What is Knowledge?

Proverbs 2:6 says, "For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding."

This week on the education blog let's discuss knowledge. How do we know that someone knows/understands something? Knowledge is complex. Here are a few thoughts and feel free to give yours in the comments below.

1. First, we can probably all agree that there is a difference between knowing something experientially and knowing it intellectually. We are all all fantastic quarterbacks… From our comfy arm chairs in the living room. 
2. Second, we likely agree that there are some things that we learn and remember for a long time whereas other things seem to slip through our mental fingers like sand. Not all types of knowledge are equally "sticky." 
3. Knowledge seems to "stick" better when there is a solid foundation or base for that knowledge. That is why our program is progressive and builds on itself. That also explains why people who have more life experience, field experience, or biblical knowledge seem to do better here generally speaking. Also, some people learn certain things better in some environments/contexts than others. In other words, knowledge is differentiated. 
4. As we have been discussing, knowledge is not made up of a bunch of discrete, one-off pieces of information. Rather, all information is embedded in a system, a culture, and a worldview that did not develop overnight. Getting students to think about and evaluate that system requires developing a skill called metacognition. 
5. Skills development is related to and even crucial for knowledge acquisition. If people do not know how to think and learn then they will always be reliant upon a teacher, a course, or a textbook in order to tell them what and how to learn. 

Conclusion: if knowledge is systematic, experiential, progressive, metacognitive, and skills-dependent what are we doing to foster learning that is "sticky"? If the goal is to eventually create independent, lifelong learners how is the program at EBI enabling that? Are there some ways of gaining knowledge that are better than others? What are your thoughts? Post comments below or send me an email. Thanks.

The Biblical Basis for Multiple Teaching Methods/Tools/Styles

In this post we'll briefly list out 10 Biblical types of teaching. At the end we'll come to some conclusions about varied teaching methods and learning:

1. Sermons. Acts is full of sermons. Jesus preached some sermons like the sermon on the mount, commissioning the 12, parables, the olivet discourse, etc.
2. Written communication (letters). Paul's epistles are a great example. These seem to be 
3. Questioning. Take a look at Job 38-41. No systematic theology is given by God there... just questions to make Job think. Jesus used questions in Matthew 16:26, 21:23-27, 22:20-21, etc.
4. Parables. Jesus, of course, was the master of parables. He often left the parables uninterpreted and they were created to teach a lesson and make people think. 
5. Assigned tasks. Jesus told the rich young ruler to go, sell his possessions and give them to the poor. Jesus told the woman at the well to go get her husband and come back. Paul gave people in his epistles tasks and then chastised them for not following through (or praised them for doing what he asked). 
6. Learning by experience. Real, physical, verifiable miracles accompanied Jesus' teaching and life. Paul's conversion is clearly learning by experience. Israel's tug-of-war with God plays out as a giant narrative told in the OT and is full of evaluated experiences interpreted in light of who God is. 
7. Discussion and Debate. Jesus answered questions from real people in a real historical cultural context. Paul clearly had detractors and doubters in mind as he wrote some epistles. In the book of Acts there are multiple debates between early Christians and unbelievers.
8. Life-on-Life Coaching. We might say discipleship. It's everywhere in scripture. 
9. Group activities. There were things done as a group in the Old and New Testaments that served as great object lessons and hands-on learning opportunities. For example, building the walls of Jerusalem, wandering in a wilderness, building pyramids, taking up collections for the poor in Jerusalem, and standing up to the demands of a pagan culture (think Daniel and friends for example). 
10. Patience/waiting. One of the great principles of spiritual growth is that it takes time. We all know this and yet our teaching methods are often the most efficient, time-saving ones rather than the methods that allow for long-term growth. Jacob waited and worked to get Rachel. Saul was stripped of the kingdom but David exercised patience (and grew) while he waited to take it over. See the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-25. The epistles are full of references to patience and endurance in suffering. 

If there is so much variety of teaching method in scripture, why do we gravitate to the lecture method first and foremost? Perhaps there is a simple creativity problem here. Kenneth O. Gangel says (2005), "One danger teachers face is the constant temptation to offer excuses for lack of variety in teaching methodology. Many teachers excuse their consistent gravitation to the lecture method by suggesting that the amount of content, or perhaps the nature of the content, requires that approach. Actually, they are probably guilty of not thinking creatively with regard to methodology."
https://bible.org/seriespage/1-thinking-about-teaching-methods 

Where are you at? What kinds of creative ways can you think of to vary your teaching method? What Biblical examples struck you the most? Do you disagree with any of the teaching methods mentioned? What steps can we take as a staff to spur one another on to more creativity and variance in our methods as we seek to change hearts and lives? 

God's "Teaching Method"

Consider how God taught Job. The book of Job could have simply begun and ended with chapters 38-41. As Bible School professors, that's how we may have written the book. Our heart is to get people right into the meat and potatoes. Instead, God allows Job to wrestle with difficult experiences in his life and God allows Job to receive conflicting, incorrect information and advice from his friends and relatives. Finally, at the end of the book, God speaks. But God does not deliver a complete book of basic Theology. Instead, God asks a series of questions designed to get Job to come to the right conclusion on his own. 

To begin the fall off right, let's consider some basic learning theory and how it might apply to our courses. First of all, what is knowledge? Most people agree that knowledge is not a single entity. Instead, it is a connected web of experiences that relate to each other in some way, as determined by the individual. According to this model of knowledge, experiences must be reflected upon and actively correlated and compared to each other. If this is true, then there is no "text book" definition of any term that exists in someone's head in isolation from other terms or from any body of knowledge. People are not computers that can be programmed with information that is spit out later.

