I am moving to a new exam specification next year for
A-Level economics which has more extended writing questions where pupils
problem-solve rather than shorter factual questions (which there were more of
in the EdExcel spec).
Following on from an excellent chapter on novices not being
mini-experts in ‘How Learning Happens’ I have just read David Didau’s ‘Making
Kids Cleverer’ where he talks about this in depth.
Aside from the points about the need for pupils to have a
deep schema of knowledge that they can easily recall enabling them to
effectively problem solve, I found the notion of different types of knowledge
especially useful.
Declarative Knowledge
What I found particularly useful is the distinction between
declarative and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge would be the ‘things’
I want pupils to know. If I wan pupils to be able to eventually solve problems
about when governments should intervene in a market by imposing an indirect tax
the declarative knowledge they should know is:
·
the market mechanism with perfect competition
with no market failure
·
causes of market failure
·
comparison of this and under perfect competition
·
how an indirect tax can correct this market
failure
·
potential drawbacks of imposing this tax
(government failure)
This does not include the tacit knowledge that experts use
when solving a problem without realising it. This needs to be automated with a
strong retrieval strength so they are not having to think about this when
problem solving. So far, so obvious but the part I have been missing that
intrigued me is how experts and novices then use this information to process solving
a problem.
Expert v Novice Learners
He speaks about a novice looking at the superficial elements
of a problem rather than the deep structure. So to the question ‘evaluate if
the government should impose a ‘sugar tax’ on fizzy drink manufacturers’ they
will focus on the detail of the issues of fizzy drinks rather than the deeper
structure of negative externalities and government intervention that the
question is really asking about.
To me, the exact way to solve this problem is clear,
something he refers to as expert-induced blindness when I have forgotten the
steps to take to solve this problem as a novice. Rather than consider the
similarities between this problem and similar problems (which they clearly can’t
do as they haven’t encountered many similar problems before) they look for
potential solutions to problems, or a means-end analysis.
The key is schema acquisition or obtaining greater knowledge
around the solution to problems rather than setting them endless problems. Or
in other words, don’t give them the endless essay questions that I had been
setting them where they devote their working memory purely to means-end analysis
and not storing solutions.
So what the hell do I do?
Rather than ‘solving’ endless problems, what pupils need to
understand is how to solve similar problems so they can use this knowledge when
looking at new problems with similarities. A novice will need to understand the
steps I take when solving a problem, the procedural knowledge.
I have been thinking about this today and I found this quite
difficult to consider what I think about when approaching these problems. I
suppose that is not that surprising when we consider that I am likely to do it
automatically.
But with a bit of thought for solving this type of problem,
what I think it:
1.
what is the difference between this situation
and perfectly competitive markets?
2.
What is the outcome of this (what is the market
failure?)
3.
Which economic agents does this affect?
4.
How would a tax correct this market failure?
5.
Will the costs of imposing the tax be high?
6.
Will the government be able to quantify the
market failure to set the right rate of tax?
7.
Will politicians have other non-economic
incentives that will influence what rate they set?
8.
Is demand for the product elastic or inelastic
and how does this impact the effectiveness of the tax?
9.
Do the benefits outweigh the costs?
And that is the 9-step process that is going on in my head.
You could categorise 5-7 as ‘government failure’ but I think it works better to
explicitly state the exact thought process.
Teaching this procedural knowledge
The first step is to explicitly model the thought process
going on in my head to address this problem. Then, as a novice learner what
they will require is a worked example. I would provide a case study which we
would read, and I would show my answers to the questions above.
The next step may be a partially completed answer, so they
look at a different news story, I go through the first half of the questions
and they attempt the last few themselves with feedback. This continues until they
get to the point, they can complete this effectively.
There should then be practice of this to the point of fluency
with opportunities for retrieval so that pupils are able to use this procedural
knowledge to solve similar problems. This does not cover exactly how this
should be converted into an essay.
I hope it will make it easier for pupils to understand how
to effectively solve these types of problems. I am looking forward to trying it
in September, if anyone has any views on this or if I have wilfully
misunderstood any of this then please get in touch!