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Four mechanisms that promote learning in philosophy

The Effective Pedagogy in Social Sciences/Tikanga ā Iwi Best Evidence Synthesis [BES] identifies four mechanisms – connection, alignment, community, and interest – that facilitate learning for diverse students in social sciences. They are directly relevant to teaching in philosophy.

Each of these mechanisms provides a lens through which we can examine our practice. Each is backed by evidence that we can use when working out what to do next.

Connections

Make connections to students’ lives

Students’ understanding of important ideas and processes is enhanced when the teacher:

  • encourages them to use their own experiences as a point of comparison when learning about other people’s experiences in different times, places, and cultures
  • uses language that is inclusive of all learners and their experiences (this may include using simple te reo Māori)
  • builds and supports personal mana
  • selects resources that make diversity visible and avoid biased and stereotypical representations.

Students are more likely to engage with and achieve in philosophy when they find themselves and their culture valued.

By acknowledging, respecting, and valuing who students are and where they come from, teachers are in a position to build on what their students bring with them to the learning setting.

In philosophy this could mean

For example:

  • Acknowledging and respecting students’ points of view and questions.
  • Inviting students to contribute from their store of cultural knowledge, experiences, and traditions, by:
    • connecting students’ cultural experiences to philosophy
    • engaging with their cultural experiences and identities
    • exploring these personal realities in philosophical discourse.
  • Introducing and utilising philosophical ideas and perspectives from other traditions, including Māori, Pasifika, European, and Asian.
  • Being sensitive to the ways in which philosophical discussion might connect to particular concerns of students.
  • Encouraging students to identify issues, problems, and debates that might cause offence for some students.
  • Enhancing the relevance of new learning by:
    • encouraging students to apply new ideas to contexts that matter to them
    • encouraging students to look for philosophical ideas in other learning contexts and to transfer and connect learning from other subjects into philosophy.

Alignment

Align experiences to important outcomes

Student understanding of important ideas and processes is enhanced when the teacher accesses relevant prior knowledge, using it to minimise duplication of what is already known, and address misunderstandings that could inhibit new learning. If important outcomes are to be achieved, activities and resources need to be aligned to them.

Teachers optimise alignment when they make it transparent to their students, design well-sequenced learning opportunities in response to assessment, and provide opportunities to revisit important content and processes.

In philosophy this could mean

For example:

  • Making it clear to students where the course is going, so that they can make connections between different ideas and processes.
  • Promoting and modelling rigour in philosophic discussion.
  • Encouraging students to reflect critically on ideas and processes throughout their learning experience.
  • Providing sufficient opportunities to learn by:
    • using engaging and pertinent examples (for example, land rights and the Waitangi Tribunal or education and Māori achievement)
    • reinforcing core philosophical practices such as making reasoned arguments and providing supporting evidence
    • making use of different learning styles (for example, presenting Plato’s Cave in different modes)
    • using ‘thought experiments [and] innovative scenarios’ such as Aristotle’s future sea battle discussion, Decartes’ idea of the Evil Demon, John Searle’s Chinese room, Robert Nozick’s experience machine, and reality and illusion as in The Matrix
    • having students engage in structured, meaningful, self review/peer review.
  • Ensuring that students focus on conceptual questions rather than on questions that require scientific or other empirical observations.
  • Encouraging students to identify those points in discussion where empirical matters may need to be settled, and to follow them up if they can inform the ongoing philosophical inquiry.
  • Avoiding speculation about the possible psychological causes of people’s actions. For example:
    • ‘Is it ever reasonable to lose your temper?’ is a philosophical question.
    • ‘Why do people get angry when they don’t get their own way?’ is a psychological/empirical question.

Community

Build and sustain a learning community

Student understanding of important ideas and processes is enhanced when teachers:

  • create an environment in which students feel safe discussing things that matter to them
  • work at building relationships, whakawhanaungatanga
  • establish productive relationships with students
  • explicitly develop their students’ interaction skills
  • put in place inclusive practices that acknowledge multiple abilities and contributions
  • delegate to students authority to make decisions about their learning
  • design tasks and organise experiences that require student–student dialogue and interaction.

Ka Hikitia – Managing for Success (Ministry of Education, 2008) suggests that involving students in decision making about their learning invites their commitment to the learning.

In philosophy this could mean

For example:

  • Affirming that as teacher, you are also a learner (this is the Māori concept ako) – learning in philosophy is a partnership.
  • Creating an environment in which the teacher–student relationship is always respectful (essential for all students, but especially so for Māori and Pasifika students).
  • Introducing and maintaining protocols for philosophical discussion; for example, by role-modelling listening to, and respecting, different points of view, by scaffolding discussion in pairs/groups.
  • Maintaining openness towards a variety of philosophical positions.
  • Encouraging collaborative inquiry.
  • Fostering relationships on the basis of sharing ideas. (He kaiako tātou, he tauira tātou./We are all teachers, we are all learners.)
  • Encouraging reflective thought and action by:
    • allowing everyone time to think during discussion
    • accepting mistakes and misunderstandings
    • developing shared reflective discourse
    • challenging students’ justifications
    • unpacking students’ ideas.
  • Making use of groups, including co-operative groups (fundamental to philosophy because it fosters contextual learning and integration of ideas).
  • Working together to develop strategies for fostering healthy debate while avoiding disharmony.
  • Introducing controversial or sensitive issues later in the programme when students have had practice in reasoning and in dealing respectfully with disagreements.
  • Offering, if possible, a physical environment that supports experiential and co-operative learning; for example, through space that allows flexibility of arrangement.

Interest

Design experiences that interest students

Student understanding of important ideas and processes is enhanced when the teacher:

  • makes learning as memorable as possible by deliberately designing learning experiences that are sensitive to students’ differing interests, motivations, and responses
  • provides a variety of experiences that become memorable anchors for learning and subsequent recall
  • helps students draw the learning from these experiences.

In philosophy this could mean

For example:

  • Using accessible, challenging resources in creative ways; for example, by combining Descartes with The Matrix.
  • Giving students the freedom to use reason to test the limits of thought and understanding.
  • Co-constructing with students the goals of discussion.
  • Choosing philosophical issues, problems, and debates that are significant for students.
  • Negotiating learning contexts with the class.
  • Selecting contexts that invite conceptual questions and claims – questions and claims that can profitably be explored or evaluated by reflection and deliberation.
  • Encouraging students to seek and identify philosophical questions and issues in a broad range of contexts, for example, family discussion, movies, news items, books, songs, haka, pātere, karakia, takutaku, marae, whānau, hapū, iwi.
  • Encouraging articulate expression in a range of modes, such as:
    • collaborative oral inquiry
    • whakaaro in te reo
    • speeches and formal debates
    • essay writing
    • online discussion
    • diagrammatic representation.
  • Ensuring that the same methodological strategy or tool is used across a range of different philosophical issues.
  • Encouraging students to make use of e-learning opportunities; for example, using You Tube clips to suggest or explore philosophical questions or the Internet to research philosophical perspectives.

< Back to pedagogy

Last updated October 24, 2011



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