I recently attended a large, subject-specific education conference, where one of the Keynote addresses was an international speaker and facilitator of inquiry-based learning. As the speaker was introducing background information on the practice of inquiry-based learning, she shared a number of responses frequently offered by teachers when confronted with inquiry-based learning. One of these responses in particular struck me, the belief that with a increased focus on inquiry-based learning on the classroom requires a teachers to ‘give up some of the control in the classroom’ in order to create a learning environment that was more ‘student-centered.’This attitude toward inquiry-based learning is neither unique nor novel. The notion that teachers working from a traditional pedagogical stance need to move toward a more student-centered classroom and give over more control to the students is a common refrain. In the educational material that I read, mostly online blogs and websites, there’s a frequent attack on ‘traditional classrooms’ built on the belief that ‘student-centered’ approach to teaching honors the student voice, and increases student engagement and motivation. While there is an obvious range of student-centered models of education, Barraket lays out the common understanding of student-centered teaching as being a process where students are given more autonomy and control over:
• the choice of subject matter
• the pace of learning
• the learning methods used
Contrasted with the central notion of student-centered classrooms, that students should have greater autonomy over the subjects matter and pace they choose to study, I’ve recently been impacted by the notion of “liberating constraints” put forth by Davis, Sumara and Luce-Kapler. In their book “Engaging Minds” Davis et al. offer a way for teachers to think about the way they design work for classrooms. Throughout the chapter “Learning and Teaching Structures,” Davis et al. discuss the importance of structuring learning experiences around intentionally placed limits or restrictions.For Davis et al. the notion of students freely determining the topics that they choose to study is contradictory to understanding disciplines (mathematics, history, etc) as having an authority and history. The disciplines as we frequently experience them in classroom settings are fragmented, compartmentalized and dis-embodied versions of the real-world context in which disciplines naturally and historically occur. Knowledge in schools thus becomes discreet bits of information to be located, (“we just need to teach students how to Google and they’ll be good learners”) memorized, and consumed, disconnected from the historic voices, struggles, debates and ancestry that has created the knowledge within each of disciplines. If student-centered learning merely involves (and I’ve seen this and done this myself) having students choose their own topics, raise their own questions, research and present the findings, I can’t help but think this it doing a great disservice to the history, authority and complexity of the disciplines.
For Davis et el, the role of the teacher in a classroom becomes locating and structuring activities built on ‘liberating constraints’ from within the lived world of the discipline. This is the act of structuring learning, not in the sense of a pre-determined, closed plan of action, but rather an organic, biological understanding of structure, where organisms respond and adapt to changing conditions. Davis et al. refer to the etymology of structure to “describe how things spread out or pile up in ways that can’t be pre-determined, but that aren’t completely random either.”
But there is important tension within this approach to structuring learning; the space must be governed by the authority of the discipline, but open to the possibilities that emerge from the students’ prior knowledge and experience. When designing learning around these “liberating constraints” the teacher must strike a balance between the authentic constraints put on the task from within the discipline itself, yet carve out the space for students to participate in the experience through their own creativity and individual voices and experiences. There’s a danger at both ends of the balance – a structure too limited removes any potential for possibilities to emerge within the study – a structure too loose removes the disciplined constraints that actually create the possibility for student creativity.
What I find interesting here is the ‘control’ or ‘power’ in the classroom is no longer something once held by the teacher, that is now handed over the students, but rather a measure of control power resides in the discipline. The discipline determines what is appropriate, what is right and what learning methods best fit the material at hand. If we take seriously the authority of the disciplines we teach, then we as teachers are ‘subject’ to the discipline in the same way our students are. It is possible that the most appropriate content to teach and learn within a given discipline is not determined by the teacher, or by the student, but by the very nature of the discipline itself? Is it possible that a correct learning approach or method is not a universal, but rather comes from within the discipline? Shouldn’t it be the discipline of mathematics that informs us of the best way to teach mathematics?
Unfortunately, the disciplines as they appear in classrooms are frequently very different than the way the disciplines are experiences by those in the ‘real world.’ One does not have to look far to see examples of how the ‘schooliness’ of the subjects we teach are either pale versions of the authentic disciplines, or in some situations, so contorted as to be completely unrecognizable. Often in classrooms, the limits put on student activities are not determined by the authentic constraints within the disciplines, but rather emerge from within the school version of the disciplines. Sometimes this is due to the type of work asked for by the teachers, and sometimes it’s due to the institutional factors such as government testing and reporting
I first noticed this a number of years ago when I was teaching grade 6 Humanities, preparing my students for the Provincially mandated writing test. Throughout the year, my students had written a couple of lengthy writing activities. As students worked through the planning, writing and editing process, students were able to self-edit, peer-edit and work through multiple versions of their work. I set up student blogs where students posted the chapters they were working on, creating a space where student and parents could read, comment and help each other in the development of the ‘student-as-writer.’ Throughout the writing activities, I often discussed the role of the editor in writing, encouraging the students to gather as much feedback as they could on their writing, and to incorporate this feedback into improving their work. I wanted students to understand that having an editor to help with writing is not ‘cheating’ but rather that writers in the ‘real world’ often rely on editors to hone and polish good work.
However, once we neared the end of the year, I realized that the type of writing students had done throughout the year had to be different from the type of writing the students would be assessed on for the Provincial Achievement Test. First of all, the students were given two hours to write a short story. I often wondered, are there writers out there in the real world that sit down and write a story in two hours? This two-hour time limit is not an a example of a ‘liberating constraint’ that emerges out the discipline of fiction writing, but is rather a function of large scale testing that is merely constraining. As we started to get ready for the test, I realized that this two-hour time limit restricted the types of stories, plotlines and characters that the students could include in their writing, a contradiction against much of the discussions on writing we had throughout the year. The one-shot experience of the writing test also removed the ability for students to return to and re-read their work having left it for a few days, another part of the writing process that was encouraged throughout the year.
In addition, all the encouragement toward seeking out feedback and including revisions in student writing was not possible during the writing test. Students reading and commenting on each other’s work no longer became a key part of the writing process, but was now ‘cheating’. The process of the students posting their work on blogs to receive feedback and writing suggestions was eliminated, and the year-long emphasis on the public act of writing was reduced to a isolated student creating a restricted piece of fiction for a contrived audience.
If we took seriously this attitude, we would have to re-think the relationship we have with the disciplines we teach. Often those of us who teach do not participate in our disciplines outside of our classrooms. Those who teach writing, often do not write themselves, those who teach science do not engage in scientific inquiry. But according to Davies et al., while it’s not practical for every teacher of mathematics to be a mathematician, “it does mean that one’s ability to structure liberating constraints is greatly enabled by involvement in the sorts of creative and inquiry-based activities that are particular to various disciplines.” (94)
In my own work, as I begin to support teachers in the planning and development of inquiry-based projects, I see that the developing of liberating constraints is one of the most difficult, and intellectually challenging elements of teaching. I recently spent two full days developing a study of the Italian Renaissance alongside two grade 8 Humanities teachers. In our planning sessions, almost all the time was spent developing and clarifying the central question (and sub questions) of the inquiry. It was not easy work – particular because we wanted to move the students into a space where they were examining the casual roots of the Renaissance, and how that time period connects to our contemporary worldview. What I found fascinating, looking back now, is the amount of time and intellectual effort it took to build, revise and clarify the constraints we put on the study, and imagining what possibilities might arise from the student voice.
I’m thankful that I work in a school that takes seriously the building of inquiry-based work, and understands the resources necessary time for teachers to craft strong liberating constraints. I think this is a key element in designing powerful and engaging work for our students – and it requires time.
