Reflexive/ergative pedagogy is the practice of teaching whereby students' relationship with their instructor is dialogical; learners experience the following (as described by Mary Kalantzis and William Cope in their New Learning module (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, n.d.)):
I have created assignments that included knowledge production in the form of artifacts and reflection. I give students multiple ways to interact with concepts; and they often have a choice as to how they may present what they have learned. In the classroom, I have used the concept of the social mind through small group work.
Kalantzis and Cope write about philosophers and educators, John Dewey, Maria Montessori and Rabindranath Tagore, as representatives of reflexive pedagogy. “They represent in certain senses a revival of the dialogical, where the agency of the learner is at play in a dialectic between teacher and learner, the to-be-learned and the learning” (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, n.d.)
Jean-Baptiste, K. C. (2019, November 2). Dialogical relationship between instructor and learner. [Image]
What underlies the idea that learning should include a dialogical relationship between learner and teacher is the belief that students, adults and children, have enough knowledge or capabilities to actively contribute to their learning.
No one would argue that some educational topics are pragmatic and necessary.
Christine Kupfer (2016) writes that Tagore felt that “children need indefiniteness, surprises and discovering the world first-hand without a clearly prescribed purpose.” Tagore believed that that was how children learned their first language and could learn other things this same way (Kupfer, 2016, p. 63). In order to achieve this, Kupfer (2016, p. 65) quotes from Tagore’s ‘The First Anniversary of Sriniketan’, The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Volume 4, A Miscellany, ed. by Nityapriya Ghosh (Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2006 [1924]), pp. 493-498 (pp. 497-8):
Dewey’s, Montessori’s and Tagore’s educational philosophy were reactions to didactic teaching whereby the teacher is the main source of information and students are passive recipients.
Jean-Baptiste, K. C. (2019, November 8). Main interaction between teacher and learner in a didactic relationship. [Image].
Kalantzis and Cope in their New Learning module (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, n.d.) lists four essential components of didactic teaching:
Kalantzis and Cope (2018) in a presentation at 2018 symposium contrast didactic pedagogy to reflexive/ergative pedagogy.
Table 1 created from Kalantzis, M., & Cope, W. (2018). Multiliteracies: Meaning making and literacy learning in the era of digitaltext. Paper presented at University-Wide Teaching and Learning Symposium organized by Center of Teaching, Learning andTechnology. https://ctlt.illinoisstate.edu/downloads/symposium/2018/Kalantzsis-Cope%20Morning.pdf
As one moves from didactic to reflexive/ergative the student can express their agency more liberally. Self-discovery is encouraged. Technology makes long-term memory less necessary. In a world of diverse students from different cultures, in the reflexive/ergative model, knowledge is seen as judgment which is subject to argument, and justification instead of absolute fact. The different perspectives of the same event are acknowledged. The role of a community in learning is emphasized and encouraged. Assessments occur before the end of term or project and are an active part of the learning process.
In the world of Adult Education, reflexive/ergative pedagogy is embedded in many course curricula. An example of this is a course called Career Foundations. This course was designed to help students learn and establish career pathways that include entry into college with the purpose of obtaining a credential or degree. The course was specifically designed to be studentcentered. Students do most of the work as they analyze their skills, interests; research various industries and jobs then decide which one is best for them, then chart out a career pathway that will lead them to the career they want.
The course was created jointly by City Colleges of Chicago and the not-for-profit organization, Women Employed. A report by Women Employed (n.d.) states:
Two other examples of the application of reflexive/ergative pedagogy are apprenticeships/on-the-job training and bridge classes. Bridge classes are courses created to bridge the gap in education between an adult learner’s current educational level and the math/science/technology and language arts knowledge needed to succeed in a chosen career. Bridge students learn contextualized STEM and language arts related to their chosen industry.
An innovative application of reflexive/ergative pedagogy is the flipped classroom. Though the flipped classroom has grown in popularity, it is not the standard. In a flipped classroom the student has considerable responsibility to obtain knowledge outside the classroom. The student then comes to the classroom and must be ready to either share the work that they have done and/or work on a project in a group setting. If the project is intentionally ill-defined then the student may have to use multiple knowledge gathering processes to complete the project or solve a problem.
The Montessori method of education focuses on self-discovery, hands-on learning and collaboration. Tagore and Dewey share these beliefs about pedagogy. In a longitudinal study that looked at Montessori schools, it was observed that “although not different at the first test point, over time the Montessori children fared better on measures of academic achievement, social understanding, and mastery orientation (Lillard, Heise, Richey, Tong, Hart, and Bray, 2017).
Chloe Marshall (2017) reviews research on the Montessori method, including earlier research by Lilliard. She points out the weaknesses in some of the research methodologies (for instance studies that look at students only in school).
