Category: Learning

The Redundancy of a Knowledge Deficit Model

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stirling

I have been thinking about the presence of a knowledge deficit disposition or approach to learning for many years now. I often talk about the experience I had on a project a few years back supporting some heritage sites in their design of learning. During some immersion into the experience of learning we stepped into a guided tour around the castle we were in. The painful experience I had was more to do with the learning process than any ancient torture device or prison chamber.

There had a been a specific blindness to any knowledge that was present within the group to begin with. There was an assumption that we had none and that we were there to laud over the expertise shared by our guide. So transfixed by the woven tales of scripted knowledge we would drift along enlightened by every stopping point. Hopefully our brains would not spill this knowledge into the moat as we crossed the drawbridge on the way home. To ensure this expert knowledge was secured for the younglings there might be some paper rubbings with some crayons or charcoal.

We got a puppy before Christmas and have just started to go to some dog training classes. The instructor soon lapsed into the same type of disposition, assuming we knew nothing. Sure we have less experience, but knowledge is freely accessible nowadays and the time of the expert is shrinking. Endless research and reading has put us in a stronger position as we have knowledge, well at least access to it. In fact when it comes to looking after a dog there is all sorts of conflicting knowledge. Being able to use that knowledge expertly is a different matter.

Deeply understanding how the knowledge set is connected requires something very different, a level of expertise in the knowledge that doesn’t work to a script or to a guided tour.

Back at the castle. If students, visitors, families and the general public coming to experience those ancient stones were seen as bringing different ideas and relevant knowledge it becomes a completely different starting point. A start that might lead in lots of learning directions.

 

A Late November Day

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I can still remember the excitement and noise behind me to this day. I was collecting my class of 32 Year 5 and 6 children from a morning break time during a rather charcoal-streaked-sky day in November. English Novembers are full of Autumnal colours and damp weather, this day was turning into just that, typical of that time of the year.

Perhaps the clamouring and excited voices were about the engaging lesson I had planned? Perhaps they were simply excited about learning with me? Maybe just pleased to see me? In all honesty I didn’t ask any of these questions, because I knew straight away what it was.

The morning had been great so far, I always decided to take each session as it comes but the day had started well. There was even some sunshine casting strained shadows across the car park as I arrived. The morning’s literacy session had been fun and we were enjoying the Shaun Tan work we had been exploring. Assembly, tick. Then break.

Those strained lengths of light that welcomed me to school had gone. Replaced with that charcoal sky. Something else I noticed was how wind had picked up, swirling in amongst the school buildings. The usual twisting leaf and crisp packet flurry buffeted against the Year 2 classrooms as the children went outside. I knew what was in store. I had seen this before and I knew my class.

A quick change of ends and resources prep for the next session, punctuated with a slurp of terrible coffee and I was ready to kick off again. Walking up the slope towards the waiting lines in the top playground I realised my predictions were happening as I suspected. The wind had changed everything and my class were completely different from when i had last seen them.

The calm start to the day had been replaced with exuberance and hyper-excited voices behind me as I led my class back towards the buildings. My mind began whirring as I knew that whatever I had planned needed changing, adapting. I always marvelled at how a change of weather could have such an effect on your class, something I learned the hard way back in my first year of teaching at university. Before everyone had a chance to wipe their feet I was set.

Adjust the sails and press on.

Learning Provocations (ideas, how they affect us and why we should use them)

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Provocation robot.001

During a design thinking inquiry process we use provocation as an engaging starting point or an opportunity to inject momentum in thinking and student engagement. They can come in many different forms:

Questions, Images (and text), Statements, Film, Data visualisations, Change a setting, Artefacts, Quotes, Maps, Proverbs, Role Play, Stories, Music and audio, Animation

I remember discovering this wonderful post from Cristina Milos a few years ago that captured so many wonderful ideas about how to plan for provocation. I highly recommend taking a look and digging deeper into the examples she shares.

For a long time now I have considered how learning provocations have an impact after all we have to plan for this reaction if we include provocation in our learning sessions. I think that provocation produces different reactions in us all, challenging is in different ways:

  • Emotionally (This is challenging how I feel or what I have previously felt)
  • Understanding (This is challenging what I think I know and my assumptions)
  • Perception (This is challenging my point of view)
  • Ethically (This is challenging our shared beliefs)
  • Morally (This is challenging my own principles)
  • Action (This is challenging me to take action, to change or make a difference)

We have to give adequate thought and preparation to the follow up activities – not just planning for provocation, but planning for the reaction to it as well.  If we have carefully crafted a provocation we should expect a reaction, considering the impact it is having on those we are working with and how to structure the learning that flow from it.

I believe that used in the correct way, at the the correct moment, the right type of provocation creates momentum in our thinking or those around us. When we are looking at the impact on Understanding for example, provocation can often create a new boundary or edge of what is known. What follows is an attempt to plot a course into that new territory – our curiosity as our guide.

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How does the question in the image above challenge you? In which domains (outlined above) does it have the strongest impact on you? What learning structure would be most effective to follow it up?

Teacher Education Should Not Be Compromised

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Western Decay

I can’t help but feel worried about teacher education. You know, university courses for learning our craft. Today I ran into some unfortunate stories of the experiences our aspiring teachers might come across. Who knows whether this is a universal, worldwide issue but I have long held concerns. They have niggled away in the back of my mind. After all this is such an important formative experience for people entering our profession.

  • How can you not have lesson intentions or success criteria for sessions about how we teach?
  • How can you not have technology rich experiences for our aspiring teachers?
  • How is “technology and me don’t mix” still a sentence people say?
  • How can you be so muddled about the student course and curriculum, you have no time to talk about learning?
  • How is a young teacher meant to learn when nothing of the contemporary classroom is modelled?
  • How come we are not thinking deeply about the student teacher experience?

So many questions and so much that needs to change. I know this may be in the minority here in Australia. Well I hope it is.

We are on the cusp of a project with an education team from a university here in Melbourne. I am excited about what we might create together in re-designing teacher education. It is one of a few pieces of our eco-system that is, well, broken. If over the next 5-10 years we can raise the quality of the aspiring teacher experience, it figures that everything might flow in a positive direction from there.

Pic Western Decay by sleepinyourhat

“Stop One. Stop Them All” a Powerful Provocation from the World Wildlife Fund

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Stop One. Stop Them All - 3
Stop One. Stop Them All  – WWF

This is a great example of a powerful provocation for World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) campaign against poaching from last year. The series of print images were created by the agency Leo Burnett of Sydney – who describe their work as follows: “We needed to highlight the depth, complexity and fragility of the illegal animal trade networks, and empower the viewer to feel that a little bit of help from them could bring down entire illegal organisations.”

Provocations are such powerful devices to use in our design of learning, often used to great effect at the beginning of a period of project (or Immersion). They are jarring and force a response, which can come in many different ways – often creating lasting momentum throughout a period of learning. The imagery used here is a fine example of that, shocking and yet bearing a simple message. Something we can act upon.