated knowledge structures and information about
conditions of applicability.
An alternative to
simply progressing through a series of exercises that derive from a
scope and sequence chart is to expose students to the major features of
a subject domain as they arise naturally in problem situations.
Activities can be structured so that students are able to explore,
explain, extend, and evaluate their progress. Ideas are best introduced
when students see a need or a reason for their use--this helps them see
relevant uses of knowledge to make sense of what they are learning.
Problem situations used to engage students may include the historic
reasons for the development of the domain, the relationship of that
domain to other domains, or the uses of ideas in that domain (see Webb
and Romberg, 1992). In Chapter 7 we present
examples from history, science, and mathematics instruction that
emphasize the importance of introducing ideas and concepts in ways that
promote deep understanding.
A challenge for the
design of knowledge-centered environments is to strike the appropriate
balance between activities designed to promote understanding and those
designed to promote the automaticity of skills necessary to function
effectively without being overwhelmed by attentional requirements.
Students for whom it is effortful to read, write, and calculate can
encounter serious difficulties learning. The importance of automaticity
has been demonstrated in a number of areas (e.g., Beck et al., 1989,
1991; Hasselbring et al., 1987; LaBerge and Samuels, 1974; see Chapter 2).
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ASSESSMENT-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS |
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In addition to being
learner centered and knowledge centered, effectively designed learning
environments must also be assessment centered. The key principles of
assessment are that they should provide opportunities for feedback and
revision and that what is assessed must be congruent with one's learning
goals.
It is important to
distinguish between two major uses of assessment. The first, formative
assessment, involves the use of assessments (usually administered in the
context of the classroom) as sources of feedback to improve teaching and
learning. The second, summative assessment, measures what students have
learned at the end of some set of learning activities. Examples of
formative assessments include teachers' comments on work in progress,
such as drafts of papers or preparations for presentations. Examples of
summative assessments include teacher-made tests given at the end of a
unit of study and state and national achievement tests that students
take at the end of a year. Ideally, teachers' formative and summative
assessments are aligned with the state and national assessments that
students take at the end of the year; often, however, this is not the
case. Issues of summative assessment for purposes of national, state,
and district accountability are beyond the scope of this report; our
discussion focuses on classroom-based formative and summative
assessments.
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Formative Assessments and Feedback |
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Studies of
adaptive expertise, learning, transfer, and early development show that
feedback is extremely important (see Chapters 2,
3, and 4). Students'
thinking must be made visible (through discussions, papers, or tests),
and feedback must be provided. Given the goal of learning with
understanding, assessments and feedback must focus on understanding, and
not only on memory for procedures or facts (although these can be
valuable, too). Assessments that emphasize understanding do not
necessarily require elaborate or complicated assessment procedures.
Even multiple-choice tests can be organized in ways that assess
understanding (see below).
Opportunities for
feedback should occur continuously, but not intrusively, as a part of
instruction. Effective teachers continually attempt to learn about
their students' thinking and understanding. They do a great deal of
on-line monitoring of both group work and individual performances, and
they attempt to assess students' abilities to link their current
activities to other parts of the curriculum and their lives. The
feedback they give to students can be formal or informal. Effective
teachers also help students build skills of self-assessment. Students
learn to assess their own work, as well as the work of their peers, in
order to help everyone learn more effectively (see, e.g., Vye et al.,
1998, in press). Such self-assessment is an important part of the
metacognitive approach to instruction (discussed in Chapters 3, 4, and 7).
In many classrooms,
opportunities for feedback appear to occur relatively infrequently.
Most teacher feedback--grades on tests, papers, worksheets, homework,
and on report cards--represent summative assessments that are intended
to measure the results of learning. After receiving grades, students
typically move on to a new topic and work for another set of grades.
Feedback is most valuable when students have the opportunity to use it
to revise their thinking as they are working on a unit or project. The
addition of opportunities for formative assessment increases students'
learning and transfer, and they learn to value opportunities to revise
(Barron et al., 1998; Black and William, 1998; Vye et al., 1998b).
