Central Bucks Schools Teaching Authentic Mathematics in the 21st Century

Archbald, D.A., & Newmann F.M. (1988). Beyond standardized testing: Assessing authentic academic achievement in secondary schools. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals.

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Kane, M.B., Khattri, N., Reeve, A.L., Adamson, R.J., & Pelavin Research Institute (1995). Assessment of student performance: Studies of education reform (3 vols.). Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Marks, H.M. (in press). Student engagement in instructional activity: Patterns in elementary, middle, and high schools. American Educational Research Journal, 37(1).

Murnane, R.J., & Levy, F. (1996). Teaching the new basic skills: Principles for children to thrive in a changing economy. New York: Free Press.

Newmann, F.M. & Associates (1996). Authentic achievement: Restructuring schools for intellectual quality. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Newmann, F.M., Lopez, G. & Bryk, A.S. (1998). The quality of intellectual work in Chicago schools: A baseline report. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Newmann, F.M., Secada, W.G. & Wehlage, G.G. (1995). A guide to authentic instruction and assessment: Vision, standards and scoring. Madison, WI: Document Service, Wisconsin Center for Education Research.

Newmann, F.M. & Wehlage, G.G. (1995). Successful school restructuring: A report to the public and educators. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Center on Education Research.

Used with permission from the author, Dr. Fred M. Newmann. The article originally appeared in Research/Practice, Fall 2000, 8(1), published by the Center for Applied Research and Education Improvement (CAREI), School of Education, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Many educational researchers are looking to the science of learning to understand how to engage students more effectively in their learning. Dr. Fred Newmann of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has found that authentic and intellectually demanding assignments experienced throughout the school year in all classes have a positive effect on student achievement as measured by standardized tests. His work with social studies teachers to create "more challenging and interesting assessments" (Newmann, 2000, p.1.) also holds promise for improving teaching and learning. His views support focusing on what the students are producing rather than endorsing a particular set of instructional strategies that might be implemented with varying degrees of effectiveness by different teachers.

Newmann describes three criteria that assignments, tasks, or classroom experiences must have to be considered authentically intellectual. These characteristics are: construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value outside of school. The National Research Council's (NRC) report entitled How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice supports Dr. Newmann's assertions about the success of this authentic intellectual work.

Construction of Knowledge

The learner is making meaning of the content, based on his or her current understanding and previous experience with that or similar content.

The National Research Council stresses that if students' prior assumptions are not engaged and tested, they may not fully comprehend new or related information that is presented; or they may learn the information for the short term, but not retain the information or learn it deeply for use in the future (NRC, 1999).

According to this key finding of the NRC research, good teaching must seek to determine what a student's existing knowledge is about a subject, so that opportunities can be given to support or challenge that knowledge. Students need regular opportunities to analyze, support, and prove their understandings or hypotheses. This requires assignments and tasks that ask them to do more than duplicate information and ideas given by a teacher.

"The act of instruction can be viewed as helping students unravel individual strands of belief, label them, and then weave them into a fabric of more complete understanding" (Minstrell, 1989: 130-131).

These findings refute the once popular notion that students are empty vessels for teachers to fill. Students come to the schoolhouse door with perceptions and knowledge about the world that affect their learning and success in school. "Drawing out and working with existing understandings is important for learners of all ages" (NRC, 1999, p.11). As students get older their experiences and perceptions become more numerous, ingrained, and complex. They develop strong habits of mind. Teachers need to learn what these habits are and work to understand their students in relation to their prior experience and current beliefs.

"For the scientific understanding to replace the naive understanding (of any subject) students must reveal the latter and have the opportunity to see where it falls short" (NRC, 199, p.12).

This supports Newmann's idea that knowledge must be constructed by the learner, so that the learner can manipulate the knowledge and make it his or her own. This comes from research that studies learning transfer and moving from novice to expert status in any field of study. Developing this expert status means isolating and integrating skills and content for use in later learning.

Another key finding in the NRC report is that:

"To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application " (NRC, 199, p.12).

Newmann defines the criteria of disciplined inquiry as "gaining in-depth understanding of limited topics, rather than superficial acquaintance with many, and using elaborated forms of communication to learn and express their own conclusions" (Newmann, 2000, p.2).

