Signposts for Scaffolding

Observing Pupils’ Mental Strategies: Signposts for Scaffolding David Leat Department of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, St Thomas Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 3RU, UK Adam Nichols School of Education, University of Durham, Leazes Road, Durham DH1 1TA, UK Assessment of pupil attainment in National Curriculum Geography in England and Wales is frequently in the form of summative tests and exercises. This paper explores the potential of ‘mysteries’ for diagnostic and formative purposes. Slips of paper containing the information needed to resolve the mystery are manipulated by groups of pupils. Observation of the arrangements and analysis of the relationships within them reflect the pupils’ cognitive processes as understanding of the mystery grows. Stages in this process which represent increasingly complex thinking are identified and their relationship to the SOLO taxonomy is discussed. The paper concludes with consideration of the potential of mysteries for supporting pupils’ learning and for teachers to scaffold their cognitive development.

Introduction One of the effects of the imposition of the National Curriculum in England and Wales has been that summative assessment has assumed such dominance, in the cause of public accountability, that formative assessment has been swamped. The original blueprint for National Curriculum assessment, the report of the Task Group on Assessment and Testing (Department of Education and Science, 1988), envisaged that the testing would fulfil four purposes: formative, diagnostic, summative and evaluative. The report assumed a primacy for teacher assessment, using a range of strategies including tests, discussion with pupils, practical tasks and observation. In practice observation as an assessment strategy has hardly been used outside Key Stage 1 (5 to 7 year olds). Instead, as Harlen & James (1996) have described, teachers have been changing their on-going assessment into a series of tests, which are essentially summative in character. As is being increasingly recognised internationally, diagnostic and formative assessment, which support learning, should be a principal component of educational policy and practice. Gifford & O’Connor’s (1992) edited volume Alternative Views of Aptitude, Achievement and Instruction, is a landmark publication in representing assessment as a tool for learning, which requires discussion with and observation of pupils in a process of dynamic assessment. More recently Black & Wiliam’s (1998) international review of formative assessment has highlighted the evidence of the significant positive effects on attainment. This paper describes an assessment strategy developed for the National 1038-2046/00/01 0019-17 $10.00/0 © 2000 D. Leat & A. Nichols International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education Vol. 9, No. 1, 2000

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Curriculum geography in England, which offers the possibility to teachers, in whatever country, of observing pupil working in a way that is highly revealing in terms of underlying cognitive processes. As such it has enormous potential for diagnostic and formative assessment and offers the opportunity of putting into operation one of the most compelling education concepts of the century – Vygotsky’s notion of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Vygotsky’s view was that instruction created the ZPD, stimulating development and crucially therefore: From this point of view, instruction cannot be identified as development, but properly organised instruction will result in the child’s intellectual development, (which) . . . will bring into being an entire series of such developmental processes, which were not possible without instruction. (1978: 121) It is the intention to examine the possibility that the use of this assessment strategy can lay the foundations for instruction which will be the genesis for developmental processes. Whilst little direct evidence survives of Vygotsky’s teaching methods, others have developed practical and/or theoretical manifestations which attempt to operationalise the concept of the ZPD. Thus we have scaffolding (Wood et al., 1976 ), mediated learning (Feuerstein, 1980), assisted performance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) and reciprocal teaching (e.g. Brown & Campione, 1990). In each case there is a particular concern to integrate assessment with teaching, so that assessment adopts a diagnostic mode that will inform the teacher about the pupils’ learning and thus what might be the most appropriate next step in teaching. Wood and Wood (1996: 5), in seeking to clarify the meaning of scaffolding, have suggested that adults can serve a number of crucial tutoring functions in guidance and collaboration that promote development: These included recruitment of the child’s interest in the task, establishing and maintaining an orientation towards task-relevant goals, highlighting critical features of the task that the child might overlook, demonstrating how to achieve goals and helping to control frustration. The assessment mode to be described has particular and unusual features which provide a match for many of these functions and offers some signposts for the manner in which geography teachers can scaffold the intellectual development of their pupils.

