Reflection Through Interaction

The Classroom Experience Of Pupils With Learning Difficulties

Judith Watson Moray House Institute of Education

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781135401450
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First Published in 1996. Teaching approaches for pupils with learning difficulties have often emphasized the presentation and repetition of easily manageable tasks rather than exploration, learning through mistakes and reflection. However, there is encouraging evidence that such pupils may be helped to develop effective learning approaches with marked improvements in their academic performance and self-concept. The importance of the teacher's role in facilitating pupils' reflective activity cannot be overstated. This book locates reflective experiences within classroom interaction and discusses a variety of ways in which teachers can foster reflection. These include their classroom talk, challenging activities, and the creation of an ethos where expectations are high and pupils' thinking and self-awareness are shown to be valued. Most, but not all, of the classroom research reported here was conducted in special schools for pupils with moderate learning difficulties, but the findings have implications for teachers of a wide range of pupils, in both 'special' and 'ordinary' schools. The hope is that they will be stimulated to incorporate some of the ideas in this book into their own practice.

1
A Framework for Reflection

Introduction

Why is reflection by pupils important? And what exactly do we mean by ‘reflection? Two of the teacher participants in the research described in this book provided unprepared and insightful answers to these two questions, referring to their own practice and their own pupils.

I think they have difficulty following through reasoned argument, cause and effect, all kinds of things… and hypothesizing, which you know, can lead you on to things like crossing the road, and what will happen if …

(Reflection is) thinking in depth about things, erm, just where your thinking is challenged in any way, where you are not just reacting on a superficial level, where you are thinking beyond the immediate thing to its implications and possibilities. I think!

Their words, ‘depth’, ‘challenge’, ‘thinking beyond’ and ‘hypothesizing’, encapsulate the characteristics of mature sophisticated, educated intelligence. This book, like the two teachers quoted above, is concerned with the educational experience of pupils with learning difficulties who inevitably are neither mature nor sophisticated in their thinking.

In this introduction I attempt to clarify my use of the term ‘reflection’ and to outline the contents to follow.

_________

What do we mean by reflection? The term reflection involves more than thinking and has a wider domain than metacognition. Reflection includes reasoning, the creative production of ideas, problem solving, and the awareness of all these mental activities in metacognition. It embraces a wide range of cognitive activity which in Bruner’s famous phrase ‘goes beyond the information given’ (1973).

For example, in reasoning, a person takes a mental step beyond what is initially presented, as in ‘so she must have known that all the time!’: in problem solving a way towards a solution is sought, ‘we have to work out what time the train will arrive’, and metacognition may involve such self monitoring as ‘I’m finding this really hard to follow’.

So reflection is mental activity that consists of transforming given information in order to reach conclusions. This description excludes one-step mental processes such as simple memory retrieval or brief flashes of insight. It has a certain duration.

It also involves effort. In talking to pupils we sometimes asked about ‘thinking hard’. ‘What made you think really hard?’ when talking to them about their recent classroom experience was certainly a meaningful question to them. But the term ‘thinking’ does not always convey the essential features of duration, extension, and effort that are involved in reflection. Further, for many teachers the term ‘thinking’ is associated with the teaching of specific thinking skills. The present focus is not on these important and related pedagogical initiatives, but on opportunities for reflection across the whole range of a pupil’s curricular experience.

How do we recognize reflection in the classroom? Campbell and Olson (1990) emphasize the hidden nature as well as the effort of reflection, which they describe as inwardly mediated thinking, involving mental ‘work’ in which the individual ‘forsakes its normal outward orientation on the presented world and struggles instead with a world only imperfectly indexed by a shadowy inward structure of mental symbols’.

We can and do assume that a person is thinking hard by observation and knowledge of an individual’s characteristic behaviour such as absorption, stilling, silence, muttering or frowning. These, along with concentrated stare, furrowed brows and closed eyes were mentioned frequently by experienced teachers in discussion with us. One of our research project teachers said pupils were engaged — caught up in what they were doing, when they were thinking hard.

