Many teachers disregard students’ background experiences when they teach. That is analogous to using the English Language to teach ELL students, but without caring if the student is learning. Many teachers would consider that to be a mistake; yet, that is what teachers do when they teach but fail to consider students’ background experiences. Students whose informal (home) experiences differ from formal (school) experiences face similar challenges as ELL students; they are faced with the problems of understanding how the ideas are related. An ELL student may be very good in Mathematics, but in the USA, if their teacher insists on using the English Language to instruct them, obviously, the ELL student is likely to fail or perform lower than if the student had continued to receive instruction in their native language. Even when an ELL student can learn the English Language and tag along, the awareness that h/she has a deficiency might shake h/her confidence and create a problem. ELL students fail or perform below their capacities because , in addition to the language barrier, they also face other difficulties. Many teachers disregarded students’ background experiences when they teach because they lacked an adequate method of teaching to help them do so.
Content and Strategy Centered Teaching and Learning (CSCTL).
Content and Strategy Centered Teaching and Learning (CSCTL) is the teaching practice where teachers structure lessons to reflect and enhance students’ experiences. The fundamental beliefs behind CSCTL are that (1) in developing knowledge, some students (a) reach deeply into the core elements of their experiences to learn effectively, while many others (b) merely reach to the surface of the core elements of their experiences and learn inefficiently; (2) to produce knowledge, students reach into the elements of experiences to authenticate the features of an appearance; (3) elements of experience help to modify and obtain knowledge of an object; the new knowledge also modifies the elements of one’s experiences (Dewey, 1934); (4) a student must be skilled in deliberate thinking activities to reach deeply into the core elements of experiences to learn effectively; and (5) students develop skills to learn effectively when lessons are structured to enhance their knowledge development efforts.
Deliberate thinking implies that there is a spontaneous (not deliberate) version of thinking; so, to say that a student thinks deliberately, what is meant is that a student deliberately engages or models spontaneous thinking (knowledge development) activities. In spontaneous thinking activities, one (1) perceives, (2) analyzes, and (3) synthesizes an appearance to represent an object (Alison, 2018). In deliberate thinking, a person models spontaneous thinking activities to obtain an enhanced object. Accordingly, structured lessons are about recognizing how phases of lessons relate to phases of thinking and organizing activities to reflect and enhance students’ knowledge development efforts.
Allison (2018) explained that to develop and obtain knowledge of an object, a person engages phases of thinking (knowledge development) activities. He identified and explained the first three phases of thinking activities as (1) perceptive, (2) analytic, and (3) synthetic, while Wittgenstein (1927) identified and explained the other phases of thinking as (4) private and (5) public phases of thinking activities. Initially, activities in the first three phases of thinking are spontaneous, not deliberate. A spontaneous object does not relate well with others in understanding or help to achieve progress. A person must think deliberately; that is, model activities of the initial phases of thinking to understand how objects relate to one another and help to achieve progress. The purpose of a lesson is to enhance students’ skills for deliberate thinking activities. However, only a few teachers learn about students’ thinking or interests and how phases of lessons relate to phases of thinking (knowledge development) activities.
Correspondence Between Phase of Thinking and Lessons
Most teachers do not know about CSCTL or had not learned how the activities or conditions that enhance perceptive thinking are similar to, if not the same as, the activities or conditions that enhance students’ efforts in the first phase of lessons. They do not consider students’ experiences and how those experiences influence their efforts. Instead, they focused exclusively on content, but not on strategy teaching. The result is that many students failed to learn effectively. To address the problem, I trained the teachers in CSCTL practices. Teachers learned how activities that support students’ thinking relate to activities that support and/or enhance students’ efforts in general. They learned how phases of thinking relate or correspond to phases of lesson activities, and teachers developed lessons to reflect students’ thinking, experiences, and concerns.
Perceptive Thinking and First Phase of Lessons
Perceptive thinking is where a person interacts with occurrences and obtains an appearance. In the phase of perceptive thinking, a person enhances their thinking by avoiding distractions. Perceptive thinking activities correspond to the first or triggered interest phase of a lesson. To enhance learning efforts in the first phase of a lesson, teachers learned how they must engage students in learning to understand connections between lessons and students’ experiences, and teachers developed lessons that helped students to understand connections between their experiences and lessons. They achieved positive results; the students learned better.
