Do Less, Better - teach authorship!
As a teacher guiding my first online biology course, 100% asynchronously to support 11th and 12th graders scattered around the globe, I’ve completed every assignment alongside my students, to better understand the cognitive load and flow of our pilot online curriculum. A “less is more” approach has supported our kids this spring, as they navigate a range of experiences and learning environments. So, what have I gleaned from my students’ feedback as well as my own remote learning experience?
Less is indeed more! Extended time for iteration and reflection makes learning vital, meaningful, and memorable - whether it takes place in the classroom or at home.
Our generous allowance for deep learning and deliberate focus on process this term reminds me of the research program I ran for years at Phillips Academy - a rare opportunity that informed my classroom teaching from the beginning. I formally assessed my students’ experience in the program, as I was just so curious…which aspect of their research meant the most to them? They mentioned the design (and re-design) process time and again, reporting that this was where they’d learned to grapple with complexity, troubleshoot logistics, and adjust their thinking in response to preliminary data they collected. Ownership emerged at different times for these kids. But it almost always hinged on some sort of “back to the drawing board” experience, in which they had to change course, re-design their question or plans, and recommit themselves to seeing their project through.
Students considered authorship to be an equally high-stakes game, introducing a fair amount of risk with their emerging sense of agency and pride. Analyzing their experimental findings in light of existing knowledge, they interrogated the quality and contribution of their inquiry. As the author of evidence-based ideas, they were no longer seeking daily direction from external sources. They had become thinkers and experimentalists, working in dialogue with others within the broader scientific community. Authorship had launched them into a new phase of academic maturation.
Self-authorship, promoted extensively by Marcia Baxter Magolda (following the constructive developmental tradition forged by Piaget, Kegan and others), has become a durable driver of curriculum development in higher ed. More institutions are moving away from “instructional” paradigms in favor of “learning” paradigms, in an effort to support the development of evidence-based reasoning and authentic perspectives in young adults.
In this age of multi-tasking and misinformation, it’s especially critical that we teach our students the art and science of authorship. In doing so, we immunize them against knowledge illusions - subjective reductions or omissions that prevent us humans from fully appreciating the importance, depth, or nuance of a topic. Knowledge illusions are insidious! Hiding in plain sight, they factor into our understanding of familiar topics as much as new areas of study.
How can we hold adults accountable for critical analysis of news, political claims, or even memes gone viral without first teaching them to be learned authors during their school years?
“Scientific Learning” is a framework that supports student authorship, conferring academic confidence with a healthy dose of humility, warding off knowledge illusions!
We’re all “scientific learners” by nature! Our early childhoods were shaped by continuous cycles of informing, exploring / experimenting, and reflecting. But many of us picked up bad habits later in school, where information was often presented without as much adventure or personal discovery. While daily doses of spoon-fed knowledge are useful, focusing our education and condensing it into manageable timeframes, they also distance us from fundamental learning strategies we internalized during our first years of life.
The happiest learners among us retain a vital connection to our scientific learning roots, tapping into the natural curiosity that inspired our early development. They actively inform themselves, using reliable tools but know that exposure to even the best information will take them only so far. They remain nimble and continue to explore new approaches, experimenting with new resources and learning strategies. And they don’t stop there! From time to time, they hit the “pause” button to reflect on what’s working - or are not - working best for them and updating their action plan.
These behaviors and habits of mind help our students learn to construct meaning for themselves. We’ve been forced to explore a bit this spring and to do things differently. It’s on us to carry our experiences, reflections, and updated understanding forward as nimble, learned authors of our students’ lessons.