We can also ask pupils about the process of reflection, for example by asking them to think aloud during problem-solving. The degree to which this is likely to disrupt important reflective activity is open to question, and this technique was not attempted directly in the research described in this book. However, pupils did occasionally talk to themselves while working and we were able to pick up on this. Audiorecordings also sometimes recorded individual target pupils’ requests and contributions which their teacher could not hear, and at least some of the pupils’ feelings of frustration and triumph were expressed out loud.

Most commonly we deduce that a pupil has been engaged in reflection by its product. When for example there is some evidence of new understanding, relating ideas together in a novel way, or drawing a conclusion from given premises. Sometimes pupils spontaneously make comments like ‘Now I get it’ or ‘that can’t be right, because …’ which show their awareness of their own cognitive advance.

We all subjectively recognize that there are times when our attention is focused, when we become temporarily less aware of time passing and of our immediate surroundings, when irrelevant and intrusive thoughts are kept at bay. And we would all probably acknowledge occasionally an accompanying suspension of breath, sense of excitement and emotional and physiological involvement which is deeply personal. Many adults if asked when they are likely to experience such attentiveness will describe watching a film where there is an element of suspense, or being involved in a game or work situation in which their expectations are confounded, and they are brought up with a jerk and forced to think more deeply.

_________

This book concerns reflection in the classroom by pupils who have not proved to be successful learners and who are likely to have missed many of the powerfully rewarding experiences which can result from engaging with intellectual challenge. For such pupils it is especially true, as Jackson (1968) memorably pointed out, that ‘no educational goals are more immediate than those which concern the establishment and maintenance of the student’s absorption in the task at hand’, and that ‘classroom time that is wasted represents life experiences foregone’.

The same sense of irrevocable loss that can result from missed educational opportunities is particularly acute among many teachers of pupils who have difficulties in learning. One of our research study teachers described her sadness concerning the inability of one of her pupils to become fully engaged with school work: ‘Even when he came to school, he was so anxious that he didn’t make the most of what was there, and I really felt at the end of the year that he had made little or no progress and that was very sad. That was very depressing, because to me that was a year of his life lost, in terms of, I mean, for a young lad of ten or eleven he should have amassed an enormous amount of learning in that time

Anxiety, experience of past failures, lack of confidence and a tendency to withdraw from, rather than engage with, challenge, are very frequently found among pupils receiving special education. These additional obstacles to pupils’ learning are well recognized by their teachers and clearly affected the practice of the teacher participants in the research reported here. The book has the following plan. This first chapter presents a brief account of constructivist approaches to learning, within a framework of social interaction. From the research literature factors which appear to facilitate reflection are discussed with a special emphasis on classroom experiences. Evidence that the encouragement of reflection is of particular importance for relatively unsuccessful pupils is presented in chapter 2.

Chapter 3 describes the methodology and rationale of an investigation of reflection in classrooms of pupils with moderate learning difficulties. The following four chapters focus on the findings and implications of this research project. Briefly, a teaching style was identified which encouraged reflection by pupils: this was found to relate to other features of classrooms including their general ethos, which concludes the discussion in chapter 7.

Chapter 8 presents details of three initiatives in different settings with pupils of different age and ability levels. All have in common the aim of enhancing pupils’ reflection and each focuses on a different area. Their inclusion enhances and supplements the main findings and should be a useful source of ideas for teachers.

The concluding chapter considers the implications of the research and development work for teachers’ facilitation of pupil reflection, with special reference to pupils with learning difficulties.