The finding cited above supports this conception of deep learning and the ability to express that learning. The NRC report offers an example that clearly illustrates Newmann's findings.

"Geography can be used to illustrate the manner in which expertise is organized around principles that support understanding. A student can learn to fill in a map by memorizing states, cities and countries, and can complete the task with a high level of accuracy. But if the boundaries are removed the problem becomes much more difficult. There are no concepts supporting the student's information. As an expert who understands that borders were often developed because natural phenomena (like mountains or water bodies) separated people, and that large cities often arose in locations that allowed for trade (along rivers, large lakes and at coastal ports) will easily outperform the novice. Students can become more expert if the geographical information they are taught is placed in the appropriate conceptual framework" (NRC, 199, p.13).

In this example the novice geography student was given only literal understandings of discrete facts associated with a map. When faced with a more authentic, intellectual task, he or she is likely to fail. When asked to consider natural resources and patterns of settlement his or her knowledge becomes deeper and more transferable to other related tasks. These are the kinds of classroom experiences Newmann advocates when he talks about authentic intellectual work.

Another important component of Newmann's criteria of disciplined inquiry is the ability to communicate learning to a variety of audiences. This requires students to be able to read, write, think, and speak in a way that can be understood by adults and peers alike. This necessitates regular practice in developing these communication skills. This also requires students to be able to organize information so that it can be easily recovered and manipulated to effectively communicate the learners' own ideas, conclusions, or connections.

"The enterprise of education can be viewed as moving students in the direction of more formal understanding (and communicating that understanding effectively). This will require both a deepening of the information base and the development of a conceptual framework for that subject matter" (NRC, 1999, p13). According to Newmann, that framework includes proficiency in communication skills.

Value Beyond School

Newmann contends that students should have the opportunity to show knowledge to their teachers and peers in ways that demonstrate true understanding. He suggests that students be given the chance to generate "discourse, products, and performances that have personal, aesthetic, or social significance" (Newmann, 200, p.2). This depends upon the assignments and tasks the students are asked to complete. Teachers need to afford all students the chance to engage in high-quality intellectual work. This means varied assignments and assessments that allow students to show their learning in authentic ways; it means connecting their learning to their lives. It also means that students are developing the basic skills needed to create these multiple demonstrations of learning.

The National Research Council's research in How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School confirm Newmann's findings. It promotes the idea that students need multiple opportunities to apply their learning to relevant issues in order to become experts in content.

"Organizing information into a conceptual framework allows for greater transfer, that is, it allows the student to apply what was learned to new situations and to learn new information more quickly" (NRC, 2000, p. 17).

This research confirms Dr. Newmann's contention that deeper learning and authentic assignments help students transfer knowledge and deepen learning across the content areas. It helps students integrate the basic skills needed to create authentic intellectual work across all their learning experiences.

These authentic demonstrations of learning help to overcome the question, "Why do I need to learn this?" Students engaged in their learning by connection to their real lives will know why. They will make meaning of their learning because it will have relevance to their world and to their aspirations for the future.

The NRC research gives a stunning example of how real-life connection and permission to experiment and learn lead to deep learning.

Throwing Darts Under Water:

"In one of the most famous early studies comparing the effects of learning a procedure with learning with understanding, two groups of children practiced throwing darts at a target under water (described in Judd, 1908; see a conceptual replication by Hendrickson and Schroeder, 1941). One group received an explanation of the refraction of light, which causes the apparent location of the target to be deceptive. The other group only practiced dart throwing, without the explanation. Both groups did equally well on the practice task, which involved a target 12 inches under water. But the group that had been instructed about the abstract principle did much better when they had to transfer to a situation in which the target was under only 4 inches of water. Because they understood what they were doing, the group that had received instruction about the refraction of light could adjust to the new task." (NRC, 1999, p.14)

Student responsibilities and opportunities for authentic learning have been outlined above, but what are the implications of this research for teachers? Several ideas for teaching strategies and assignment design have been described already in this article and the findings in the NRC research places increased accountability on teaching practices. These are seen in NRC's third key finding.

"A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them" (NRC, 199, p.13).

