While recently attending a “Here’s where we
are, and here’s where we’re going!” organizational event, I was introduced to a
teaching approach which I found quite intriguing. The simplicity with which the model can be
applied, and the emphasis on the cyclic nature of learning got my
attention. Having spent the past few
months examining research studies on oscillation cycles in the brain, it is
becoming apparent that teaching approaches based on theoretical work produced
in 1983, is being confirmed with fMRI
work completed in the last two years. Perhaps the case could be made to
study the way the internal cycles of the mind synch with the external
information cycles that we are exposed to every day. If it could be proven that brain oscillations
facilitate more than semantic information recall and recognition, the
implications could be massive.
The
teaching approach I mentioned in the introduction is called Scan-Focus-Act (MG Taylor Corp.). The methodology used makes inherent sense
when attempting to structure and channel a learner’s attention. As we all know, what we attend to is where
the learning is going to take place.
Helping the learner recognize and plan for an attentional effort can be
summed up in the following loop:
1.
SCAN-Take in the
environmental stimulus for both the obvious and the subtle
2.
FOCUS-Refine your
attention once a context has been established
3.
ACT-Demonstrate your
learning commitment by doing
a.
Get feedback
4.
Repeat
The
reason this expedites knowledge development is because the ‘learning as
objective’ of this methodology elicits responses in the three primary learning
dimensions (behavioral, cognitive, affective) and has the potential to capture
the multi-sensory nature of learning, as observations can morph out to a
variety of other sensory mechanisms that consolidate meaning.
Here is
an example. While on a nature walk,
students are asked to determine the source of odors lingering in the air. This turns into studying how flowers are
‘distilled’ into packaged scents, which may eventually have the learner making
their own perfume. Note that there are
3 divergent decision points in this
example; the decision is made to go for a walk, and find the source of the
bouquet lingering in the air, a decision is made to research sourcing and
refinement of flower scents, and a decision is made to determine how fragrance
chemistries are packaged for resale. To
me, this is the critical benefit of using S-F-A as part of teaching
practice…the possibility for scaffolded learning. The one thing that is left out of this
example, is the opportunity for the learners to self-select the decision
points. Because the authors of the S-F-A
model highlight the ‘sequential-ness’
and the parallels with an inquiry-learning path, you could be fooled into
thinking that this approach is a commitment to a teacher-designed decisioning
process. From what I saw with S-F-A
being used, learners get to choose what they want to work on next, but what is
chosen can say a lot about what is actually learned. To that point, the authors of the methodology
state:
“A lot of emphasis is placed on the nature of the stages--what Scan feels
like, or what activities take place within Focus, or what organizational
structures might serve better in the Act phase. But what is it that triggers
movement from one stage to another? Or what inhibits such movement? And is
there a transition period, a kind of limbo or no man's land between stages? I
suspect there is but I'm not sure how to define it or whether its definition
will be of value or not.” (Channon, Burns, & Nelson,
2001)
To be
fair, that statement was made in 1983, and in the meantime there are likely
answers by the same authors to the questions posed (I just haven’t found their
answers yet). Also in the meantime, a
great deal of research has been generated as a result of studying how the mind
works through the decisioning process.
Today’s
blog installment is all about the decision
points, specifically, decision points that are self-selected by the learner.
I hope to make a case for why we should be encouraging self-selection in
the decisioning, when the learner is
ready. At the same time I’ll be
showing that bringing into consciousness the stages that a learner goes through
in their thinking cycle (becoming aware of how we think using the ‘objective
lens’ of S-F-A), may or may not lead the mind to determining causality. Being able to recount or defend a decision
made will always be a useful tool,
but being able to self-select in anticipation of an outcome that turns out to
be true because the cause-effect relationship is understood, is where knowledge
as power tool becomes very
handy.
