Facts come first

As I continue reading, in preparation for the upcoming 6411 Cognition and Learning course, I am struck by a statement made by D. Willingham, in Why Don’t Students Like School, that teaching analysis or synthesis, and the ability to think critically, requires extensive factual knowledge (p. 25). This has significance for the critical digital literacy course which I teach – without factual knowledge about digital literacies, how can students think critically about these topics? How can students acquire factual knowledge about these topics within the content of the course, in order to think deeply about digital literacy? Where have I structured the course design in order to bring both factual and critical skills into the learning events?

Since background knowledge is an essential element of any inquiry project or learning unit, it’s important to gain some understanding of the topic – taking time to read about the topic, learn key terms, understand definitions, read work done by people who are writing or creating about the topic. Willingham states “background knowledge in the form of vocabulary is not only necessary in order to understand a single idea (call it A), but it’s necessary in order to understand the connections between two ideas (A and B)” (p. 33). This brings to mind the connectivist theoretical view of how current digital environments enable these inter-idea connections to occur, not only within an individual brain, but between and among individuals who are connected through digital media. This extends the connections of ideas and background knowledge from an individual to collective endeavour. For example, I may have extensive background knowledge about digital literacy. By networking with others who don’t have similar reserves of information stored in long term memory, we can collectively build understanding and think deeply about a specific topic.

Understanding more about this theory and how it shifts my thinking about thinking, learning, and building factual knowledge, comes from the following conversation between Steve Paiken and George Siemens.

These thoughts build my basic background knowledge about connectivism and connected learning, providing additional facts to my long term repository of information, readily available both in my individual mind, and here in my collective recall location.

Reference

Siemens, G. (2014). Overview of connectivism – Dr. George Siemens. Web-video. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx5VHpaW8sQ

Siemens, G. (2013, September 26). George Siemens: Changing schools, changing knowledge. Web-video. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/JR_ziHA_8LY

Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don’t students like school? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Image attribution – Photo by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash