Author: wrpvincent

To what extent can low fee international education programmes, aid the process of decolonization in post-colonial Mozambique?

the museo de historia natural in mozambique — Photo by Victor da Silva on Pexels.com

Introduction

“At the end of five hundred years of shouldering the white man’s burden of civilizing “African natives” the Portuguese had not managed to train a single African doctor in Mozambique, and the life expectancy in eastern Angola was less than thirty years”

(Rodney 2018 pp 247)

Education creates a nation’s doctors, lawyers, nurses, and teachers, all the social services needed to develop a society, keep its citizens healthy and economically productive. With few exceptions, throughout the colonial period of Africa, education systems provided for the majority black populations were geared towards the needs of the minority white settlers and their ‘mother country’ and not in the interest of most indigenous populations. The quote above demonstrates the reality of the outcomes of the Portuguese colonial education system in Mozambique.

Using the context of Mozambique, this essay will examine the rise of global transnational education programmes delivered by private schools for a growing middle class across Africa. I will examine how Enko education, a transnational provider of private education across Africa, with three schools in Mozambique, promises to help African students gain places in ‘leading’ global universities by giving students access and opportunity to study internationally recognised curricula. There are a few different international or transnational education programmes but this essay will consider only the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP). Transnational organizations like Enko education and the IB raise interesting questions for decolonization within the African historical context. What I hope to offer is a study of the increase towards private low fee international schools and their implications for decolonization, with a specific focus on Mozambique. This paper will examine the question: “To what extent can low fee international education programmes, aid the process of decolonization in post-colonial Mozambique?”

The first three sections provide contextual information and are structured similarly: considering general trends in low income and postcolonial contexts in Africa before discussing Mozambique in detail. In section one I present a history and context of some colonial education systems. Section two is an overview of the African learning crisis and rise of low fee private schooling including Enko education. In section three I examine the IB, its philosophy and history, before moving onto analysing the issues described in these contextual sections through the framework of underdevelopment in section four. In the final section I provide a conclusion.

Before continuing I need to define some of the boundaries of this paper. This is not a paper about so-called low-fee or low-cost private schools (LFPS) of which I have written about elsewhere (Vincent 2021a, Vincent 2021b) and have been the basis of much academic debate over the last two decades (See Tooley 2009, Härmä 2020). Nor is it a paper about elite private international education, the type of which is normally available to the highest socio-economic groups, referred to as Type A international schools by Hayden and Thomson (2013). Instead, I seek to examine what may be considered the middle ground, and its decolonising role, within a post-colonial context. These are private schools that cater to a growing middle class and offer the type of international education programmes found in elite schools but at a tenth of the cost. This trend sits alongside the rise of LFPS across Africa, within a general trend of privatization in the age of global neoliberal economics.

Section 1: Colonial and Post-Colonial Education

According to Datzberger (2021) pre-colonial African education was based on social and communal relationships within family tribal and clan-based groups which focussed on the learning of utilitarian skills. These skills are those that were needed for the development, within the individual, of the social-cultural values and norms. Usually within pre-colonial societies the important unit was not the individual, but the group and hence education was focussed on developing group cohesion amongst individuals. Children were educated to engage with a particular activity, and to ensure the transmission of cultural values. Education of this type included oral storytelling and literature as well as the transmission of traditions through stories and dancing and interactive experience. Traditional pedagogies in Kenya for example, are highlighted by Wa Thiong’o (1986) who stresses the importance of using local African languages for cultural transmission and education through the Arts. Rodney (2018) claims that whilst local differences did exist between different African communities in their pre-colonial education, most did follow a similar pattern based on respect for communal relationships.

With the scramble for Africa circa 1870, there was differing emphasis given to education between different colonial powers. Although the differences appear to be by way of degree and implementation, the intent of colonial powers was generally to absorb African societies into a subordinate position in an economic hierarchy. Thus, in British, French or Portuguese colonies, education existed to promote the interests of the colonising nation generally at the expense of the colonised. Madeira (2005) gives an interesting comparative account of the differences and similarities of education systems in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone colonial jurisdictions.

Whilst he was writing about his experiences of British colonial schooling in Kenya specifically, the colonial education system described in detail by Wa Thiong’o (1986) could be thought to be typical of colonial education systems throughout Africa during the colonial period in terms of its purpose (Rodney 2018). Wa Thiong’o (1986) is included here because he has written with lucidity about his personal experience of colonial education, an experience that could be thought to be typical for successful indigenous completers of colonial education, even across different contexts. He describes how the Kenyan colonial education system was designed to dominate ‘the mental universe of the colonised’ (ibid pp 16). He writes that the colonial education system focussed on the ‘destruction or the deliberate undervaluing of a people’s culture … and the conscious elevation of the language of the coloniser’ (ibid pp 16). The author goes on to describe how the colonial school served to sever the child from his community and natural environment so that he came to see them as something other to themselves. This was brought about by the deliberate use of colonial language but also ‘the alienation became reinforced in the teaching of history, geography, music, where bourgeois Europe was always at the centre of the universe.’ (ibid pp 17)

Not only did colonial education systems place Eurocentric learning material front and centre but colonial education was elitist and competitive, designed to select and mark out a minimum of the colonised population for secondary school, university, and then junior roles within the colonial administration. The aim was to train a class of the local population that could work to keep the colonial machinery in operation. This class needed to be culturally homogenous, replaceable and have a connection with the colonizing nation. As such the curriculum and pedagogies were devoid of developing critical thinking. Wa Thiong’o (1986) describes how, in Kenya, the only mark that mattered at the end of primary exams was English. Without a pass in English a child could not move up the educational ladder no matter how bright they were and how well they scored in other subjects.

In Mozambique the intent on paper was like that of the British and French although the implementation of the colonial education system was hampered by the lack of development of the colonial power itself (Madeira 2005). In official Portuguese political discourses, the plan was to create a shared Portuguese culture across all of its ‘overseas provinces’ where black Portuguese citizens would be created. This plan was only haphazardly implemented and never came to fruition (ibid). Portugal had been economically dominant in the region of what is now Mozambique since the 1600s but towards the end of the 1800s Portugal itself had failed to industrialise to the same extent as other European powers and therefore was unable to promote the economic development of Mozambique (Cross 1987). Instead, from the 1930s it sought to use Mozambique to shore up its own economic position through the exportation of forced migrant labour and the provision of jobs in Mozambique for Portuguese settlers who lacked employment opportunities in Portugal. Thus, on the eve of independence the Portuguese ruled Mozambique directly from Lisbon with ‘the main objective [being to] quite nakedly to get the maximum benefits and profits…for the mother country’ (Gaster 1969 pp 151). The ‘almost absolute lack of African participation in positions of economic and political leadership’ (Cross 1987) was caused by a failure of the Portuguese to fully assimilate the indigenous population through education, creating a very weak, small, and fragile assimilado (‘Africans considered to have divested themselves of all tribal customs…and assimilated Portuguese values and culture’ (Cross 1987 pp 553))petty bourgeois.

