MYP: Mind The Gap [MA Assignment]

Stephen Taylor (@sjtylr) Understanding Learners and Learning

MYP: Mind the Gap
Tensions in transitions between the International Baccalaureate’s
Middle Years (MYP) and Diploma (DP) programmes:
A pragmatic approach to finding a balance between the approaches
to inquiry of John Dewey and L.S. Vygotsky.
Stephen Taylor
MA International Education
University of Bath
Assignment brief:
“A critical analysis of an issue related to learners and learning.”
This is an assignment for the University of Bath MA in International Education,
Understanding Learners & Learning unit, uploaded with permission from my tutor and
posted here as part of my professional learning portfolio.
It builds on some of my blog posts (ibiologystephen.wordpress.com) and adds some
theoretical background to my MYP Mind the Gap: Tensions in Transitions breakout
session at the IB Asia Pacific regional conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2013.
Given a greater scope for the assignment, I would build on the final section connecting
current research to the discussion more clearly, though I have done this in some blog
posts already (and it didn’t really fit). I’ve jazzed up the presentation of this paper a wee
bit for the purpose of posting to the blog. Any oddities are on SlideShare.
My definition of inquiry, based on this research and follow-up work:
See blogposts here: https://ibiologystephen.wordpress.com/2016/02/27/defining-inquiry/
“Inquiry is critical, creative, reflective thought, built on a foundation of well-
taught knowledge, skills and concepts, that invites learners to take action on
their learning and ask “what if…?”

Stephen Taylor (@sjtylr) Understanding Learners & Learning
iBiologyStephen.wordpress.com 2
Introduction
“All social movements involve conflicts, which are reflected intellectually
in controversies. It would not be a sign of health is such an important
social interest as education were not also a source of struggles, practical
and theoretical.”
(Dewey, 1938, p.5)
The transition from the International Baccalaureate’s (IB) Middle Years
Programme (MYP), an international curriculum and assessment framework for
students aged 11-16, to the higher-stakes Diploma Programme (DP), serving
students aged 16-18 and acting largely as a globally-recognized university-entry
pathway, is a microcosm of dialogue on educational principles and practices that
represents debates about the nature of education that have been raging for
centuries and show little sign of abating. I currently teach sciences in the MYP
and the DP, as well as acting as MYP Coordinator in an international school in
Japan after being a DP Coordinator in a school in Indonesia. Over the last ten
years I have seen changes throughout the IB continuum of programmes, and
through my own professional and academic learning have encountered multiple
facets of tension across the transition between programmes.
The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) has been working
hard to ease these tensions with significant current overhauls of the MYP (the
Next Chapter) and a shift to a more concept-based DP. Yet in my anecdotal
experience there is skepticism across the MYP-DP ‘gap,’ as MYP-purist teachers
decry the dogmatic approach of their DP counterparts and some content-oriented
DP teachers criticize the MYP for ‘not preparing students well enough’ for high-
stakes assessment. In this assignment, I aim to explore these tensions in the
transition from MYP to DP from the perspective of the cognitive/rationalist and
behaviourist/empiricist views of learning and to further explore the contentious
issue of inquiry through the similarities and differences between the beliefs of
educational philosophers John Dewey and L.S. Vygotsky.
I propose that some of the fundamental disagreements between
practitioners across the MYP-DP ‘Gap’ are the result of a false dichotomy and

