WEBVTT 00:00:00.506 --> 00:00:09.606 [Music] 00:00:10.106 --> 00:00:14.936 I'm Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar, and I am on the faculty at the University of Michigan. 00:00:15.686 --> 00:00:20.126 A higher-order question is usually contrasted with questions that require children 00:00:20.126 --> 00:00:22.636 to simply recall or practice information. 00:00:23.356 --> 00:00:28.646 So, higher-order question would engage children in using the information that they know to come 00:00:28.646 --> 00:00:32.896 to some deeper understanding or, perhaps, to solve a novel problem. 00:00:33.326 --> 00:00:35.406 Engaging children in explanations 00:00:35.586 --> 00:00:39.086 for a phenomenon would be one example of a higher-order question. 00:00:39.226 --> 00:00:44.256 So to illustrate, in the life sciences, a teacher might ask a group of students 00:00:44.286 --> 00:00:47.496 to simply name the parts of a plant. 00:00:47.846 --> 00:00:53.796 But they could also ask the students to explain how the parts of a plant-and 00:00:53.796 --> 00:00:59.646 to perhaps compare the parts of a rose plant and the parts of a cactus plant-how is it 00:00:59.646 --> 00:01:06.296 that these parts tell us something about how a plant survives and reproduces in its environment. 00:01:06.886 --> 00:01:10.686 An example in history would be-a factual recall question might be 00:01:10.686 --> 00:01:12.206 if the teacher says to the group. 00:01:12.626 --> 00:01:17.936 "So, when did the American Revolution start, and what caused the American Revolution?" 00:01:18.836 --> 00:01:23.826 In contrast, a more high-order question-one that would require youngster to engage 00:01:23.826 --> 00:01:30.326 in explanation-would be to ask the students to compare and contrast the American 00:01:30.326 --> 00:01:33.716 and British views of the start of the American Revolution. 00:01:34.206 --> 00:01:41.626 And to speak to the evidence that each perspective has in support of its particular explanation. 00:01:41.886 --> 00:01:44.396 Some of the most compelling research on the value 00:01:44.396 --> 00:01:48.476 of eliciting explanations has been done by Micki Chi and her colleagues. 00:01:48.536 --> 00:01:54.136 For example, they studied students who read texts about the circulatory system. 00:01:54.506 --> 00:01:59.176 And then one group of students were asked to self explain-not even to explain to others 00:01:59.226 --> 00:02:04.826 but just to explain to themselves how the circulatory system works in the human being. 00:02:05.516 --> 00:02:08.515 And when they studied those youngsters-or those students actually, 00:02:08.515 --> 00:02:13.696 they were older students-they learned much more about the circulatory system than students 00:02:13.696 --> 00:02:17.176 who didn't engage in that kind of self-explanation. 00:02:17.836 --> 00:02:22.406 And what the difference seems to be is in the process of doing that self-explanation, 00:02:22.956 --> 00:02:26.076 learners identified where there were gaps in their understanding. 00:02:26.476 --> 00:02:29.946 And so they went back to the sources to try to flush out those gaps. 00:02:30.526 --> 00:02:32.476 And that would be an opportunity that students 00:02:32.476 --> 00:02:35.066 who did not engage in self-explanation didn't have. 00:02:35.466 --> 00:02:39.846 So both the learner himself or herself get some idea about these gaps. 00:02:40.246 --> 00:02:44.026 The teacher of course also has an important window into what the gaps 00:02:44.026 --> 00:02:45.776 in students' understandings might be. 00:02:45.776 --> 00:02:51.236 And I think another reason why self-explanation, or explanation in general, 00:02:51.236 --> 00:02:55.396 works effectively is that students have an opportunity to compare their thinking 00:02:55.396 --> 00:02:58.996 with the thinking of others who are in their class. 00:02:59.646 --> 00:03:03.576 One example of a participation structure that we have used in our own work, 00:03:03.666 --> 00:03:05.296 we took from the work of Itakura, 00:03:06.176 --> 00:03:12.036 and this participation structure involves grouping students according to the explanation 00:03:12.036 --> 00:03:13.956 that they are most interested in advancing. 