Understanding: Example

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Source: Understanding Understanding by Charles M. Reigeluth. Used by Permission.

Learning Activity

Decide What to Teach

Imagine your friend, Jennifer, has just found out that her student, Sam, needs to learn what a revolution is (as in a revolutionary war). She knows that it is important for him and that he does not already know what it is. She realizes that the methods she used to to teach him the names of the Presidents of the United States in Module 2: Invariant Tasks, won't work very well here, but she doesn't know what to do. So she has come to you for more advice.

Decide How to Teach

You, of course, know that a revolution is an armed uprising against a ruling authority; that to be a revolution rather than a rebellion, it must be widespread; and that to be a revolution rather than an invasion, it must be waged by people within the territory of the ruling authority (government). You can see right away that this is the conceptual understanding type of learning.

Based on what you now know about how this kind of learning occurs, what do you think you should advise Jennifer to do first?

Assure Prior Knowledge has been Acquired

Given the importance of relating the new knowledge to relevant prior knowledge, Jennifer must figure out what the important prior knowledge is and whether or not Sam has already acquired it. If he hasn't, then she must remediate -- teach that missing knowledge -- before she teaches what a revolution is. Certainly, Sam must know what fighting is and, more specifically, an armed fight. He also must know what a ruling authority is and what the territory of a ruling authority is. Of course, these labels do not need to be learned -- it is the ideas behind them which must be understood. These ideas are prerequisites in the sense that they must be understood before it is possible for one to understand what a revolution is.

Give the Presentation

First, Jennifer assessed Sam's needs and found out that he should be taught what a revolution is. Next, we have seen that she must assure mastery of relevant prior understandings. But then what should she do? Remember that Bloom identified learner participation as perhaps the most important determinant of the quality of instruction. Also remember that presentation, practice, and feedback have proven to be routine components for both memorization and skill application, although the nature of each routine component is quite different for each kind of learning. Given all of this, what are the most important recommendations you could give to Jennifer for teaching what a revolution is?

Certainly the knowledge needs to be presented in some form to Sam. Learner participation of some kind also makes sense. But how should the knowledge be presented? And what form should the participation take?

Let's start by thinking about what needs to be presented. Remember the principles of learning. According to Ausubel, Sam must have a good "subsumer", a broader and more inclusive idea which is closely related. In other words, Jennifer should provide a meaningful context for understanding "revolution". What would such a subsumer be in this case? Well, a revolution is a kind of war, and a kind of fighting. But war is a closer concept to revolution, because there are many other kinds of fighting besides wars. Therefore, "war" will make it easier to understand what a revolution is. This makes it a more appropriate subsumer.

But for sure Sam knows what a war is, so what does all this have to do with the presentation? Well, Jennifer should start by activating the meaningful context: "Sam, you know what a war is." Then she should relate the new knowledge to it (superordinate knowledge): "A revolution is a kind of war." Next, she can describe what a revolution is, using terms that are familiar to Sam. This entails analyzing it as to its critical attributes (subordinate parts). She can describe an example or two (experiential knowledge). She can compare and contrast it to other kinds of wars (coordinate knowledge). And if Sam was already familiar with any kinds of revolutions (subordinate knowledge), she could relate it to them. (For example, in teaching what a vertebrate is, she could relate vertebrates to dogs, people, horses, fish, and so on.) She could even come up with an analogy, like convicts revolting in a prison. And she could infer the causes of revolutions, or trace the implications if a certain revolution had never occurred.

Provide Practice

But what about learner participation? Well, as far as practice is concerned, Jennifer can ask Sam to explain in his own words what a revolution is. Or she can ask him to explain in his own words the differences between a revolution and an invasion (which was already explained to him). But such "regurgitation" questions don't require much depth of processing. How do you think Jennifer could help cause greater depth and breadth of processing?

Provide Enhancement as Needed

Practice isn't the only kind of learner participation. As was discussed in Module 7, discovery learning is a form of learner participation. What are the differences between inductive and deductive participation?

Deduction could take a number of forms. Breadth of processing can be increased by creating links with other meaningful knowledge the learner already possesses. Asking the learner to paraphrase what has already been presented (which we identified as shallow questioning above) does not usually create any additional links; it usually just strengthens those which already exist. Hence, it is a relatively superficial form of deduction -- that is, it does not cause broader processing. On the other hand, elaboration does create additional links. Elaboration is the process of relating additional knowledge to what one has already learned. This is done deductively when the relationships are told to the learner.

Induction is a bit different for understanding than it is for application of principles. It is basically discovery learning, as it is for application. But its role for understanding is to get the learner to process the knowledge fairly deeply. If Jennifer compares and contrasts revolution with coordinate concepts for Sam, he is not likely to process it as deeply as if she asks him to do it: "What do you think is the difference between a revolution and an invasion?" and "What do you think is the difference between an uprising and a revolution?" and "In what ways is a prison revolt similar to a revolution, and in what ways is it different?"

Feedback

Naturally, feedback is very important here. This form of guided discovery should not take much longer than telling the relationships to the learner. On the other hand, pure discovery would certainly take much longer and might not result in the learner learning anything new at all. Hence, it does not seem likely that pure discovery would present any advantages over this form of guided discovery, or "figure-out" approach to instruction.

Your Task

Your task is to add one idea for improving the learning activity that aligns with the instructional principles associated with enhancing understanding.

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