In her conclusion Marshall (2017) states:
Dewey, Montessori and Tagore’s philosophies of education were a rebuke of didactic pedagogy. In playing devil’s advocate, how might a proponent of didactic pedagogy respond? Teacher centered vs Learner as knowledge producer – When a student has zero experience in a subject it might save significant time for instructors to teach foundational material such as general rules on pronunciation or word stress in a foreign language. Knowledge transmission and replication vs Knowledge as discoverable – A piano teaches a student in a didactic manner the names of the keys on a piano and how to read notes written on a sheet music. Another student learns to play the same song without knowing the names of the notes or how to read a music sheet. The second student learns by listening to the song. Both learners would have to practice repeatedly to memorize the song. This is a moment when long-term memory is wanted. There are many subjects that benefit from repeated practice and long-term memory such as skills of a surgeon. Knowledge as fact vs Knowledge as judgment – If all perceptions of events are valid then this can lead to what ideas deemed as dangerous by a community to have equal say and influence on an individual or society. Can a hate crime exist if a group of people believe it is okay to treat another group as inferior and worthy of scorn? Does everything need to be re-evaluated constantly or can some values be absolutely better than others? If the idea of value is excluded from the definition of knowledge, then what is the point of trying to avoid some history repeating itself? Individual minds vs Social, dialogical minds – If the learning is 100% social, there is still the need for some individual assessment to ascertain if a student is actually learning something substantive and not hiding lack of knowledge or understanding. There are also factors that affect learning such as anxiety and stress. These experiences are felt individually. Long cycle feedback that is retrospective and judgmental vs Short cycle feedback that is prospective and constructive - The two can co-exist. It does not have to be one or the other. A summative assessment at the end of long term will force students to revisit what they learned during the term which can reinforce the learning.
Alberto Piedra (2018) summarizes some of the criticisms leveled at John Dewey (some of which echoes what I stated before):
Another criticism of Dewey I would like to add has to do with the notion that learning should be about the near and probable future. Much focus in education is on what is considered teaching 21st-century skills. Many articles have reduced these skills to:
The reason for the focus on these competencies often given is that these are the skills most needed by students to adapt to a world that's ever-changing technology-wise and is more culturally diverse; therefore, the success of students post-formal education depends on their adaptablity to change, ability to apply what they've learned to new situations;and ability to work with others. Underlying this is the belief thatthe future is not as predictable as it may have been during Dewey's time.
A blog post written on a Montessori school website (Meade, n.d.) discusses and responds to nine criticisms of the Montessori method. The listed criticisms are:
In Tagore’s case some of the criticism is that his school focused too much on the spiritual and aesthetic. He chose as a location for his first school a forest glade. He “envisaged an integrated view of education in which the physical and the intellectual, the social and the moral were not seen as separate from one another, but as interrelated, as parts of a single comprehensive truth” (Jalan, 1976, p. 125).
Reflexive/ergative pedagogy moves from teacher-centered to student-centered learning. With its strong focus on knowledge production, it could be considered a combination of constructivism and authentic learning.
References
C., Thriveni. (2018, February 6). Raindranath Tagore’s philosophy on Indian education. In Bhoomi magazine.
http://bhoomimagazine.org/2018/02/06/rabindranath-tagores-philosophy-on-indian-education/ Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). John Dewey. [Image]. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John- Dewey/Instrumentalism#/media/1/160445/136338 Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Rabindranath Tagore. [Image]. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rabindranath-Tagore Jalan, R.V. (1976). (Ph.D). Tagore: His educational theory and practice and its impact on Indian education. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c798/5762aecb00cd8a249b8d2c33492d9cb88b47.pdf Jean-Baptiste, K. C. (2019, November 2). Dialogical relationship between instructor and learner. [Image] Jean-Baptiste, K. C. (2019, November 8). Main interaction between teacher and learner in a didactic relationship. [Image]. Kalantzis, M., & Cope, W. (2018). Multiliteracies: Meaning making and literacy learning in the era of digital text. Paper presented at University-Wide Teaching and Learning Symposium organized by Center of Teaching, Learning and Technology. https://ctlt.illinoisstate.edu/downloads/symposium/2018/Kalantzsis-Cope%20Morning.pdf Kalantzis, M., & Cope, W. (n.d.-a). John Dewey on progressive education. https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter- 2/supporting-material-1/john-dewey-on-progressive-education Kalantzis, M., & Cope, W. (n.d.-b). Rabindranath Tagore’s School at Shantiniketan. https://newlearningonline.com/newlearning/ chapter-2/supporting-material-1/rabindranath-tagores-school-at-shantiniketan Kupfer, C. (2016, November). Atmosphere in education: Tagore and the phenomenology of spheres. In Gitanjali & beyond, (1), 59-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.14297/gnb.1.1.59-81 Lillard, A.S., Heise Megan, J., Richey, E.M., Tong, X., Hart Alyssa, & Bray, P. M. (2017). Montessori preschool elevates and equalizes child outcomes: A longitudinal study. In Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1783. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01783 Maria Montessori: Portrait. (n.d.) [Image]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maria_Montessori_(portrait).jpg Marshall, C. (2017, October 27). Montessori education: A review of the evidence base. In npj Science Learn (2)11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-017-0012-7 Mead, S. (n.d.). Montessori criticism debunked: 9 incorrect assumptions about student centered learning. https://www.whitbyschool.org/passionforlearning/montessori-criticism-debunked-9-incorrect-assumptions-about-studentcentered-learning North Star Montessori Elementary School. (n.d.) Role of teacher. https://northstarmontessori.ca/montessori-philosophy/role-ofteacher Piedra, A.M. (2018, February 1). The tragedy of American education: the role of John Dewey. https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2018/02/01/the-tragedy-of-american-education-the-role-of-john-dewey/ The Montessori Group. (n.d.) Origin of Montessori. http://www.montessorischools.org/montessori-overview/origin-ofmontessori/ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (n.d.). [New learning module by Mary Kalantzis and William Cope]. https://cgscholar.com/community/community_profiles/new-learning/community_updates/37105 Women Employed. (n.d.). Progress, pathways, & possibilities. https://d2kmvo39x6ghl9.cloudfront.net/wpcontent/ uploads/2019/05/ProgressPathwaysAndPossibilities-1.pdf
A question is how to bring that experience and its benefits to an online community? What technology can be used? The experience is not just bringing the food but it encompasses tasting the food and having discussions around it. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy, here is an outline of how this could work in an online community. 1. Remember – Students from different countries or regions would be paired. They would recall a dish from their home country, write a recipe for it in their home language and exchange it with their partner using an online drive. 2. Understand – Student would translate the recipe they received – ingredients, measurements, and instructions - into English. The sender of the recipe would provide feedback as to whether they thought the translation was accurate. 3. Apply – Each student would prepare two dishes. One would be the recipe received from their partner; the other would be from the recipe they gave their partner. 4. Analyze – The day of the potluck students would exchange photographs of their dish showing the outside and inside and would interact using video chat software that had a/v recording capabilities. They would hold up the same dish and in English compare, contrast, identify and categorize the tastes, smells and explain any substitutions they may have made in English. 5. Evaluate – They would recommend to each other changes, if needed. 6. Create – The students would brainstorm and plan a fusion dish that had elements of recipes from each of their country; and prepare the new dish for when the whole class met. 7. The pairs would meet online with the whole class, provide background on the dishes they chose to share, and taste their fusion dish and discuss the results.  To summarize, in order to make a multicultural potluck work online, the digital technology needed would be file-sharing and video
conferencing.  The Jigsaw teaching technique reorganizes students in a classroom into small groups around a learning activity. It taps into the social mind of the individual, the collective intelligence of the groups, and promotes collaboration. The Jigsaw teaching technique was created in 1971 by Elliot Aronson, an American social psychologist. He hoped this collaborative learning model would ease racial tensions in schools that had been forcibly integrated during the 1970’s after Civil Rights Act. Aronson’s website lists instructions on the implementation of the Jigsaw technique (Aronson, E. (n.d.)): 1. Divide students into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups. The groups should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and ability. 2. Appoint one student from each group as the leader. Initially, this person should be the most mature student in the group. 3. Divide the day’s lesson into 5-6 segments. For example, if you want history students to learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, you might divide a short biography of her into stand-alone segments on: (1) Her childhood, (2) Her family life with Franklin and their children, (3) Her life after Franklin contracted polio, (4) Her work in the White House as First Lady, and (5) Her life and work after Franklin's death. 4. Assign each student to learn one segment. Make sure students have direct access only to their own segment. 5. Give students time to read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it. There is no need for them to memorize it. 6. Form temporary “expert groups” by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. Give students in these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group. 7. Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups. 8. Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group. Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification. 9. Float from group to group, observing the process. If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it's best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it. 10. At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material. Students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.  The score for the assessment at the end is an individual score. In 1986, Robert Slavin proposed adding a group score to the individual. Each student would receive 2 scores as a result. The group score would be the average of each student in the original group. The assumption for this change is that including group score "builds in competition between groups and encourages students to work harder at helping each other learn the material well.” (Gonzalez, 2015)
In practice, I’ve used the Jigsaw teaching strategy, for new learning and as a review activity. When the purpose was new learning, the activity was around the textbook. Groups would be assigned either different chapters or large segments of a chapter depending on how much information needed to be covered as part of the day’s lesson. The assessment after the group work was an oral presentation by each group. I would ask questions based on what I thought was missing from the presentation. After each group was finished, I would summarize the information and fill-in the gaps. No scores were involved. When a Jigsaw was used as part of a review for a formal assessment, I started by forming Expert groups first. Each expert group would receive a set of questions for which they had to collectively find the answer. The students would then be reorganized into groups where each member had answers from a different set of questions. They would share the answers from their expert group. The assessment was the midterm or a final exam that occurred on the same day. Also, more often than not, the students had received 100% of the review questions to study prior to the day of the official review. Though the Jigsaw method was created as a tool to use in the classroom to break up racial cliques and promote racial harmony I have not used this technique specifically for that nor have I made the more mature person lead each group as suggested by Aronson. I worked with international, adult students and I have used other small group teaching techniques to foster ethnic tolerance and understanding. For the Jigsaw, I created groups based on strengths and weaknesses and I would let the students decide how they would approach finding the answers to the questions, especially when they were in disagreement, and who would lead. (Usually, that person was the result of self-selection.) The use of the Jigsaw technique for new learning and review takes advantage of the social mind to augment the collective knowledge of a community. REFERENCES Aronson, E. (n.d.) The jigsaw classroom. https://www.jigsaw.org Gonzalez, J. (2015, April 15.) The Jigsaw method. [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/euhtXUgBEts
 Project-based learning can be approached in more than one way. Activities can be designed around inquiry based learning; as a problem-solving project or it can combine the two. Anne Gilleran in the video, How to Design Project-Based Learning, defines inquiry-based learning as a search for “truth, information or knowledge.” The process starts with a question, followed by investigation and exploration, which ends with a “solution drawing a reasonable conclusion, making substantive decision, or applying new knowledge or skills” (EUN Academy, 2014). The difference between this and what happens in a traditional classroom, is that students often co-create the question, and are expected to debate and challenge assumptions that emerge during the research. The presenter in the video also states that the question should avoid a quick look-up in Google. Questions should be challenging to answer. An example of a question posed by a student in an inquiry-based learning activity in a financial literacy class for adults might be “What should my investment portfolio look like if I want to retire in 15 years?” The following video by John Spencer pulls from Harry Potter to illustrate the difference between IBL and a traditional classroom. In the video, you see a stark contrast between the traditional and IBL classroom. In Harry Potter’s IBL classroom, the students are experimenting, and actively learning through trial and error unlike the traditional classroom. Problem-solving learning activities often result in product creation. The problems the product solves should be authentic (real-world). Similar to IBL, “the main principle of [problem-based learning] is based on maximizing learning with investigation, explanation, and resolution by starting from real and meaningful problems. (OğuzÜnver and Arabacioğlu, 2011). The focus is more on solving a problem than learning something new. It shifts from informative focus (IBL) to practical (PBL). There are elements of both in each; the focus is different. The question posed in the IBL model example above would change to something more like, “With an increasing number of people having to work during their retirement, create a marketing campaign that would result in 20% more Americans actively investing for their retirement starting in their twenties." This second video by John Spencer provides multiple examples of problem-based learning. In comparing the two project descriptions for the IBL and PBL tasks, "What should my investment portfolio look like if I want to retire in 15 years?" and “With an increasing number of people having to work during their retirement, create a marketing campaign that would result in 20% more Americans actively investing for their retirement starting in their twenties", one can see that the problem-solving learning activity would involve more research. Because it’s focus is on a social problem and has an interdisciplinary aspect to it there is more opportunity for collaboration in this example. However, IBL activities can be designed so that they are more collaborative. So, in the case of the IBL question about investment portfolio, the class could be divided into small groups with specific research tasks – different strategies, using a broker vs -DIY, group presentations on findings, and a peer review component as students construct their recommendations. Both IBL and PBL can be done collaboratively, but depending on the question guiding the IBL, more thought may have to be but it to make it a collaborative effort. Certain problems in Problem-based learning, lend themselves more easily to collaboration. REFERENCES
EUN Academy. (2014, November 26). How to design project-based learning activities. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=_3yAODXnAsg&feature=emb_logo Oğuz-Ünver, A. & Arabacioğlu, S. (2011). Overview on inquiry based and problem based learning. Paper presented at WCNTSE method. In Western Anatolia Journal of Educational Science, 303-310. http://webb.deu.edu.tr/baed/giris/baed/ozel_sayi/303-310.pdf Spender, J. (2017, November 12). What is problem-based learning? [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGoJIQYGpYk Spencer, J. (2017, December 5). What is Inquiry-Based Learning? [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlwkerwaV2E |
Upcoming Workshops
Be One of the 1sts to receive notifications about when new posts are uploaded.Interested in exploring digital online tools for teaching? Visit EPDI's sister site at https://www.adulted-technology.com/
Categories
All
Archives
April 2021
|
RSS Feed