Opportunities to work collaboratively in groups can also increase the
quality of the feedback available to students (Barron, 1991; Bereiter
and Scardamalia, 1989; Fuchs et al., 1992; Johnson and Johnson, 1975;
Slavin, 1987; Vye et al., 1998a), although many students must be helped
to learn how to work collaboratively. New technologies provide
opportunities to increase feedback by allowing students, teachers, and
content experts to interact both synchronously and asynchronously (see
Chapter 9).
A challenge of
implementing good assessment practices involves the need to change many
teachers', parents', and students' models of what effective learning
looks like. Many assessments developed by teachers overly emphasize
memory for procedures and facts (Porter et al., 1993). In addition,
many standardized tests that are used for accountability still
overemphasize memory for isolated facts and procedures, yet teachers are
often judged by how well their students do on such tests. One
mathematics teacher consistently produced students who scored high on
statewide examinations by helping students memorize a number of
mathematical procedures (e.g., proofs) that typically appeared on the
examinations, but the students did not really understand what they were
doing, and often could not answer questions that required an
understanding of mathematics (Schoenfeld, 1988).
Appropriately designed
assessments can help teachers realize the need to rethink their teaching
practices. Many physics teachers have been surprised at their students'
inabilities to answer seemingly obvious (to the expert) questions that
assessed their students' understanding, and this outcome has motivated
them to revise their instructional practices (Redish, 1996). Similarly,
visually based assessments of "number sense" (see Case and Moss, 1996)
have helped teachers discover the need to help their students develop
important aspects of mathematical understanding (Cognition and
Technology Group at Vanderbilt, in press b). Innovative assessments
that reveal students' understanding of important concepts in science and
mathematics have also been developed (Lehrer and Schauble, 1996a,b).
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Formats for Assessing Understanding |
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Teachers have limited
time to assess students' performances and provide feedback, but new
advances in technology can help solve this problem (see Chapter 9). Even without technology, however,
advances have been made in devising simple assessments that measure
understanding rather than memorization. In the area of physics,
assessments like those used in Chapter 2 to
compare experts and novices have been revised for use in classrooms.
One task presents students with two problems and asks them to state
whether both would be solved using a similar approach and state the
reason for the decision:
1. A 2.5-kilogram ball
with a radius of 4 centimeters is traveling at 7 meters/second on a
rough horizontal surface, but not spinning. At some later time, the
ball is rolling without slipping 5 meters/second. How much work was
done by friction?
2. A 0.5-kilogram ball
with a radius of 15 centimeters is initially sliding at 10 meters/second
without spinning. The ball travels on a horizontal surface and
eventually rolls without slipping. Find the ball's final velocity.
Novices typically state
that these two problems are solved similarly because they match on
surface features--both involve a ball sliding and rolling on a
horizontal surface. Students who are learning with understanding state
that the problems are solved differently: the first can be solved by
applying the work-energy theorem; the second can be solved by applying
conservation of angular momentum (Hardiman et al., 1989); see Box 6.2. These kinds of assessment
items can be used during the course of instruction to monitor the depth
of conceptual understanding.
Portfolio assessments
are another method of formative assessment. They provide a format for
keeping records of students' work as they progress throughout the year
and, most importantly, for allowing students to discuss their
achievements and difficulties with their teachers, parents, and fellow
students (e.g., Wiske, 1997; Wolf, 1988). They take time to implement
and they are often implemented poorly--portfolios often become simply
another place to store student work but no discussion of the work takes
place--but used properly, they provide students and others with valuable
information about their learning progress over time.