The Background The background provides a narrative of the evolution of the research. We believe that this has some significance because the research has evolved out the interaction of teachers and higher education researchers. There has been a growing concern in many countries over the interaction between educational research/theory and educational practice (Bullough et al., 1997; Hillage et al., 1998; Hultman & Horberg, 1995). One aspect of this concern is the failure of research outcomes to impact on classroom practice, which remains highly resistant to change. This implies that educational research is done by professional

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researchers on teachers, pupils and educational systems, rather than through grass roots co-operation between teachers and researchers. In 1995 one of the authors (DL) was engaged by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA), the statutory body responsible for the curriculum in England, to design one of the optional tasks for teacher assessment of Key Stage 3 (11 to 14 year olds) National Curriculum (NC) geography (SCAA, 1996). In England and Wales there are National Curriculum tests for all pupils in English, mathematics and science (termed core subjects) at the end of Key Stage 3, when pupils are 14. As one of the foundation subjects, inferring a lower status, the level of attainment (1 to 8) in geography is assessed by teachers. The optional tasks were designed to provide support and guidance in the assessment process. It was inferred by SCAA, that our mode might be a non-traditional form of assessment, as more traditional formats would be generated by other consultant groups. A group of teachers who shared an interest in teaching thinking were invited to participate in this consultancy. This group has subsequently become a permanent fixture with an ongoing agenda of research, curriculum development (Leat, 1998) and in-service education and has adopted the title of the Thinking Through Geography (TTG) group. At the time we decided to use a format termed a mystery, which was adapted from a group work task (Stanford, 1990). The characteristics of mysteries as developed by the group are as follows:

· The information is presented to the pupils (who work in groups of between

· ·

· ·

two and four) on 15–30 slips of paper, which have been cut up and placed in an envelope. There is initially one question to answer, e.g. ‘There was an elderly couple living in Kobe, Mr and Mrs Endo. One of them died in the earthquake disaster – which one and why?’ Pupils are encouraged to use as much of the data as possible in formulating their explanation. They have a strong narrative thread – they are about people to whom things happen or who do things. This helps to get pupils of all abilities and ages hooked. Some of the information relates to place/time context, both to very concrete and visible phenomena and events (trigger factors) and to more abstract phenomena (background factors). The abstract data are more difficult to include in explanations and lower achieving pupils usually rely mainly on the more apparent trigger factors. Not all of the information is necessarily relevant. Some data items are included as red herrings, although pupils may not see them as such. This makes the task inherently and deliberately open and ambiguous. The data, although not intended to be comprehensive, cover a wide spectrum, including physical and human geography. (Leat, 1997)

We were encouraged to use plate tectonics (part of the Key Stage 3 Programmes of Study) as a possible context and using the template above and an article in a civil engineering journal, one of the teachers wrote The Kobe Earthquake Mystery. The mystery and other materials were extensively trialled by the group and written responses to the question were collected from several hundred pupils and analysed inductively to derive three levels of performance, a parameter set by SCAA.

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Subsequently mysteries have become a popular teaching strategy among humanities teachers in north-east England (Northumberland County Council, 1997) and to a growing extent nationally through the writing and in-service education endeavours of the group. More than 20 have been written for a variety of topics and subjects. Many teachers have commented with extreme enthusiasm on the collaborative work, motivation and understanding engendered. Davies (1997) reporting on an SCAA evaluation of the use of the Kobe materials reported: The teacher at school A believed that the materials would appeal to teachers at schools such as his own where there was a high proportion of ‘challenging’ pupils and to teachers who actually want to look at how pupils develop in terms of their learning and want to discover more about that process. Discussion among TTG members repeatedly included the observation that there seemed to be a link between the facility with which pupils moved the pieces of paper and quality of the eventual individual written outcome. Put another way, low achieving pupils were often slow and hesitant in finding and imposing any order in the data and would often need considerable support. Group members and other correspondents have, however, also pointed out such pupils usually show great perseverance and motivation in doing mysteries. It was from this grassroots generalisation that we began, with the assistance of our classroom colleagues, to speculate about the nature and significance of this apparent relationship. As we watched pupils sorting data physically on table tops it began to dawn on us that the manipulation process was a window on the cognitive process and as such a potentially powerful diagnostic tool. Furthermore, if physical manipulation reflects cognitive processes, was it possible that mysteries could be an intervention medium? If one can begin to diagnose the status of cognitive processes, can one also begin to use formative moves to support the development of those processes which represent the threshold to improved performance? Do mysteries represent a context in which geography teachers can scaffold pupils’ development? These were the questions that stimulated our collaborative research enquiry with local teachers.

