What do we mean by ‘cognitive challenge’?

What does this look like in practice?

1. Design and management of cognitively challenging learning opportunities 

2. Rich and extended talk and cognitive discourse to support cognitive challenge 

3. Curriculum organisation and design

Taking it further…

Additional reading and support:

Dr Matthew Williams, Access Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, shares his belief in the importance of “confident creativity” as the key to developing sustained effort and a lasting love of learning.

I am a fellow and tutor in politics at Jesus College, Oxford, and I’d like to share some thoughts on how students can be energised to “work harder”. Specifically how do we encourage sustained effort, leading to improved attainment? What follows are reflections on a decade of teaching and schools outreach work at Oxford and Reading Universities. There is a mixture of theory here, but readers should be warned there will also be big dollops of unscientifically personal recall.

As an undergraduate student of politics at the University of Bristol, the most significant learning experience came during seminars on the British Labour Party. At first, I was fairly indifferent on the subject, but the seminars entailed a mixture of traditional essay-based research and more flashy simulation-based learning. On the latter, we had a Cabinet meeting in our seminar with each of us playing real characters. I was Jim Callaghan, and I had to prepare Cabinet papers, work out strategy and tactics in order to win a fight with, in particular, Tony Benn!

The experience brought everything to life. The theoretical and practical came together, and I have to this day never forgotten the specifics of that fight in late 1976. On reflection, the primary effect of the simulation was the transformation of the subject matter from work into study. Studying is not work in the sense of being performed for someone or something else’s benefit. Instead, studying is intrinsically pleasurable. Whilst many students are motivated by long-term payoff (career prospects, reputation, power etc) many, like me, see more immediate feedback. This particular teaching style transformed the 9am walk to lectures from a reluctant trudge to an enthusiastic commute. It was revelatory.

Demystifying the means of achieving distinction

Ever since those seminars I have aspired in my personal and professional life to transform work into study. The key ingredient used by the seminar tutor was positive motivation. He made clear his interest was in us and our ideas, rather than our performance in the exam and the reputation of the university. As such, he did not want us to regurgitate the literature, rather he wanted us to know the literature so we could analyse it critically whilst presenting our own original contributions.

This was liberating. All of sudden the most complex elements of social democratic ideology and post-industrial economics were not prohibitively intimidating; they were required reading for anyone wishing to have their voice heard. In this process, we had to acknowledge we could contribute to a debate despite our relative academic inexperience. The tutor was clear: good ideas are not the monopoly of tenured professors. If we wanted to, we were perfectly capable of contributing original theoretical insights and empirical discoveries. To achieve the distinction of a first class degree our work had to be creative and, crucially, the tutor made clear we were all capable of distinction if we wanted it.

This teaching style resonated with me because it demystified the means of achieving distinction. Previously, I had assumed distinction was a matter of talent, intelligence and luck – none of which I felt much graced with. Subsequently, I realised distinction meant creativity, and creativity needed energy and self-confidence.

Understanding the importance of “confident creativity”

“Confident creativity” is not my first teaching philosophy. For a job application in 2012 I proposed a similar philosophy focused on positive motivation and confident application of skills. Whilst this is seemingly the same philosophy, the older version was predicated on teaching as the transmission of knowledge, where now I see teaching more as developing and nurturing key skills. The transmission model prioritised interesting learning materials as the fundamental variable; whilst I still consider the materials to be important, they are secondary to the students’ nurtured development of complex skills. When students internalise the skills of processing complex information, they will find interest in practically all relevant materials, without the need for unrepresentatively “sexy” content. Even a 1970s Cabinet meeting can become enthralling!

The key change in my teaching philosophy has been the realisation that motivating students should encourage a sense of independent intellectual development. This change in emphasis can be represented as a synthesis of two learning outcome hierarchies, proposed by Bloom et al (left pyramid) and Anderson & Krathwohl et al (right pyramid).

I propose a synthesis of these taxonomies, fleshed out with qualifying adjectives:

Including qualifying adjectives in Anderson & Krathwohl et al’s hierarchy allows us to assess the learning objectives in greater detail, with clearer observable implications. Adding an extra level of nuance to the concepts enriches their meaning, without losing the parsimony and clarity which are such key strengths of the original taxonomy. The addition of adjectives could be criticised as creating needless tautologies – if, for instance, we assume confidence is a necessary condition of creativity. However, creativity can be achieved without confidence if it is accidental and the student is unaware of the merits of their creativity. We need to aim for confident creativity because it is significantly more sustainable and transferable for a student to create in confidence than to be creative by accident or with heavy-handed guidance.

Transferring this approach to different contexts

Critical reflexivity is a very personal journey, and the results of my personal reflections may not be transferable. Even the phrase “teaching philosophy” connotes a sense of philosophy as retroactive rationalisation of one’s own perspective, as opposed to the analytic use of the term as a clear, open and rigorous system of thought. As Nancy Chism states, somewhat ironically, “One of the hallmarks of a philosophy of teaching statement is its individuality.” Whilst a teaching philosophy is developed through self-reflection, it requires self-awareness before it can be applied to others. Notably, teachers are somewhat unusual in their relationship with knowledge. They relish the acquisition of knowledge as an intrinsic good, where motivation to learn is rarely absent and the desire to contribute is second nature.

But what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. For many students school and college is first and foremost about acquiring qualifications, and therefore simply an instrument for career advancement. As such, not all students want to achieve distinction, nor see the value in risking creative contributions when a less resistant path exists. For such students there is a risk that emphasis on creativity will alienate them from the subject and the teacher. Furthermore, the development of my teaching philosophy has primarily taken place at an elite university, where boundary-pushing and intellectual confidence is far less risk-laden than in other contexts. The unflinchingly liberal environment at Oxford ascribes considerable value to intellectual creativity, perhaps at the expense of consolidation. Yet there is little utility in a teaching philosophy that is contingent on where and for whom it applies.

