Superficial knowledge is poor stuff – even carefully curated, well taught superficial knowledge. It isn’t satisfying and isn’t likely to get you anywhere. We want some deep learning, some rich and connected learning. We want to use our knowledge to be creative and solve problems. We want flexible knowledge.
Knowledge is flexible when it can be accessed out of the context in which it was learned and applied in new contexts.
Willingham (2002), Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Inflexible Knowledge: The First Step to Expertise
Our pupils (and our teachers) need to see through the surface similarities or differences between two situations to deeper similarities and differences. In science, pupils might see the similarity between a roller coaster and a train rolling down a track, but many will struggle if we change the question to a ball rolling down a track, or water flowing down a stream… but the problem is the same.
Direct instruction is very good for teaching the original example – the roller coaster. But this knowledge will be inflexible. You could then go on to teach as many examples using the same deep structure as possible, in each case pointing out the deep similarities – you’ll then have inflexible knowledge about hundreds of examples.
But it turns out you don’t need hundreds of examples, just a few. As you experience two or three scenarios the knowledge begins to become more flexible. You can withdraw the scaffolding, moving from explanation to guided practice and then to independent practice. As long as you keep checking for understanding regularly, and scaffolding pupils who need a little more.
Flexible Knowledge for Teachers
I wrote at the start that we want our pupils’ knowledge to become flexible. We want the same for our teachers. Thinking back to my days as a secondary physics teacher, my physics knowledge was pretty flexible, but when I had to teach chemistry and biology I was as inflexible as anyone who had just read the textbook the night before. When I moved to primary, everything was new and I had to start from scratch. It took a lot of time to feel like I was able to think flexibly, making connections between subjects; finding other ways to explain concepts and generally thinking fast on my feet.
In a recent post, I wrote about whether teacher subject knowledge matters (here). It turns out it does, but only if we want our pupils to develop flexible knowledge too. If we are satisfied with surface level learning for our pupils, then reading the textbook the night before is adequate. But if we want rich, connected, flexible learning, we need to invest in disciplinary subject knowledge for our teachers… and probably teach them in the same way that we teach the pupils.
If you’d like to discuss this with me (and by that I mean argue with me as well!) – please drop me a line.
Ben
@benrogersedu.
Reading for Learning 
Hi Ben
Interesting post- as this was the exact definition used by the old QCA exemplars of what was needed to get the highest grades for A level Sciences . Their research was based on a Piagetian viewpoint on concrete and abstract thinking and schemas. They basically defined A grade as being able to apply knowledge in unfamiliar contexts and C as being able to apply knowledge in familiar contexts . A B grade was defined as the midpoint between the two marks . This thinking is still there in most exams .
When I was the I o P rep on the DfEE / QCA committee looking at rewriting / refreshing the National Curriculum for Science – about 2001 / 2 /3 as a follow on to the beyond 2000 Nuffield report these huge tomes were wheeled out . They were also used to under pin everything we did when we wrote the Salters Horners A level
physics spec and books were written.
I believe the original work was done mid 90s by Jonathan Osborne Ros Driver and others . The follow up work was done by various teams (including me) looking at things like How Science Works and so on .
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That’s really interesting Steven, thank you. There’s a bad tendency for teachers to ignore the past… we need to know our history.
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Hi Ben,
I’ve been teaching nearly 30 years mainly in the Midlands and mainly Mathematics.
“Problem Solving” is the bane of most current Maths teachers.
I was asked (some years ago) by a member of SLT observing my lesson to ‘stop distracting the students with wild connections and make sure they can pass the exam’. Needless to say, I choose to make more connections elsewhere.
I appreciate your position.
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