Research Described Our aim in the classroom research has been to investigate how pupils do mysteries; it is therefore naturalistic. This has two aspects: what do they physically do with the pieces of paper and secondly what cognitive processes underpin these physical actions? In relation to the first aspect we have been concerned to define the limits of performance by identifying how mysteries are tackled by both high and low achieving groups. A supplementary concern has been to observe the interactions of teachers with groups as a start to understanding how they might most effectively support pupils within the limitations of the classroom context. In pursuit of our aims therefore we have:

· photographed the data manipulation of all the groups in some classes on a set time interval, to provide a simple time lapse record of the physical

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arrangement of the data items (each marked by a large letter for identification); · videotaped single groups doing mysteries – these have included groups in high and low achieving classes; · interviewed four of these groups using stimulated recall technique – they were played back the video and asked to comment on what they were doing and thinking as they worked; and · taken observation notes during both photographing and videoing. In our original protocol it was planned that pupil-teacher interaction, after initial task instructions, should be kept to an absolute minimum whilst pupils were doing mysteries, but this quickly broke down as the needs of classroom life intervened. There have been a number of important context variables identified in the research, notably the relationship between the teacher and the class and the type of mystery. Analysis has been on two fronts. Firstly, the photographs have been compared with observation notes to delineate phases that pupils generally go through in physically arranging data. Secondly, notes and transcript from the pupil interviews have been compared with phases in data manipulation to calibrate these stages with pupils’ descriptions of their thinking.

Results The analysis revealed a series of physically observable stages that characterise groups’ progression in tackling mysteries. In many cases (but not all) there were clear breaks between the stages marked by a very sudden change in the way data were organised. In some cases group talk indicated a change in thinking before the data items were moved. The display stage Presented with an unsorted mixture of data, not all of which may be useful, the groups familiarise themselves with data items before any further meaningful action can proceed. Some groups elect to distribute the slips as in a card game to be read aloud in turn, before laying them out. Others just spread them out, neatly or otherwise. The purpose appears to be to allow group members to read the text or at least to register the presence of a slip that someone else has read aloud. Some groups do not successfully complete this stage unaided as they, for example, accumulate a pile of slips which have been read without being able to infer any meaning. The setting stage Groups are inevitably unaware of the relative significance of any particular data item (it has to be remembered also that there is no one definitive right answer). Groups often therefore begin to organise the data into sets on the basis of perceived common characteristics, suggesting a general strategy based on association. Yet even at this early stage a variety of strategies is adopted which may reflect cognitive ability. Low achieving groups frequently form sets on the basis of common vocabulary such as the names of characters, animals or places. Many groups, however,

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Figure 1 The display stage

Figure 2 Setting. Analysis of the relationships between the data was made possible by the identification letters. Both Common Vocabulary and Thematic sets are represented here.

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assemble broad thematic sets, for example ‘anything to do with earthquakes’ or data items suggesting a chain of events. On the tables, these sets are usually arranged as columns and blocks. This stage indicates, we believe, a developing familiarity with the events and circumstances. A refinement is the creation of subsets, which may be triggered by one thematic set growing so large that the group begins to reclassify them. It is generally the more able groups who form sets based on, or incorporating, the background data, although at this stage they may not appreciate its full significance. As a generalisation it seems that the number of data items that each group can attach no meaning to is related inversely to ability. Nevertheless all groups form a reject pile. There appears to be a further contrast between less and more able groups in that the more able groups are more inclined to reconsider their reject pile, while some less able groups never look at them again. The sequencing and webbing stage Some groups do not go beyond the setting stage, even though the sets that they have formed may be quite ineffective in terms of producing an explanation. However, the majority of groups begin to identify relationships between sets or between single data items. In some instances this is in lines representing the construction of a causal explanation (sequencing), whilst in others it is a non-linear pattern representing multiple interrelationships (webbing). Inference is common in the production of these patterns. This stage coincides with the first appearance of an explanation or coherent hypothesis.

Figure 3 A spinal Sequence acquires linked concepts during the Webbing stage.

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The reworking stage This stage can be radical or modest and can take many forms. It may start with moving one slip from a set to another, but can go on to include reject slips being worked in, or wholesale movement and regrouping. These reworkings appear to represent the establishment of new sets of relationships, which are increasingly abstract and likely to include some of the background data items. In the reworking process data items which are moved are cumulatively taking on new meaning. It is our impression, at this stage, that the more the data are rearranged, the better the quality of overall understanding. High ability groups show little reluctance in breaking their original sequences and webs, whilst other groups may be very frustrated by having to do so. Many groups do not rework their data.