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Theoretical Frameworks for Assessment |
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A challenge
for the learning sciences is to provide a theoretical framework that
links assessment practices to learning theory. An important step in
this direction is represented by the work of Baxter and Glaser (1997),
who provide a framework for integrating cognition and context in
assessing achievement in science. In their report, performance is
described in terms of the content and process task demands of the
subject matter and the nature and extent of cognitive activity likely to
be observed in a particular assessment situation. The framework
provides a basis for examining how developers' intentions are realized
in performance assessments that purport to measure reasoning,
understanding, and complex problem solving.
Characterizing
assessments in terms of components of competence and the content-process
demands of the subject matter brings specificity to generic assessment
objectives such as "higher level thinking and deep understanding."
Characterizing student performance in terms of cognitive activities
focuses attention on the differences in competence and subject-matter
achievement that can be observed in learning and assessment situations.
The kind and quality of cognitive activities in an assessment is a
function of the content and process demands of the task involved. For
example, consider the content-process framework for science assessment
shown in Figure 6.2 (Baxter and
Glaser, 1997). In this figure, task demands for content knowledge are
conceptualized on a continuum from rich to lean (y axis). At one
extreme are knowledge-rich tasks, tasks that require in-depth
understanding of subject matter for their completion. At the other
extreme are tasks that are not dependent on prior knowledge or related
experiences; rather, performance is primarily dependent on the
information given in the assessment situation. The task demands for
process skills are conceptualized as a continuum from constrained to
open (x axis). In open situations, explicit directions are minimized;
students are expected to generate and carry out appropriate process
skills for problem solution. In process-constrained situations,
directions can be of two types: step-by-step, subject-specific
procedures given as part of the task, or directions to explain the
process skills that are necessary for task completion. In this
situation, students are asked to generate explanations, an activity
that does not require using the process skills. Assessment tasks can
involve many possible combinations of content knowledge and process
skills; Table 6.1 illustrates the relationship between
the structure of knowledge and the organized cognitive activities.
TABLE 6.1
Cognitive Activity and Structure of Knowledge
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Structure of Knowledge |
Organized Cognitive Activity |
Fragmented |
Meaningful |
Problem Representation |
Surface features and shallow understanding |
Underlying principles and relevant concepts |
Strategy Use |
Undirected trial-and-error problem solving |
Efficient, informative, and goal oriented |
Self-Monitoring |
Minimal and sporadic |
Ongoing and flexible |
Explanation |
Single statement of fact of description of superficial
factors |
Principled and coherent |
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COMMUNITY-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS |
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New developments in the
science of learning suggest that the degree to which environments are
community centered is also important for learning. Especially important
are norms for people learning from one another and continually
attempting to improve. We use the term community centered to refer to
several aspects of community, including the classroom as a community,
the school as a community, and the degree to which students, teachers,
and administers feel connected to the larger community of homes,
businesses, states, the nation, and even the world.
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Classroom and School Communities |
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At the level of
classrooms and schools, learning seems to be enhanced by social norms
that value the search for understanding and allow students (and
teachers) the freedom to make mistakes in order to learn (e.g., Brown
and Campione, 1994; Cobb et al., 1992). Different classrooms and
schools reflect different sets of norms and expectations. For example,
an unwritten norm that operates in some classrooms is never to get
caught making a mistake or not knowing an answer (see, e.g., Holt,
1964). This norm can hinder students' willingness to ask questions when
they do not understand the material or to explore new questions and
hypotheses. Some norms and expectations are more subject specific. For
example, the norms in a mathematics class may be that mathematics is
knowing how to compute answers; a much better norm would be that the
goal of inquiry is mathematical understanding. Different norms and
practices have major effects on what is taught and how it is assessed
(e.g., Cobb et al., 1992). Sometimes there are different sets of
expectations for different students. Teachers may convey expectations
for school success to some students and expectations for school failure
to others (MacCorquodale, 1988). For example, girls are sometimes
discouraged from participating in higher level mathematics and science.
Students, too, may share and convey cultural expectations that proscribe
the participation of girls in some classes (Schofield et al., 1990).