In the early days of colonial education in Mozambique (1800-1930), education of the indigenous population was left to the catholic missionaries. However, by 1900, Portugal effectively only controlled around 10% of modern Mozambique and so influence in many areas was gained by the British through the activities of protestant missionaries (Madeira 2005). Madeira (ibid) claims that in the first decades of the 20^th century up to 1948 there were more schools operated by protestant missions (and under the influence of the Americans and British) than there were catholic. The Portuguese state operating in Mozambique focussed its energies initially on the provision of public academic education for the children of white settlers, mulattos (people of mixed race (Cross 1987 pp 553))and assimilados. Education of the indigenous population was left to the missionaries who favoured literacy for the catechism and the elements of training needed for the indigenous population to fill the unskilled labour roles (Madeira 2005). This resulted in an effectively two-tiered education system within Mozambique where the indigenous population who had access to schools (most didn’t) was taught just enough to be able to read and write the catechism and to fulfil their role in society as forced migrant labourers (Cross 1987, Madeira 2005). The curriculum that existed was Portuguese in values and culture and Portuguese was the language of instruction, the use of local languages in the education system were banned in 1921. This system left Mozambique with a literacy rate that stood at 5% in 1967 (Gaster 1969).

The Mozambique Liberation Front, FRELIMO, was formed in 1962 from the fusion of several exiled organisations and succeeded in its aims of securing independence during the liberation war that spanned 1964 to 1975 (Cross 1987, Gaster 1969). From its inception FRELIMO was aware of the need for education (Mondlane 1967, Gaster 1967, Samuels 1971) to ‘train cadres and promote general literacy’ (Samuels 1971 pp 69). Thus, even during the war of independence FRELIMO started schools in the areas that they were active in and began a secondary school for refugees from Mozambique in Tanzania, called the Mozambique Institute (Mondlane 1967, Gaster 1969, Cross 1987). FRELIMO adopted Portuguese as the language of instruction ‘to unite all Mozambicans above diverse languages’ (Hall & Kidd 1978 pp 124), and they were aware that ‘education must prepare us to develop a new society and meet its demands’ (ibid pp 125). Education was thus seen consciously by FRELIMO to build a successful post-colonial society. However, despite efforts post-independence, the educational picture in Mozambique is still severely underdeveloped with a recent report citing an average years of schooling at 3.2 years of education amongst the population and high levels of illiteracy (Härmä 2016).

Section 2: The African learning crisis and Enko education

The educational situation in Mozambique presents echoes of a wider African ‘learning crisis’ (Oketch 2021) recently described as severe by the World Bank (The World Bank 2017). The argument put forward by Oketch (2021) is that the increased access to education brought about by EFA has caused a decrease in the quality of education in some African contexts, for example Malawi (Inoue & Oketch 2008, Härmä 2016). The crisis has arisen because schooling is not the same as learning. There has been improvement in access to schooling, but the quality of that learning is poor or declining with many children not meeting minimum indicators (Oketch 2021). Other authors cite country and school contextual factors to explain differences in learning outcomes for children in different African countries (Carnoy et al 2014). Studies show that a large proportion of students across Africa are 3 years behind where the curriculum expects them to be in terms of literacy and numeracy (The World Bank 2017).

Because of this perceived poor quality in public education many families have turned to the private sector. The education systems of low-income countries have witnessed increased privatization and the creation of education markets, through the rise of LFPS and an increase in Public-Private-Partnerships (Unterhalter et al 2020). Many authors have documented this trend (Tooley 2009, Härmä 2020) and there have been some large-scale studies examining the evidence of the effectiveness of private schooling (Day Ashley et al 2014). This is a global trend that affects many low-income contexts. Added to this learning crisis there has been an increase in the middle class of the Global South in recent decades who have been clamouring for more and higher quality education (Gardner-McTaggart 2014, Härmä 2016). One of the ways this demand for private schooling from an emerging middle class in Africa is being met is by private actors through for-profit education companies like Enko Education.

Enko Education is a for-profit educational company, inspired through the meeting of Cyrille Nkontchou, from Cameroon, and Eric Pignot, from France, at MIT Sloan School of Business in 2012. It has been funded by private and institutional investment finance from both inside and outside Africa including Proparco, Oiko Credit and Enko Capital (Materia 2021). The founders of the company worked in Management Consultancy and Finance in Europe before starting the company (according to their LinkedIn profiles). The founders were puzzled by the seeming lack of African students at their university, relative to students from other comparable regions like India (Allen 2020). Enko education was established with the mission to:

‘increase access to the world’s leading universities through high-quality international education.’ (Enko 2021).

To illustrate what Enko means by high quality international education, most Enko schools offer IB programmes as well as Cambridge International programmes. ‘World leading’ is an ambiguous phrase, but the fact that in 2017 a student from their first cohort gained a scholarship to study at Yale in the US (Allen 2020) serves to illustrate the company’s intent. Their aim is quite simply to help African students go to university in the Global North as this is where most world leading universities are located according to international ranking criteria. At an estimated 3000 USD cost per year in fees, Enko schools are catering for a growing middle class in Sub Saharan African countries. Currently they operate 16 schools across Africa with nearly 3000 students, with the first school being founded in Yaounde, Cameroon in 2014 (Enko 2021). Currently Enko has three schools in Mozambique: Enko Riverside which offers the IB DP; Enko Sekeleka which offers international A levels and Enko Benga which will offer programmes to both local and international students.

Section three: The IB

Whilst there are a variety of international curriculums available, here I will examine the IB which was officially founded in 1968. Its first programme, the DP aimed to provide a broad, balanced and challenging education that could promote international mobility by providing an internationally recognised university-entrance examination. The first DP exams were delivered in 1970, but its philosophical roots go back further (IB 2021b). The ideas that were embryonic to the IB can be traced back to the publication of a UNESCO booklet entitled “Do Education Techniques or Peace Exist?”by Marie-Thérèse Maurette (1948) who was the director of the International School of Geneva at that time. The concern for promoting peace continues to be reflected in the mission statement of the IB:

“The International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”

(IB 2021c)

Language	Number of students taking exams
1st language exams	2nd language exams
Amharic	50	0
Arabic	864	1323
Sesotho	12	>10
Swahili	38	172
Ndebele	0	>10
Shona	0	>10
Zulu	0	>10

Table 1: African Language examinations taken by students in the May 2020 global IBDP Exams. Source IB Statistical Bulletin:

Today the IB provides four educational programmes for children from primary age all the way through to pre-university secondary level. All programmes are underpinned by a similar educational philosophy. At the time of writing there are 5,500 schools across 159 countries delivering educational programmes to nearly a million children (IB 2021a). Of these around 80 are in Africa or 1.5% of the total IB schools worldwide (Hill 2018). As of 2018 there were no government or state schools offering any IB programs in Africa despite attempts throughout the history of the organization for it to work with governments across Africa notably in Senegal and Ghana (Hill 2018). Uptake of the IB by African schools since the 1970s has been slow and not in line with the early vision of the founders who felt that the IB had something to offer the education systems of newly independent states in Africa (Bunnell 2016). Cost is identified as one factor for this slow growth (Bunnell 2016). IB programmes are expensive for schools to run and therefore most schools that offer the program are catering to communities that can afford this type of global education, so called traditional Type A international schools (Hayden & Thompson 2013). Other barriers to adoption of the IB by schools in Africa are cited as: lack of IB conferences and teacher support on the continent; the fact that the IB in Africa is managed from the Netherlands; and a Eurocentric bias in its pedagogical outlook and philosophy (Blunnel 2016).

