Getting started with Deep-Learning - Part B

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 interact

• GE2-3 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.

Getting started with teaching for deep learning.

There is an understandable interest in deep-learning, after all, who wants their students to have a superficial understanding of the content. Read the marketing of almost any school and you are likely to find some statement about the deep-learning that is achieved as a result of their excellent teaching and learning platform. Likewise, ask any teacher about their philosophy of teaching and you will hear how they engage their students with learning that promotes a deep-understanding. 

The trouble is, when you look at what is happening, there are often degrees of inconsistency between the stated aims and the reality of what is achieved on a day to day basis. Teaching for this sort of deep-learning is challenging and doing so routinely can be exhausting. 

Research by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine in schools across the United States of America confirm that even in schools with a reputation for deep learning, the reality of the experience often falls short. This research led to the publication of “In Search of Deeper Learning” in which the authors note that few schools manage to achieve deep learning across all of their programmes. To be sure, there were pockets of excellence, and much to be celebrated, but very few schools came close to systematically embracing deep-learning. 

Most classrooms were spaces to sit passively and listen. Most academic work instructed students to recall, or minimally apply, what they had been told. When we asked students the purpose of what they were doing, the most common responses were “I dunno—it’s in the textbook,” and “maybe it’ll help me in college.” (Mehta & Fine. 2019)

With this in mind, what strategies might we routinely adopt so that deep-learning can be achieved and sustained? How do we get started and what pedagogies are likely to have the desired effect while avoiding fatigue for teachers and students?

We begin with the planning process. Deep-learning is not going to be achieved if we rely on the curriculum or packets of resources as a guide. Instead, we begin with a set of questions that allow us as teachers to clarify what it is that we want our students to understand as a results of their learning. 

There are some crucial concepts to be unpacked here and when we begin the process of teaching for deep-learning it is important that we clarify what these concepts mean to us. Perhaps the most important concept to be unpacked is understanding. Like most terms in common use, we feel we have a sense of what the word understanding means up to the point where we share our definition with a colleague and find that our’s does not align well with their’s. 

How we define understanding is a crucial point when our goal is deep-learning. Indeed, our goal is likely to be understanding. Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking skills is commonly used to identify what are referenced as high-order-thinking skills. In Bloom’s taxonomy, understanding is a low order skill, one rung on the ladder above remembering. It requires the learner to comprehend what they have remembered and be able to explain it to another person. By contrast, in teaching for understanding or understanding by design terms, understanding requires a capacity to use what one knows and can do in unique context. In this definition, understanding would combine the ability to apply, analyse, synthesise and evaluate knowledge, concepts, ideas, skills and capabilities. 

The critical distinction is that in a deep-learning model, understanding involves the capacity to do useful things with one’s knowledge and skills; a performative perspective of understanding. According to Blythe and associates,  (1998) “The performance perspective says, in brief, that understanding is a matter of being able to do a variety of thought-provoking things with a topic, such as explaining, finding evidence and examples, generalizing, applying, analogizing, and representing the topic in new ways.”

The idea of learning is similarly open to interpretation. In this instance we are describing an active process that the learner is heavily engaged in and ultimately responsible for. This goes far beyond what might be achieved through mere exposure to content regardless of how well it might be delivered.

“Meaningful learning cannot be delivered to high school students like pizza to be consumed or videos to be observed. Lasting learning develops largely through the labor of the student, who must be enticed to participate in a continuous cycle of studying, producing, correcting mistakes, and starting over again.“  (Newman. 1992 p.3)

The other key term to be unpacked here is “deep”. What might be special about deep learning?  According to Mehta & Fine (2019), “Research suggests that deep learners have schemas that enable them to see how discrete pieces of knowledge in a domain are connected; rather than seeing isolated facts, they see patterns and connections because they understand the underlying structures of the domain they are exploring.” Deep learning goes beyond perceiving the world as a collection of facts to be understood in isolation but requires the capacity and a disposition to bring ideas together in novel ways. Deep learning is the difference between seeing a painting of a hay bale and the capacity to extrapolate from that same image as a lucid commentary on the evolving relationship between artist, environment and society. 