Classroom norms can
also encourage modes of participation that may be unfamiliar to some
students. For example, some groups rely on learning by observation and
listening and then becoming involved in ongoing activities; school-like
forms of talking may be unfamiliar for the children whose community has
only recently included schools (Rogoff et al., 1993); see Box 6.3.
The sense of community
in classrooms is also affected by grading practices, and these can have
positive or negative effects depending on the students. For example,
Navajo high school students do not treat tests and grades as competitive
events the way that Anglo students do (Deyhle and Margonis, 1995). An
Anglo high school counselor reported that Navajo parents complained
about their children being singled out when the counselor started a
"high achiever" bulletin board and wanted to put up the pictures of
students with B averages or better. The counselor "compromised" by
putting up happy stickers with the students' names on them. A Navajo
student, staring at the board, said "The board embarrasses us, to be
stuck out like that" (Deyhle and Margonis, 1995:28).
More broadly,
competition among students for teacher attention, approval, and grades
is a commonly used motivator in U.S. schools. And in some situations,
competition may create situations that impede learning. This is
especially so if individual competition is at odds with a community
ethic of individuals' contributing their strengths to the community
(Suina and Smolkin, 1994).
An emphasis on
community is also imortant when attempting to borrow successful
educational practices from other countries. For example, Japanese
teachers spend considerable time working with the whole class, and they
frequently ask students who have made errors to share their thinking
with the rest of the class. This can be very valuable because it leads
to discussions that deepen the understanding of everyone in the class.
However, this practice works only because Japanese teachers have
developed a classroom culture in which students are skilled at learning
from one another and respect the fact that an analysis of errors is
fruitful for learning (Hatano and Inagaki, 1996). Japanese students
value listening, so they learn from large class discussions even if they
do not have many chances to participate. The culture of American
classrooms is often very different--many emphasize the importance of
being right and contributing by talking. Teaching and learning must be
viewed from the perspective of the overall culture of the society and
its relationship to the norms of the classrooms. To simply attempt to
import one or two Japanese teaching techniques into American classrooms
may not produce the desired results.
The sense of community
in a school also appears to be strongly affected by the adults who work
in that environment. As Barth (1988) states:
The relationship among adults who live in a school has
more to do with the character and quality of the school and with the
accomplishments of the students than any other factor.
Studies by Bray (1998)
and Talbert and McLaughlin (1993) emphasize the importance of teacher
learning communities. We say more about this in Chapter 8.
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Connections to the Broader Community |
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An analysis of learning
environments from the perspective of community also includes a concern
for connections between the school environment and the broader
community, including homes, community centers, after-school programs,
and businesses. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 showed that learning
takes time; ideally, what is learned in school can be connected to
out-of-school learning and vice versa. Often, however, this ideal is
not reached. As John Dewey (1916) noted long ago:
From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in
school comes from his inability to utilize the experience he gets
outside . . . while on the other hand, he is unable to apply in daily
life what he is learning in school. That is the isolation of the
school--its isolation from life.
The importance of
connecting the school with outside learning activities can be
appreciated by considering Figure
6.3, which shows the percentage of time during a typical school year
that students spend in school, sleeping, and engaged in other activities
(see Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, in press a). The
percentage of time spent in school is comparatively small. If students
spend one-third of their nonsleeping time outside of school watching
television, this means that they spend more time watching television in
a year than they spend in school. (We say more about television and
learning in the next section.)
A key environment for
learning is the family. Even when family members do not focus
consciously on instructional roles, they provide resources for
children's learning, activities in which learning occurs, and
connections to community (Moll, 1986a, b, 1990). Children also learn
from the attitudes of family members toward skills and values of
schooling.
The success of the
family as a learning environment, especially in children's early years
(see Chapter 4), has provided inspiration and
guidance for some of the changes recommended in schools. The phenomenal
development of children from birth to age 4 or 5 is generally supported
by family interactions in which children learn by engaging with and
observing others in shared endeavors. Conversations and other
interactions that occur around events of interest with trusted and
skilled adult and child companions are especially powerful environments
for children's learning. Many of the recommendations for changes in
schools can be seen as extensions of the learning activities that occur
within families. In addition, recommendations to include families in
classroom activities and planning hold promise of bringing together two
powerful systems for supporting children's learning.