Recognizing
when the mind has the capacity to evolve from associative thinking to causal
thinking has been tricky for educators in that we have to wait around for evidence
that the learner has grasped the underlying meaning of something before they/we
can get on to figuring out the implications of that meaning. Some adolescents are adept at recognizing the
patterns but aren’t in any hurry to ask why the pattern holds. Their ability to predict that the sun will
rise tomorrow because that is what the sun does, implies that there is no real
need to Scan (‘yes, that is the sun up there in the sky’), focus (‘I know
already that staring at the sun can cause blindness’) or act (‘I want a tan, so
sunscreen can wait’). This line of
thinking is not unusual and can become the grand interrupter of our best
teaching/planning intentions in the secondary school classroom. Given the choice to self-select too soon, and
the more impulsive learner may very well make all three of the above decisions
and be able to:
A. Describe both the
nature and order of the decisions made.
B. Make an argument for
why each decision was self-rated as having achieved sufficiency and
appropriateness given the circumstances.
Of
course we as educators can ‘up the ante’ by creating a learning outcome within
our Cosmology Unit that requires deeper awareness through testing, and to many
in the teaching profession, this appears to be the only thing that motivates
learners to select knowing more. I would argue that despite the human tendency
to be lazy if given the opportunity, there is hardwired within the mind
(including the teenaged mind) the capacity for deliberative thought, the
exercise of which manifests itself in a couple of ways germane to this topic:
1.
Acceptance or aversion
to the teacher’s efforts to overtly control impulsive or indifferent behavior
(the behavior modification model)
2.
Learner realization that
self-control (as opposed to teacher control), meaning making, and habituation,
are not initially linked. Consciously linking all three improves the likelihood of learner
self-preservation AND actually generates rewards
in the form of more learning autonomy.
I know
I’m repeating the obvious here; that number one above deals with punishments
while number two deals with incentives.
I think both fear and hope play a powerful role in how the mind evolves,
and some of the recent clinical work studying Fear
Learning points out that the mind values both the ‘stick and the
carrot’ when building frames that make sense.
So,
back to the million-dollar question: When are students ready to self-select?
While
researching the answer to this question I came across a great resource written by
Colin Beard and John Peter Wilson titled, Experiential
Learning: a Best Practice Handbook for Educators and Trainers. As the name suggests, this book looks
carefully at the incorporation of well thought out experiential learning
episodes, and specifically how enhanced learning outcomes can be achieved. What I like about the book is that they build
off the seminal work of John
Dewey and David Kolb. They highlight the key ingredients to
building a memorable and meaningful learning experience. Their attention to the importance of
reflection, the influence of affect and emotion on thought, and the time they
spend explaining Frame-change (my term, not theirs) as a result of experience,
ties in nicely with work done by Corballis,
Bandura,
and the Taylor work cited above.
The book doesn’t attempt to predict readiness for self-selection, as much as it speaks to how the
learner must organize the experience, and by extension the stimulus around them so that coherence triumphs over
chaos. By chapter two, they speak to the
phenomenon that every learner faces; that overwhelming sense that too much
information can, and will, simply overload the learner’s capacity to
think. The following excerpt speaks to
the mind’s need to filter:
“Through the use of a mental magnifying glass we are
able to bring into focus varying levels of detail. However, to look at everything at this [high]
level of intensity would be overpowering and our brains would not be able to
cope; in other words, there would be paralysis through analysis.
In order to prevent this overloading and stop it
working effectively, the brain filters these stimulants to allow only those
elements that are perceived to be of relevance to be mentally processed either
consciously or unconsciously. Thus, we
selectively choose what we believe to be of importance and consciously and
unconsciously, ignore other elements. It
is these cognitive filters, which are part of our mindset and disposition,
which can create mental blind spots. For
this reason we may not be able to see things even when they are right in front
of our eyes.
Despite cognitive blind spots our brains are always
scanning the environment in what might be called the ‘cocktail party
phenomenon’. At a party we might be
talking to a person and concentrating on what is being said, oblivious to
everything happening around us. However,
this focus may only be happening at a very conscious level; subconsciously, we
would appear to be taking in other things that are happening. For instance, despite high levels of noise we
may suddenly pick out from the cacophony the sound of our name being spoken and
then immediately tune into that frequency to hear what people are saying about
us!
