In recent years, there has been a growing call to educators to embrace an “evidence-based” approach, branding it as the science of learning. Teachers have been under significant pressure to incorporate ideas generated from experimental methodologies and randomized control trials from the laboratory settings to determine the effectiveness of educational practices. However, it is important to delve into the philosophy and meaning of being “evidence-based” and also consider the potential hazards that may arise from transforming classrooms into scientific laboratories. In this video by Human Restoration Project captioned ; Schools Are Not Labs: Why “What Works” May Hurt, these ideas are very well articulated by quoting foundational works by scholars like Gerd Biesta and Yong Zhao.
Category: Education
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Problem for Cognitive Load Theory
Previously I have written a critical review post on the article “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching BY Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller & Richard E. Clark.
I have also posted a Guy Claxton playlist in which Claxton questioned the core ideas over which the Neo-Traditionalist view(Cognitive-load, Direct instruction, Knowledge rich curriculum) is built-on. This includes fundamental assumptions about Computer analogy(+boxology), Evidence(evidence in health Vs education), False binaries, Contextually divorced ideas, etc.
This post is about a 2020 article titled “A Problem for Cognitive Load Theory—the Distinctively Human Life-form”, by Professor Jan Derry of UCL. She used Philosopher Robert Brandom’s Inferentialism to directly question the representationalist world view presented by Cognitive load theory, and to some extent Constructivist thinking. “She challenges the presuppositions involved not only in arguments for guided instruction by those supporting cognitive load theory, but also in opposed pedagogic approaches involving discovery and inquiry learning”. According to her, Both approaches are in danger of presupposing what C.B. Macpherson criticised as ‘possessive individualism’—i.e. capacities, beliefs and desires viewed as possessions of an individual. As a result, they fail to pay attention to mediation and normativity, both of which are distinctive aspects of human action.
In the Cognitive view, mind is distinct from world, and representations depict states of affairs; in the Inferential view, mind and world are not separated, and inferential connections, arising through human activity, constitute representations in the first place. Thus the role of representations has gone down one level. She adds, “the forging of the connection between word and object involves reversing the conceptual framework of much conventional pedagogical practice and placing the emphasis on bringing the learner into the inferential relations that constitute a concept prior to its acquisition.”
For me, This is an amazing perspective to have. Since I am in a quest to explore the maximum of diversities of ideas in education and learning, what I really like to further explore is–How does inferentialism fit with ecological and enactive perspectives, which also may stress the need to have a purpose, intention, and meaning, etc.
Video: Knowledge in education: Why philosophy matters
(Jan Derry talks about the core themes mentioned in the paper)
One key experiment noted in the paper
One of the highlights of the article is the example of an experiment conducted by Martin Hughes and Margaret Donaldson, in order to put the original findings of Piaget and Inhelder’s mountain task experiment (Piaget and Inhelder, 1967) to the test(Donaldson, 1978).
It demonstrated the importance of the purposes and intentions behind human action, which according to the author, very much relates to inferential thinking than just a representation of one mental item to another in the brain.
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Evidence-informed Vs Evidence of what(Biesta)
Recently I have got the opportunity to watch an interview of Guy Claxton in which he was asserting the need to ask deep questions about evidence. The first question according to him should be “evidence of what?”. This made me curious to read an article that I have scanned through few years ago by Gert Biesta, i.e. “Good Education in an Age of Measurement”
In which he writes;
“More than just the question of the technical validity of our measurements – i.e., whether we are measuring what we intend to measure – the problem here lies with what I suggest to call the normative validity of our measurements. This it the question whether we are indeed measuring what we value, or whether we are just measuring what we can easily measure and thus end up valuing what we (can) measure.”
He further clarifies the difference between instrumental value, a value which says something about the quality of processes and, more specifically, about their ability to bring about certain outcomes in a secure way.
According to Biesta, whether the outcomes themselves are desirable is an entirely different matter, ie “a matter for which we need value-based judgements that are not informed by instrumental values but by what we might best call ultimate values“
He further expands the ideas discussing “The ‘Learnification’ of Education”. The article is freely available here(link)
I think education needs more scholars trained in philosophy to question many of its popular assumptions more often and more vigorously
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From Representation to Emergence by Osberg, Biesta and Cilliers
A complexity critic of cognitive reductionism.
In the paper “From representation to emergence: complexity’s challenge to the epistemology of schooling” Deborah Osberg, Gert Biesta and Paul Cilliers challenges the ‘spatial epistemology’ of representation by using ideas from complexity.
Key takes
- In this paper they explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality.
- In addition to complexity, It takes inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and Derrida’s deconstruction.
- They suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time.
- This points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before.
- This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present.
- The epistemology of emergence is introduced as a complexity alternative to representational epistemology. It calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response.
- In contrast to this representational epistemology—which could also be called a ‘spatial epistemology’ since it depends on a correspondence between knowledge and reality—they propose that complexity suggests a temporal epistemology which implies that the quest for knowledge is not in order that we may develop more accurate understandings of a finished reality, as it is. Rather, the quest for knowledge is about finding more and more complex and creative ways of interacting with our reality.
- This paper also views the presentationalist view(situated, real world learning) critically and point out some of its weakness. It brings up two critical dimesntions initially, ie. conservative and radical. From a conservative viewpoint, that a ‘decent’ education is not merely about practical work or apprenticeship, but one in which children get access to all the great works of a particular cultural tradition. Secondly, from a radical viewpoint, it is argued that participatory or presentational forms of learning end up in socialisation and adaptation and make it difficult to create critical distance and therefore result in one-dimensional ways of learning.
