Teaching and learning in a
community of thinking –
challenges and dilemmas
Yoram Harpaz and Adam Lefstein
August 2004
overview
Theory: pictures of teaching, learning,
knowledge and educational aims
(Yoram)
Practice: exemplification of the
community of thinking framework
(Adam)
The “atomic pictures” of
traditional education
learning is listening
teaching is telling
knowledge is an object
to be educated is to know valuable content
The “Grand Picture” -- a mimetic chain
Scientific
knowledge
World
Facts
Mathematical
Physical
Historical
Disciplines
scientists
Student’s mind
old
knowledge
Mathematics
Physics
History
Lesson plans
new
knowledge
Educational
knowledge
Subjects
teachers
gluing
curriculum
designers
Mathematics
Science
History
Effective learning
Involvement + Understanding
Involvement: task involvement vs. ego involvement
Understanding: to locate (in context); to perform
(thinking operations with knowledge)
basic conditions for effective learning
• intrinsic motivation
• authentic problems
• undermining
• contents and process match student
profiles and styles
• appropriate challenge
basic conditions for effective learning
• dialogic environment
• informative ongoing feedback
• supportive climate
• constructive attribution: ability and
will vs. other people or luck
• incremental learners vs. entity learners
alternative “atomic pictures”
learning is being involved and understanding
teaching is providing the conditions for
effective learning
knowledge is a structure or a “story” that
works
being educated is knowing how to relate to
knowledge
questions and problems
Community of Thinking
An educational practice based on
the alternative “atomic pictures”
Its primary components include
Fertile question
Inquiry / research
Concluding performance
Fertile Question
Research
Research
Question
Question
Research
Research
Question
Question
Research
Research
Question
Question
Inquiry
Inquiry
Inquiry
Concluding
performance
Concluding
performance
Concluding
performance
Communal concluding performance
A Fertile Question is...
open
undermining
connected
rich
charged
• Which is preferable, to be a housepet or a wild animal? (nondisciplinary)
• Why do people marry? (sociology)
• Does competition make us better?
(interdisciplinary)
practical
A Fertile Question is...
open
undermining
• Why did the peasants accept a
class system that exploited and
connected
rich
charged
practical
oppressed them? (history)
• Can betrayal be forgiven?
(literature)
• What should we wear? (chemistry)
Fertile Question
Research
Research
Question
Question
Research
Research
Question
Question
Inquiry
Inquiry
Concluding
performance
Concluding
performance
Research
Research
Question
Question
Inquiry
Concluding
performance
Communal concluding performance
A good research question is...
• Open – requires that the researcher take a position
• Rich – requires deep and extensive research
• Connected – to the communal fertile question and to the
disciplinary domain
• Interesting – to students, and possibly also "objectively"
• Practical – can be coped with in the context of time,
material and other constraints
fertile question: Does competition make us better?
Does testing
improve
achievement?
Can there be a
game without
competition?
?
?
Has business
destroyed
competitive sports? What does
competition do
to friendship?
?
?
Does too much
competition lead
to cheating?
?
Fertile Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Inquiry
Inquiry
Inquiry
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Communal concluding performance
Inquiry: from School subjects to
Pedagogical Discipline
School
Research
Pedagogic
Subject
discipline
discipline
Central aim Inculcating Producing
Developing
existing
new
thinking and
knowledge knowledge understanding
Knowledge “Basic” and
Areas of
“Big ideas”:
focus
“accepted” uncertainty
disciplinary
knowledge
and
insights and
controversy controversies
Inquiry: from School subjects to
Pedagogical Discipline (continued)
School
Subject
Sources Secondary
of inforsources
mation
(e.g. textbook)
Preferred Examination
performance
Research
discipline
Primary
sources
privileged by
discipline
Research
article
Pedagogic
discipline
“the world
is a text ”
Personal
understanding
research question: Has business destroyed sports?
examples of lines of inquiry:
How would you recommend
conducting
inquiry?
• case
study based
on news reports
• interviews with athletes and/or fans
• analysis of a team’s financial report
• comparison of athletes’ biographies –
“then” and “now”
• critical review of sports films
Fertile Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Inquiry
Inquiry
Inquiry
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Communal concluding performance
Understanding performances
• To explain knowledge in your own words
• To bring examples of knowledge
• To generalize from an item of knowledge
• To identify knowledge in different contexts
• To explain phenomena by the use of knowledge
• To give arguments to justify knowledge
• To predict on the basis of knowledge
More understanding performances
• To break knowledge into its components (analysis)
• To take a stance with regard to knowledge
• To criticize knowledge on the basis of knowledge
• To create knowledge on the basis of knowledge
• To create a simulation, model or metaphor
• To ask a question on the basis of knowledge
....
Concluding performance
A comprehensive understanding performance which
builds and exhibits understandings for an audience
Research
paper
Dramatic
performance
Documentary
film
Mock trial
Policy position
paper
Museum
Lecture
Designing
a tool
examples of communal concluding performances
What should we wear?
Fashion show and information display
at shopping mall
Why do people marry?
“Thinking about marriage?”
Instructions manual
more examples of communal performances
Why did the peasants accept a class system
that exploited and oppressed them?
Interactive museum
Does competition make us better?
Mock trial with evidence and witnesses
Fertile Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Inquiry
Inquiry
Inquiry
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Communal concluding performance
Initiation
Developing the common knowledge basis necessary
for understanding the fertile question, for creating
questions and for conducting research, via...
• Clarifying central
concepts and ideas
• “Creating” the fertile
question
• Connecting concepts to
the questions that gave
rise to them (archeology
of knowledge)
• Guiding “miniinquiries”
• Creating a “questions
bank”
• ...
Fertile Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Research
Research
Question
Inquiry
Inquiry
Inquiry
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Question
Concluding
performance
Communal concluding performance
Feedback
Providing the learner with information and stimulus to
further and deepen his or her learning; providing the
teacher with information to improve his or her teaching
• Listen and converse
• Pose questions
• Orient to what can be
realistically improved
• Probe student
understanding
• Provide examples, but
aim for general issues
• Don’t solve students’
problems for them
• Minimize judgment
• ...
questions and problems
for more information
Yoram Harpaz: yoramha@mandelinstitute.org.il
Adam Lefstein: adaml@netvision.net.il