The IB emphasises constructivist, learner-centred, and inquiry-based pedagogy being heavily influenced by the pedagogical approaches of John Dewey, A.S. Neil, Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, all of whom were influential educationalists in the early to mid-20th century (IB 2021b). These principles are at the core of all IB programmes and are highly aligned to current global education policies. In addition to its core pedagogy IB programmes aim to be broad and have strong focus on languages. Students from around the world can take their DP subject exams (like maths, history or science) in English, French or Spanish and can study a variety of world languages as a first or second language. It is also possible for schools to request language exams for languages that may not have a large representation globally. Table 1 shows the number of students who took first or second language exams in each African language available in the May 2020 DP exams.

Section four: Underdevelopment

In the first three sections I have examined the colonial and post-colonial education system, the rise of private education in low-income contexts and the IB. In this section I will use the theoretical framework of underdevelopment as described by Rodney (2018) to analyse these trends.

Africa, taken as a whole, has been drastically underdeveloped by its historical interactions with Europe, according to Rodney (2018), who describes how the pre-colonial trading relationships between Europe and Africa, served to widen what was only a narrow economic gap initially around 1500 into a chasm by 1870. It is claimed that these trading relationships, which were focussed on the exportation of human beings from Africa, served, in the main, to stall the development of African societies from this point on. Several reasons for this stalling are claimed, but primarily it was the forced exportation of human labour, which is the foundation of development, that was the keystone of underdevelopment. These relationships also corroded social relationships within African societies.

Rodney (2018) contends that because of the stagnation of development in Africa through pre-colonial trade, European imperialists were able to invade and dominate the African nations in the colonial period. Education was seen as necessary to change the population to accept colonial administration, as discussed earlier. Education during colonial times, developed an administrative middle class in many countries, who had vested personal economic interests in keeping the economic relationships established between the colony and mother country intact. As Wa Thiong’o (1986) writes: ‘By education children are brought up in the culture, values and world outlook of the dominant class which may or may not be the same as the class of their birth and family. By choice they may opt for one or the other side in the class struggles of their day’ (ibid pp 104). This policy has been documented in Mozambique by the creation of assimilados despite the Portuguese being less successful in this than the British or the French. Writers like Fanon (1961) described how, following the liberation movements across Africa, the stage would be set for a new relationship: neocolonialism. In neocolonialism Fanon (ibid) describes how ‘the former dominated country becomes an economically dependent country’(ibid pp 77). He goes on to write that ‘the colonies have become a market…the important thing is not whether such-and-such a region in Africa is under French or Belgian sovereignty, but rather that the economic zones are respected’ (ibid pp 51). After independence and in the neocolonial period, the ruling political elites who have been educated under the colonial system have more in common with European interests and less with their countrymen. Fanon describes these political elites as ‘spoilt children of yesterday’s colonialism and of today’s national governments, they organise the loot of whatever national resources exist’ (ibid pp 37).

The adoption of the IB by Enko schools in Mozambique sits in this historical narrative and has implications that need to be considered in this light. From this starting point we will examine first how the Enko model of education fits into this narrative followed by the role of IB in supporting decolonization in societies like Mozambique.

Section 4.1 The Enko model

As presented, the Enko model of education, provides access to international education programmes, at a fraction of their normal cost, to African students to enable them access to universities in the Global North. International education programmes are adopted as these are seen to be of higher quality than the state education system and easily recognisable by admissions officers at universities in the Global North. Although there is a focus of getting access to university more broadly (not every African student in the schools can win scholarships to Yale), the stated intention is to gain admittance to ‘world leading’ universities. Although the term ‘world leading’ is appropriately ambiguous for marketing by implication this means access to universities outside of Africa. Afterall, according to data, only four African universities make it into the top 500 global universities, with highest placed being at number 226 (QS 2021). For the sake of this paper, I assume that by world leading, Enko means ‘outside Africa’. This model when analysed by the underdevelopment framework presents several issues.

The model of European finance providing investment to African children to attend universities in the Global North is reminiscent of situations described by Rodney (2018 pp 258) where colonial governments provided investment opportunities for their businesses, seemingly to develop Africa but which ultimately benefited the colonial state. In similar fashion with the Enko model, investment is provided to Africans to ultimately pay very high international student fees to relatively expensive universities in the Global North. Thus, investment ultimately goes to providing income for the education industry of the Global North. During the colonial period, trade from Africa to Europe and America was encouraged to the exclusion of trade between Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Colonial powers blocked development of machinery and skills within Africa in the colonial period to ensure that African industry did not compete with European industry. By focussing on world leading universities (as measured by western metrics) history is in danger of being repeated through modern trade in educational markets. This situation potentially leads to further underdevelopment of African universities and is in danger of creating educational dependency on Northern educational institutions. Dependency is increased because more Mozambicans become dependent on the northern education institutions. In time these individuals may have a vested interest in maintaining this economic status quo.

Clearly capital is needed to run schools, but the profit motive shifts the overall aim of education away from the needs of individuals and their communities and to the needs of shareholders keen to recoup their investment. Afterall, these schools are creating and exploiting an education market, and aiming to make a profit; any excess that is made is not necessarily entirely reinvested back into them, as would be the case in a not-for-profit private school. For-profit schools have been known to close at short notice when the profits do not materialise, putting children, who may be halfway through a program, at a severe disadvantage, particularly if there is no alternative provider of the same program (Jones-Nerzic 2020). Making a profit is therefore the primary aim, education is secondary.

The financing of these schools through investment by Global Northern finance illustrates Fanon’s markets as quoted above and means that ultimately any profits made by these schools are taken out of Africa and back into the Global North. This clearly serves to underdevelop the community as money that is made by families in Mozambique for example, is used to pay schools fees, some of which goes into paying teacher salaries and other administrative costs but some of which finds its way back into the Global North via the repayment of loans and profits to non-African shareholders and finance. This ultimately leaves fewer financial resources available for the local communities than if these schools were run by the government or as not-for-profit entities. It could be argued that without the profit motive, investment would not be available to run these schools which provide education and employment. I would argue that every government has an obligation to provide quality education for all its citizens and investment in education should be provided through these channels for the ultimate benefit of society.

International education of this type may bring benefits to the individual, but the benefit to the wider Mozambican society is harder to ascertain. Individuals who reap the benefit of this education and move abroad are not likely return unless there are suitable jobs and opportunities for them to do so, a problem that schools like Enko do not seem to address in their mission. This model potentially serves to increase inequality in Mozambican society as the very poorest are excluded from these opportunities. By overlooking this, these schools could potentially contribute to continued underdevelopment of the society by encouraging the removal of human resources from Mozambique, creating an additional problem for the government: providing suitable opportunities to encourage diaspora to return and loss of intellectual talent needed in society. It seems unlikely that this model of schooling will help to provide Mozambique with more Doctors, nurses, and teachers. Here we see the tension between the needs of developing individuals and the need to develop a society. I argue that education of this sort is not helping to create a socially just society and will continue the legacy of European interaction with Mozambique as highlighted in the quote at the beginning of the essay.

Section 4.2 An international education

Some writers have highlighted the problems arising from transplanting IB programmes into non-Eurocentric cultural contexts. Drake (2004) examines the cultural dissonance and tensions that arises from the implementation of the IB in Hong Kong for example. The pedagogical approaches that the IB favours were developed in the context of liberal democracies where individual freedom is stressed. These educational philosophies reflect the societies that they were gestated in and may not always be appropriate in all cultural contexts.