Children participate in
many other institutions outside their homes that can foster learning.
Some of these institutions have learning as part of their goals,
including many after-school programs, organizations such as Boy and Girl
Scouts and 4-H Clubs, museums, and religious groups. Others make
learning more incidental, but learning takes place nevertheless (see
McLaughlin, 1990, on youth clubs; Griffin and Cole, 1984, on the Fifth
Dimension Program).
Connections to experts
outside of school can also have a positive influence on in-school
learning because they provide opportunities for students to interact
with parents and other people who take an interest in what students are
doing. It can be very motivating both to students and teachers to have
opportunities to share their work with others. Opportunities to prepare
for these events helps teachers raise standards because the consequences
go beyond mere scores on a test (e.g., Brown and Campione, 1994, 1996;
Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, in press b).
The idea of outside
audiences who present challenges (complete with deadlines) has been
incorporated into a number of instructional programs (e.g., Cognition
and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1997; Wiske, 1997). Working to
prepare for outsiders provides motivation that helps teachers maintain
student interest. In addition, teachers and students develop a better
sense of community as they prepare to face a common challenge. Students
are also motivated to prepare for outside audiences who do not come to
the classroom but will see their projects. Preparing exhibits for
museums represents an excellent example (see Collins et al., 1991). New
technologies that enhance the ability to connect classrooms to others in
the school, to parents, business leaders, college students, content area
experts, and others around the world are discussed in Chapter 9.
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TELEVISION |
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For better or for
worse, most children spent a considerable amount of time watching
television; it has played an increasingly prominent role in children's
development over the past 50 years. Children watch a great deal of
television before entering school, and television viewing continues
throughout life. In fact, many students spend more hours watching
television than attending school. Parents want their children to learn
from television; at the same time they are concerned about what they are
learning from the programs they watch (Greenfield, 1984).
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Watching Different Kinds of Programs |
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Television programming
for children ranges from educational to purely entertaining (see Wright
and Huston, 1995). And there are different ways of watching programs--a
child may watch in isolation or with an adult. Furthermore, just as in
domains like chess, physics, or teaching (see Chapter
2), people's existing knowledge and beliefs affect what they notice,
understand, and remember from viewing television (Newcomb and Collins,
1979). The same program can have different effects depending on who is
watching and whether the viewing is a solo activity or part of an
interactive group. An important distinction is whether the program is
intended to be educational or not.
One group of
preschoolers aged 2-4 and first-grade students aged 6-7 watched about
7-8 hours of noneducational programming per week; the preschool
children also watched an average of 2 hours of educational programming
per week, and the older students watched 1 hour. Despite the low ratio
of educational to noneducational viewing, the educational programs
seemed to have positive benefits. The 2- to 4-year-old preschoolers
performed better than non-viewers of educational programs on tests of
school readiness, reading, mathematics, and vocabulary as much as 3
years later (Wright and Huston, 1995). Specifically, viewing
educational programs was a positive predictor of letter-word knowledge,
vocabulary size, and school readiness on standardized achievement tests.
For the older students, the viewing of educational programs was related
to better performance on tests of reading comprehension and teachers'
judgments of school adjustment in first and second grades, compared with
children who were infrequent viewers. Overall, the effects of
television viewing were not as widespread for the older students, and
there were fewer significant effects for the older children than for the
preschoolers. It is important to note that the effects of watching
educational programs were evident "even when initial language skills,
family education, income, and the quality of the home environment are
taken into account" (Wright and Huston, 1995:22).
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Effects on Beliefs and Attitudes |
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Television also
provides images and role models that can affect how children view
themselves, how they see others, attitudes about what academic subjects
they should be interested in, and other topics related to person
perception. These images can have both positive and negative effects.