The discussion of these terms offered above is intended only to offer a possible interpretation. The crucial part of defining terms of such importance as these is the process rather than the product. While it might be convenient to find and publish to stakeholders a definition of key terms, engaging teachers in the process of making meaning is likely to be more productive. A crucial process in any change effort is the building of ownership of it by those ultimately charged with implementing it. With this in mind, engaging stakeholders in the process of defining these terms can be a significant role in building support. The collective understanding of these key terms that is developed through the initial phase of moving towards teaching for “deep-learning” will allow them to fulfil their place as the ultimate goal of subsequent teaching and learning.

In the next article we will explore essential questions to be asked as we begin to strategise for deep-learning. 

By Nigel Coutts

Blythe, T. (1998) "The teaching for understanding guide”, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Mehta, J. & Fine, S. (2019) In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School Harvard University Press.

Newmann, F. (1992)  “Introduction,” in Fred Newmann, ed., Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools (New York: Teachers College Press.

Maximising student questions in the time of COVID19

In this time of COVID19 and remote learning or emergency distance learning the value of encouraging students to investigate their questions should not be forgotten.

We learn via the questions that we ask and we expand our collective understanding of the worlds in which we live through the questions that we discover. Human knowledge is a historic journey of wonderings that have sparked imaginations and a desire to understand. If there is one thing that separates humans from other species it is our deep-seated desire to understand why things are the way that they are, natural curiosity coupled with the capacity and tools to seek answers.

Our natural curiosity is, however, a fragile thing. Much has been written about the decline of our propensity to ask questions with some sources stating that we peak at age four (Right Question Institute). In 'A More Beautiful Question’ Warren Berger explores this in detail and shows that a confluence of factors including immersion in an environment that feeds learners with facts, a focus on right answers not questions and even low tolerance of questions from educators are at play. Look at the curriculum of any major educational system and you find the knowledge that students are expected to learn as a result of their schooling. From curriculum content come lessons aimed at translating that prescribed subject matter into learner knowledge and the scope for questions is curtailed. Time-poor teachers have little time to cover questions not directly related to the curriculum and even questions related to the content are unlikely to be given much importance as the course materials will by design ensure students encounter the answers whether they are asked or not. 

Curiosity is poorly served by answers. This is a crucial point to understand in this time of remote learning. Undoubtedly our students’ minds will be full of questions at the moment. Questions about the nature of the pandemic, questions about their future, questions about the changes occurring in society and questions about their safety. Beyond this, they will continue to have questions connected to the learning they are engaged in. How we respond to these questions set the tone for how our children will relate to and connect with knowledge. If we provide them with neatly packaged answers they are likely to believe that knowledge is something which is given to you by a more knowledgable other. If we respond instead with questions, prompts and nudges that encourage inquiry we set the conditions for a mindset in which knowledge is gained through a process of exploration, inquiry and investigation. When we encourage our children to self-navigate their way towards answers we enable them as agentic thinkers and set them up as life-long learners.

Great teachers are highly skilled in the arts of facilitating inquiry. They use their knowledge of their learners, their understanding of the subject matter and effective questioning to transform a student’s question into a fruitful investigation. From actively listening to the student’s question they plan their next step. They ask “What makes you think?”, acknowledge the child’s question, share an interest in the search for an answer, suggest a possible starting point. They form a partnership in a search for understanding and through this, the child learns how to learn rather than a quick answer.

The enemy of this style of learning is always time. The temptation to quickly answer the question is compelling for many reasons including some linked to the ego of the respondent, but the most significant obstacle is typically a lack of time. The process of supporting a learner move from nascent question to the framing of a powerful question for inquiry (an essential question of guiding question) and then onwards through the process of investigation and the formation of a conclusion is lengthy. The challenge of time is likely to be even more pressing for parents who are finding themselves picking up the role of the teacher during this time of emergency remote learning. 

