Cognitive Acceleration
Michael Walsh
[email protected]
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Principles of CASE
Lessons created to stimulate students to develop these reasoning
patterns
8 reasoning patterns underlying scientific understanding identified, e.g.
handling variables, classification, correlation, probability, etc
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The CA/LT approach in practice
Concrete preparation:
explanation of the topic
Social construction:
discussion with others to establish understanding of topic
Cognitive conflict:
challenge to resolve a problem – requires new way of thinking;
understanding of topic altered to accommodate conflict
Metacognitive phase:
explicit review of the thinking that has taken place
Bridging:
using the same kind of thinking in other contexts
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Principles of CASE
Concepts from Lev Vygotsky:
Social construction of understanding (“we become ourselves through
working with others”)
Thought and language (externalising internal thoughts)
The more knowledgeable other (teacher, peer, parent)
Students challenged to work at the upper limit of their current ability
(zone of proximal development)
Progress assessed in terms of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
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Challenge v Nurture
• First, following Berlyne’s (1970) analysis methods, they considered cognitive conflict to be a matter of
relieving subject uncertainty related to logical necessity. Thus, degree of uncertainty was considered an
indicator of the level of cognitive conflict in their study.
• They chose response latency as the second measure of cognitive conflict based on another traditional
measure used by cognitive psychologists. Zimmerman and Blom (1983, p. 22) proposed that when cognitive
conflict occurred, it would sometimes be evidenced by hesitation, looking back and forth, and signs of
uneasiness and tension. Thus, they said a child’s resistance to conceptually advanced implications of training
experiences and the resulting alternation between advanced and more immature modes of thought will be
manifested in response delays.
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VISIBLE LEARNING FOR TEACHERS
– JOHN HATTIE (2012)
Analyses 150 influences on achievement in schools:
Ranks the influences in order of effect on achievement
Places Piagetian programs 2nd with effect size of 1.28
Self-reported grades / Student expectations came 1st (1.44);
Response to intervention 3rd (1.07)
No other influence of the 150 exceeded 1.0
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PD – Your training
Let’s Think training ensures:
• Duration (over time)
• Linked to classroom practice
• Lesson simulation
• Extended opportunities for reflection
• Peer to peer observations.
• Recorded evidence.
• Opportunity to personalise to setting.
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Deliberate/Purposeful Practice
• Develop skills that other people have already figured out how to do
effectively.
• Takes place outside one’s comfort zone and just beyond current
abilities.
• Well defined, specific goals.. Not vague improvement.
• It requires a person’s full attention and conscious actions.
• Involved Feedback and modification of effort in response to
feedback.
• Building or modifying previously required skills by focusing on
aspects to improve.
• Produces and depends on effective mental representation ( like
Let’s Think!)
© Let's Think in English KS2