- A third critique is pointed from the work of Jacques Derrida—in particular, his critique of ‘the metaphysics of presence,’ more familiarly known as ‘deconstruction’. According to this line of thinking, both presentational and representational pedagogies rely upon the idea of a world that is simply present and can simply be represented. Both presentation and representation can be seen as examples of the ‘metaphysics of presence’—the idea that there is a world ‘out there’ that is simply ‘present’ and to which all our understandings (meanings) are in relation. In contrast to this position, deconstruction resists being drawn into and subsumed by any relationship with presence.
- Authors cites themselves @ Biesta and Osberg, 2007 to show that eventhough ‘representational’ and ‘presentational’ pedagogies are somewhat (although not completely) opposed to each other—both strategies are still the two main approaches to education, and perhaps becoming increasingly intertwined.
- The authors argue that ‘relationality to the radically non-relational’ could be considered key to the logic of complex systems. They point to Prigogine, who insists that although new order (emergence) results when a complex system explores and finds new ways of working with the initial conditions, and that these initial conditions are provided by the lower hierarchical level—and are ‘causal’ in this regard—the elements making up the lower level do not provide everything necessary for order of a particular kind to emerge at the higher level. In his words: The system ‘chooses’ one of the possible branches available when far from equilibrium. But nothing in the macroscopic equations justifies the preference for any one solution. (Prigogine, 1997).
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Problem for Cognitive Load Theory
Previously I have written a critical review post(Link: Constructivism vs Direct Instruction) on the article “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching BY Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller & Richard E. Clark.
I have also posted a Guy Claxton playlist in which Claxton questioned the core ideas over which the Neo-Traditionalist view(Cognitive-load, Direct instruction, Knowledge rich curriculum) is built-on. This includes fundamental assumptions about Computer analogy(+boxology), Evidence(evidence in health Vs education), False binaries, Contextually divorced ideas, etc.
This post is about a 2020 article titled “A Problem for Cognitive Load Theory—the Distinctively Human Life-form”, by Professor Jan Derry of UCL. She used Philosopher Robert Brandom’s Inferentialism to directly question the representationalist world view presented by Cognitive load theory, and to some extent Constructivist thinking. “She challenges the presuppositions involved not only in arguments for guided instruction by those supporting cognitive load theory, but also in opposed pedagogic approaches involving discovery and inquiry learning”. According to her, Both approaches are in danger of presupposing what C.B. Macpherson criticised as ‘possessive individualism’—i.e. capacities, beliefs and desires viewed as possessions of an individual. As a result, they fail to pay attention to mediation and normativity, both of which are distinctive aspects of human action.
In the Cognitive view, mind is distinct from world, and representations depict states of affairs; in the Inferential view, mind and world are not separated, and inferential connections, arising through human activity, constitute representations in the first place. Thus the role of representations has gone down one level. She adds, “the forging of the connection between word and object involves reversing the conceptual framework of much conventional pedagogical practice and placing the emphasis on bringing the learner into the inferential relations that constitute a concept prior to its acquisition.”
For me, This is an amazing perspective to have. Since I am in a quest to explore the maximum of diversities of ideas in education and learning, what I really like to further explore is–How does inferentialism fit with ecological and enactive perspectives, which also may stress the need to have a purpose, intention, and meaning, etc.
Video: Knowledge in education: Why philosophy matters
(Jan Derry talks about the core themes mentioned in the paper)
One key experiment noted in the paper
One of the highlights of the article is the example of an experiment conducted by Martin Hughes and Margaret Donaldson, in order to put the original findings of Piaget and Inhelder’s mountain task experiment (Piaget and Inhelder, 1967) to the test(Donaldson, 1978).
It demonstrated the importance of the purposes and intentions behind human action, which according to the author, very much relates to inferential thinking than just a representation of one mental item to another in the brain.
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History of the scaffolding metaphor
Interesting paper “The early history of the scaffolding metaphor: Bernstein, Luria, Vygotsky, and before”, covers a lot about the historical evolution of modern conception of scaffolding metaphor.
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Schools are not labs: Questioning the blind use of Evidence based approach in Education(Video)
In recent years, there has been a growing call to educators to embrace an “evidence-based” approach, branding it as the science of learning. Teachers have been under significant pressure to incorporate ideas generated from experimental methodologies and randomized control trials from the laboratory settings to determine the effectiveness of educational practices. However, it is important to delve into the philosophy and meaning of being “evidence-based” and also consider the potential hazards that may arise from transforming classrooms into scientific laboratories. In this video by Human Restoration Project captioned ; Schools Are Not Labs: Why “What Works” May Hurt, these ideas are very well articulated by quoting foundational works by scholars like Gerd Biesta and Yong Zhao.
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Prof Michael Young, Knowledge Rich Curriculum and Ghana’s Minister
Professor Michael Young’s work has been widely cited as a key reference for Knowledge Rich Curriculum and Memory brigade. He is not happy about it according to a new TES article(link).
Interestingly, his “powerful knowledge” perspective was emerged from his South African experience. In this article he shares his experience which might be interesting as a co-read-along with the following video by Ghana’s Education minister in which he says;
“You cannot memorize your way out of poverty”
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History of the scaffolding metaphor
Interesting paper “The early history of the scaffolding metaphor: Bernstein, Luria, Vygotsky, and before”, covers a lot about the historical evolution of modern conception of scaffolding metaphor.
