How do you get students to “buy into” something?  How can you help them work out a problem and build up a concept without shoving it down their throats?

And can a textbook accomplish this, in any way shape or form?

I read an interesting post about these questions and what the author, Dan, called “the Rule of Least Power.”

He seems to distrust textbooks. They generally say: “Here’s the problem and the topic we’re looking at. These are the things we should consider. These are the ways in which you should be curious.”

Instead, the way to help students understand concepts is to let them take the lead of the discussion/conversation. Start with an open-ended prompt and gently steer them in the direction of your objective. Only once a student presents the logical leap forward can the discussion move on.

He concludes:

The Rule of Least Power, as I have applied it to my classroom, means:

1. Tell no student to care.
2. Tell no student how to care.
3. Apply increasingly powerful frameworks to mathematical objects only as the class cares about them.

Please don’t confuse this with hardcore, Waldorfian constructivism. I have an agenda, a standard to meet, a lesson objective. But I don’t fence my students onto a narrow path to my objective. I instead pave the ground beneath them so that the path to my objective is the easiest and the most satisfying to walk.

Sounds nice. But I don’t buy it.

Who Gave You Permission to Move On?

This is a great way to approach small group or one-on-one tutoring.  However, the problem I see here is that, in a classroom setting, it means whole-group instruction.

The idea is that when the student provides the next step – the clue to the bigger puzzle – the final concept will be better understood. In a whole-group setting, who’s to say that Johnny buys into Janey’s suggestion? Does Jimmy want to follow Joey’s line of reasoning? Is Jasmine on the same page, or is she still thinking about two-steps-ago?

Why are all the names I’m thinking of starting with “J”s?

In the original example, students were examining a photograph of a ball dropping. Eventually, they were supposed to understand, based on the blur, that the ball was moving down. With some extra information, they can calculate all kinds of stuff about the ball’s motion.

Let’s say that Jimmy brings up the blur.  According to the method, he’s now given the teacher permission to move on and examine that in more depth.  But only Jimmy has.  None of the other students have in any way suggested that they want to examine the blur.  They’re just coming along for the ride.

The success of this method presupposes that the class is a homogenous mass. What one thinks, all think. What one understands, all understand.  It assumes that Jimmy can give permission for Joey and the rest of the class.

But they aren’t all on the same page.  They don’t think alike.  What one is curious about, another might not understand or might simply want to ignore.  They are all individuals.

So Student Input Is Bad?

No.  Not at all.

I’d agree that it’s good to use student suggestions and input to build up to a concept together. My problem isn’t with the method per se, but the philosophy behind it.

Dan’s problem with textbooks is that they present the problem with all the quandaries articulated. Each important piece of information is pointed out, and everything is boiled down to a few simple steps for the students.  The framework for understanding the problem and the concept is forced on them.

Yet in a whole group setting, you are always forcing things on students.  If one – or even four of five – students suggest that you follow a certain line of reasoning, there are twenty other students who haven’t had input.  To them, the class discussion could be as stifling as the textbook.  Or they may just be quiet.  Who knows?

I sympathize with Dan’s concerns.  Before I started teaching, I was philosophically opposed to “forcing” things on students.  Psychology suggests that it may not help them learn, and from a Kantian/Hegelian perspective you’re dehumanizing and objectifying the student.

Unfortunately, this is a nice philosophical position and a practical impossibility. People sneer at radical constructivism, but it’s really the only way to achieve that position.

In our practical lives, we have deadlines, objectives, standards, curricula. You’ve got 180 days with the students and a lot of work to do. You can pile on all the facilitating, student-centered, quasi-constructivist posturing that you like.

At the end of the day, there’s still coercion.