Liberal individualism runs to the core of IB philosophy and educational approach, not surprising considering that the key educational thinkers who the IB based its approaches on were all European or American men and were developing their theories within the liberal culture of those societies. Thus, the drive for learner-centred, inquiry-based education where the individual student takes control of their learning has roots in this Eurocentric way of understanding the world. Not all societies place such emphasis on the individual and it is documented that pre-colonial education within African societies was generally based on the needs of the society not the individual. Education may be beneficial for the individual but if there are no jobs suitable for the individual to come back to then it won’t benefit society but instead continue its underdevelopment.

Not only is the IB Eurocentric in its educational philosophy but it is also Eurocentric in its content. There is some scope for African study in history and through African languages, but as a science teacher of IB curriculums I know there is little to no mention of African scholarship in these curriculums. The narrative of these subjects is firmly outside Africa. In the IB DP biology curriculum there is no mention of any African scientist or the contributions of Africa to the advancement of scientific knowledge. In fact, the guide for DP biology only mentions Africa once as, a side note. This lack of African perspective demonstrates a possible lack of involvement by Africans in the development of the content. For biology alone it is possible to find examples of content that could link well to the African context for example the development of knowledge in biochemistry from foodstuffs derived from Africa.

African writers have provided ample examples of the misfit of European based education programs under colonialism being imposed on African society (See Wa Thiong’o 1986, Rodney 2018 pp 300-304) and I do not have space to include them here. But these programs served to Europeanise the indigenous population and ‘it followed that those that were Europeanized were to that extent de-Africanized, as a consequence of the colonial education and the general atmosphere of colonial life’ (Rodney 2018 pp 304). If international education is really going to serve the interests of African societies, then it needs to become more culturally sensitive in terms of its philosophy and content, allowing more flexibility to and representation of local needs and wants in its educational approaches and providing more input from African scholarship across its content. Even in Enko schools which employ African teachers (not necessarily local teachers) the head of school is normally from the Global North. This individual is likely to have limited sensitivity to the issues raised here and will be steeped in the cultural atmosphere of international education as described above.

Finally, the IB provides access to its curriculum in the colonial languages of English, French, and Spanish, so that students can study their entire DP in either of these languages if they wish. It is interesting to note that even in Mozambique, FRELIMO decided on using the language of the coloniser in its educational system with the aim of uniting different groups. Other African writers have criticised the adoption of European languages as national languages by independent governments and emphasised the need to adopt local African languages. While the use of European language by governments may have been pragmatic, it is a symptom of the neocolonial relationship. If this is the case, the IB would do well to adopt an African language more broadly in its African schools.

Conclusion

I set out to explore the question “To what extent can low fee international education programmes, aid the process of decolonization in post-colonial Mozambique?”. My argument suggests that the model of for-profit low-fee international education programs risks continuing the process of underdevelopment and increasing dependency. It potentially does this is by making the better off and more educated members of Mozambican society dependent on higher education institutions located in the Global North. Society in Mozambique cannot fully decolonise until Higher Education institutions of quality are developed and economic opportunities for skilled individuals become available in the country. This requires investment from the government. In a sense we are witnessing the creation of education markets in Mozambique. It is my contention that these markets serve to strengthen the position of northern higher education institutions.

Another way dependency is increased is through the removal of capital from Mozambique back to institutions outside of Africa. The for-profit model does not ensure that finance is contained within the communities the schools serve and it promotes loss of intellectual talent. If those individuals that can access higher quality education ultimately leave the country, then developing a robust, independent society in the long run is potentially hampered. These relationships mirror many of the situations of the colonial period of Africa as described by Rodney (2018). Ultimately the exportation of finance and human capital to the Global North from the Global South will not serve to build an independent Mozambican society in the long run.

Finally, the pedagogies encouraged by the IB are Eurocentric in philosophy and origin, while the content taught in many courses could be developed further to encompass more of the African local experience and context; I provided one example for one course but there is scope that this could be the case in other subjects. The involvement of more diverse viewpoints in the development of IB content would be one way that this organisation could aid the decolonisation process.

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Rodney (2018) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Verso. London. New York.
Samuels, M.A. (1971) The FRELIMO School System. Africa Today. Vol 18. No. 3 pp 69-73.
Tooley, J. (2009) The beautiful tree: a personal journey into how the world’s poorest are educating themselves. Cato Institute. Washington
The World Bank (2017), The Learning Crisis. Learning to Realise Education’s Promise. World Development Report. Washington DC.: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank (Part 2). http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018 accessed July 2nd 2021
Wa Thiong’o, N. (1986) Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. James Currey. Woodbridge.
Unterhalter, E, Ron Balsera, M, Dorsi, D (2020) What can be done? The Abidjan Principles as a human rights framework to evaluate PPPs in education in Critical reflections on Public Private Partnerships Gideon, J & Unterhalter, E Editors. Routledge.
Vincent, W. (2021a) To What Extent Could Low Fee Private Schools Aid Development in The Republic of South Sudan. EDPS0057: Education and International Development: Concepts, Theories and Issues. UCL IOE. Unpublished Essay.
Vincent, W. (2021b) Can The Expansion of Private Schooling in Developing Countries Serve To Improve Access, Efficiency, Quality and Equity in Basic Education: The Case of Primary Education in The Republic of South Sudan. SOCS0020: Economic perspectives on education policy. UCL IOE. Unpublished Essay

Teaching & Learning

Practical Work & The Internal Assessment

Post author By wrpvincent
Post date June 24, 2021

Originally posted on January 19, 2017 @ 8:37 am

ICT in Biology

The documentation on the ICT requirements for the new course is currently not well documented. However it is expected that the five categories will remain the same as they were in the old course:

Data logging
Graph plotting software
Spreadsheet
Database
Computer model/simulation

ICT in IB Biology is an excellent resource for all aspects of ICT usage from graph construction to online databases.

Datalogging

For DP Biology I recommend Vernier and the resources in terms of practical protocols they provide.

Graph plotting and spreadsheet software

HHMI Spreadsheet Data Analysis Tutorials will show you how to use google sheets to analyse data, produce tables and plot graphs.

It is currently (to the best of my knowledge) not possible to put error bars onto data points in scatter graphs in google sheets (although you can for bar graphs oddly) and I therefore recommend that students use Excel to carry out data processing and presentation.

The problem arises in schools with BYOD policies that don’t take into account that students need to have the same version of these programs to ensure a flow of learning in classrooms where teachers are trying to instruct their students on this stuff.

Databases

Computer models and simulations

A list of online simulations

Internal Assessment Guide

Lessons in Action

Teaching & Learning

Goals for 2016-2017

Originally posted on August 21, 2016 @ 9:00 am

In this post I am trying to clarify my ideas for my goals and focus of my pedagogical practice for the academic year 2016-17.

Teaching

Firstly following on from my reading this summer and as discussed in an earlier post I want to bring thinking more to the front and centre of classes. By this I mean that I want to make the types of thinking used by scientists more explicit to my students and to help them further develop their thinking dispositions.

1) Learner Profile

I have come to see the learner profile as the the dispositions of a learner. It is these dispositions that we are trying to develop.

Goal #1: Make the Learner Profile front and centre of class.