Figure 4 Reworking. Having acquired an understanding of the interrelated concepts, this team reworked the data into groupings that supported three possible solutions to the mystery.

The abstract stage For a few groups, the physical manipulation ceases but the discussion continues. It is possible that they have internalised the data to a point where they can explore new relationships and hypotheses without recourse to the concrete format of the data slips. We include some extracts from the stimulated recall interviews to illustrate the stages that two groups went through and variability within the stage model described above. The first group is of three Year 9 (13–14 years old) girls from a

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middle ability class working on a mystery concerning stock losses from an organic farm (Leat 1998) (see Appendix). Interviewer: B:

So what are you doing here? We’re just sort of reading them – seeing what they were. [The display stage]

Interviewer: C:

A:

What’s that little grouping there? . . . It was the Leythorpe hunting things – linking those together . . . but we read most of them first . . . we tried to put them into little groups that linked together. And the hedgerows and stuff. [The group is in the setting stage. However, before the pupils finish this stage they start to make links that are characteristic of webbing.]

B: Interviewer: B: Interviewer:

And we thought that the golfers on Massey’s farm would be complaining (about the smell from the organic farm). There’s a new one beginning there . . . What’s happening there? That’s the one where we didn’t know which one . . . but I think it was the herbicides and pesticides and that. Was that because you didn’t know what they did? B: Yeah and we were a bit lost. [Now, however, they begin to make substantial progress as they begin to make connections characteristic of the sequencing and webbing stage.]

B:

A:

But then we found the fact about the steep decline in birds and then we linked that together with the pesticides and herbicides and the fact that they ate little bugs . . . that used to destroy the crops, then when the bugs were killed then the birds wouldn’t have much to eat. Plus the hedgerows were getting destroyed and their nests getting destroyed as well. [By establishing these relationships, they were linking sets in a logical causal sequence and at the same time weaving in some of the background data.]

There is a substantial quality to the talk episodes, with examples of speculating and deductive reasoning: Interviewer: B:

This is clearly becoming a very important category. You are doing all the talking here. I’m just saying that if the birds are being poisoned . . . the chickens . . . they would have found the bodies unless the fox had eaten them but then you’d have found feathers . . .

However, at this point the majority of slips were still in three sets, which did not particularly help in the construction of an explanation, and frustration had set in. The abandonment of the original sets was a turning point as they then reworked

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the data items and adopted a new strategy leading to a very different understanding: A:

C: A:

We started to get stuck. We just like completely gave up for two minutes because it wasn’t working, got bored, then got back into it when we decided to split the groups up. We split them all up. We took one then looked to see which ones linked to that. One of them was about the EMU, quotas and everything, we put them in a group . . . encouraging people to get rid of hedgerows and stop them growing so much.

This clearly illustrates that having gained sufficient familiarity with some of the themes in the data the group began to organise sets which represented major concepts in the domain. They were able to discuss and explain the nature of the links in terms and phrases not found on the slips and demonstrated an impressive understanding. The second interview involves two very able girls from a Year 9 top set from another school doing the Kobe mystery. There are strong similarities in the pattern of the stages. However, there are a number of points of difference worth noting. This pair never appeared to be as dependent on the manipulation of the data items for the development of their thinking, although they were aided by it. Secondly, they were quicker to form thematic groups in the setting stage. Thirdly, they were able to be much more explicit about metacognitive strategies that they employed in trying to impose order on the data (although this may be post hoc rationalisation), and in the process demonstrated impressive evidence of transfer of learning from other contexts. Interviewer: B:

Interviewer: Both: B: Interviewer: A & B: Interviewer: B: A: Interviewer: A (looking at B): Interviewer: A & B:

You have one at the top there about Japan being a rich country? It was like a background [the interviewer and the teacher had not used this word]. It was not in order, it was background, Japan is a rich country and the plates stuff, it’s not in any order. You are forming groups? Yes. I thought that they should end up in a line like a storyboard, but they didn’t all go [storyboards had not been mentioned]. Where have you used storyboards? In English. What didn’t fit? The backgrounds. There were the buildings and things that contributed to her death, but not directly. Have you done background before? Once or twice in Y8. We did not realise that we were doing it. New things kept cropping up and things changed . . . so it changed. We were looking at evidence and sorting and resorting. Have you looked at evidence before? In history. In history we do sources, which sources are reliable and which are unreliable.