central to this analysis is a careful (re)definition of the term inquiry to mean
critical and reflective thought (Elkjaer, 2009), and that through application of
recent findings in educational research with regard to what makes effective
teaching and learning (Hattie, 2012) teachers can act as mediators of inquiry (in
Vygotsky’s sense) in order to work to the borders of a student’s Zone of Proximal
Development.
I opened with John Dewey’s quote on controversy as a sign of health in
education, from his 1938 text Experience and Education, as a provocation for the
discussion to come but also as part of the reflection of a lifelong educator. It is an
influential book for me as a learner and a leader as he writes from the
perspective of years of his own experience, the polemic views of his youth
somewhat tempered by the pragmatism that comes with age and the testing of
one’s theories over time through debate and practical reality, and quotes from
this text serve an inspiration for various sections of this paper. I can appreciate
this journey, mirroring my own transition over the last ten years from idealistic
fledgling IB educator to a more pragmatic and critical proponent of both
internationalism and ‘effective’ teaching and learning. I see his early ideas on
education and its role in society as being in line with my own strong values with
regard to internationalism, and the mission of the IBO to “develop inquiring,
knowledgeable and caring young people,” who are encouraged to become “active,
compassionate and lifelong learners,” (IBO, 2012), yet, in more recent years (and
in line with updates to the IB’s MYP, I have taken an increasingly evidence-
based approach to pedagogy. As a result I feel personal dissonance with the
debate of either-or in terms of inquiry versus direct instruction or between
student-generated learning versus high-impact practices; as Dewey put it, I
would rather “think in terms of Education itself rather than in terms of some
‘ism about education, even such an ‘ism as progressivism.” (Dewey, 1938, p.6). I
hope with this paper to be able to outline a position that focuses not on ‘picking
sides’ but on finding a common ground for success across the MYP-DP gap.

Defining Learning
“The history of educational theory is marked by opposition between the
idea that education is development from within and that it is formation
from without; that it is based natural endowments and that education is a
process of overcoming natural inclination and substituting in its place
habits acquired under external pressure.”
(Dewey, 1938, p.17, emphasis mine)
As far back as ancient Greece, with the emergence of the trivium
(grammar, dialectic and rhetoric), ideas about how we learn and should therefore
teach have been in competition (Robinson, 2013), with the grammar and
dialectic approaches of most relevance to this paper. The grammar, defined as
early as Dionysius Thrax’s (170-90 BCE) writings, highlights the study,
discipline and tradition of language, and of the knowledge passed from teacher
to student. However Socrates’ (and subsequently Plato’s) dialectic (or logic) - the
modern - emphasizes the nature of questioning knowledge and challenging the
status quo (Robinson, 2013). Almost a century ago the same debate was, in
essence, still taking place between Vygotsky (most closely aligned with the
grammar) and Dewey (the dialectic).
As the field of educational research has grown this debate can be
encompassed by three broader views of learning: the cognitive/rationalist view
(with which the inquiry-focused MYP teacher might more strongly identify), the
behaviourist/empiricist view (to which a typical exam-focused DP teacher might
belong) (Greeno et al., 1996). This tension continues to the modern day, with
competing ideologies vying for control over education and assessment; there is
perceived disconnect between the ideals of inquiry-based (constructivist)
learning - Dewey’s ‘formation from within’ - and practices of ‘direct instruction’
(formation from without) that are seen to help prepare students for high-stakes
testing and university entry. Parallel to this is the pragmatic/sociohistoric view,
to which Dewey and Vygotsky are classified and within which we see varying
perspectives on the nature of inquiry and its relation to the community (Greeno
et al., 1996).

In we are to effectively ease the tension and further the discussion, we
need a working definition of learning. According to Knud Illeris (2009, p.7)
“Learning can broadly be defined as any process that in living organisms leads to
permanent capacity change and which is not solely due to biological maturation
or ageing.” In simpler terms, Greeno et al. (1996), define learning as simply “the
process by which knowledge is increased or modified,” and transfer as “the
process of applying knowledge in new situations.” In each case, learning is
defined as a process, the implication being that education is the catalyst for that
process, the system within which permanent capacity change is facilitated,
leading to an increase in or modification of knowledge. To characterize the
nature of the process is to engage with opposing views of education. The
practical conceptualizations of learning – curriculum, pedagogy and assessment -
can look very different depending on which view one takes and I will outline the
three major perspectives here, each in terms of epistemology, learning and
transfer.
With a focus on the open-ended, transferable and conceptual, the inquiry-
driven MYP class has a strong sense of the cognitive/rationalist view of learning,
suiting the dialectician as a teacher. The C/R perspective “emphasizes
understanding of concepts and theories in different subject matter domains and
general cognitive abilities, such as reasoning, planning, solving problems
comprehending language” (Greeno et al., 1996). Learning is understood as “a
constructive process of conceptual growth,” and through this constructivist
approach transfer is based on the assertion that “concepts and principles of a
domain are designed to provide generality [...] assumed to depend on an abstract
mental representation in the form of a schema that designates relations that
compose a structure that is invariant across situations“ (Greeno et al., 1996). In
terms of practical conceptualization, the C/R classroom would be one of
interactive environments, problem-solving (or problem-based learning) and
group-work, in which a process of modeling and transfer of conceptual learning
to new situations would be used to develop reasoning and higher-order thinking
skills, as characterized through Blooms’ taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956). Students
may (or may not) have input in the design of the curriculum. However, these
methodologies take time – more time than required to cover the same content

