Why doesn't my child fit science?
On research and some things I'm learning
In education research, there are very few studies that are considered irrefutable. Most can’t be replicated (if they’ve even been attempted again) and even less are strong enough to really help a child learn. Which is probably why most teachers and very few teacher teachers spend their time scouring education research. But maybe, like me, you’re constantly reminded by a devilish smile and a mop of black hair just how difficult this whole education thing is to do well. If that’s the case, maybe you also, like me, spend way too much time trying to understand why it’s so hard and how to do it better1.
Sometimes I come across a piece of research that just makes sense. I’ve been struggling to teach my son the “skills of reading.” We read Call of the Wild, but I could never help him understand it beyond the plot and a love of Buck as a character. Then I read Why Knowledge Matters and it became obvious. I couldn’t teach those generalized skills because (cognitive science says and my boy confirms) they don’t exist. He couldn’t think about the themes in Call of the Wild because he didn’t have the knowledge to understand what was happening, much less why London wrote the story he did.
When that happens, it’s a Eureka moment. It’s like punching through the clouds and seeing the endless blue sky. With my newfound understanding, I can change tacks completely. Right now we’re reading Mythos, because I know he has the knowledge of Greek Mythology. I read to him so he doesn’t need to tax his working memory with decoding the names. We read to develop knowledge. And as we do, our conversations have become richer, with a depth I couldn’t imagine six months ago.
Eureka moments are rare. More often, the research I do muddies the water of my mind. As it did when I started learning about the superiority of direct instruction over inquiry learning. Now this is considered one of those irrefutable studies of cognitive science. It was first proven in the 1960s, replicated often, and as recently as 20122 (and probably more recently but I didn’t keep looking), it’s been considered a known fact.
Except in my house, sometimes it just doesn’t work. We spent days going over the different conceptual models of multiplication, we practiced multiplying two and three digit numbers over and over again, we worked examples and I showed him how I would do it, and still he makes the same mistakes like he was guessing for the first time. And sometimes his self guided learning sticks perfectly. He asked to learn square roots, and has never forgotten them even though I made him struggle his way through learning.
By the way my son is good at math, lest you think maybe he’s “just not a math person.”
So what gives? How is one of the most irrefutable facts of learning science failing in my house? I’m working hard to figure it out, because I don’t think it’s just my teaching.
In 2013, Dr. Manu Kapur published a paper titled Productive Failure in Learning Math3. He and his team found that teaching concepts first led to an increase in procedural knowledge, but being forced to work problems before you know how led to greater conceptual knowledge and increased ability to transfer that knowledge to novel problems.
Well that’s interesting. But it’s not everything.
In their paper, The Equivalence of Learning Paths in Early Science Instruction Effects of Direct Instruction and Discovery Learning4, Drs. David Klahr and Milena Nigam evaluated direct instruction against discovery learning as students worked through the “control of variables strategy” (CVS), a common early lesson in elementary science education. Not surprisingly, they found that direct learning led to more students mastering the material. And those same students were able to master an adjacent skill: evaluating other students' experiments at a science fair. So far, that fits with our irrefutable understanding of learning.
But the students who practiced inquiry learning weren’t taught at all in the study. They received no guidance or feedback on their experiments. I don’t think that’s realistic, at least not the way I do things. The opposite of direct instruction might be termed cognitive apprenticeship more than it would be inquiry based learning.
A little later in the paper (but conveniently missing from most of the summaries other researchers had written), a decent chunk of those students who had been completely hands off actually mastered the lesson. That is, 23% of 3rd and 4th grade students with absolutely no guidance, feedback, or teacher at all, mastered the subject. Now granted it’s not the 77% that mastered the subject with direct instruction. But still, I wouldn’t have guessed that.
In their paper, Klahr and Nigram wondered whether “there are specific features of some learners that render Discovery Learning effective.” It reminded me of The Orchid and the Dandelion5, where Laurence Holt begins to consider that maybe we should design schools to match the way students learn rather than expect students to orient to the way schools teach. The idea is revolutionary.
Yet again, I’m reminded that what might be true for scientific research doesn’t have to be true for my son. I’m reminded that he learns in whatever way his brain and body needs. He’s an outlier in many senses of the word. That’s not a failure on my part, and it’s certainly not a failure on his. In fact, it’s yet another reminder that the best way to teach is the way that keeps the relationship going. Developing my son’s talents is an infinite game, and the only way to lose is to stop learning.
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I’m including the links to some of the research papers in the footnotes just in case any of you are nerds like me. If reading cognitive science research studies is not your thing, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s a bit of a sickness over here.
https://research.ou.nl/en/publications/putting-students-on-the-path-to-learning-the-case-for-fully-guide
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/cogs.12107
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8266887_The_Equivalence_of_Learning_Paths_in_Early_Science_Instruction_Effects_of_Direct_Instruction_and_Discovery_Learning
https://www.educationnext.org/the-orchid-and-the-dandelion-new-research-uncovers-link-between-genetic-variation-how-students-respond-teaching/
And of course, how your son learns today will not necessarily be how he learns tomorrow, or in six months, or a year, and so on. Our needs constantly change in an infinite number of minuscule ways, such that it sometimes takes us a while to recognise that a responsive change in method is necessary. Luckily, your son is on the right track with two people so directly invested in his learning - you and him.
I think this is IT, right here, the hidden wisdom gem in this whole affair. "the best way to teach is the way that keeps the relationship going." It's that relationship you have this makes the whole difference. And everything you are doing is a testament to that dedication.