Metacognition allows the expert teacher to apprentice his or her novice students to develop the skills and content knowledge they need to move toward expertise. The teacher, who is assumed to be the content expert, can avail his or her students of the skills and thought processes needed to comprehend content knowledge in that content area. This means helping students to understand texts by making their students' own access to these texts clear to students. For example, teachers need to explicitly teach students the significance of captions, headings, and graphics as they relate to the understanding of readings in particular content areas.

Newmann states that participation in authentic intellectual activity motivates students to engage in the hard work of acquiring and applying content knowledge; and that communicating these learnings compels students to refine basic skills in reading, writing, and speaking necessary to communicate their learning to a wide variety of audiences. (Newmann, 2000)

He also contends that the language of authentic intellectual work be included in district strategic planning and articulated in any initiatives embarked upon in district planning for curricular and instructional decisions. He believes that consistency in language and expectations creates a "common ground" that might serve as a filter through which planners could measure decisions (Newmann, 2000).

NRC suggests three core principles that have "implications for the enterprise of teaching and teacher preparation" (NRC, 2000, p.19-21). These principles are:

• 
  Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting understandings that their students bring to them.
  
• 
  Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work and providing a firm foundation of factual knowledge.
  
• 
  The teaching of metacognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject matter.
  

Another implication from the NRC research that supports Dr. Newmann's research is that learning is influenced by the context in which it takes place. This means that teachers need to consider and create a learning environment that will allow students to engage in authentic intellectual work. Teachers need to pay close attention to planning; not only for the body of content, but for the rules, routines, and procedures necessary for students to achieve success in these pursuits of knowledge and transfer.

NRC suggests that in designing learning environments, teachers need to design educational climates that bring order to students' learning . They need to provide opportunities for students to experience a variety of instructional strategies. These include, but are not limited to, guided lecture-based strategies, text-based teaching, technology-enhanced teaching, and varied grouping and individual learning strategies (NRC, 1999). Dr. Newmann advises that teaching and student assignments need to be intentional. They need to provide focus for students to make connections between their classroom experiences and their out-of-school reality.

NRC suggests that teachers need to create learning environments that:

• 
  are learner-centered.
  
• 
  provide a knowledge-centered arena where attention is paid to what is taught and why it is taught, and what competence or mastery looks like.
  
• 
  provide learners with formative assessments "designed to make students' thinking visible to both teachers and students" (NRC, 1999, p. 21).
  
• 
  allow learning to be influenced by the context in which it occurs. A consistent attention to norms and rules of engagement needs to be system wide. (NRC, 1999 p. 19-22).
  

 

References

Bransford, J.D; Brown, A.L.; & Cocking, R.R. (2000). How people learn: brain, mind, experience and school. Expanded Edition. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Donovan, S.M.; Bransford, J.D.; & Pellegrino, J.W. (1999). How people learn: bridging research and practice. Washington, D.C. National Academy Press.

Minstrell, J. (1989). Teaching science for understanding. In How people learn. p.15. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Newmann, F. M. (2000). Authentic Intellectual work: what and why? Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement Research/Practice Newsletter, volume 8, number 1. Retrieved April, 14, 2007, from www.education.umn.edu/carei/Reports/Rpractice/Fall2000/neumann.html

While this article compared Newmann's research with the National Research Council study, several additional resources confirm the need to engage students in authentic, intellectual pursuits. These include and are not limited to:

Blankstein, Alan. (2004). Failure is not an option: Six options that guide student achievement in high performing schools. Corwin Press.

Blankstein, Alan; Cole, Robert W.; and Houston, Paul D. (Eds.) (2007). Engaging every learner. Corwin Press.

Lent, Releah C. (2006). Engaging adolescent learners: A guide for content area teachers. Heinemann.

Schoenbach, Ruth; Greenleaf, Cynthia; Cziko, Christine; and Hurwitz, Lori. (1999). Reading for understanding: A guide to improving reading in middle and high school classrooms. Jossey Bass.

Sullo, Bob. (2007). Activating the desire to learn. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Willis, Judy M. (2006). Research based strategies to ignite student learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

© Copyright 2007 Learning Sciences International.
All Rights Reserved.
Topic 2.1.2: What Is the Teacher Experience?

4 Standards of Authentic Instruction

Fred M. Newmann and Gary G. Wehlage