under didactic methods - and so if there is a criticism of the MYP it tends to
come, in my experience, from teachers who are more concerned with the
coverage of content and backwash-effect of high-stakes testing.
In contrast these test-oriented practitioners better fit the
behaviorist/empiricist (B/E) view of learning, which sees knowledge as an
“organized accumulation of associations and components of skills,” where
learning is the “formation, strengthening and adjustment” of associations
between stimulus and response (Greeno et al., 1996). Transfer is dependent on a
gradient of similarity between the known and the unknown, or “how many and
which kinds of associations needed in the new situation have already been
acquired in the previous situation.” (Greeno et al., 1996) This, perhaps
reductionist, view of learning and the implications for practical
conceptualization favour a learning environment in which the subject-area
expertise of the teacher and the transmission of information are key, through
which knowledge and skills are trained and tested and students are given
explicit, content-oriented feedback for improvement. This approach is highly
operable by the exam-oriented teacher or the grammarian: a clear set of goals
can be defined, with limited parameters and a finite amount of time and
resources in which to demonstrate competence. Where assessment might be
more narrow-focused it might also be more reliable, generating large quantities
of data that could be used for investigation into the impacts of pedagogical
practices. I will return to this idea of measuring effect size of learning
interventions later.
As the organizational beliefs on education may remain stable through a
continuum of education with a common misson, the nature of educational
experience across the MYP-DP can show its own transition from the C/R view to
the B/E view on learning and pedagogy. We need to then build on Illeris and
Greeno et al.’s definitions of learning with one that recognizes the role of this
experience in the process of change. I propose the use of David Kolb’s definition
of learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the
transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984, p.38) (emphasis mine) in (Elkjaer,
2009, p.84), in which experience can be interchanged, dependent on context, with
such terms as culture or practice (Elkjaer, 2009, p.75; Glassman, 2001).

Experience “is the concept Dewey used to denote the relation between
‘subject’ (individual) and worlds, as well as between action and thinking,
between human existence and becoming knowledgeable about selves and worlds
of which they are a part.” (Elkjaer, 2009, p.78) In this sense, Dewey’s concept of
experience “is characterized by reaching forward towards the unknown”
(Elkjaer, 2009, p.80), and as a result “experience occurs when habitual action
and thinking are disturbed and calls for inquiry.” (Elkjaer, 2009, p.86).
(emphasis mine) Building on these definitions (and in the context of schooling),
we can see learning as a permanent change in capacity of the individual that
arises as the result of the purposeful application of education; a process through
which the relationship between knowledge, self and worlds is moulded by the
experience of the learner, which is itself given meaning and future application
(transferability) by the process of inquiry. And it is this term - inquiry - that acts
as the battleground for debate between the modern C/R teachers of the MYP and
the B/E teachers of the exam-oriented DP courses.
A pragmatic approach to inquiry
“Basing education upon personal experience may mean more multiplied
and more contacts between the mature and the immature than ever
existed in the traditional school, and consequently more, rather than less,
guidance by others. The problem, then, is: how these contacts can be
established without violating the principle of learning through personal
experience.”
(Dewey, 1938, p.21)
At the crux of the perceived disconnect between the MYP and the DP is
term inquiry and what might be a skewed perception of its meaning; in its
loosest educational sense, inquiry refers to a student-driven educational
experience, one in which all learning outcomes are directed by the child.
However, even the IB’s Primary Years Programme, seen as the most open-ended
of the continuum, defines inquiry as being “structured and purposeful” but in