Constructions and Scaffolds

By helping the child to structure his activities, we are helping him to perform things he could not do alone until such time as he becomes familiar enough with the demands of the task at hand to develop local expertise and to try things alone. (Wood, 1988)

David Wood’s well known book on thinking and learning summarizes important theoretical contributions towards the view of learning as activity that is socially constructed, the focus of the first part of this chapter. Very broadly it is plain that writings on cognitive development and learning have altered in their perspective over the last two decades or so to include more than the mental activity of individuals. Wells, for example, in 1981, described language development as learning through interaction, in which early negotiation of meaning and joint activity by parents and their young children was found to be associated with the most fluent and rapid language acquisition: Rogoff likewise stresses the role of a child’s peers and other members of society in early cognitive development or ‘apprenticeship in thinking’ (1990). She means by apprenticeship guided participation in social activity in which children’s understanding is supported and stretched. In referring to learning in school by such terms as ‘mediated’ or ‘assisted performance’ Tharp and Gallimore (1988) among many others view it primarily as a social interactive process.

In sum there has been a movement beyond the view of cognitive development as essentially consisting of the progressive elaboration and reorganization of mental structures by the individual. It is and must be that, but can not only be that; not a process in a single direction which is dependent primarily on that individual’s activity. Constructivist theories rightly stress the crucial relationship between new experiences and what is already known. It makes absolute sense to postulate that our cognition develops through encounters with new information that is different enough to be stimulating, but not so alien that we cannot assimilate it into those mental structures that represent our present state of understanding.

Real learning must build on pupils’ own existing cognitive structures, and must relate to their needs and interests. Only individuals can learn and they must construct their own understanding, but the social constructivist view is that such understanding is greatly enhanced during meaningful effective interaction with others. Teachers are constantly enjoined to start ‘where the child is at’, and assessing what their pupils already understand, at however informal a level, and building on it, is their stock in trade, albeit more likely to be made more explicit in early education settings and less so when syllabus constraints are more apparent.

By the time a formal academic syllabus is in force it tends to be taken for granted that pupils will have developed an idea of what is relevant or important, be aware of what they already know and have a good idea of how to relate the two in developing their understanding. This assumes a need to make sense, to learn more about the world and a satisfaction in doing so, that, as Donaldson pointed out so effectively in 1978, is obvious in very young children but seems to dissipate alarmingly fast when many children become pupils.

As Meadows (1993) says, the constructivist account implies a natural, smooth, progression towards a ‘highly developed, subtle, sophisticated, intricately integrated, perfectly balanced cognitive system’. This does not seem to be an accurate description of most of us as thinkers, most of the time. What in such a theoretical model would account for our failures to get started and our willingness to cut short reflective activity?

Intrinsic motivation is high where there is a sense of personal control and growing competence, and tasks which are interesting, relevant, and present optimally challenging experiences. But to focus on the individual child in an exclusively child-centred approach is problematic, as Donaldson concludes, in a far reaching, profound exploration of her theoretical model of four ‘modes’ of thought (from infants’ ‘here and now’ thinking in the ‘point’ mode, to mature transcendent thought with spiritual and philosophical concerns beyond time and space).

The child-centred approach is highly desirable, she says, in the sense of the teacher trying to understand the pupil’s point of view and level of understanding, but not enough, if we wish to encourage the child’s maximum potential. For the child’s point of view is necessarily limited: teachers have a longer view of possible consequences to present action. An extreme child-centred approach runs, in her words, the risk of ‘overestimating children’s powers of self direction and the validity of their judgments, while underestimating not only their need for systematic well-thought-out help but also their willingness to receive this help if it is not forced upon them in insensitive ways. Young children have a remarkable fitness for the role of novice’ (Donaldson, 1992). The child’s tremendous aptitude for learning is apparent to all parents of infants and toddlers and it is also evident that young children are often most engaged and challenged in social contexts; in domestic activities, in play, and in disputes; in observing adults in their work roles, on the buses, in cafes and shops, in our society. Through interacting with more knowledgeable people individual children develop in social competence and understanding and this is a fundamental part of their general cognitive development, not in any way an adjunct. The extension and application of research findings on social cognition from the earliest days and pre-school years into educational settings is a welcome move to many teachers, who may feel that the recent strong emphasis on curriculum has diminished their individual and personal contribution. Social constructivism, with its view of teacher-pupil interaction as the focus for new learning, reinstates the teacher as the expert judge of what a pupil understands, and as the creator of opportunities for that same pupil to advance in understanding and eventually develop into an autonomous or self-directed learner. For novices and apprentices eventually become experts.