2) ATLS

If the Learner Profile is the disposition then the ATLS are the tools for developing those dispositions. Highlighting the approaches to learning and showing students how to develop these skills will develop their own learner profile.

In terms of IB teaching, this year I plan to spend more time focussing on the approaches to teaching and learning (ATLs). Thinking skills is a subgroup of this and the work of Ritchhart is referenced by the IB on their ATL guide in the thinking skills section. Ritchhart also talks about the need to make his thinking routines explict, as what students cannot name they cannot own. I think that this applies to all of the approaches to learning and I am convinced that the methods used to make thinking more explicit would also be beneficial in terms on making all the learning skills more explicit to students, and therefore helping them develop the skills to become independent learners.

I think it would be wise then, to start by making the ATLs and the essential questions of science visible and on display in the laboratory. The same could be said for the TOK classroom and the college counseling office. What are the essential questions in these areas of school life?

In delivering my curriculums I will try to use routines more readily for study and thinking, the challenge now is to work out which routines will be best suited for my subjects in my lesson planning. And develop good routines for the other ATLs not necessarily just the thinking routines.

Goal #2: Make the approaches to learning explicit in class.

3) Thinking routines

A subset of the the ATLS are the thinking skills and routines have been developed by Harvard’s Project Zero. In using thinking routines I need to develop my skills of questioning to make thinking more visible and encourage my students to share their thinking. After all, individual thinking benefits from being challenged; from the need to articulate things clearly to others. Therefore collaboration is the stuff of growth and acts to give students the tools to work together by developing their own thinking skills.

For something to be truly valued it has to be well articulated and identifiable. To value thinking we have to unpack it and identify what it entails in any given situation, therefore leaders of any group need to articulate what kinds of thinking they value – what kinds of thinking do we want in a science class? In TOK class? Vygoytsky stated that children grow into the intellectual life of those around them therefore we need to surround children with thinking.

In the DP Biology course the Nature of Science sections lend themselves perfectly to developing the types of thinking required by scientists.

Steps to thinking involve: honesty with students, essential questions for science. Types of thinking moves. Thinking routines.

Goal #3: Teach for scientific and critical thinking.

4) Concept Inventories

Goal #4: Become more familiar with the research on “threshold concepts” and the Biology “Concept Inventories”

5) EdTech

On the EdTech front I am going to try to integrate Periscope more into my teaching. I think that the app has a lot of potential benefits for schools including the ability for students to connect in a non-threatening way with other students across the world, disseminate information to parents, and getting feedback on my teaching like a digital lesson study.

Twitter and Instagram could also be useful research tool for students and could be co-opted in to class if students are given advice on useful people to follow.

Goal #5: Make more use of Twitter and Periscope in my work in school.

Teaching & Learning

Learning Theory & Educational Neuroscience

Post author By wrpvincent
Post date June 24, 2021
1 Comment on Learning Theory & Educational Neuroscience

Originally posted on April 2, 2016 @ 4:23 pm

I wrote this article in February 2015 as part of my PGCE Top-Up course at the University of Northampton. This is a course aimed at teachers who already have completed initial teacher training through the graduate training programme and gained QTS, but want to add on the university PGCE to this qualification.

Why publish it here? I have found that my own interests within Biology have developed hugely since I started teaching, taking me to academic areas that I never studied in my original Zoology degree. This is partly through trying to keep abreast with a subject whose post-16 content has changed and continues to change dramatically year on year and also partly through my own genuine interest in the subject. The brain and behaviour has been one of these areas.

As teachers we have a natural interest in how the mind works and how individuals learn. In one (very loose) sense teachers are Biologists because of this interest; we want to understand the mind of this species of hominid and how it develops.

My interest in educational neuroscience represents for me a cross over of these spheres of interest in my own professional life – biological science, specifically neuroscience and education.

Thoughts gratefully received.

Introduction

On 19^th October 1964 a paper was published in the journal Physical Review Letters. In it the author, Peter Higgs, hypothesised about the existence of a fundamental particle that was responsible for giving mass to other fundamental particles: the so-called Higgs Boson (Higgs, 1964). 47 years, 8 months and 15 days later, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN, confirmed that experimental physicists working at the facility had demonstrated the existence of the particle (CERN, 2015).

This story of discovery illustrates the wonderful interplay in science between scientific theory and scientific fact. The Higgs theory was just one of several competing models which had been proposed over 4 decades to explain how fundamental particles may interact. With the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the Higgs theory, with some modification, was proved to be the correct explanation.

In a similar way neuroscientific studies of the brain and its functioning could be used to constrain and validate psychological theories of learning. Educational practice uses psychological theories, developed over the past century or so, what if we attained physical evidence to illuminate which ones should be developed and which ones could be discarded?

Modern educational theory has diversified hugely with specialist areas devoted to studying different learning contexts e.g. classroom, outdoor, experiential, life-long, as well as at different developmental stages e.g. early years, school-age, university and adult (For a review see Illeris, 2009). It is only relatively recently that educational researchers have begun to try to forge links between education theory and neuroscience (Geake, 2009), while some have questioned the basic ability of these two fields to be bridged (Bruer, 1997).

I will review the evidence that educational neuroscience is yielding, and review the arguments for and against use of neuroscience in the context of education. Neuroscience still has much to learn about the brain but we already have an understanding that can inform educational practice on a variety of levels. I will begin by describing the development of psychological theories of learning before moving on to examine the contribution that modern neuroscientific or brain based theories of learning may yet make towards developing our understanding of how humans learn.

Learning Theory

Humankind’s interest in learning and teaching could be said to go right back to the early days of our pre-history when, as a new species, we had to invent new ways to respond to a changing environment. Indeed learning is without doubt a very, but not solely, human trait; it is essentially what has allowed us to adapt to every environment on the planet.

Modern attempts to explain how humans learn have their roots in the psychological theories of the late 19^th Century with the advent of cognitive psychology, behavioural science and ethology (Pritchard, 2009).

In the 20^th Century behaviourists, notably Skinner (1958), developing the work of Ivan Pavlov, focussed on innate behaviour in animals and discovered the mechanisms of conditioning and reinforcement. Behaviourist approaches to understanding learning and human development view learning as the acquisition of new behaviour (Prichard, 2009).

In contradiction to behaviourism, constructivism views learning as the result of mental construction i.e. new learning is added to pre-existing knowledge. Piaget (1954) and Vygotsky (1997) separately developed their own particular brands of constructivism which differed fundamentally about how learning is constructed: Piaget viewed learning as being cognitively constructed and that students acted as lone scientists who learn through discovery; Vygotsky viewed learning to be socially constructed, with the teacher (and other students) having a significant contribution to play in scaffolding the work and setting the challenge for their students (Pritchard, 2009).

The influence of these theories cannot be understated. Constructivism is the key idea in education, underpinning not only many modern theories of learning, but also curriculum models (like the International Baccalaureate, an inquiry-based curriculum model [IBO, 2015]) and classroom based pedagogical approaches. Today it is taken for granted that learning is constructed within the mind of the learner and therefore new learning builds upon prior learning and understanding. This is the overwhelming epistemological standpoint that underpins all of modern theories of learning (Samuels, 2009).