which the students are engaged “actively in their own learning.” (IBO, 2009,
p.29) This interpretation is highly important as it articulates the need for the
teacher (and the curriculum) to provide the purpose (objectives) and the
structure (instruction, learning engagements) under which the students may
best learn.
The IBO builds further on their description of inquiry, as a process in
which the student is “invited to investigate significant issues by formulating
their own questions,” where the goal is “active construction of meaning.” (IBO,
2009, p.29) The practical conceptualization of this is a curriculum in which units
of inquiry are carefully planned by expert teachers and modified to include the
genuine (and significant) interests of the students. As a result, the nature of
inquiry is developed as “critical and reflective thinking,” (Elkjaer, 2009, p.75),
and it is this definition of inquiry that I propose we use across the continuum.
This can be modified further to include the pragmatic approach, in
Dewey’s sense: “pragmatism is a method to think and act in a creative
(imaginative) and future-oriented (i.e. consequential) manner. (Elkjaer, 2009,
p.77). This pragmatic approach to inquiry can be applied to learning across the
IB continuum with ease and clarity, for even the most structured of the IB’s DP
exams and assessments require students to go beyond the simple recollection of
facts into the application, synthesis and evaluation of ideals; students are
required to be able to select and modify their learning to solve problems in
unknown situations. The accomplished learner must act as a pragmatist, who
recognizes that “the situation determines which concepts and theories are useful
for analysis of a given problem” (Elkjaer, 2009, p.77), and who can use these as
tools “to transform a difficult situation to one that is manageable and
comfortable for the subject” (Elkjaer, 2009, p.77).
We must ourselves be pragmatists and think, as Dewey noted, about how
the contacts between the mature and immature (the expert and the novice) can “
can be established without violating the principle of learning through personal
experience.” (Dewey, 1938, p.21) In order to do this, we can consider the ideas of
L.S. Vygostky and then the findings of more recent educational research on how
we learn and inquire.

Greeno et al. present Dewey and Vygotsky as figureheads of the
situitive/pragmatist-sociohistoric (S/P) view of learning, in which knowledge is
“distributed among people and their environment” and learning is interactive,
taking place “by a group or individual (and) involves becoming attuned to
constraints and affordances of material and social systems with which they
interact” (Greeno et al., 1996). In the situitive sense, success is determined more
by successful participation in the community, rather than through subsets of
skills or tasks, and “the practices of a community provide facilitating and
inhibiting patterns that organize the group’s activities and the participation of
individuals who are attuned to those regularities” (Greeno et al., 1996).
Although there are similarities between the views of Dewey and Vygotsky, their
differences lie in their pragmatist (Dewey) and sociohistoric (Vygotsky)
approaches to inquiry and the relationships between learning and the
community (Greeno et al., 1996; Glassman, 2001).
Both Dewey and Vygotsky recognized a strong interplay between the self
and the social history (or ‘culture’), yet the directions of these interactions were
somewhat opposite: in Dewey’s view, the child was a ‘free agent’ whose personal
experience informs her thinking, which in turn contributes to the intellectual
social tools of the culture (Glassman, 2001). On other hand, Vygotsky placed
emphasis on the role of the social history of the culture as determining the ‘tools’
of education: as the child develops through her learning, she is better equipped
to be part of the culture, and so her learning serves a social purpose over the
personal intellectual (Glassman, 2001).
Inquiry as Pedagogy
“It is through the mediation of others, through the mediation of the adult
that the child undertakes activities. Absolutely everything in the
behaviour of the child is merged and rooted in social relations. “
Vygotsky, 1932, in (Daniels, 2001, p.18)
The concept of mediation by the learned adult highlights both the
similarities and the differences between Dewey and Vygotsky’s ideas about
inquiry and pedagogy. From the constructivist perspective, both recognized the