If we think about this from a worldview approach to teaching tribal people in an E3 context, this will make perfect sense. In order to "paint a picture" in the tribal person's mind, we are forced to move from shaping worldview to explaining biblical truth. For example, if tribal people do not understand the permanence and importance of writing they will not understand the value of the written word and their need for it. They will not value the Bible in their language if they do you not understand that what is written down is preserved for thousands of years while oral myths and legends change over generations and through the years.

In order to aid tribal people as they begin to construct knowledge about God, good missionaries will use methods such as acting the story out, graphic illustrations, connecting new information back to previous stories, and clearly showing how every aspect of life changes based on principles like God's ownership, God's love for his people, and God's omnipotence. In their case (as in ours), existing myths and superstitions are not harmless at all. Instead, previous understandings about things like the nature and character of the world must be consciously rejected by the people themselves because they interfere with a biblical understanding in the first place.

God recognized that human knowledge is constructed from learning experiences. Based on the fact that all knowledge is constructed, we can clearly see that the foundations are crucial in "constructivist" approaches to teaching and learning. In other words, when we acknowledge that all learning is constructive, we take care as teaching professionals to understand learner characteristics and to craft learning experiences that change hearts and minds. I would challenge you to consider that modern educational learning theories have given some insights into how to teach that are based on Biblical principles. 

In constructivist learning theory, students are actively involved in the process of meaning making. The role of the instructor shifts in the cognitive constructivist approach from primarily being a purveyor of information to helping students learn how to learn. This is the crucial crucial distinction that defines the constructivist approach. 

When constructivism is done right, teaching and learning strategies are student-centered and often student-led. The emphasis switches from organizing a class around the creative efforts of the teacher to emphasizing creative efforts (read: struggle, pain, wrestling, hardship) of the students, allowing students to work on social skills, communication skills, organizational skills, goal setting, and long-term planning in the process. Although there will always be a set knowledge component of every course, students in constructivist classrooms are more likely to work on real life problems in class and are more likely to be able to explore areas of personal interest than in traditional classrooms. Like Job, in order to be successful in their learning students will need to evidence grit, determination and loads of struggle.

Here is a simple summary:

The Traditional Classroom

• Emphasizes basic skills like sitting in chairs and listening
• Strict adherence to a fixed curriculum (teacher's notes)
• Textbooks and workbooks summarize and synthesize knowledge
• Instructor gives/students receive
• Instructor assumes directive, authoritative role
• Assessment via testing / correct answers
• Knowledge is inert (it doesn't react to anything)
• Students work individually

The Constructivist Classroom

• Begin with asking good questions – expanding to answers
• Pursuit of student questions / interests
• Primary Sources (like field trips) / hands-on materials
• Learning is interaction – building on what students already know
• Instructor interacts / negotiates with students
• Assessment via student works, observations, points of view, tests. 
• Process is as important as the product
• Knowledge is dynamic / it changes with experiences and contexts
• Students work in groups 

Adapted from:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_teaching_methods

I would encourage you to try the constructivist approach for just one course and see how it goes. 

Check this out for more info:

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/ 

A Few Populi Reminders

Most of us are now using Populi to manage our homeworks, provide feedback to students and assign grades.

This week on the education blog let's think about how we introduce learning technology to new students and remind returning students of our expectations. Although many students will be familiar with the idea of a learning management system already, we cannot assume that everyone is on the same page about how it is to be used and what the expectations are. Let's deal with a few common excuses that students give when something goes wrong in educational technology:

• I did not know when it was due. This common excuse is primarily a consequence of poor planning combined with poor communication on our part. I have noticed several classes missing due dates in Populi. Let's do our best this week to introduce students to our learning management system by getting all of our dates and times correct in the system so that students can see on their calendar at a glance when something is due. I'll be working on this on my end too.
  
• Populi ate my homework. This excuse is very rare once students learn the system, but in the early days of learning a new system students may unintentionally click a button twice or think they have submitted something when they haven't. The best thing we can do here is to show students how to turn in their work by pulling up Populi ourselves and going through the motions a few times. Even though I did that in the intro to Populi yesterday, students still forget or get confused. Thanks for your help in this regard.
  
• It is too hard to learn. Certainly learning a new way of doing something can be difficult. However, if we as teachers take the attitude that students can do it and if we express that optimism, anything is possible. We're coaches of learning; we're masters of our craft that patiently explain things again and again if necessary. 

Are Textbooks A Foregone Conclusion?

Image Credit

This week I'd like to challenge us to consider the digital revolution as it relates to a very specific aspect of our courses: textbooks.

Are textbooks absolutely necessary in all cases? Or is there a plethora of free information on the web that allows us to forgo their use in certain cases?

61 professors at Lansing Community College have decided to eliminate textbooks in 27 courses, saving LCC students at total of one million dollars since 2015. Check it out:

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2017/08/15/lansing-community-college-cutting-costly-textbooks/551936001/

I would challenge you to consider that textbooks are not a foregone conclusion in the broader education world, nor are they universally recommended or embraced by all education experts. Most education professionals instead rely on the principles of systematic instructional design to determine the "building blocks" of content. Similarly, don't forget that educational fair use allows you to copy and hand out a chapter of a book or 10%, whichever is smaller.

Try to eliminate a textbook from a course you teach and watch the results. We might save our students a bundle of cash AND enhance student learning by delivering more targeted, specific content that says what we want to communicate more concisely and effectively than assigning an entire book could.

Thanks, feel free to comment below or shoot us all an email.