Neuroscience and Education

Much of the early research in neuroscience focused on the structure and function of neurons, the specialised cells that make up the brain and nervous system. These neurons, form connections (synapses) with each other. At these synapses individual neurons are able to generate or inhibit the “firing” of impulses within the other neurons that they are connected to. In this way neurons are assembled into neuronal groups or brain modules (Geake, 2009). It is these neuronal groups, their interconnectivity and how they may relate to pedagogical practice that is of interest in educational neuroscience.

An early neuroscientific model of learning, that is still robust today in terms of its explanatory power is that proposed by school-teacher turned neuroscientist Donald Hebb (1949). In Hebb’s model of learning it is the number of connections within the brain not the number of neurons that is important. He states that when a neuron stimulates or inhibits a signal in another neuron across a synapse, that synaptic connection is reinforced. Conversely when signals are not issued across a synapse very frequently, that junction between the two cells, is not preserved. Thus neurons that consistently communicate with each other have their synaptic connections maintained, while those that do not lose their connections.

Attempts to link the findings from neuroscientific research and formal educational practice date back to the 1980s (Bruer, 1997) and since that time, opinions of educational researchers have been divided on the usefulness of neuroscientific research in education (see Bruer, 1997, Geary 1998, Geake & Cooper, 2003, Goswami, 2004). However, recent writers are less pessimistic (Goswami, 2006, Varma et al., 2008, Samuels, 2009, Ansari et al., 2011, Howard-Jones et al., 2014, Howard-Jones 2014, Schenk & Cruickshank, 2014) and the trend in published articles becomes more positive. Indeed, it is telling that in the last decade we have seen the formation of the International Mind, Brain and Education Society (IMBES) along with the Mind, Brain and Education Journal. The Societies aim is to “facilitate cross-cultural collaboration in biology, education and the cognitive and developmental sciences” (IMBES, 2015). In addition there have been two formal reviews of the field, first by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD, 2008) and the second by the Royal Society (Royal Society, 2011). All of these developments suggest that the findings from neuroscience and education research are beginning to converge.

Many of the arguments questioning the usefulness of educational neuroscience have focussed either on the limitations of the methodologies employed in studying neuroscience or the extrapolations that education professionals (researchers, teachers, civil servants) have made about the results from neuroscientific studies resulting in the so-called “neuromyths”.

Bruer (1997) argues that neuroscience only has an explanatory power when viewed through cognitive psychology. He described the three fields of classroom instruction, cognitive psychology and neuroscience as being spanned by two bridges – one from instruction to cognitive psychology and a second from cognitive psychology to neuroscience and that only by contributing to our understanding of cognitive psychology could neuroscience hope to deepen our understanding of classroom learning. He describes using neuroscience to study learning as a bridge too far. His essay has been citied a great number of times and the arguments he makes are worthwhile to the classroom practitioner.

Bruer’s premise is that studying the mind is not necessarily informed by studying the brain. This argument is rebutted by Cruickshank & Schenck (2014) and Howard-Jones (2014) who argue that because the mind is created by the brain it must have biological correlates. The systems of processing in the mind must be reflected by systems in the brain. This is an idea that as a Biologist and Science Teacher I tend to agree with.

Bruer (1997) also describes at length the early work of neuroscience that was conducted on single neurons in rats, mice or monkeys. He demonstrates that much of the evidence from these studies has been extrapolated to humans and used to describe human neural development. He makes the valid argument that extrapolation from rats to humans is a large assumption. This extrapolation has formed the basis of many “neuromyths” – misconceptions about learner’s brains that have been adopted by the education community. These misconceptions tend to contain “nuggets” of truth which have been misunderstood or poorly applied (Howard-Jones 2014).

Goswami (2006), Geake (2009) and Howard-Jones (2014) provide excellent up to date considerations of the neuromyths that have been adopted by the education community. They cite the ideas that learners are left or right brained; brains are male or female; the existence of brain buttons under the ribs; that there are critical periods for learning; that brains process information from different senses independently and that there are, consequently, individual learning preferences, as examples of neuromyths.

The prevalence of neuromyths cited within the literature and used to support various philosophies and policies of education is used by Bruer (1997) as evidence that neuroscience cannot, and should not, influence education. It seems to me that this argument is to misunderstand and misappropriate the role of science in society. It is precisely because neuromyths abound that systematic research needs to be conducted and communicated clearly to stakeholders. The reports from the Royal Society (2011) and the OECD (2008) along with Geake (2009) and many other authors now highlight the need for initial teacher training that provides some training in general scientific and neuroscience specific methods, as well as making an argument that deeper collaboration between the education and neuroscience academic communities is necessary so that educators and neuroscientists are able to better spot and counter these myths with biological evidence. Educational neuroscience has great potential to become a transdisciplinary area of collaboration with ideas from both fields influencing the other.

Bruer (1997) also writes about the problems with interpreting data from neuroimaging studies as well as the use of neuroimaging technology to study educational problems. In the 1990’s there was a huge expansion in development of technologies used to study the brain. For a review of these methodologies see Geake (2009) but it is important to note that the maps produced by scans of the brain are averages and do not necessarily represent individual brains. At that time neuroimaging technologies had very little ability to ask questions about classroom practice due to their size and cost, however these limitations are dramatically decreasing (Royal Society, 2011, OECD, 2008) and studies that actively image the brain during specific classroom based tasks are beginning to be published.

The relationship between neuroscience and the psychological study of literacy and the acquisition of language in school children is the oldest and most robust (OECD, 2008) and researchers in the field now have a good understanding of the neurological correlates for language learning which can inform the choice and timing of pedagogical activities. There is a sensitive but not critical timing for learning a second language in the early years of education (Geake, 2009 & Royal Society, 2011).

Educational neuroscientific research into the neurological correlates for numeracy and mathematical ability is newer, although important evidence is already emerging about how the brain processes the different mathematical information and learns specific mathematical skills (Geake, 2009 & Royal Society, 2011).

Perhaps the most interesting and important questions that educational neuroscience is addressing are those concerned with learning difficulties. Educational neuroscience research has now provided a biological basis for the causes of Dyslexia. Diagnosis of the condition can be made based on neurological evidence and when twined with an improved understanding of how the brain processes word forms and sounds, neurological evidence can suggest effective methods of treatment. Similar work on Dyscalclia is already underway (Geake, 2009 & Royal Society, 2011).

Several authors (OECD, 2008, Geake, 2009, Royal Society, 2011) provide a thorough overview of the key findings from neuroscience generally and how they may apply to educational practice. A key general understanding is that no two human brains are the same. This may seem trite but even identical twins, which are the same genetically, show differences in their brain structure. This illustrates how much the brain is shaped by the environment it interacts with. The Royal Society 2011 writes:

“The brain is constantly changing and everything we do changes our brain…the brain has extraordinary adaptability, sometimes referred to as ‘neuroplasticity’”

The report goes on to explain that this is due to the processes that strengthen synapses and the effect is present throughout life. Contrary to early ideas of brain development we now know that the brain can adapt, change and therefore learn throughout life even into old age (OECD, 2008). Throughout life new synapses grow and are pruned but this process of pruning and growth is most prevalent at certain sensitive periods, from early childhood to late teens and early twenties. Individual experiences and environments shape individual brains (Royal Society, 2011).