role of social interaction in the process of learning. However Dewey was rather
less the developmentalist than Vygotsky and was concerned more with the child
as a ‘free-thinker’ whose learning was a result of facilitation by the adult
(Glassman, 2001). Dewey’s adult (the facilitator) was responsible for the creation
of opportunities for inquiry – or authentic ‘long-term projects’ - through which
the child would develop the pragmatic use of concepts and ideas (Glassman,
2001). Although he promoted free inquiry, Dewey was careful to determine the
importance of the adult facilitator as an expert learner:
“A primary responsibility of educators is that they […] recognize in the
concrete what surroundings are conducive to having experiences that led to
growth. Above all, they should know how to utilize the surroundings, physical
and social, that exist so as to extract from them all they have to contribute to
building up experiences that are worth while.”
(Dewey, 1938, p.40, emphasis mine)
In comparison, Vygotsky’s approach to inquiry and the role of the teacher
is more directive and purpose-driven; where Dewey’s inquiry works from the
inside-out, Vygotsky’s is from the outside-in (Glassman, 2001), whereby the
culture determines the curriculum (Lawton, 1975) and through which learning is
driven by a process of adult mediation (Daniels, 2001, p.18). This draws parallels
with the transition from MYP to DP, as the framework of the MYP curriculum
model and the later prescription of the written and assessed curriculum of the
DP appear to sit in greater alignment with Vygotsky’s approach to guided
inquiry (Glassman, 2001) than to Dewey’s more open-ended philosophy.
Vygotsky’s adult is an interlocutor, possessor of the knowledge of the culture and
guide to the ‘neophyte’ (child’s) learning (Glassman, 2001), who makes expert
use of the ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD) to steer the child’s path of
learning towards the goal of becoming an active participant in the culture
(Glassman, 2001; Daniels, 2001, p.58).
The zone of proximal development is an enduring concept in pedagogy
that allows for multiple interpretations and applications, though it is important
to note, as did Vygotsky, that instruction (the actions of the adult interlocutor)

and development (the learning of the neophyte) do not coincide (Daniels, 2001,
p.58). This is to say that the experience of learning created by the instructor
must create a dissonance in the learner, or a gap between what they know and
where they need to be in order to progress. It is the role of the adult to create
that gap and to expertly guide the learner across it, not through presentation of
pure fact but through challenge. However:
“Vygotsky never specified the forms of social assistance to learners that
constitute a ZPD…. He wrote about collaboration and direction, and about
assisting children ‘through demonstration, leading questions, and by
introducing the initial elements of the task’s solution’…but did not specify
beyond these general prescriptions”.
(Moll, 1990, p. 11, in Daniels, 2001, p.59)
Moll further suggests that
“The focus of change within the ZPD should be on the creation,
development and communication of meaning through the collaborative use
of mediational means rather than on the transfer of skills from the more
to less capable partner.”
(Daniels, 2001, p.60 emphasis mine)
This returns us to the nature of inquiry as critical reflective thought, in a
pragmatic sense, and the emphasis on collaboration and meaning continue to
align with the IB’s guidance on inquiry mentioned earlier. I assert that by
combining these ideals and practices into a pedagogy of pragmatic inquiry,
centred around Vygostky’s ZPD, that we can overcome perceived tensions in the
transition between the MYP and the DP.

The Gap: A modern approach to the Zone of Proximal Development
“It does not follow that all authority is rejected, but rather that there is
need to search for a more effective source of authority.”
(Dewey, 1938, p.21)
The ZPD is further enhanced by the description of two further zones by
Valsiner (1997): the Zone of Free Movement (ZFM), which describes the
constraints (and possibilities) of the learner’s access to the environment, and the
Zone of Promoted Action (ZPA), which describes the encouraged actions
(engagements) that might take the learner through and beyond the ZFM
(Valsiner, 1997), summarized in (Daniels, 2001, pp.61-64). If we consider these
zones in combination with our pragmatic approach to inquiry, we can see the
outline of a framework of pedagogical practices that could promote learning, yet
is in need of an evidential foundation.
In our search for a more effective source of authority.” (Dewey, 1938,
p.21), we may look to more recent educational research for inspiration on the
choice of practices that will promote effective action and facilitate the learner’s
growth. With Visible Learning for Teachers (2012) and Visible Learning and the
Science of How We Learn (2013), John Hattie builds on his wide-ranging 2008
meta-analyses to provide teachers with a toolbox of strategies to use in the
classroom in order to achieve ‘effective’ learning. Using decades of educational
research data, he provides us with ‘effect sizes’ for various learning interventions
(strategies), noting that almost all actions we take as teachers cause learning
(d>0), but an impact score of d=0.4 represents the mean average achievement of
a student in a normal class, in a normal year; the student who advances by one
academic grade level. He defines high-impact practices (d>0.6) and urges
teachers to use these data to inform their educational decision-making. It is
important to note, though, that although these data are from incredibly large
meta-analyses and so are statistically reliable, the underlying practices are
potentially highly-variable. Furthermore, these data are backward-looking, not
predictive, so a teacher’s own implementation may experience a different level of
success. Finally, as is the nature of assessment, these data tend to come from the

