Collins, Brown and Hollum: Cogitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible
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Contents |
Introduction
The authors propose changing the traditional classroom framework by structuring educational activites to more closely resemble an apprenticeship model. They believe that the apprenticeship model makes the resoning behind activites explicit, and that too often the process behind academic thinking are invisible to the student and thus more difficult to understand.
Toward a Synthesis of Schooling and Apprenticeship
The authors view is that schools excel at organizing and conveying large bodies of concepts and factual knowledge, but that too little attention is paid to the experts’ reasoning and strategies used to acquire and apply knowledge used to solve complex real-life problems. The school emphasis on low-level formulaic textbook solutions fails to provide the student a method to solve such problems. The student is left with no models detailing how to proceed with problems that are unfamiliar. To make a change in this pattern, schools need to shift toward cognitive strategies that are central to “integrating skills and knowledge.” The authors argue the apprenticeship model is best suited to teach such strategies.
Traditional Apprenticeship
In this section the authors discuss details of the traditional apprenticeship model. They examine four aspects important to the model: modeling, scaffolding, fading and coaching.
Modeling is described as the master demonstrating or “making explicit” parts of the task.
Scaffolding is the support given to the apprentice as he performs parts or the whole of the task.
Fading is described as the process of removing support from the student and shifting the responsibility onto the apprentice.
Coaching is seen by the authors as the thread running through the entire apprenticeship process.
The interplay of these aspects leads to the apprentice developing self-monitoring and correction skills, as well as the ability to integrate skills and conceptual knowledge as they advance toward expertise of the master. The authors argue that observation is also a key aspect of the process as it provides an opportunity to develop a conceptual model of the task at hand prior to attempting it.
The social context in which the learning takes place is also considered, as cognitively important characteristics are learned as the apprentice observes “expertise-in-use.” The authors believe that this context refines the apprentices understanding of complex skills. Given the opportunity to see multiple masters solve problems allows the apprentice to develop an understanding that multiple approaches to problem solving are possible.
From Traditional to Cognitive Apprenticeship
The authors argue that there are three important differences between a traditional apprenticeship and the proposed cognitive apprenticeship. The most important difference is in making the teacher’s thinking visible to the student. A deliberate attempt to bring the teachers thought process to the surface allows the student to “observe, enact and practice” the teacher’s problem-solving method.
The second difference lies in the real-world aspect of the traditional apprenticeship model. The authors argue that cognitive task must be situated in authentic contexts so that students will understand the relevance of the work.
The third difference relies on the teacher to situate problems in a diversity of situations. This will encourage transfer, as the student will come to understand how a method may be applied to a variety of problems.
Cognitive Apprenticeship Teaching Reading Writing and Mathematics
This section describes three successful models of teaching using the principles of cognitive apprenticeship.
Reading
The reading example is Palinscar and Brown's Reciprocal Teaching.
Reciprocal Teaching is a method in which students engage in a discussion after the reading assignment. Each student perform the strategic skills which are:
- 1) formulating questions based on the text,
- 2) summarizing the text,
- 3) making predictions about what will come next, and
- 4) clarifying difficulties with the text.
There are two roles that play a major part in reading: A teacher and student(s).
- Modeling - the teacher models the process of the four strategic skills and then turns the role of teacher over to the students.
- Scaffolding- the teacher enables the students to take on whatever portion of the task they are able to by guiding them.
- Fading - As the students become more proficient, the teacher fades, assuming the role of monitor and providing occasional hints or feedback.
- Coaching - the teacher coaches them extensively on how to construct good questions and summaries, offering prompts and critiquing their efforts.
Process
Modeling - The teacher models the four strategic skills Scaffolding - A selected s Fading - Coaching -
Writing
The writing example is Scardemalia and Beritier's writing procedural facilitation (later used in their CSILE online collaboration system). Procedural facilitation is a set of cues or prompts that breaks down the process of writing to help students plan and revise their writing. It pushes or encourages students to think, build metacognitive skills and develop their writing skills. Novices start as "knowledge tellers," where they write one thought after another. The goal of using procedural prompts is to make students gain more expert-writing skills of planning and revision.