Thus, perception and interaction are insufficient in
themselves, and we must interact in a meaningful way with external stimulants
if we are to learn. Experience is a
meaningful engagement with the environment in which we use our previous
knowledge (itself built from experience) to bring new meanings to an
interaction.” (Beard & Wilson, 2006)
When you read this you once again hear the grand
educational/learning contradiction. On
the one hand, the mind has a need for filtering and reductionism which
teacher’s respond to by simplifying/intervening/remediating in order to help
the learner figure out what something means. On the other hand, the environment and the
experience, the context if you will, is the only thing that will consolidate
meaningfulness. Of course the rest
of the book goes on to argue the limits and benefits of reductionism and contextualism. To that end, the authors note that a human
bias exists for assimilation over accommodation (the Predictions of the Sun illustration included above being a good
example of assimilative thought), and that as educators we have to know going
in, that given a choice, most people making a choice, choose the easiest
path, one that affirms and re-assimilates what the mind has already
consolidated and generalized.
Of course my tendency to resist using reductionism
as the exclusive path to knowledge had me asking: what happens when educators
recognize that learning is only being assimilated, and talk about this
phenomenon in the everyday learning dialogue?
What if the availability of the self-selection option is part of an
experiential learning program that has conditions attached? What if having a self-selection option
required a demonstrable ability to self-control. And what if a second condition was applied
that would require that the learner demonstrate the conscious will to
‘make a choice’ that provides evidence of intentional accommodation (a
willingness to take in more than is already known)? There would be agreement going in that
learner perspective and perceptions will change as a result of being given
ownership of the selection process. That
change would be measured by the degree of alignment between the individual
learner expectation and the cultural expectation of the situation being
experienced.
The Handbook provides some compelling evidence for
when the conditions would be right for this to happen. Developing an inventor’s/self-selector’s mindset
isn’t easy. Creating the mindset through
experiential learning has to be carefully planned. Most learners who are used to being
information acquirers as opposed to experiencers see their mistakes as a
problem. On the other hand, learners as
experiencers who are guided by a teacher comfortable with this type of
learning, are afforded the opportunity to build the library of mistakes needed
to get past the tendency to self-constrain (giving up before something is
invented). The authors talk about the
mistake making experience needing to be part of the experiential learning
set-up. They also speak to the need to
acknowledge that success with the experience, however that is measured, isn’t
guaranteed.
I’m highly summarizing here, but if I were to take a
stab at saying when the book authors believe self-selection would be
appropriate, it would be when the learner’s actions in an experiential learning
context begets self-reflection. In other
words, few or no external cues from teachers are needed to get the learner to
think about what just happened.
Although the authors never state this in a succinct quote, they spend 12
chapters making the case that when current learning is deeply connected to the
past and future, there is a higher capacity for learner independence. Of course the quality of the learning
experience plays a huge role in whether or not the learner feels the need
to connect the learning moment to prior knowledge or to imagine using the
experience gained to enhance future learning episodes.
Once again readers are left with determining how
learning becomes so important that students want to take over the selection
process for the sake of learning growth.
My guess is, if students are assimilating and not accommodating they
are: behaving pretty normally, and the lesson being learned is not significant
enough to elicit self-generated reflection.
There are times when I think that classroom teachers are put in an
impossible position. They know the
concept won’t be learned unless the concept is isolated and studied, but study
alone isn't exciting enough to get students connecting to the past or imagining the
future with any degree of commitment.
On top of this, not every teacher has the resources
to take that walk through the field of lavender with their class. The authors of the handbook would say that
location matters less than the ability to squeeze every ounce of learning
opportunity out of the combining and connecting powers of experiential learning
moments. I, of course, say that location
very much matters, and for those who have been reading along from other posts,
this is no surprise.
So even though this installment doesn’t derive the
antidote for the reductionism/contextualism contradiction, I hope it did reveal
some information of import. Some
students have the capacity to self-select, and they reveal that capacity based
on their commitment to self-reflect. Self-reflection shouldn’t be confused with
recalling what you scanned, focused or acted on even though those are good
steps to take in a learning cycle. The
quality of the self-reflection is measured by the strength of connection to
ideas past and potentially future. If
your students want to participate in the decisioning process maybe it’s time to
have the conversation around the conditions under which self-selection can
occur. At least then students will know that they are
making a decision that must achieve accommodative learning outcomes. Even a few students making this choice could
have meaning makers turning into meaningfulness managers.
