With our goal of deep-learning in mind where do we begin and what learning opportunities might result in this? Having clarified our key terms of understanding, learning and deep, we can turn to a set of questions which might be of use as we plan the learning our students will engage in along their way.
What do my students need to understand here?
This is one of the most powerful questions we can ask when we are unpacking our curriculum. To be sure there is much that we might want our students to know and do, but there are also fundamental understandings that our students must understand. Take fractions in mathematics as an example. We might want our students to know about the parts of fractions, the numerator and denominator. We might want them to know how to find pairs of equivalent fractions, how to compare fractions, how to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions. These are without a doubt important, but unless students understand what a fraction is nothing else we teach them will make any sense. Students must understand that a fraction is one number, not two and that it represents a relationship between the numerator and the denominator.
In their recently published research, Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine seek to explore the characteristics of teachers who encourage deep learning. From their search for Deeper Learning in American high schools, they found that there was a remarkably common set of beliefs amongst teachers who were successful in teaching for deep understanding. Such teachers had a high level of pedagogical knowledge and a preferred approach to teaching. They were deliberate and consistent in their approach and believed in the methods they used. They had a stance towards teaching as an act of igniting a spark, encouraging curiosity and interest more so than filling a bucket with knowledge. They could describe seminal experiences which had shaped their approach as teachers. Defining moments of understanding from which they came to see the role they might play if they adopted a particular stance. They had these characteristics, and they perceived the discipline they taught not as a body of knowledge to be learned but as a way of making sense of the world.
To a person, they saw their disciplines as open-ended rather than close-ended fields, meaning that they saw their fields as places where people had constructed provisional knowledge, rather than as places where there was a finished set of answers that needed to be passed on or “professed” to others. . . If teachers saw their fields as fixed or inherited bodies of knowledge, teaching as transmission seemed like a logical and efficient approach. . . . Conversely, if the fields were understood as places where different people would develop different interpretations, experiments, and approaches to problems, it seemed natural to invite students into this process of inquiry, connecting them to the generations of scholars and seekers of knowledge who had come before.
These teachers understood the true nature of their discipline. They saw themselves as members of a profession that was alive and to which they might contribute new knowledge. Their most valuable knowledge is an understanding of the epistemological foundation of the discipline. They may also possess sound discipline-specific knowledge, but they know that possessing this alone is not sufficient. A scientist is not defined by their recall of the periodic table but by the manner in which they approach puzzles and ambiguity. An author may require a sound knowledge of grammar, but they are defined by their approach to communication as a creative act between their language choices and their audience. Each discipline has its unique epistemological foundation, and deep learning is achieved when teachers invite their students to become participants in this.
Every discipline has fundamental understandings which must be mastered. Each key learning area within our curriculum, similarly, has fundamental understandings attached. Our first task as we plan for deep-learning is to identify and make sense of these fundamental understandings. The following extract from the rationale of the New South Wales History K-10 Syllabus reveals the presence of these understandings within the curriculum:
History is a disciplined process of inquiry into the past that helps to explain how people, events and forces from the past have shaped our world. It allows students to locate and understand themselves and others in the continuum of human experience up to the present. History provides opportunities for students to explore human actions and achievements in a range of historical contexts.
If this is what we hope our children will come to understand about History, how do we ensure this is what is achieved? How do we avoid a scenario in which History is viewed by students as a subject that requires them to memorise sequences of events for a past that is disconnected from their daily lives? Such thoughtfully crafted statements, combined with our beliefs about the value of what we teach deserve our close attention. Asking, "What do my students need to understand here?” should be the start of our planning journey.
What does this understanding look like?
It is all well and good to say that we want our students to understand something, but if we are not clear on what this looks like, we will have a hard time taking their learning in this direction. Going back to the example of an understanding of a fraction, how will I represent this understanding in ways that focus on the essential understanding that a fraction is one number, a relationship between numerator and denominator? If I show students fractions written on a whiteboard and explain to them that the top is called the numerator and the bottom is the denominator, it is unlikely that they will understand the fraction as a single number. If I teach them to recall that the Denominator is the bottom number because denominator and down start with the same letter, have I helped the situation at all? Instead, I need to invite my students to explore various physical representations of a fraction, to compare them, to see how one fraction can be represented in many ways with various materials and to associate the written representation with what they see in the physical world.
Sometimes we need to Zoom In and Out as we examine the understandings we aim for and what they might look like. As a teacher of Geography, for example, I might agree with the curriculum that "Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments.”. When I drill down into the content and the particular outcomes to be addressed, this understanding can become fragmented and lost. Students in Years 3 & 4 in NSW are required to engage with four Outcomes which contribute to a stage appropriate understanding of the contribution of Geography. They are as follows:
GE2-1 examines features and characteristics of places and environments
GE2-2 describes the ways people, places and environments interactGE2-3 examines differing perceptions about the management of places and environments
GE2-4 acquires and communicates geographical information using geographical tools for inquire
Zooming in to just the first outcome sees students looking closely at places and environments and describing in geographical language what they see. Digging deeper, students would need to have an understanding of what we mean by places and environments, and they would require a vocabulary for their description of features and characteristics. As teachers, we might imagine that we are teaching future geographers as we provide them with lists of words to paste diligently onto photos of remote locations with exciting geographical features. To the students, Geography has become another set of facts to be remembered for an upcoming exam. We have too quickly Zoomed into a level where the content hides the understanding.
Zoom back and consider the outcomes together, and we see the need to clarify both what we want students to understand and what it might look like. I begin to see a set of questions that a geographer might ask emerge, and these can powerfully frame our approach to the discipline. What is special about this place or environment? How do people interact with it, and how do the features we observe shape these interactions? How is this place managed and who thinks this is a good plan? What resources will we use as we examine this place and how people interact with it? When we ask these questions and engage our learners with them, we are inviting them not to study geographical content but to think and act like Geographers. If in our minds, we have an informed imagining of what a Geographer does, then we can use this mental model as a guide while we plan learning experiences.
What experiences will build this understanding?
This question is aimed at moving us beyond thinking about what our students will do. If I want my students to understand fractions, then I must give them opportunities to examine multiple representations of fractions. If I want them to be able to notice patterns in collections of objects or numbers, I need them to examine closely collections with obvious patterns so that when they confront less obvious examples, they are armed with a clear image of what a pattern is and what one is not. If I want them to think like Historians or Geographers or Scientists, I need to engage them the types of experiences which are common for such practitioners. I am unlikely to encourage students to think like scientists if their experience of the discipline revolves around following recipes. If the only experiments my students conduct involve following directions off the board, I should not be surprised if they do not understand the value of a well-written hypothesis.
Looking back at the Geographical outcomes discussed above, what experiences might build the desired understanding? A worksheet or textbook probably won’t work. It might put a lot of Geographical information in front of their eyes, but little to no understanding is likely to result. A field study with the purpose of conducting a geographical study of a place or environment and its interactions with people that leads to a report to an agency on the patterns of land use evident has real meaning and requires students to think like geographers. Such an experience would require students to gather information using geographical tools and vocabulary, and in doing so, they would appreciate the utility of such tools.
Asking these three questions as we begin the planning process can have a profound effect in moving us towards teaching for deep-learning. Routinely asking "What do my students need to understand here?, What does this understanding look like?, and What experiences will build this understanding? as we plan and then deliver, learning maintains our focus on the fundamental understandings. These questions move our thinking away from a laundry list of content to be covered. When we focus on these questions, our teaching targets the learning that matters most and in doing so, we find pathways towards a less bloated curriculum.
By Nigel Coutts
Mehta, J. & Fine, S. (2019) In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School Harvard University Press.