These are the five processes of expert writing:
- Generating a new idea
- Improving an idea
- Elaborating an idea
- Identifying goals
- Putting ideas into a cohesive whole.
The teacher models the writing process by using the prompts. And, the students start their writing process with the aid of the prompts - scaffolding - until the students get to a point where they don't need the prompts - fading.
Mathmatical Problem Solving
The mathematical example is Schoenfeld's control strategies
In the article Schoenfeld uses metacognition to show the steps and thought processes used in solving the problem. His model displays the cognitive apprenticeship method of making thinking visible. He uses the talk-aloud approach when teaching solutions to a quadratic equation. He uses heuristic methods to simplify the process. He also uses scaffolding and then fading to aid the students in making their thinking visible.
A Framework for Designing Learning Environments
This section deals with the pedagogical issue of designing a learning environment. Four aspects are listed as important to the learning environment, content, method, sequence and sociology.
Content This aspect of the environment is described as the types of knowledge and expert calls upon during problem solving. Described as “strategic knowledge” this is the facts, concepts and procedures used to solve problems and consists of four areas.
- Domain Knowledge – Facts, concepts and procedures explicitly identified with the subject matter.
- Heuristic Strategies – Tricks of the trade. Effective techniques for accomplishing tasks.
- Control Strategies - Control of the process of carrying out the task. Also referred to metacognitive strategies.
- Learning Strategies – Strategies for learning any of the above listed content.
Method These are techniques to promote the development of expertise. Methods are to be designed to give students opportunities to “observe, engage, invent or discover expert strategies.” The core cognitive apprenticeship concepts are modeling, coaching and scaffolding. These concepts help students utilize a set of skills learned through observation and guided practice. Articulation and reflection are described as methods of focusing the students’ observations of expert problem solving.
- Modeling – Experts perform a task so that a student can observe and build a conceptual model of processes required to accomplish a task.
- Coaching – Experts observe students carrying out a task and offer hints, scaffolding, feedback and more modeling to guide the student toward a proficient performance of the task.
- Scaffolding – Support given by the teacher to help the student carry ou the task.
- Articulation – Any method to encourage the student to articulate their knowledge and or reasoning process.
- Reflection – Students compare their processes to those of an expert.
- Exploration – Encouraging students to solve problems independently.
Sequencing This is described as the order of learning activities.
- Global before local skills – Working on the whole or “the big picture” allows students to build a conceptual map prior to working on the details.
- Increasing complexity – Refers to structuring the sequence of tasks so that more skills and concepts are required for expert performance at later stages.
- Increasing diversity – Exposure to an increasingly wider variety of strategies and skills to complete a task.
Sociology Aspects of the social organization of traditional apprenticeships encourage productive beliefs that are significant to the learner’s motivation and confidence as the learner encounters problems or tasks. An apprentice practices among a community of practitioners.
- Situated Learning – Students carry out tasks and solve problems in an authentic environment.
- Community of practice – A learning environment in which practitioners communicate about the skills involved in the task or problems.
- Intrinsic motivation – This is related to the situated learning and community of practice above. Students perform task because they are interested in the goal.
- Exploiting cooperation – Having students work together to foster cooperative problem solving.
Conclusion
The cognitive apprenticeship is a “paradigm” for teaching, and the learning of rote tasks will not fit within this paradigm nor does it make sense to attempt it. The authors believe that teachers do not need to assume the role of expert at all times. The cognitive apprenticeship encourages the student to work toward mastery through an exploration of ideas. The authors believe there is no formula to implementing this method in the classroom. It is up to the teacher to identify and develop methods of cognitive apprenticeship and the traditional apprenticeship is an excellent place to look for models.