Analytic Thinking and Second Phase of Lessons
Analytic thinking activities is the phase of thinking where students generate instances characterizing an appearance. In analytic thinking, students generate features and other elements of an appearance that help to characterize the appearance. With analytic thinking, a student produces the means (resources) to facilitate thinking in representing an object. Analytic thinking activities correspond to the second or maintained interest phase of a lesson. To enhance knowledge development activities in the maintained interest phase of lessons, teachers learned about how resources motivate students and facilitate learning activities; teachers developed resources and engaged students more effectively.
Synthetic Thinking and Third Phase of Lessons
Synthetic thinking is where a person produces or applies rules to determine relationships among elements characterizing an appearance and identifies an object. In synthetic thinking, one identifies objects by producing and applying rules to show relationships among features of an appearance. Synthetic thinking activities correspond to the sustained interest phase of a lesson: rules showing relationships among instances of an appearance are analogous to formulas of lessons. To enhance knowledge development activities in the sustained interest phase of lessons, teachers learned how using instances to explain formulas differs from deriving the formulas (showing how formulas arose). Teachers differentiated between using instances and formulas of lessons.
Impact of CSCTL Practices
Students responded positively to the CSCTL practices; the school Principal identified more students for the program. We started with a population of 25 disaffected students. Within three years, the number of students grew from 25 to seventy-five. The program’s status also changed from a daytime GED preparation program into an Alternative High School program (I. Alt. School program). The program staff grew from one to five persons: (1) program administrator also teaching Mathematics and ELA, (2) Mathematics teacher, (3) ELA teacher, (4) Social Studies teacher, (5) assistant teachers, and (6) office secretary handling office-related tasks. I wrote the Program’s grant application which was accepted and funded by the NYSED (IV. Exhibit A). Teachers in the program developed and applied their CSCTL skills well. They structured learning activities to reflect and address students’ concerns, and the students learned effectively. I ran the program for six years (1993-1999). When I left in 1999, the graduation rate for students in the program was 94%.
My Inspiration and Vision for Student Achievement
My inspiration and vision is to create opportunities for all children to learn by engaging their best abilities. To achieve this vision, I want to engage and help teachers to hone their teaching practices; help teachers understand how their practices help to enhance students’ efforts. The current fad is using technologies (Smart Boards, AI, etc.) to educate children. However, unless teachers know how students’ experiences with technologies affect/enhance students’ experiences, technologies do not contribute well to students’ education. For example, the Smart Board is a new technology; just like cell phones, it attracts and engages children; therefore, one may easily believe that children’s experiences with Smart Boards will translate into ideal experiences; that is, experiences that can reinforce themselves. However, when attracted to a technology, children do not engage in activities that reinforce their experiences. Instead, they seek fun, and fun takes most of the time children spend with technologies. Therefore, the question becomes, how do fun experiences translate into education or experiences that reinforce themselves?
Specifically, technologies have benefits for students; however, the benefits depend on teachers guiding the students. The knowledge that students gain with trained and untrained teachers differ. Similarly, children’s learning achievement also depends on whether their teachers merely prepare them to pass (pencil and paper) tests or engage them in learning activities that reinforce their experiences. When a teacher focuses exclusively on content but not strategies, students’ learning achievements are most likely to be lopsided; students develop content knowledge from school but develop the skills to reinforce their efforts independently. Consequently, many students do not develop their life skills well; they do not learn how to learn or maintain the content knowledge that helps them pass tests.
However, there is hope. For example, following the Smart Board structure of “I do,” “We do,” and “You do,” we know that teachers must first learn to understand specific learning strategies that students need to learn effectively. Concerning the prompt “I do,” the question becomes what must a teacher be doing during a lesson that they want students to model? With CSCTL, the answer to this question is that teachers must engage students in activities that reinforce themselves, reinforce the core elements of their experiences. The core of students’ experiences is fragmented and diminished when students’ strategies in engaging inside and outside school experiences are unrelated.
Teachers engage students in reinforcing their experiences when they engage in tasks that reflect or relate to phases of thinking activities. For example, when teachers warmly welcome students into classrooms in the first phase of lessons, they show support, respect, and concern, creating an environment where students feel valued, engaged, and responsible to perform. Another strategy in the first phase of lessons is when teachers engage students in discussing how a lesson relates to students’ experiences, thus creating learning environments where students engage and build experiences that reinforce themselves.
Additional links; (I) CSCTL Lesson Plan Template, (II) CSCTL Lesson Plan, and (III) CSCTL Lesson Plan – Practical Teaching, (or cut and paste link).
Dr. Martin Odudukudu
