Tag Archives: understanding

Storytelling – The cave

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telling stories

There is a lot written today about the power of storytelling and how it can help persuade, influence and of course educate. Stories come in many shapes and sizes, sometimes they are true, but might be embellished, sometimes they are not true but include powerful messages hidden in the form of metaphor or allegory.

The simplest definition of a story is that “one thing happens in consequence of another,” and it can engage, motivate and inspire. But cognitively the brain is working very hard forming connections, asking questions, creating images and helping offer up opinion.

“If you want your children to be smart, tell them stories. If you want them to be brilliant, tell them more stories.” Albert Einstein.

Below is an allegory, arguably one of the most important in the whole of western philosophy, but its message for educators and students is sometimes lost. It’s called Plato’s cave, read it carefully, thinking about what it might mean.

Plato’s cave
Plato caveAlthough Plato is the author, it is Socrates who is the narrator talking to Plato’s elder brother Glaucon.
The story told is of a group of people who from birth have been chained up in a cave with their heads fixed in one direction so they can only look forward. They face a cave wall on which they can see moving images, shadows that they believe to be reality. Socrates’s explains that when the prisoners, because that is what they are, talk to each other they discuss the shadows as if they were real. But they are an illusion, created by shadows of objects and figures played out in front of a fire, manipulated by the puppeteers.

Socrates goes on to say that one of the prisoners breaks free of his chains and is forced to turn around and look at the fire, the light hurts the prisoner’s eyes but as they adjust, he can see the fire and the puppets he had believed to be real. He doesn’t want to go any further fearing what it might bring but once more is forced to go towards the mouth of the cave and into the blazing sunlight.

At first, he can only look at the reflections because as with the firelight the sun is too bright but as his eyes adjust once more, he finally looks at the sun, only then “is he able to reason about it” and think what it could mean. His thoughts are interrupted by the sorrow he feels for his fellow prisoners who have not seen what he has, have not learned the truth. So, he goes back into the cave to tell them everything. But when the prisoners look at him, they see a man stumbling, strained, no longer able to see in the dark cave. But worse when he begins to explain they think him dangerous because what he tells them is so different to what they know.

The prisoners do not want to be free, the effort is too great, the pain and apparent disability sufficient to stop them trying. They are content in their own world of ignorance and will fight anyone who wants to change that.

But what does that mean?
The answer of which should be, well what do you think it means? But sometimes you just don’t have time for that answer so here is one interpretation, it’s worth pointing out there are many.

  • The puppeteers are those in power or authority. They prefer it if people don’t ask questions, remain content and are not causing trouble.
  • The fire is knowledge and wisdom.
  • The prisoners are society.
  • The escaped prisoner is the student. The student who through education escapes and finds answers.
  • The person that frees the student and drags him towards the light is the teacher.

If we put this all together, it gives us an insight into learning that has remained unchanged since Plato wrote the Republic in which this story sits in 514a–520a.

Learning is not easy, it can be difficult and hard work. Some people are happy to remain as they are, ignorant, after all it’s not pleasant having your beliefs challenged and finding out that what you thought was true in fact isn’t. Teachers can help take you towards knowledge and learning but you need to want it for yourself, and once you have knowledge you can’t go back to what you were before, education will have changed you forever.

To find out more about the power of stories watch this video – The rules to telling a story by the Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (“Toy Story,” “WALL-E”)

Plato’s cave at the movies

The Matrix and Plato’s Cave – Neo meets Morpheus and explains he is a slave

The Truman Show – Truman shows bravery by going towards the light

 

The simple Mr Feynman

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Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was co-awarded the Nobel prize for Physics in 1965 for successfully resolving problems related to the theory of quantum electrodynamics.  No, I’m not sure what that means either. If that was not enough he also helped build the atom bomb, being part of the Manhattan project, and following the Challenger explosion on January 28, 1986 he was the person largely credited with figuring out why it happened.

In fact, Richard Feynman is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential theoretical physicists in history. His physics lectures have become world famous. Here is one on the Law of Gravitation.

“I’m smart enough to know that I’m dumb.”

Richard Feynman

He was intensely curious and believed that unless you could explain a concept or idea in simple terms you really didn’t understand it. In this clip Feynman was asked by his father to explain where a photon comes from – listen for his metaphor.

The Feynman technique

Richard Feynman was worried that a lot of people thought they knew something when in fact they only had a superficial grasp of the subject matter.

“You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird… I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”

Richard P. Feynman

Such was his concern that he created a process to help take an individual’s knowledge to a far deeper and more fundamental level, it’s called the Feynman Technique.

Step 1: Take a sheet of paper and write the name of the concept, topic or subject you would like to learn.