results of standardized tests and it is not always our intention to educate
students with these in mind – though with the MYP-DP gap under discussion in
this paper, this is an important consideration.
These data do provide signposts for teachers as we design educational
experiences for students, and Hattie is able to use them to exemplify the
difference between teachers as facilitators of learning and as activators of
learning (Hattie & Yates, 2013, p.73). He asserts that as a result of employing
successful high-impact strategies, we can close ‘the Gap’ between where the
learner is and where he needs to be.
Teacher as Facilitator d Teacher as Activator d
Inductive teaching 0.33 Teaching students self-verbalisation 0.76
Simulation and gaming 0.32 Teacher clarity 0.75
Inquiry-based* teaching 0.31 Reciprocal teaching 0.74
Smaller classes 0.21 Feedback 0.74
Individualized instruction 0.22 Metacognitive strategies 0.67
Web-based learning 0.18 Direct instruction 0.59
Problem-based learning 0.15 Mastery learning 0.57
‘Discovery’ mathematics 0.11 Providing worked examples 0.57
Whole language instruction 0.06 Providing goals 0.50
Student control over learning 0.04 Frequent testing (testing effect) 0.46
Behavioural organisers 0.41
Average Facilitator 0.19 Average Activator 0.61
*this refers to more open-ended inquiry, rather than our working definition of pragmatic
inquiry as critical, reflective thought.
There appears to be a clear division in the effectiveness of methods
favoured by the practical conceptualizations of the cognitive/rationalist view
(facilitator) and the behaviorist/empirical view (activator) of learning and
anecdotally this is used as justification for resistance to inquiry as a method of
lerning in MYP as we prepare students for DP. Similarly, we can identify some
of the practices favoured by Dewey (facilitator: inquiry-based, problem-based,
student-control over learning), and Vygotsky (activator: self-verbalisation,
feedback, reciprocal teaching). These meta-analyses support the connection
between the actions of the teacher and the learning of the student and that if we

have to meet goals of high-stakes assessment, then we ought to adopt higher-
impact practices. This is not to suggest, though, that we remove inquiry from the
curriculum. On the contrary, Hattie’s meta-analyses are but one set of learning
impacts; in others, inquiry-based learning scores much higher, with an
increasing impact on reasoning and critical thinking (Mayer & Alexander, 2010,
p.372). Instead we should use these ideas in combination to outline a pedagogy
for effective inquiry: we engage students in critical reflective thought in order to
form meaning and we employ practices that will afford them robust raw
materials (foundational knowledge) upon which they can build deeper learning.
The power of prior (mis)learning
“The belief that genuine education comes about through experience does
not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.[…] Any
experience is miseducative that has the effect of arresting or distorting the
growth of further experience.”
(Dewey, 1938, p.25)
It seems Dewey recognized early on the power of misconception in
arresting the development of later learning and the importance of the learning
experience in creating or removing that ill-conceived concept. Hattie recognizes
that prior learning effects are very powerful (d=1.04), and quotes David Ausubel
as saying “the most important single factor that influences learning is what the
learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly” (Hattie &
Yates, 2013, p.114). Implicit in this statement are a number of factors. First, the
nature of the knowledge gap and the diversity of learners that enter our
classrooms, for each possess his own zone of proximal development and a
different stage of readiness to learn the objectives of our course or lesson.
Through employing high-impact strategies such as self-assessment (now
‘student expectations’ d=1.44), formative assessment (d=0.73) and through
giving effective feedback (d=0.74), we can acknowledge the zone of free
movement and promote actions that will move learning forward for that student.
The second implication is that we “teach him accordingly,” rather than perhaps

“teach the content clearly.” It places the emphasis on the teacher as a guide to
learning, in Vygotsky’s sense; the curriculum content may indeed be a product of
the culture, but access to that knowledge is activated by the instructor, who
must employ high-impact methods that will work for that learner. The third
implication is the importance of what the student already knows, for no student
enters our classroom a blank slate. If a student has a strong prior knowledge of a
concept or field of learning, this will have a high positive impact on his learning;
it is “easier to build on coherently organized existing knowledge than it is to
learn new materials de novo” (Hattie & Yates, 2013, p.114). Conversely,
misconception “will create an obstacle, an effect called interference.”
Inquiry needs raw materials and we cannot create a critical reflective
thinker without the content upon which a conceptual foundation can be built. We
have seen that a ‘pure’ inquiry approach in the vein of Dewey is not likely to be
effective alone, and so we must decide upon which factual foundations concepts
and critical thinking can be built (Willingham, 2007).
I propose here that we take the opportunity in MYP to ensure that:
1. Understandings are made explicit to students and that high-impact
practices are employed in order to help students achieve them.
2. Content is substantive and strategies are taught in order to help
students commit this to memory, but content is not so exhaustive so
that it results in ego-depletion (expanded below).
3. Meta-cognitive strategies (d=0.67), analogous to the IBO’s Approaches
to Learning, are carefully planned and taught in order to develop
students’ thinking skills and to lead to a perhaps transformative
learning experience form the novice to the expert learner (Kegan,
2009; Hattie, 2012).
4. Vertical connection of concepts, knowledge and skills allow for
continuity of experience in line with Dewey’s ideas that “the future
has to be taken into account at every stage of the educational
process.” (Dewey, 1938, p.47), for this future-oriented thinking is at
the heart of a pragmatic approach to inquiry.
5. All teachings are planned carefully in order to avoid the effect of
interference, or misconception. If we are to reduce the content of the

MYP in order to better meet the goals of inquiry, it is our
responsibility to ensure as best we can that the knowledge students
do learn is conceptually accurate and it takes significant efforts to
reverse misconceptions once formed (Abdi, 2006).
Proposal two might seem to run counter to IB’s (and certainly to Dewey’s)
philosophy of inquiry. If we focus on inquiry as critical reflective thought,
however, then we must accept the need for significant raw materials for that
inquiry: the over-learning of basic skills and content are encouraged in order to
commit foundational knowledge to System I memory (thinking fast), so that
when needed, the student has the cognitive surplus to be able to make effective
use of System II memory (thinking slow) (Kahnemann, 2011), summarized in
(Hattie & Yates, 2013). This line of thinking follows Kahnemann’s (2011) dual-
system theory on learning for automaticity and ego-depletion: where the practice
of what is often derided as ‘rote’ learning is used to commit content and
operations to permanent memory (System I), activation of System II can lead to
ego-depletion or mental exhaustion, yet it is needed for the higher-order pursuit
of inquiry as critical, reflective thought. Consequently, if we aim to teach
students to be critical thinkers without helping them to commit meaningful (and
useful) content to memory, we may actually be hindering their progress
(Willingham, 2007). Although I propose above that we should be actively
teaching substantive content for memory, I do not favour the pre-teaching of the
DP syllabus in the MYP courses, and this comes from largely from the
perspective of motivation. We must invite students to inquire through
experiences that “arouse curiosity (and) strengthen initiative,” (Dewey, 1938,
p.38), ensuring that the experiences we create for learners are indeed moving
forces for their future development (Dewey, 1938, p.38),.
From Principles into Practice
As long as secondary school education is characterized by high-stakes
terminal assessment and university entry there will inevitably be a degree of
backwash through the curriculum that will cause tension and debate about the
pedagogies that are used to cause learning. I hope that I have succeeded in

characterizing a pragmatic approach to inquiry – critical reflective thought – as
being one which encompasses not only the intellectual ideals of Dewey but the
developmental practicalities of Vygotsky, and in connecting these to more
discussion of effect sizes have made some worthwhile recommendations for
teaching students across the MYP-DP transition.
“What we want and need is education pure and simple, and we shall make
surer and faster progress when we devote ourselves to finding out just
what education is and what conditions have to be satisfied in order that
education may be a reality and not a name or a slogan.”
(Dewey, 1938, p.91)
Thanks
Thank-you to Dr. Rita Chawla-Duggan for her support as tutor during this unit.

Stephen Taylor (@sjtylr) Understanding Learners and Learning

References
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Educator, Summer.

MYP: Mind The Gap [MA Assignment]

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