While Individuals show differences in the structure of their brains this does not mean that there is evidence for individual learning styles of preferences. Due to the massive interconnectivity within the brain between individual neurons and between brain modules we know that information is processed across a wide variety of areas of the brain and that these areas are overlapping and interlinked. The ideas of learning styles –that learners learn exclusively through one sensory modality are false (Kratzig & Arbuthnott 2006). For example the areas of the brain that process speech overlap with those that process movement. The idea that an individual processes visual information in isolation from any other sense is another example of a neuromyth (Geake, 2009). In fact the interconnectedness of different sensory areas within the brain supports the notion of multisensory teaching i.e. approaching subject matter and skills through a variety of sensory inputs as this will enable more robust networks of neurones to form in the same manner as may be expected from repetition.

Geake (2009) defines the purpose of education as enabling the individual to gain transferable life skills from a variety of contexts. He also points out that learning in the form of memory formation of skills and concepts requires directed attention from working memory i.e. the engagement of the prefrontal cortex and the areas associated with working memory. Evidence shows that learners need to be guided. The brain can just as easily learn incorrect skills and content, but unlearning them is difficult because it requires the pruning of connections in the brain. Thus there are implications for inquiry based teaching methods and the idea that gifted students are able to teach themselves. Adult guidance and encouragement along with appropriate intellectual challenges should therefore be a central strategy for schools (Geake, 2009, Krishner et al., 2006).

Geake (2009) highlights the need for repetition within the learning environment of an individual. Repetition over time reinforces synaptic connections and allows the effective transference into long term memory. He illustrates this argument with the example of learning music. Hours of practice of the correct finger movements on an instrument allow the motor cortex to develop the neural networks that control the movement sequences. He does not advocate repetition in the sense of drilling exercises but suggests that spiral curriculums where individuals meet related concepts throughout their school experience, each time at a deeper and deeper level, along with lower pupil rations and immediate feedback from assessment to correct errors in processing would be beneficial for learners.

Educational neuroscience has also highlighted the interdependence of intellectual and physical wellbeing and much work has highlighted the importance of emotional wellbeing for learning (OECD, 2008). We now know how stress can inhibit learning because the centres of the brain that deal with emotion affectively inhibit the areas that help to regulate activity across the brain and are used in learning.

Conclusion

Modern theories of learning build firmly upon constructivist ideas (Samuels, 2009), but precisely because there is such a plethora of modern learning theories means that they cannot all be right (Geake, 2009).

Gardner’s (1983 & 1999) theory of multiple intelligences, a retelling of Plato’s ideal curriculum, is one such educational theory that must be qualified. It has been widely cited in educational policies and led to many misinterpretations such as labelling all children in a school as gifted by definition Geake (2009). Howard-Jones (2014) and Waterhouse (2006) argue that there is no neural evidence to support the idea of multiple intelligences but that there is evidence to suggest that there is a general cognitive ability underpinning all the possible dimensions of intelligence.

While massive differences exist in brain structure, the interconnectivity of the brain does point to a single underlying intelligence factor. Intelligence does have a genetic and environmental component in the same way that an individual heights do. Genetically, intelligence is brought about through the interaction between many genes; each of which have an individually small effect. The environment also has a role to play in unlocking the brains potential as diet, toxins and social interactions all up-regulate or down-regulate the effects of genes. A good social educational environment will enable an individual brain to reach it full intelligence potential (Geake 2009).

At this stage educational neuroscience may not have the resolution to inform specifically about many aspects of classroom pedagogy (e.g. in science teaching) or classroom contexts but it is able to inform us about generalities that may inform curriculum planning on a whole school and regional basis. E.g. sleep patterns and gender differences, developmental differences, as well as serving to identify the psychological theories that may be most robust.

Obviously if we were to remove an individual’s brain we would soon find that they had lost the ability to learn altogether! Therefore is it unreasonable to be able to expect the workings of the mind to be understood through a deeper understanding of the brain?

The beauty of educational neuroscience is in its potential ability to underpin and constrain psychological theories of learning. Like Higgs with his Boson and the experimental physicists that validated its existence, educators are on the cusp of not only being able to identify a psychological intervention that works but also able to explain why it works, thanks to the evidence derived from educational neuroscience. To enable this we need better communication between the education and neuroscience communities.

Bibliography

Ansari, D., Coch, D., & De Smedt (2011) ‘Connecting Education and Cognitive Neuroscience: Where will the journey take us?’ Educational Philosophy and Theory. Vol. 43, No. 1.

Bruer, J. T., (1997) ‘Education and the Brain: A Bridge Too Far’ Educational Researcher Vol. 26, No. 8.

CERN (2015) http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2012/07/cern-experiments-observe-particle-consistent-long-sought-higgs-boson accessed on 5th January 2015.

Geake, J. G. (2008) ‘Neuromythologies in education’ Educational Research. Vol. 50, No. 2.

Gardner, H. (1983) Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books

Gardner, H. (1999) Intelligence reframed. New York: Basic Books.

Geake, J. G. (2009) The Brain at School: Educational Neuroscience in the Classroom OUP.

Geake, J. & Cooper, P. (2003) ‘Cognitive neuroscience: Implications for education? Westminster Studies in Education.’ Vol. 26, No. 1.

Geary, D.C. (1998) ‘What is the function of mind and brain?’ Educational Psychology review. Vol. 10, No. 4.

Goswami, U. (2004) ‘Neuroscience and Education’ British Journal of Educational Psychology. Vol. 74, No. 1.

Goswami, U. (2006) ‘Neuroscience and Education: from research to practice?’ Nature Reviews Neuroscience. AOP.

Hebb, D.O. (1949) The Organisation of Behaviour. Wiley. New York.

Higgs, P. W. (1964) ‘Broken symetries and the masses of gauge bosons’ Physical Review Letters Vol. 13, No. 16.

Howard-Jones, P.A. (2014) ‘Neuroscience and education: myths and messages’ Nature Reviews Neuroscience. AOP. pp1-7

Howard-Jones, P.A., Ott, M., van Leeuwen, T., De Smedt, B. (2014) ‘The potential relevance of cognitive neuroscience for the development and use of technology-enhanced learning’. Learning, Media and Technology. AOP.

IBO (2015) http://xmltwo.ibo.org/publications/migrated/production-app.ibo.org/publication/169/part/1/chapter/2.html accessed on 19th January 2015.

Illeris, K. (2009) Contemporary theories of learning: Learning theorists in their own words. Routledge. London.

IMBES (2015) http://www.imbes.org accessed on the 20^th January 2015.

Kratzig, G.P. & Arbuthnott, K.P. (2006) ‘Perceptual learning style and learning proficiency: a test of the hypothesis’ Journal of Educational Psychology. Vol. 98, No. 1.

Krishner, P.A., Sweller, J. and Clark, R.E. (2006) ‘Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential and inquiry-based teaching.’ Educational Psychologist. Vol. 41, No. 2.

OECD (2008) Understanding the Brain: the Birth of a Learning Science. Paris. OECD.

Piaget, J. (1954) The Construction of Reality in the Child. New York: Basic Books.

Pritchard, A. (2009) Ways of Learning: Learning Theories and Learning Styles in the Classroom. 2^nd Edition. Routledge.

Royal Society (2011) Brain Waves Module 2: Neuroscience Implications for Education and Lifelong Learning. London. Royal Society.

Samuels, B.M. (2009) ‘Can the differences between Education and Neuroscience be Overcome by Mind, Brain, and Education?’ Mind, Brain and Education. Vol. 3, No. 1.