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Discussion What begins to emerge is a pattern that bears close resemblance to the SOLO (Structure of Learning Outcomes) taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982). In analysing the work of hundreds of students of different ages in a variety of subjects Biggs and Collis detected a recurring pattern that they described in five levels – Prestructural, Unistructural, Multistructural, Relational and Extended Abstract. The SOLO taxonomy has Piagetian origins and each level is linked to a Piagetian stage. What follows is a description of the SOLO stages with some reference to how these stages relate to the stages observed as pupils do mysteries. Prestructural responses do not address the question or task set. Answers at best may just restate the question. Those groups who, if left unaided, can make no sense of the data in relation to the question could be considered to be showing a prestructural response. Unistructural responses use one piece of relevant data in a descriptive mode without a conclusion related to the data. The unistructural responses can be matched to the display stage, where data items, individually, are read and tested for relevance. Multistructural responses use two or more pieces of data, but without linking them strongly. The closest correspondence is to the setting stage, where the linkage between data items can be very tentative. Relational responses are qualitatively different as the student links the data together in coherent manner and reaches a conclusion consistent with the data. There is a correspondence with the webbing and sequencing stage, where pupils are moving towards theories and explanations. Extended abstract responses are characterised by the inclusion of data not given in the task, abstract concepts, a level of generalisation and the consideration of a number of competing hypotheses. This bears a resemblance to the reworking and abstract stages. This congruence between pupils’ work on mysteries and the SOLO taxonomy is highly significant. Mysteries allow teachers, through observing and listening, to gain access to pupils’ cognitive processes, in a way that is rarely available through other methods. The stages that we have described represent increasingly complex thinking, which is qualitatively different and underpins pupils’ ability to give explanations. That some groups of pupils do not proceed through all the stages indicates that they have difficulty in employing higher order thinking and as a result the quality of their explanations is limited. Observation, therefore, can give critical information to teachers about pupils’ cognitive skills and quality of thinking. We are acutely aware of the issues presented by the fact that pupils are working in groups rather than individually. Some teachers are concerned that the written work produced following a mystery does not necessarily represent the ability of the individual, rather that low achieving pupils have been helped by high achieving pupils. If assessment is solely concerned with grading students in a summative mode this viewpoint has some limited validity. However, if the purpose of assessment is diagnostic and formative then this concern is of no consequence. The group processes are likely to be helpful in generating understanding for all group members as ideas are pooled. The

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creation of ‘common knowledge’ through talk is widely recognised as an important route to learning (see for example Edwards & Mercer, 1993; Walkerdine, 1982) and one in which pupils may readily scaffold for one another. Brown & Campione (1990), Pontecorvo (1990) and Mason (1996) all highlight the importance of argument in group settings, in which pupils are called upon to give explicit reasons, explanations and justifications for their viewpoints. Thus, one pupil may be responsible for moving the thinking of a group from the setting stage to the sequencing and webbing stage. There are several examples within the videos and interviews where one pupil is in the lead in moving the data items and reasoning as they do so. Other pupils appear to benefit from this, as they listen and in some cases question. Pupils very rarely move the data items without speaking. On many occasions the collective resources of the group move them on without any teacher assistance, as can be seen in the first interview, where it is evident that one pupil has been doing all the talking during a part of the process. There is evidence from a number of studies (for example Webb, 1989) that individuals can learn from explaining to other group members and to a lesser extent, by receiving explanations. This is in contrast to the fear that high achieving pupils are held back in heterogeneous groups. This means that the teacher is diagnosing difficulties with cognitive skills when a group is stuck and has reached a collective impasse, or believes that it has ‘finished’. It is at this point that it is possible to pinpoint or diagnose the difficulty that pupils are having and to scaffold their next steps in dealing with the task. To return to the specification of scaffolding behaviours (Wood & Wood, 1996) which include highlighting critical features of the task that the child might overlook, demonstrating how to achieve goals and helping to control frustration, it will be valuable to sketch out two incidents captured on video which show the potential for such teacher behaviour. In the first case a low achieving group of 12 year olds were doing a mystery which concerns the disappearance of a tribe of Amazonian Indians. The data items included information about gold prospectors, water pollution, infectious diseases, hunting and gathering practices, poverty among the non-Indian population and so on. The group of four boys who were being videotaped were having great difficulty. The teacher visited them and pulled out a data item about the tribe’s water supply. She then asked them to find any other data items about water and left them to work alone, so that she could attend to other groups. Thus, she was diagnosing a weakness, shared by all the group in classifying/grouping data and going on to demonstrate how they could undertake the next stage in working towards a solution and in the process preventing them from becoming completely frustrated and going off-task. Once they had grouped several data items about water she returned to suggest that they might form a group about diseases and health. This allowed her on a third visit to start asking them about the possible connections both within and between these two groups of data items and thus they took their first steps in formulating an explanation. The second example comes from a contrasting group of 14–15 year olds of much higher ability who were doing a mystery which focused on who was to blame for the need to demolish a block of (public housing) flats in a British city. The data items included reference to the faulty materials and technology used in the building, the anti-social behaviour of some of the residents, the destruction of

