Make Things and Talk About It

In the past, I believed that all that students should do in a project based learning class is project work. Every day the class should work on the project and build the next part. They will critique and tinker. This has been my way for a long time. Generally the students experience success, but I wondered what might be missing. I remember talking with students at exhibition who, based on their products, had completed the project. Surprisingly, when I asked them about their work they were not able to well describe what they had done. Specifically, they could not explain the purpose behind choices they had made for their product. After some pushing, one student said "we built it this way because you said it would be better!"

While project-based learning naturally develops student competence in skills and tasks, comprehension requires intentional discussion-based work that allows students to construct and articulate their own understanding of the underlying process and principles. I took these conversations as evidence that they had not been constructing meaning for themselves and creating a product from that meaning, they had merely been tweaking my product plan and largely relying on my example. I believe that if they had completed a product based on their own understanding of the principles involved I would see greater differentiation in the end result. So then I had a question: How do I develop comprehension and competence together? In order to develop something in the brains of my students, I had to look closely at how the brain develops itself.

Neurons, and the connections between them, are the foundation of consciousness and memory. As connections develop, memories and associations are stored. Collections of synapses (the connections between neurons) that signal together frequently become more efficient in their signaling, like a path through the woods being established over time by thousands of footprints. Synapses that fire together wire together. Thus, in order to build comprehension, which is memory and ability wrapped up in one, the associated synapse cluster needs to fire again and again and again. The challenge is in giving learners a reason to build comprehension clusters together with competence clusters, not just one or the other. Think of how difficult tying a shoelace is for kindergarteners. They need lots of focus and practice to build the connections in their brains as they repeat the shoelace tying action again and again. Eventually, they will be able to tie their shoelaces while watching tv, having a conversation, or driving a car because the synapses required to tie their laces are so well built and efficient. This is an example of a competence cluster that is very strong, but is it also a comprehension cluster? To find out, ask yourself "why do I use this knot rather than another?". If, like me, you tie the same knot that you were taught, then you probably have competence without comprehension as far as shoelaces are concerned.

My hypothesis is that by having students build long term and detailed projects, I was not providing them the opportunity to build and fire the appropriate 'comprehension' synapse clusters for the content of my class. They were solving problems and planning and building all the time, just not constructing meaning, not building bridges in their minds between their product and the concepts from which that product was designed. So how to guide them to build those connections?

If we are going to build something then we should strive to build the best version of that thing. The same is true for comprehension clusters. Generally speaking, the more connections involved in a cluster, the more detailed and long lasting it is, like a spiderweb anchored to hundreds of points in a larger tree. Additionally, the more complex a cluster and the more connections involved, the more permanent that cluster will be. Therefore, more complex ideas that pass through the brain are more likely to be formed into the longer lasting structure of the brain. In practical terms this means that rote memorization of a list of vocabulary terms will be less effectively integrated into the brain than an engaging discussion about the concepts in which those terms are used because memorization of a list is simpler than having a conversation about what that list signifies.  

Therefore, one strategy to use in order to build complex and long term comprehension clusters in the brains of my students is to have them dig in to conversations about the concepts that we are trying to understand. One step further, if I do not guide the discussion, they will be the required to build the structure of the discussion as well, learning to prioritize and sort sub concepts. 

This might sound like a lot to ask, but sitting in a circle and talking about things that are interesting and important is one of the most human activities that we can partake in. Evolutionary pressure selected ancestors of ours who were more skilled at sharing and discussing complex ideas with their peers by nature of their improved problem solving ability and greater knowledge base. From these circles grew a culture of knowledge sharing. Other organisms are learning how to live in the world for the first time, but we humans are able to get advice from others who have been here before, and those of our ancestors who were best able to exploit information gained from their peers were naturally selected to be the base of our species.

Talking in circles is to humans as chasing mice is to cats; it's in our nature. We're built for this. 

So that's what we do now in class. Each week we work for four days and talk for the fifth. I pick a pair of articles, one a scientific journal and one a more narrative work, that both speak about the same concept that I want students to dig in to. The phrasing of dig in is deliberate here; it speaks to more than just discuss, more than understand, but to mine, to explore, to feel. I typically dispense the articles on Tuesday or Wednesday so that the students can read on their down time during the week. Discussions are often on Monday.

Any format of group discussion that is student-led will do, but I particularly enjoy Spiderweb Discussions, which you can read more about through the work of Alexis Wiggins. In brief, it is a circle discussion based on a text in which the teacher is completely removed and only serves to give feedback on the ability of the circle to converse productively. I observe my students, individually and through peer encouragement, consistently construct comprehension when they answer questions like "how does this article relate to our project?", and say "this reminds me of a previous discussion we had where.". These comprehension clusters are fired and wired together much more regularly and with more complexity in these discussions than in previous versions of my class and the results are exciting. One thing I've noticed is that students more regularly will engage me in conversations about the project and it's subject without being asked to. For example, a group of kids came into my room before class to discuss ideas for exhibition of the project and we talked over different options, all because they initiated.  I can see that they own this project as much or more than I do, which I credit to their increased comprehension of the work and it's principles. I look forward to this semesters exhibition; I'll ask my students "why did you build it like this?" or "why this pattern and not another?" and be able to enjoy seeing the new connections that their brains have made.