Schenck, J. & Cruickshank, J. (2014) ‘Evolving Kolb: Experiential Education in the Age of Neuroscience’ Journal of Experiential Education. AOP pp1-23

Skinner, B.F. (1958) ‘Reinforcement Today’ American Psychologist. Vol. 13, pp94-99

Varma, S., McCandliss, B. D. & Schwartz, D. L. (2008) ‘Scientific and Pragmatic Challenges for Bridging Education and Neuroscience. Educational Researcher. Vol. 37, No. 3.

Vygotsky, L.S.(1997) Educational Psychology. CRC Press.

Waterhouse, L. (2006) ‘Multiple Intelligences, the Mozart Effect, and Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Review’ Educational Psychologist. Vol. 41, No. 4

Teaching & Learning

Is content king?

Originally posted on August 14, 2016 @ 9:00 am

This post was written in 2016 and does not reflect my current thinking about teaching biology. Please see this post to read about my updated views on teaching the subject.

I have reached a watershed in my thinking about teaching and my philosophy about teaching science.

I trained and begun learning to teach in a school with a very robust academic record. Teachers were considered absolute experts in their field and students were, on the whole, very high achieving but who had high expectations of their teachers academically too.

In this environment I learned that the teacher’s fundamental responsibility was to be an an absolute expert in their field; if you didn’t know everything, and could not answer every question, the community of students would lose faith in you. Or at least that it is what it felt like.

I mentioned in my review of Ritchhart et al of comments made by an ex-colleague of mine which reinforced this sentiment.

In those formative days then learning to teach was about mastering your subject knowledge. Content was King. Delivered in lovely little powerpoint slides where students would simply copy down their notes and then memorise them.

I left that school confidently arrogant that I was an expert in my subject and in the IB. That any school was going to want to employ me after the time that I had spent in that school. And indeed I was partly right. I secured a position as Head of Biology at a prestigious boarding school. The time there was little different. I benefitted from working closely with the chemists and physicists, in a closely knit science department. However the sentiments were the same. Content was King. Our role as science teachers was to deliver the curriculums content. The learner profile was dismissed by the Head of Science as fluff.

Since moving on from that school I have been involved in setting up a school and taking it through its IB authorization process as the only Biology teacher and as one of two or, more recently, three science teachers. I cannot point to any single experience from this time that has been the catalyst but my thinking has begun to change. Perhaps it was being forced to seriously consider the IB’s other bits; the ATLs; the IB Learner profile. Perhaps it was being exposed to and challenged by the MYP. Perhaps it was teaching a new DP Biology syllabus with so much focus on the nature of science. Perhaps it was beginning to teach TOK. Perhaps it was becoming a workshop leader. Perhaps it was working with so many truly excellent IB educators. I don’t know.

But I now question the sentiment that content is king in science teaching.

I am beginning to think, to really think that more important than learning the content, my students need to learn to think. It might sound like an odd thing to write. It certainly feels like an odd thing to write.

I’m sure that many people who aren’t teachers would raise their eyebrows at what I wrote above. Surely, a teachers job is to teach students to think? But it’s not as simple as that. Teaching students to ask strong questions and to develop different thinking dispositions is no simple task. It’s much easier to focus on the curriculum delivery. What are my students supposed to know? Fill the time in with student-centred activities, and group work, debates and presentations and you are doing a good job right?

I’ve moved on from didactic lecture like teaching in my early days to worksheet, activity based teaching but has anything really changed? My students still present as apathetic. School is still something that they just do on the whole. I’m sure most of them forget what they “learn” instead of engaging with the deeper issues.

And this is what I want: I want my students to be engaged, passionate and switched on critically to the world around them and be scientifically literate.

How do I do that when sometimes I question my own scientific literacy?

Perhaps its time to really focus on the thinking and the types of thinking that are needed in science and needed to be developed in students of science. The trouble is I am sometimes not sure that I know what thinking really means…

In Making Thinking Visible Richhart et al (2011) discuss turning the content into a vehicle for teaching and framing certain thinking skills. It is argued that developing thinking skills is important because these skills are the tools that students will take forward into future life when the content is forgotten. They are the tools the future adults will utilize to navigate life.

The thing is, thinking doesn’t just happen. As teachers, we need to be explicit with students about the types of thinking that are useful in certain situations and provide strategies that help students learn to think in these ways. We can’t just leave it up to chance. After all, traditionally, we don’t leave the content up to chance (normally), instead, we are explicit with it. We need to give students the chance to think about their own thinking and what it means to them.

Ritchhart provides a list of “high-leverage thinking moves that serve understanding well”:

Observing closely and describing what is there.
Building explanations and interpretations.
Reasoning with evidence.
Making connections.
Considering different viewpoints and perspectives.
Capturing the heart and forming conclusions
Wondering and asking questions
Uncovering complexity and going below the surface of things

I will be posting these “moves” in my classroom as a start as well as try to relate the activities we are doing to these types of activities.

As science teachers, we need to ask ourselves: What type of thinking is important in science? More specifically what types of thinking do we want to develop in students of science? How is thinking framed in terms of the work that scientists do? What are the essential questions of science?

Clearly, the thinking moves above are addressed by different elements of scientific enquiry. Observing closely is an important part of observational studies and also hypothesis generations so is wondering and asking questions. To generate a hypothesis requires building explanations and reasoning with evidence. When we draw our data out we try to capture the heart of a problem and draw a conclusion,

Once we have a clear idea of this then we can begin to teach the thinking alongside an understanding of the nature of science through well-planned content. The difference is that our learning objective is twinned – we have a thinking objective and a content objective.

Understanding how to teach in this way is important. Biology teacher Paul Strode has written some articles in this vein. In one he looks at reasoning like a scientist and the other deals with teaching the hypothesis. Although he still focuses on framing the content instead of necessarily framing the questioning, these are good reads. However, I feel that the questioning and thinking strategies needed to become front and centre of the teaching instead of the content.

Thinking relies heavily on questioning. In science we are trying to ask the following questions:

What do I notice?

What does that tell me?

Why does it work like this?

How can I test this idea?

How can I be sure that my findings are valid?

Or, according to strode whose list is below:

Step 1: What claim am I being asked to accept?

Step 2: What evidence supports the claim? Is the evidence valid?

Step 3: Is there another way to interpret the evidence?

Step 4: What other evidence would help me evaluate the alternatives?

Step 5: Is the claim the most reasonable one based on the evidence?

Teaching like this requires teachers to step down as the “font of knowledge” in their classrooms and have the courage to be wrong. I have worked in schools where the culture of the school would simply not allow that to happen.

As Ritchhart points out we need to be able to ask our students authentic questions, meaning that the teacher needs to not know the answer, and if teachers are worried about seemingly not knowing something how can they do this?

This academic year I am going to try and put thinking centre and front in my classroom. I just hope that the crazy timetabling and work-load pressure doesn’t push me back into easy, old habits.

Introduction

Section 1: Colonial and Post-Colonial Education

Section 2: The African learning crisis and Enko education

Section three: The IB

Section four: Underdevelopment

Conclusion

References

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ICT in Biology

Datalogging

Graph plotting and spreadsheet software

Databases

Computer models and simulations

Internal Assessment Guide

Lessons in Action

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