I found Collins’ et al. ‘Cognitive Apprenticeship…” and Linkon’s ‘Visible Knowledge Project’ complemented each other’s overarching message quite nicely; while one aims to make the invisible, visible, the other subtly steers students through similar mental, albeit metaphorical environment of dense fog.  Both share a messy, complicated perspective of reading and understanding context—and if students were only made aware of said complexity—that’s half the battle.  The aforementioned statement is half true.

To sincerely take on exploring a complicated text with a “multilayered, shifting, complex, and often contradictory” meaning, implies one must embrace a level of unknown chaos.  As Joy alluded too, students, whether they know it or not, love structure.  So while Collins and Linkon flush out all the mental clutter in the world, the fact remains, higher order reading comprehension is a bungled ball of brain yarn.  Getting students to accept learning is messy—THAT’S half the battle.

It would seem Linkon, although subtly and mentioned briefly, would agree: “For students, however, this way of thinking about reading can be challenging, in part because it contradicts the assumption they have been taught about texts: that texts have set meanings that are available for identification by the informed reader, and that the purpose of reading a text is to locate and define its meaning…they read to find “the answer (1).”  I’m going to extend and push Linkon’s view, to that with a holistic sense of learning.  As Collins’ pointed out “…in solving mathematics problems, students rely on their knowledge of standard textbook patterns of problem presentation rather than on their own knowledge of problem-solving strategies or intrinsic properties of the problems themselves (2).”  Students stubbornly and knowingly avoid thought-driven entanglement—about any subject.

So how we do get students to overcome memorizing skills as “stitching buttonholes”, rather become aware and embrace idea knots so they can learn, absorb, and transfer skills throughout their educational tenure—and more importantly beyond?  We coach.

I was delighted at Collins’ pedagogical approach; personally speaking, my best teachers took on a coach role, over an instructor.  Similar, but pivoting slightly from the sample, in a few weeks I will introduce Socratic discussions/questioning.  Talk about magic! I love that day! Its like academic 20 questions, only better; the partners are given a sheet with several questions, the first being “What is History?”, then half way through “How many of the events during a given time period are left out in a history of that time period?, finally, “How can we begin to judge a historical point of view?.”  Circling back to the idea of chaos, this exercise exposes, and holds their hand while they realize our harsh reality: all questions don’t have one answer.  More importantly, I could easily stand in front of the class instructing such a comment until my face turned blue, but I coached and “oversaw the students’ [independent] learning” (Linkon 2).  I’ve observed students hold and cherish an idea/concept more, once they make it “their own.”  And coaching cuts out the middleman holding up this, selfish possession process—aka you, the teacher.  By putting critical thinking, analyzing skills, a broader worldly perspective, and discussion questions on a silver platter for students to take, it automatically becomes their own.  Which, when applied again, makes students much more engaged and generates an expansive effect on their classroom participation and overall comprehension.