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the community which lived in the terraced houses that was cleared to build the high-rise blocks, the cold, damp and physical deterioration of the building and the fears of residents in the flats with young children. One group of three girls initially sorted their data into two groups, one representing reasons for the demolition and the other against – in fact they were not addressing the task and were classifying in an unproductive manner. When this was pointed out to them they began to re-sort the data bearing in mind the need to attribute blame or reasons; this time they formed groups related to the local council, the builders, the anti-social residents and the government. It could be argued that the girls showed the ability to form sets, but because of the nature of the sets they had formed they could not proceed to linking them together to form an explanation. In the same class another group (not video-recorded) completely reworked their structure when the teacher pointed to an inconsistency in their explanation. Here it can be hypothesised that the teacher was highlighting critical features of the task which the pupils had not attended to. These two examples illustrate how the visibility of pupils’ cognitive skills, or lack of them, set within the context of the stages usually evident in pupils’ work on mysteries, allowed the teacher to diagnose their thinking and scaffold the next step for them. In essence, the teacher was trying to edge the pupils on to the next stage in their ability to reason and process data, although the individual steps may be rather small and take time to consolidate. It needs to be repeated that these possible scaffolding moves are only tenable because of the physical manipulation of single data items, an advantage not available in block text. The extent to which cognitive processing is encouraged by the strategy is illustrated by a 15 year old boy who said in interview that he wanted to be able to cut up the writing in text books because moving data around helped him so much. It is important to emphasise the principles of ‘contingent teaching’ at this point, that is, to ‘give more help when the learner gets into difficulty, and offer less help as they gain in proficiency’ (Wood & Wood, 1996: 7). Such principles are important not only because of the need to relinquish responsibility and control to pupils, but also because of the demands of class teaching, where many pupils need attention. This skill in the deployment of time and attention is acute because it is easy for teachers to be destructive in their visits to groups, by interrupting productive discussion. Furthermore, Bliss et al. (1996) have pointed to the difficulty that teachers have in implementing scaffolding strategies. The full potential of mysteries to support pupils’ learning is best exploited through a Vygotskyan perspective. There has been an evident renaissance of interest in Vygotsky’s work in Britain (for example, Daniels, 1996), not least because of the success of the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education project (Adey & Shayer, 1994), which has been shown to have improved pupils’ public examination results. Mysteries make pupils think and talk. Thinking is therefore appearing on a social plane (Vygotsky, 1962), allowing it to be internalised by all concerned. It is important to stress to pupils that talking and working together are desirable processes both in coming to an answer and in learning (Webb, 1994). Teachers can encourage this process by conducting a whole class discussion to debrief pupils, both to share solutions and to explore the thinking that has been used. It is through such discussion that metacognition is encouraged and pupils can begin to develop some control in their selection, execution