Step 2: Explain the concept in your own words as if you were teaching someone else – see also Protege effect.  Imagine your pupil is a small child, this will help focus your mind on plain, simple language. Don’t limit your explanation to definitions or overviews, challenge yourself, and include lots of examples, which as mentioned in earlier blogs is a great way of making sure you have understood it.

Step 3: Review your explanation and identify the gaps. These might be areas where you simply didn’t have the necessary knowledge or your explanation was weak. Once you have done this go back to your notes or textbook, re-learn the subject matter and add what you have learned to your sheet of paper, then repeat step 2.

“The first person you should be careful not to fool is yourself. Because you are the easiest person to fool”.”

 Richard Feynman

Step 4: Review again and remove technical or overly complex terms, think, “how can I say this more simply?” Also put your notes into an order that flows easily, this might involve rewriting large sections and even starting again with a clean piece of paper, but thats all part of the process. One final tip, as with step 2, it often helps to read out loud.

And that’s it!

I am not saying that if you follow this technique you will win a Nobel prize or be able to play the bongos, another skill that Feynman was famous for, but it will certainly deepen your understanding of the subject, and that’s not a bad start is it!

Richard Feynman: “The Great Explainer” click for an interesting  10-minute summary of his career in science.

The Protege effect – Learning by Teaching

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Protege

The Protege effect states that the best way to learn is to teach someone else. Students develop a better understanding and retain knowledge longer than those who study in more traditional ways. The Roman philosopher Seneca put it even more simply ‘While we teach, we learn’.

The method, also called learning by teaching was originally developed by Jean-Pol Martin in the 1980s. Click to watch a short video.

 

There are many theories written about learning and education but the ones that are always most powerful for me are those that you can evidence in some way from your own experiences or from the experiences of others whose opinion you value. And I would be very surprised if any of my teaching colleagues would disagree with the basic concept that no matter how much you think you know about a subject or topic, the very process of teaching always offers up new thoughts and insights, deepening your understanding.

The teacher might be the student

The argument hinges on the relationship between a teacher and learner. Traditionally the teacher is the expert who provides knowledge, the learner the one who receives it, but the teacher need not be the person who stands at the front of class, the teacher can be the student and the student the teacher.

This role reversal is not as odd as it at first might seem, a good teacher will always listen to the answer a student gives in order to evaluate their own performance. And if you think of it like that, who is teaching who?

But how does it work? Imagine you were asked to teach a subject to others in your peer group. Knowing you were going to have to explain a topic will increase your level of engagement with the learning materials. In addition, reflection will be far deeper as you continually ask, does this makes sense to me? This process of preparing, “prepping” is one of the reasons teaching improves learning but there are others. For example, the construction of the learning itself will require imagination and creativity, how exactly will I teach this subject?  It may be a simple verbal explanation, conversational even, or perhaps something more formal, requiring slides or additional illustrations. Once again you will be forced to reflect, possibly writing down some of your ideas and again asking questions, how long will it take, am I making myself clear, what questions could I be asked? Its at this stage that you may even find your understanding lacking, requiring you to go back over what you previously thought you knew.

There is research (Bargh and Schul 1980) to prove that preparing to teach in the belief that you will have to do so improves learning, however there is one final stage, the teaching itself.  In 1993 Coleman, Brown and Rivkin investigated the impact of actually teaching, eliminating the effects resulting from the interaction with students, their conclusions, that there was a significant improvement in performance of those that taught compared to the those who prepared but didn’t in the end teach.

In summary, although thinking you have to teach and going through the process to do so improves learning, following through with the actual teaching is even better.

Protege in practice

Bettys Brain (Vanderbilt University) – Bettys brain is a computer based, Teachable Agent that students can teach and in so doing learn. The students develop a visual map (A concept map) of their own knowledge, forcing them to organise their thoughts. There are resources available within the programme to help them develop a deeper undertesting of the subject. They then teach what they learned to Betty, who like any other student will face a test at the end. If she does not do well in the test it is a reflection of the quality of the teacher or perhaps more precisely their understanding of the subject.

Click here for more details

Lessons for students – This is not a plea for students to pair up and teach each other, as good an idea as this might be. It is a hope that by explaining why teaching helps you learn, it gives an insight into how we all learn. For example, it highlights that reflection, i.e. thinking back on what you know is so important, it shows that high levels of concentration are required, the result of knowing you will have to explain concepts and ideas to others, and it offers up some evidence as to why talking out loud as you do when presenting, consolidates learning.

A few other takeaways, why not imagine you have to teach the subject you are learning and study with a “teaching mindset”. Preparing notes as if you are going to teach, crafting ideas as to how you might explain it to others. Get involved in group discussions, try to answer other student questions as they might answer yours.

Oh, and don’t always assume that the person in front of you fully grasps what they are saying, they are still learning as well.

 

 

 

 

Case study – Omelettes and Cognitivism

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1774_making_summer_sausage_omelette

If you have actually got as far as reading this first paragraph, there must have been something in the title that caught your attention. Perhaps you were simply curious as to how these three words are connected, or maybe one of the words relates to something you are interested in?

Whatever the reason, you have begun to process information and so engage in cognition, put more simply, you have started to think.

Making an omelette

But first a question, take a moment and think about how you make an omelette? ……….Then in your own words, explain how you would do this? ………. As you might imagine this is not about the omelette but the process you went through in order to answer the question.

The process – There was clearly an element of memory and recall as you thought back to the time when you last made an omelette, you would also have needed to direct your attention to the event itself and use strong visualisation skills, to see yourself actually whisking the egg, adding the salt and pepper etc. However so sophisticated is the human mind you can actually create images of making an omelette based on your knowledge of scrambling an egg! The point being, you have the ability to visualise activities of which you have no or little experience. The mental processes outlined above go some way to explaining Cognitivism. Cognitivism in learning is the study of how information is received, directed, organised, stored and perceived in order to facilitate better learning. Cognitivist believe that mental processes should be studied in order to develop better theories as to how people learn.

Case study is higher level

As you progress up the exam ladder the style of examination question changes. It starts with relatively simple activities that require you to recall something already taught e.g. what is the capital of France? It then moves to questions that test understanding, e.g. explain why Paris is the capital of France? At higher levels you will ultimately come across, Application, Analyse and Evaluation, and it is these higher level skills that a case studies often requires you to master.

I have written about case studies before, firstly, Putting the context into case study and secondly Passing case studies by thinking in words. Here I want to explore how by understanding how people think  (Cognitivism) you can develop strategies to help you answer what seem to be impossible questions.

Application of knowledge

Imagine you have been given a case study that has a large amount of information about the company, the people and the financial position. You have been asked to offer advise as to how the company should improve its internal controls within the HR department. Even though you may not think you know the answer, the process outlined above will give a framework to follow.

  • Firstly, focus your attention on the key words – internal controls and HR deportment
  • Secondly, recall any information you have about internal controls and HR departments
  • Thirdly, deploy strong visualisation skills, seeing yourself in that company, bringing in as much detail as possible to give context, and then use common sense
  • Finally write out your answer – Say what you see, talk through how you would do it, mention some of the problems you might experience and outline the possible solutions

These are cognitive strategies developed from learning more as to how people think, why not give them a go?

And here is how to make an omelette from my favourite instructor, Delia – yet another practical tip, remember last month it was how to make toast.

Reflections on Understanding ……Brexit

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great briitain leaves european union metaphorI have to admit in the last few months I have spent a fair bit of time looking into the facts behind the EU and checking on some of the statements made by both the remain and leave sides, attempting to discover truths or otherwise so that I could make a more informed decision. It proved difficult; much was opinion dressed up as fact by using numbers open to interpretation. Another technique used on the face of it to offer clarity, but in reality did just the opposite, was to state the “facts” forcefully, with conviction and repeat them often, giving the impression that what was being said was not only true but believed to be true.

But this blog is not really about Brexit, well kind of, I couldn’t let the most important decision made in this country for over 40 years go without some mention.

Following the announcement of the results on Friday the 24th of June I found myself going through what Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described as the five stages of grief. Denial, no that can’t be true. Anger, WHO was it that voted like that, they must be MAD or words to that effect. Bargaining, let me break down the statistics and find out who voted and what group they came from, old/young, North/South, maybe they could be persuaded to change their minds, or better still perhaps we will have a second referendum. Depression, we are all doomed, and finally Acceptance, it is what it is, we now need to make the most of it.

Reflection

What I have described above is not simply the ramblings of a disgruntled and disenfranchised supporter of the in campaign but goes some way towards illustrating the process of reflection, one of the most important components of learning and a key technique in developing a deeper understanding.  It was David A Kolb who in 1984 put forward the argument that we learn from reflecting on our experiences.

KolbModelStep one in Kolb’s learning cycle is to have the experience. Step two, reflect, think back on what we have experienced. Step three, conceptualise, generate a hypothesis about the meaning of the experience, what is it we have learned, and step four, test that the hypothesis is supported by the experience, does it confirm that what we have learned is correct.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius

Reflection – purposeful thought

Getting students to do this consciously is however difficult, in fairness I didn’t reflect consciously myself, it was part of a process in trying to understand why I was feeling the way I did. I felt angry but on one level didn’t know why, so I had to reflect on what had happened to find out.