00:03:14.616 --> 00:03:19.946 So, in our work students are studying the relationship between mass and momentum, 00:03:20.696 --> 00:03:25.166 and children would be grouped according to the explanation they want to advance. 00:03:25.166 --> 00:03:28.306 A group of youngsters might be together because they think that the mass 00:03:28.306 --> 00:03:32.436 of an object isn't going to make a difference in terms of the rate 00:03:32.436 --> 00:03:35.246 at which the object travels down an inclined plane. 00:03:35.776 --> 00:03:39.006 Whereas, a second group of students are grouped because they think 00:03:39.006 --> 00:03:41.106 that the mass does indeed make a difference. 00:03:41.646 --> 00:03:46.196 Now what we found in our work is that by grouping children according to the explanation 00:03:46.196 --> 00:03:50.756 that they want to advance, first of all, they are very earnest about gathering their data 00:03:50.946 --> 00:03:53.486 in a way that's going to be clear and compelling. 00:03:54.206 --> 00:03:59.816 They are also working to find counter evidence for the claim that they are aware, 00:03:59.816 --> 00:04:01.456 the other group is going to be making. 00:04:01.456 --> 00:04:05.686 So it's a very effective way to have students really wrestling with the ideas, 00:04:05.686 --> 00:04:13.416 anticipating what others are going to find to be perhaps a fault with their data, 00:04:13.416 --> 00:04:15.636 or with the claim that they are trying to advance. 00:04:16.116 --> 00:04:22.666 Teachers might want to keep in mind three different aspects of how it is 00:04:22.666 --> 00:04:28.506 that they can promote students engaging in higher-order thinking, particularly in explanation. 00:04:29.436 --> 00:04:33.146 One is the teacher's own knowledge-the degree of their knowledge, 00:04:33.196 --> 00:04:36.636 the comfort of their knowledge-with the topic that they are teaching. 00:04:37.616 --> 00:04:41.186 Not just the topic but also the domain that they are teaching. 00:04:41.786 --> 00:04:45.846 So for example, our teachers found it very liberating to start thinking 00:04:45.846 --> 00:04:50.746 about I am not just teaching students about matter and molecules or energy; 00:04:51.076 --> 00:04:55.156 I am teaching students how it is that scientists have engaged in their work, 00:04:55.476 --> 00:05:01.526 how is it that scientists have come to understand how it is that the world works, 00:05:01.966 --> 00:05:08.996 and to hold students accountable to engaging in those same processes of making claims 00:05:08.996 --> 00:05:12.366 about the world, looking at the relationship between those claims 00:05:12.686 --> 00:05:15.576 and the evidence for a particular phenomenon. 00:05:15.576 --> 00:05:20.386 So that supports teachers to both expect students to engage in explanation 00:05:20.416 --> 00:05:23.926 and give students the tools to work toward explanation. 00:05:24.486 --> 00:05:28.726 A second is the teacher being aware of the kinds of conceptions 00:05:29.096 --> 00:05:32.106 that students are likely to find thorny or challenging. 00:05:33.026 --> 00:05:37.836 By doing that, the teacher anticipates where students are going to be needing more support. 00:05:38.206 --> 00:05:42.396 The teacher can also design problem spaces or investigations that are going 00:05:42.396 --> 00:05:47.896 to be particularly powerful relative to supporting students to come to deeper 00:05:47.896 --> 00:05:51.456 or more accurate or more complete explanations. 00:05:51.906 --> 00:05:57.726 The third, of course, is the teacher bringing a genuine curiosity about students' thinking, 00:05:58.196 --> 00:06:02.896 a genuine interest in how children have come to the ideas that they have, 00:06:02.896 --> 00:06:07.976 a genuine interest in promoting students using that knowledge 00:06:07.976 --> 00:06:09.916 in more productive and generative ways. 00:06:10.546 --> 00:06:16.646 So I think that armed with those three dimensions, the teacher will be more facile, 00:06:16.646 --> 00:06:23.946 more adept at establishing a really productive community in which the culture is to work 00:06:23.946 --> 00:06:27.466 for explanation, to advance explanation, to test explanation, 00:06:27.536 --> 00:06:30.446 and deepen and revise and refine explanation. 00:06:31.516 --> 00:06:36.490 [Music]