Knowledge as Design D.N. Perkins

1. Knowledge as DesignD.N. Perkins “Knowledge as design might be our best bet for a first principle in building a theory of knowledge for teaching and learning.”

2. The need for stating purpose, structure, models, and argument lies inherent in the nature of understanding and the requirements of communication, and the kinesthetic imagery implicit in knowledge as design fosters an active view of understanding worthy of emphasis in teaching and learning.

3. What holds schools back? • Knowledge as Information • Technical Knowledge First, Application Later (exceptions exist but should not be used to avoid design) • People Learn Skills through Practice that Builds on Talent • Standard Problems and Exercises Capture the Skills of a Discipline

4. Learner Enthusiasm: Foster Intrinsic Motivation • Intrinsic Worth: Treat the activities as Intrinsically Interesting • Internal Locus of Control: Minimize Evaluative Feedback • Feelings of Competence: Maximize Informative Feedback • Optimal Challenge: Allow choices; Tractable Problems in a Range of Difficulties • Enjoyment: - Avoid Surveillance - Groups allow learners to pool their resources and diffuse frustration - Make it fun

5. The Design that Designs Itself • Human beings design and redesign themselves. • A teacher, ideally conceived, is a designer who helps learners to design themselves • Conveying the attitude, You are not what you know. In a sense we are what we know but to practice self-design, we must hold our knowledge loosely instead of protecting it against the world and change.

6. In your role as teacher: • Watch out for the problem of disconnected knowledge. • Follow the design questions in presenting a topic. • Use the design questions with learners of any age and ability. • Take advantage of everyday designs to disclose deep principles at work. • Engage students in design analysis, asking for purpose, structure, model cases, and explanatory and evaluative arguments.

7. Four Design Questions: To think of knowledge as design is to think of it as an implement one constructs and wields rather than a given one discovers and beholds. • What is its purpose (or purposes)? • What is its structure? • What are model cases of it? • What are arguments that explain and evaluate it?

8. Bridging from Information to Design “Knowledge as information” describes a seductively simple but misleading mental model of the nature of knowledge. The aim should be to displace this model with the more accurate and provocative “knowledge as design”. The trick is to handle instruction so that this model PERVADES EVERYTHING.

9. Steps for Bridging from Information to Design: • Make the Theory of Knowledge Plain to Students: No hidden curriculum • Present Knowledge from the Perspective of Design: Use the design questions as a guide • Treat Knowledge as Functional: Keep the learning doing something with the knowledge gained • Target Performances not Information: Instructional Objectives • Add Strategic Knowledge • Products instead of Short Answers

10. The following discussion shows how the teacher can help students make visible their thinking about the scientific explanation of electrical flow (Grotzer, 2000):

11. Teacher: Let's compare how cause and effect works in these two different kinds of cyclic models. In the cyclic sequential model [as in the radiator system analogy], what makes the electrons move? • Student 1: They want to get out of the battery because of all the electrons so they go onto the wire. • Teacher: And then what happens? • Student 2: They go along the wire till they get to the bulb and that makes the bulb light up.

12. Teacher: Why do the electrons move in the cyclic simultaneous model [as in the bicycle chain analogy]? • Student 1: The electrons push the one in front but at the same time they are pushed by the one behind them. So everything moves at the same time. • Teacher: Yes, each electron repels the next one but is repelled by the one behind it. • It's both a cause and an effect at the same time. The whole thing turns like the chain • on a bicycle. What causes the bulb to light? • Student 3: When the electrons start to flow.

13. Strategy for Reading by Design • Select key designs to read for (looking at the title, introduction, and conclusion to find designs that play a key role). • Read to answer the design questions (what have you learned from the text about purpose, structure, model cases, and arguments). • For critical thinking, extend the argument (look for weakness, question, provide own perspective). • For creative thinking, make remote connections (through generalization and formulating analogies).

14. Writing by Design • It is helpful to keep in mind the four dimensions of writing: theme, organization, expression, and mechanics. • Theme: have something to say • Organization: say it systematically • Expression: say it expressively • Mechanics: Say it correctly from the standpoint of spelling and grammar

15. Steps for Teaching Writing in a Genre • Select a genre • Do a design analysis of it by paying attention to what makes the genre work well • Instruct the learners to understand its design by: 1. Straight presentation, using design questions 2. Socratic questioning, drawing analysis from them 3. Asking them to figure it out themselves • Ask them to use their understanding of structure to compose new model cases • Provide clarification and helping strategies as needed.