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and control of cognitive strategies (Flavell, 1987). In another lesson, videotaped as part of another project, 14–15 year old pupils are about to do a mystery on hurricanes. The teacher asked the pupils how they could go about tackling the task. They contributed six strategies including sorting more and less important reasons, making it into a story, working out a time sequence and sorting relevant from irrelevant information. Not only did they have a range of strategies but they had the beginnings of a language to talk about cognitive processes. Guided assessment (Brown et al., 1992) is a term employed to describe assessment used to test a child’s learning potential. This can be normative, seeking to identify pupils for referral, but it can also be more strongly diagnostic and formative, through trying to find the approach that will help each such child reach specified targets. Black & Wiliam’s (1998) review of formative assessment indicated that most assessment performed by teachers is very routine, not thought through and informs neither teaching nor learning. One of the challenges of professionalism in teaching is bringing assessment and teaching closer together. The observation of pupils doing mysteries is a significant step in this direction. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to David Leat, Department of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, St Thomas Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 3RU, UK ([email protected]). References Adey, P. and Shayer, M. (1994) Really Raising Standards. London: Routledge. Biggs, J. and Collis, K. (1982) Evaluating the Quality of Learning: The Structure of Learning Outcomes. New York: Academic Press. Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998) Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education 5. Bliss, J., Askew, M. and Macrae, S. (1996) Effective teaching and learning: Scaffolding revisited. Oxford Review of Education 22, 37–61. Brown, A.L. and Campione, J.C. (1990) Communities of learning and thinking, or a context by any other name. In D. Kuhn (ed.) Developmental Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Thinking Skills. Contributions to Human Development Series. Basle: Karger. Brown, A.L., Campione, J.C., Webber, L.S. and McGilly K. (1992) Interactive learning environments: A new look at assessment and instruction. In B.R. Gifford and M.C. O’Connor (eds) Alternative Views of Aptitude, Achievement and Instruction. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Bullough, R., Kauchak, D., Crow, N., Hobbs, S. and Stokes, D. (1997) Professional development schools: Catalysts for teacher and school change. Teaching and Teacher Education 13, 153–69. Daniels, H. (ed.) (1996) An Introduction to Vygotsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, P. (1997) A report on schools’ use of teacher assessment guidance for geography in Key Stage 3. Unpublished report to SCAA. Department of Education and Science (1988) Task Group on Assessment and Testing: A Report. London: HMSO. Edwards, D. and Mercer, N. (1993) Common Knowledge: The Development of Understanding in the Classroom. London: Routledge. Feuerstein, R. (1980) Instrumental Enrichment. Baltimore: University Park Press. Flavell, J.H. (1987) Speculations about the nature and development of metacognition. In F. Weinert and R. Klauwe (eds) Metacognition,Motivationand Understanding.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Gifford, B.R. and O’Connor, M.C. (eds) (1992) Alternative Views of Aptitude, Achievement and Instruction. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Harlen, W. and James, M. (1996) Assessment and learning: Differences and relationships between formative and summative assessment. Paper presented at the European Educational Research Conference, Seville, Spain, September 1996. Hillage, J., Pearson, R. Anderson, A. and Tamkin, P. (1998)Excellence in Research on Schools. A Report for the Department for Education and Employment. Sussex University, Institute for Employment Studies. Hultman, G. and Horberg, C. (1995) Teachers’ informal rationality: Understanding how teachers utilize research knowledge. European Educational Research Association Bulletin 1, 3–10. Leat, D. (1997) Getting ambiguous. Educating Able Children 1, 17–25. Leat, D. (ed.) (1998) Thinking Through Geography. Cambridge: Chris Kington Publishing. Mason, L. (1996) An analysis of children’s construction of new knowledge through their use of reasoning and arguing in classrooms. Qualitative Studies in Education 3, 411–33. Northumberland County Council (1997) Northumberland ‘Thinking Skills’ in the Humanities Project. Morpeth: Northumberland County Council. Pontecorvo, C. (1990) Social context, semiotic mediation, and forms of discourse in constructing knowledge at school. In H. Mandl, E. De Corte, S. Bennett and H. Friedrich (eds) Learning and Instruction, European Research in an International Context. Vol. 2(1) Analysis of Complex Skills and Complex Knowledge Domains (pp. 1–26). Oxford: Pergamon. SCAA (1996) Key Stage 3 Optional Tests and Tasks: Geography Unit 2. London: SCAA. Stanford, G. (1990) Developing Effective Classroom Groups – A Practical Guide for Teachers (adapted for British edition by Pam Stoate). Bristol: Acora Books. Tharp, R.G. and Gallimore, R. (1988) Rousing Minds to Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1962) Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in Society, the Development of Higher Psychological Processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberman (eds)). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walkerdine, V. (1982) From context to text: A psychosemiotic approach to abstract thought. In M. Beveridge (ed.) Children Thinking Through Language. London: Edward Arnold. Webb, N. (1989) Peer interaction and learning in small groups. International Journal of Educational Research 13, 21–40. Webb, N. (1994) Group Collaboration in Assessment: Competing Objectives, Processes and Outcomes (CSE technical report 386). Los Angeles: National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST), University of California. Wood, D., Bruner, J.S. and Ross, G. (1976) The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 17, 89–100. Wood, D. and Wood, H. (1996) Vygotsky, tutoring and learning. Oxford Review of Education 22, 5–16.