The view of education as enabling novices to become experts through appropriate interactions in educational settings is often described as deriving from Vygotsky’s writings of more than fifty years ago, and ‘Vygotskyan approaches’ generally mean ones in which a more competent and knowledgeable person assists one who is less so, by providing them with the appropriate amount of help, with the important aim that eventually the learner becomes able to regulate their own activity and thinking. Vygotsky’s well known phrase, ‘the zone of proximal development’ (ZPD), represents that gap between what people can do alone, and what they can do with the optimal degree of assistance from one who is more expert. In Vygotsky’s own words it is ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by individual problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (1978). The zone is, of course, a hypothetical construct but the term conveys an important idea to teachers; that a pupil is often on the edge of understanding, and may be unable to advance alone. It is easy to see how attractive the term has proved, especially for teachers of pupils who clearly experience difficulties in understanding. But in its place I shall use the more general term ‘scaffolding’ to describe the many ways in which pupils’ understanding can be advanced and clarified by appropriate assistance.

The term scaffolding avoids the unwarranted impression of precision in references to zones of proximal development. The scaffold metaphor is of a supportive structure to the child’s thinking, provided by a more expert or knowledgeable person and dismantled as the child’s understanding becomes better developed and the other person gradually hands over control. At different stages and levels of development and with different tasks the amount of scaffolding needed will vary enormously. Bruner illustrates this beautifully in describing in detail the responsive feedback afforded children by their mothers during the transition from preverbal to verbal behaviour. Their mothers gradually increase their demands and expectations of their children’s communications in a subtle, apparently sophisticated, but largely intuitive way. For example, a precise finger point by an infant may originate in an unsuccessful reach towards a toy being responded to (scaffolded) by the mother and thus slowly acquiring cultural meaning for the baby. It has become a gesture which is understood by other adults and can be used by the child to direct their activities. The child has then internalized the meaning of pointing in this early example of socially constructed understanding (Bruner, 1983). With rather older children of four and five years Wood (1988) reports how he and his colleagues investigated the different ways in which their mothers helped them to construct a pyramid out of blocks of different sizes. The most directive mothers demonstrated how to do the task leaving the child with no responsibility and little evidence of learning. The least directive approach was to give the child verbal instructions only, without any demonstration, and again the children were able to do little on their own. Between these two approaches were mothers whose responses were sensitively adapted to, or contingent upon, their perception of their child’s understanding, who offered that degree of help that was shown to be necessary, at the right time, but no more than was needed. It was this approach that resulted in the children learning to focus attention on critical aspects of the task and eventually to combine these in a sequence which enable them to complete the pyramid by themselves. These mothers were using scaffolding to help their children learn in a way they could not do on their own. The timing and nature of the scaffold provided by their mothers was contingent on the children’s actions and thus their current level of understanding. Contingency is essential to effective scaffolding.

Scaffolding is easy to observe in the relaxed intimacy of successful parent-child interactions. What about the much more complex demanding and distracting setting of the classroom? Is it reasonable to even expect contingent responding by teachers to pupils in school? Can (and if they can, do) teachers help children to develop their cognitive abilities through scaffolding during classroom interactions?

Can there be effective scaffolding where curricular demands and expectations dominate and where pupil-teacher ratios are high? They are clearly radically different settings from the homes of y...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 A Framework for Reflection
• 2 Reflection and Effective Learning
• 3 The Research Focus: Reflection within the Classroom
• 4 The Locus of Reflection: Classroom Interaction
• 5 The Locus of Reflection: Pupils’ Classroom Experiences
• 6 Reflective Episodes and their Context
• 7 Behind and Beyond Reflective Classrooms
• 8 Along the Continuum: Mainstream Contexts for Reflection
• 9 Classrooms for Reflection
• References
• Index