For example, when 8- to 14-year-olds watched programs designed to show
positive attributes of children around the world, they were less likely
to say that children from their own country were more interesting or
more intelligent (O'Brien, 1981), and they began to see more
similarities among people around the world (Greenfield, 1984). And
children who watched episodes of Sesame Street featuring handicapped
children had more positive feelings toward children with disabilities.
However, children can
also misinterpret programs about people from different cultures,
depending on what they already know (Newcomb and Collins, 1979).
Stereotyping represents a powerful effect of watching television that is
potentially negative. Children bring sex role stereotypes with them to
school that derive from television programs and commercials (Dorr,
1982).
As a powerful visual
medium, television creates stereotypes even when there is no intent to
sell an image. But experimental studies indicate that such stereotyping
effects decrease with children as young as 5 if adults offer critiques
of the stereotypic portrayals as the children watch programs (Dorr,
1982). Thus, entertainment programs can educate in positive ways and
learned information can be extended through adult guidance and
commentary.
In sum, television has
an impact on children's learning that must be taken seriously. But the
medium is neither inherently beneficial nor harmful. The content that
students watch, and how they watch it, has important effects on what
they learn. Especially significant is the fact that informative or
educational programming has been shown to have beneficial effects on
school achievement and that a preponderance of non-educational,
entertainment viewing can have negative effects. Furthermore, the
benefits of informative viewing occur despite the fact that the ratio of
young children's viewing tends to be 7:1 in favor of entertainment
television. These findings support the wisdom of continued attempts to
develop and study television programs that can help students acquire the
kinds of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that support their learning in
school.
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THE IMPORTANCE OF ALIGNMENT |
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In the beginning of
this chapter we noted that the four perspectives on learning
environments (the degree to which they are learner, knowledge,
assessment, and community centered) would be discussed separately but
ultimately needed to be aligned in ways that mutually support one
another. Alignment is as important for schools as for organizations in
general (e.g., Covey, 1990). A key aspect of task analysis (see Chapter 2) is the idea of aligning goals for
learning with what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is assessed
(both formatively and summatively). Without this alignment, it is
difficult to know what is being learned. Students may be learning
valuable information, but one cannot tell unless there is alignment
between what they are learning and the assessment of that learning.
Similarly, students may be learning things that others don't value
unless curricula and assessments are aligned with the broad learning
goals of communities (Lehrer and Shumow, 1997).
A systems approach to
promote coordination among activities is needed to design effective
learning environments (Brown and Campione, 1996). Many schools have
checklists of innovative practices, such as the use of collaborative
learning, teaching for understanding and problem solving, and using
formative assessment. Often, however, these activities are not
coordinated with one another. Teaching for understanding and problem
solving may be "what we do on Fridays"; collaborative learning may be
used to promote memorization of fact-based tests; and formative
assessments may focus on skills that are totally disconnected from the
rest of the students' curriculum. In addition, students may be given
opportunities to study collaboratively for tests yet be graded on a
curve so that they compete with one another rather than trying to meet
particular performance standards. In these situations, activities in
the classroom are not aligned.
Activities within
a particular classroom may be aligned yet fail to fit with the rest
of the school. And a school as a whole needs to have a consistent
alignment. Some schools communicate a consistent policy about norms and
expectations for conduct and achievement. Others send mixed messages.
For example, teachers may send behavior problems to the principal, who
may inadvertently undermine the teacher by making light of the students'
behavior. Similarly, schedules may or may not be made flexible in order
to accommodate in-depth inquiry, and schools may or may not be adjusted
to minimize disruptions, including nonacademic "pullout" programs and
even the number of classroom interruptions made by a principal's
overzealous use of the classroom intercom. Overall, different
activities within a school may or may not compete with one another and
impede overall progress. When principals and teachers work together to
define a common vision for their entire school, learning can improve
(e.g., Barth, 1988, 1991; Peterson et al., 1995).