The point being simply asking a student to complete say a reflection log, no matter how much you state the value of keeping one, will probably result in little more than blank pages. You need to have a reason to reflect, this might be to identify the cause of an emotion as was the case for me or to answer a question, which may be as simple as, “thinking back on the last essay you submitted, what have you learned?” it just needs to have a purpose. Of course the reflection log may still remain blank but that is more to do with motivation than the power of the exercise.

One simple technique to help with reflection is to think back on what has happened, identify the impact that it will have today on the present and what the implications will be for the future.

Lessons learned

So having passed through the stages of grief, rather too quickly I am sure some will say and reflected on the experience, what have I learned? Well, some has been confirmation of what I already knew. Firstly, that Politicians will make statements that they may or not believe at the time but will back away from after the event. This can be achieved whilst still retaining an internal level of integrity by pointing out that they never used those exact words, standing in front of a bus that has them blazoned across it, is not the same. Did anyone really believe that £350m would be spent on the health service or that Europe would not trade with us at all, after Brexit. Secondly that I like democracy as long as it comes up with the answer I want, but not when it doesn’t. Thirdly, the electorate does not make decisions using in-depth analysis and reflection but by deep held beliefs built up over time, often reinforced by the people closest to them. And lastly that the status quo is not sustainable and that happiness is a comparative process thus making change inevitable and with change comes risk.

Will it be for the better, only time will tell, we will have to wait for the historians to reflect on what the UK looked like in 2016 and whether it was better in 2026, as you can see reflection has many uses!

Let me leave you with my favourite quote of the campaign, not from one of the leading politicians involved, but Abraham Lincoln.

 “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

 

 

 

Eureka – I Understand Understanding!

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I Understand!If you understand the subject you are studying your chances of passing the exam must be good.

A simple and perhaps obvious statement but what does understand mean and what do you have to do to truly understand something? Of course understanding is a key part of passing but it is not enough on its own, you can understand something yet fail because you run out of time, misinterpret the question, thought you understood but didn’t! etc.

To understand

The dictionary defines to understand as, to know what someone or something means, to grasp the meaning, to be familiar with, make sense of etc. Understanding is clearly different to knowing, for example, you may know that gravity is a force that pulls objects to earth but that does not mean you understand what gravity is or how it works. Of course you need both knowledge and understanding, the one is no good without the other. Examiners try to test for understanding by asking questions that require you to compare, contrast, explain, interpret etc.

Understanding is not a Eureka moment, it has different levels. It might seem that there is a point where you didn’t understand and then suddenly you did, a Eureka moment. In reality what you have done is move closer to gaining a better and fuller understanding. Ask any lecturer or teacher, often they will tell you they never fully understood something until they had to teach it, they just thought they did.

Proving you understand – The 6 facets of understanding

Understanding by design, Wiggins and McTighe (1998) is one part of an instructional design process that provides a very helpful framework we can use to explore the depth of understanding and perhaps more importantly what you can do to develop a deeper understanding. Think of it as a hierarchy with the easiest one first, the greater you’re understanding the higher the number.

1. Explain, the classic exam question – Explain to someone what the concept/idea means and say why. Explaining out loud to yourself or making a recording can be just as effective.

2. Interpretation – Relate the concept/idea to your own experiences, tell a meaningful story. Try to add something personal into your explanation. To do this you will need to reflect on past events, whilst attempting to find parallels with the concept/idea.

3. Application – Use the concept/idea in a different context. The ability to apply knowledge in different contexts (transfer) is a key milestone in learning as well as understanding. It should result in you never being caught out by a difficult exam question. Understand to this level and it doesn’t matter what the examiner asks.

4. Perspective – Read around the concept/idea, get other people’s views, and see the big picture. If your struggling with understanding, read another text book or my favourite is to go onto you tube and watch a video. The internet is great for discovering alternative views.

5. Empathy – Try to get inside another person’s feelings about the concept/idea. This is difficult as it requires you to put aside your feelings about the concept/idea and accept that it is not the only way of thinking about it.

6. Self Knowledge – Ask questions about your understanding, ask what are the limits of your understanding, what are your prejudices, become aware of what you don’t understand. Often called metacognition, the ability to think about thinking.

The Eureka moment

Understanding, like Eureka moments are not of course the result of sitting in a bath and suddenly finding you understand something you had previously found confusing. It is the gift of hard work and long hours of study, hopefully by trying some of the techniques above your depth of understanding will only improve.

Ps apparently the jeweller was trying to cheat the king….

Understanding by Design

Want to know more about understanding by design, watch this.