'It's the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer all he gains is a little fact but give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers. That way, when he finds the answers they’ll be precious to him, the harder the question, the harder we hunt, the harder we hunt the more we learn, an impossible question . . .’  - 'King Killer Chronicles’ by Patrick Rothfuss

The idea of a teacher responding to a students inquiry with a question is one that might be quite foreign to many of our parents. It is likely that their experience of schooling involved the teacher as a source of knowledge. The teacher knew things that they needed to learn and the role of the student was to absorb this wisdom. Teaching was and is seen by many as an act of communication of knowledge from one mind to another. Even if the parent might communicate an understanding that this is no longer the case they may have limited experience with education as a conversation between two inquiring minds. Between a lack of time, a belief that their role as an adjunct educator is to answer questions and limited knowledge of how to foster curiosity with effective questions all means that we may find students missing opportunities for inquisitive exploration. 

Engaging in some creative questioning at home can lead to some wonderful dinner time conversations. "Creative Questions” is a thinking routine for developing ideas and for training your mind to think differently. Instead of responding to a simple question with an answer, the use of some powerful questions can transform the question into an inquiry. Questions like this might help:

• What makes you say that? or What makes you think that? or How do you know that?

• What are you trying to do? State your objectives using absolutely no jargon.  

• What is the problem?  Why is it hard?

• What questions does that raise?

• What evidence do you have?

• What is missing?

• Where do you go from here?

• What part of the problem is left?

• What are you certain about? Why?

• What would it be like if . . .

• How would it be different if . . .

• Suppose that . . .

• What would change if . . .

• How would it look different if . . .

This situation is likely to be exacerbated if the learning that we are planning for our students is largely bound to content knowledge. If we are sending home packets of worksheets full of closed questions where there is one correct answer and one well-established method for finding it we create little room for anyone to engage in meaningful inquiry. Now, as always, is a great time for open-ended questions with multiple possible answers and a broad spectrum of approaches to finding a solution. This is also the perfect time to allow students to investigate their questions. In times of such great uncertainty, allocating parts of their week to self-initiated inquiry might be the perfect way to win back a sense of agency. 

What manner of questions should we encourage our students to ask? If we are to encourage out of the box thinking and innovative ideas we must provide opportunities for students to ask questions that connect their interests and passions. If our students are always asking the questions we have imagined for them, or worse still that the textbook writer imagined, when do they get to imagine their own questions? Dr. Richard Curwin explores this in a blog post titled ‘Questions Before Answers: What drives a great lesson?’ Curwin explains the need for lessons centred on a question so engaging to students that it gets under their skin and compels them to inquire. I will argue that the most compelling questions are the great questions our students bring with them.

Consider a typical lesson as a dialogue and then look at this dialogue from the perspective of the teacher and the student. Often it goes something like this: The teacher begins the class either stating or implying that “At the end of this hour you will know . . . or ‘at the end of this hour, you will have discovered x, y & z’. The student hears this and thinks politely to themselves ‘why don’t you just tell me now’ or ‘if I can learn this in an hour how important can it be’ or ponders that favourite of all questions for students to ask ‘why do I have to learn this’.

At the end of the lesson the student does indeed know the new fact or idea, they can parrot back an answer so they must. The teacher is happy and the lesson is deemed a success. At the end of the day the student goes home and answers the question 'what did you do in school today?', they answer ‘not much’ for them the lesson was a failure. Why?  For the student there was no learning, they acquired a new fact but that fact had no value because it was never linked to a question that mattered to them. It was not their question, it did not engage their interest and they just had to play the game to get to the end of the lesson where the fact would be revealed. They knew that the teacher knew the answer, many of the students probably already knew the answer, they certainly could have Googled it, and if they cared they probably would have.

Sometimes we do need to be the person asking the questions, sometimes we need to be the person transferring information; however, the quality of our questions, their power to engage and challenge thinking, combined with the opportunities we provide our students to ask the questions that matter to them are likely to be the times when the most powerful learning occurs.

By Nigel Coutts