Nevertheless, these concerns are surmountable. Yes, academics perhaps have a gilded view of knowledge, but only because they have internalised the skills of contributing knowledge to the point where it has become (for the most part) a pleasure. It is incumbent on academics to encourage students towards a similar relationship with the world. Whilst not all students will want or feel able to contribute genuine insights, “confident creativity” is the apex of the pyramid and there are other levels of learning available to differentiate between learners. The ambition should be to encourage confident creativity, but “critical evaluation” or “balanced analysis” will be satisfactory outcomes for many students. Learners should not be forced to fit a teaching style that alienates them and a degree of differentiation between students will be required with the proviso that “confident creativity” is unambiguously the preferred goal and should be encouraged as far as possible.

Ultimately, the point of education is to equip individuals with the skills to speak for themselves. This is best achieved when we mix up teaching styles, and jolt work into study.

References

• Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R., Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (eds) (2001) A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing. (New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc).
• Bloom, B.S., Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H., & Krathwohl, D.R. (eds) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals – Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. (London, WI: Longmans, Green & Co Ltd).
• Chism, N. V. N. (1998) “Developing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement.” in Essays on Teaching Excellence 9(3) (Athens GA: Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education).
• Pratt, D.D., & Collins, J.B. (2000) ‘The teaching perspectives inventory: Developing and testing an instrument to assess teaching perspectives’ Proceeding of the 41st Adult Education Research Conference.

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About the author

Dr Matthew Williams is Access Fellow at Jesus College, University of Oxford, where he teaches and conducts research in the field of political studies. Known as “the Welsh College”, Jesus College has a long history of working with schools in Wales and has recently taken on responsibility for delivering the university’s outreach and access programmes across all regions of Wales. Read more.

Live webinar: “Developing sustained effort in able learners”

On 2 July Dr Williams is leading a free webinar for NACE members in Wales, exploring approaches to developing confident creativity and motivating learners to be ambitious for themselves. This is part of our current series supporting curriculum development in Wales. Find out more and book your place.

Schools that successfully develop and maintain a broad, challenging and opportunity-rich curricular and extracurricular offer recognise the benefits this brings for all learners – not just those designated “more able”. The examples of such successful schools reflect NACE’s own focus on provision for more able learners as part of a much broader context of challenge for all and whole-school improvement. The NACE Challenge Development Programme offers a framework and support to help schools review and improve more able provision, driving improvements in provision and outcomes for all.
 
In this context, and amidst lively national debate about the purpose and content of the curriculum – including questions raised by and impacting on proposed changes to the Ofsted inspection framework – this year’s NACE National Conference will explore the theme: “How to lead a curriculum of opportunity and challenge: provision for more able learners that supports high achievement for all”. The event will draw on NACE’s own research and work in this field, alongside examples of effective practice from NACE Leading Schools and insights from experts in pedagogy, curriculum, and school review and improvement. Ahead of the day’s discussions, we’ve picked out five key factors to consider – drawing on the work of educationalist and author Martin Robinson, who will deliver the conference’s opening keynote.

1. Get clear on the terminology  

Much of the terminology currently used in discussions about the curriculum is, when probed, somewhat vague. As Robinson points out, few would object to epithets such as “knowledge-rich” or the ubiquitous “broad and balanced” – but on further investigation such terms raise many more questions than they address, particularly when it comes to implementation on the ground. For discussions to progress meaningfully, clarity is important.

2. Involve everyone in curriculum design   

The curriculum needs to work for everyone in school – and that means staff as well as learners. Curriculum coherence – an overriding structure that can be perceived and understood by all, with each teacher and learner understanding their current position and next steps – will remain a pipe dream if not built on genuine opportunities for collaborative curriculum design, delivery and review. This collaborative approach should be extended not only to staff members, but also – as NACE trustee Liz Allen CBE argues – to learners.

3. Put pedagogy in the picture  

While no longer the buzzword du jour, pedagogy remains an essential concern and – as Robinson argues – should be considered at all stages of curriculum design. Sequencing (more on this below) is but one aspect of a repertoire of approaches which will lead to deep and sustained learning. Of these NACE frequently highlights:

• Content and related skills and concepts pitched at the right level of difficulty and complexity;
• Skilful and judicious explanation, modelling and feedback;
• Opportunities for deliberate practice;
• The development of metacognition and independence in learning;
• Tasks and activities designed to elicit higher-order and critical thinking processes;
• The management of differentiation which keeps all routes open for learners to achieve and progress.

Alongside these approaches, one of the biggest impacts on learner outcomes and engagement is what is often referred to as a positive and demanding classroom climate, coupled with teachers’ high expectations of all learners. 

4. Get the timing right 

Alongside the “what” and “how” of the curriculum, the “when” is also important. While “blocking” can seem the most efficient way to cover all the required content within the time available, Robinson makes the case for “spacing” – building in deliberate periods of delay in the coverage of a topic, to improve retention rates and curb last-minute cramming come exam time. This approach can be envisaged as a “spiral curriculum” – in which teaching and learning spiral back to revisit and build upon the “basic ideas” at the core of a subject, supporting overall coherence, joined-upness and progression.

5. Join the national debate 

This is an exciting time for school leaders and educators – not without its challenges, but also rich in opportunity. Amidst a growing body of research on what works for more able and for all learners, including the impact of pedagogical approaches such as “teaching to the top”, we’ve seen a renaissance of evidence-rich debates about curriculum development and delivery. At its best, the debate has gone beyond old dichotomies, producing fresh approaches and working towards secure foundations and principles on which to build a curriculum fit for today and for the future.

Join us at the NACE National Conference in London on 20 June to be part of the debate!