Activities within
schools must also be aligned with the goals and assessment practices of
the community. Ideally, teachers' goals for learning fit with the
curriculum they teach and the school's goals, which in turn fit the
goals implicit in the tests of accountability used by the school system.
Often these factors are out of alignment. Effective change requires a
simultaneous consideration of all these factors (e.g., Cognition and
Technology Group at Vanderbilt, in press b). The new scientific
findings about learning provide a framework for guiding systemic change.
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CONCLUSION |
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The goals and
expectations for schooling have changed quite dramatically during the
past century, and new goals suggest the need to rethink such questions
as what is taught, how it is taught, and how students are assessed. We
emphasized that research on learning does not provide a recipe for
designing effective learning environments, but it does support the value
of asking certain kinds of questions about the design of learning
environments.
Four perspectives on
the design of learning environments--the degree to which they are
student centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community
centered--are important in designing these environments.
A focus on the degree
to which environments are learner centered is consistent with the strong
body of evidence suggesting that learners' use their current knowledge
to construct new knowledge and that what they know and believe at the
moment affects how they interpret new information. Sometimes learners'
current knowledge supports new learning, sometimes it hampers learning:
effective instruction begins with what learners bring to the setting;
this includes cultural practices and beliefs as well as knowledge of
academic content.
Learner-centered
environments attempt to help students make connections between their
previous knowledge and their current academic tasks. Parents are
especially good at helping their children make connections. Teachers
have a harder time because they do not share the life experiences of
each of their students. Nevertheless, there are ways to systematically
become familiar with each student's special interests and strengths.
Effective environments
must also be knowledge centered. It is not sufficient only to attempt
to teach general problem solving and thinking skills; the ability to
think and solve problems requires well-organized knowledge that is
accessible in appropriate contexts. An emphasis on being knowledge
centered raises a number of questions, such as the degree to which
instruction begins with students' current knowledge and skills, rather
than simply presents new facts about the subject matter. While young
students are capable of grasping more complex concepts than was believed
previously, those concepts must be presented in ways that are
developmentally appropriate. A knowledge-centered perspective on
learning environments also highlights the importance of thinking about
designs for curricula. To what extent do they help students learn with
understanding versus promote the acquisition of disconnected sets of
facts and skills? Curricula that emphasize an excessively broad range
of subjects run the risk of developing disconnected rather than
connected knowledge; they fit well with the idea of a curriculum as
being a well-worn path in a road. An alternative metaphor for
curriculum is to help students develop interconnected pathways within a
discipline so that they "learn their away around in it" and not lose
sight of where they are.
Issues of assessment
also represent an important perspective for viewing the design of
learning environments. Feedback is fundamental to learning, but
opportunities to receive it are often scarce in classrooms. Students
may receive grades on tests and essays, but these are summative
assessments that occur at the end of projects; also needed are formative
assessments that provide students opportunities to revise and hence
improve the quality of their thinking and learning. Assessments must
reflect the learning goals that define various environments. If the
goal is to enhance understanding, it is not sufficient to provide
assessments that focus primarily on memory for facts and formulas. Many
instructors have changed their approach to teaching after seeing how
their students failed to understand seemingly obvious (to the expert)
ideas.
The fourth perspective
on learning environments involves the degree to which they promote a
sense of community. Ideally, students, teachers, and other interested
participants share norms that value learning and high standards. Norms
such as these increase people's opportunities to interact, receive
feedback, and learn. There are several aspects of community, including
the community of the classroom, the school, and the connections between
the school and the larger community, including the home. The importance
of connected communities becomes clear when one examines the relatively
small amount of time spent in school compared to other settings.
Activities in homes, community centers, and after-school clubs can have
important effects on students' academic achievement.
Finally, there needs to
be alignment among the four perspectives of learning environments. They
all have the potential to overlap and mutually influence one another.
Issues of alignment appear to be very important for accelerating
learning both within and outside of schools.
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