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International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education

Appendix: The Lost Livesock of Loxley Coppice Farm This mystery explores the impact of changing agricultural systems on the environment. Following an introductory discussion of a current agricultural issue such as BSE, pupils study the business cards of two neighbouring farms. Photographs of appropriate farming landscapes may be used to clarify the contexts. Pupils in groups of three or four are then provided with an envelope of data slips and set the task of finding out why livestock has started disappearing from the organic farm.

Business cards

BROADACRE FARM Proprietors: Fergus Massey & Son Cereals, potatoes and fodder in bulk. Machinery for short-term hire. Tel. Staunton 683747

For real food with natural goodness – LOXLEY COPPICE FARM & SHOP Proprietors: Jenny and Don Blackthorn Organic vegetables, B.S.E.-free cows & goats’ milk, freerange chicken and duck eggs, meat from our own freezer, P.Y.O. soft fruit, meadow flower honey.

Tel: Staunton 683010

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Information slips Foxes are carnivores. They live in underground dens which are often enlarged rabbit burrows.

The roots of trees and bushes help support rabbit burrows.

In Great Britain between 1984 and 1990 138,000 km of hedges were removed. 75,000 km of fences were constructed.

The co-operative that the Blackthorns belong to has just signed a contract with the Asbury supermarket chain to supply organic vegetables at top prices.

Burrows have appeared on the fairways and bunkers. The golf club has just called in a pest control company to deal with it.

Cereal crops, hedges and long grass provide food and cover for birds and insects. Around 20 species of mammal and 30 species of bird live in hedgerows.

Stoats and weasels eat eggs and chicks of ground-nesting birds. Mice are vegetarian.

Leythorpe Hunt is considering breeding foxes in captivity.

The Blackthorns use only natural fertilisers, such as manure, to keep their soil fertile.

The Blackthorns have banned the Leythorpe hunt from crossing their land, despite strong local pressure.

The Blackthorns have just ordered higher fencing for their chicken run.

All livestock on Loxley Coppice Farm is free-range.

Before sowing last year’s crops Mr Massey amalgamated his fields. Where there were 21 fields before there are now only 9.

Golfers complain about the smell from Loxley Coppice Farm especially when they are muckspreading.

Young Ryan Blackthorn has a diploma in hedge laying from agricultural college.

Ray Massey is a qualified farm mechanic. He is also a good shot.

Broadacres is an intensive arable farm using large quantities of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilisers and much machinery.

Loxley Coppice Farm has a large duck pond and newly-planted mixed woodland.

Mr Massey has recently bought a new crop sprayer and a very large combine harvester. The combine is more efficient in large fields.

Over the last 25 years, some common farmland bird populations have been in steep decline: Partridge 82%, Song Thrush 73%, Skylark 58%, Swallow 43%.

To stop over-production of cereals, farmers receive grants from the EU to “set aside” 20% of their arable land for other uses, such as fallow.

Many farmers have been losing livestock and rustling is suspected. An old van has been seen parked in odd places in country lanes.

Government grants are available for:

If crops or weeds in “set aside” are cut before late July many eggs and young birds are destroyed.

Planting mixed woodland; l Creating wetland habitats; l Leaving arable land fallow. l

Autumn sown crops have become much more popular in recent years because they can be harvested earlier.

Cheap meat is often “on offer” around local pubs.

The Common Agricultural Policy has, in the past, led to highly intensive farming, overproduction and damage to the environment.

The CAP guaranteed prices encouraged farmers to grow as much food as possible, with grants for increasing the amount of land under production. This led to food mountains.

Reproduced with permission from the authors from Thinking Through Geography, Leat, D, ed., (1998) Cambridge: Chris Kington Publishing.