The brief.

Assignment 3: Productive Failure – Co-constructing a Professional Development Workshop in Failure

Introduction: Productive failure

In the quest for attaining and transmitting knowledge, we might be tempted to get caught up in teaching the correct knowledge to have our learners achieve the correct answer and the best score. Such attitudes toward teaching and learning hardly leave room for experimentation, or the idea that knowledge is perhaps not as objective as we think. The following analysis and professional development workshop uses the concept of productive failure to encourage an opening for dialogue about constructivist teaching practices in a higher education context. In order for constructivism to be actionable, we propose that cycles of meaningful feedback and failure are necessary to the learning process, as opposed to being avoided. Part A below will trace a through-line through the epistemic goals of knowledge in education, its relationship to constructivism, and how failure is related to constructivist pedagogy. Part B will illuminate a possible workshop plan for conducting continuing professional development on failure in a higher education context.

Part A

The Quest for Knowledge in Education

In thinking about the act of acquiring knowledge, we do not view acquiring knowledge as a lucky phenomenon. Knowers are those people who have earned their knowledge via reliable means as a result of one’s epistemic virtues or cognitive faculties (Pritchard, 2018). Epistemic virtues are those acquired qualities, characteristics, or traits that might dispose a person to more effectively getting to the truth and acquiring knowledge while cognitive faculties include those knowledge-seeking characteristics that one is born with, such as good eyesight, as opposed to characteristics that one acquires (Pritchard, 2018). From an educational standpoint, epistemic (intellectual) virtues might be cultivated as a matter of education’s ultimate epistemic goal. From this perspective the epistemic goal of education would essentially be the development of learners’ intellectual virtues and therefore their intellectual character (Pritchard, 2018). 

Key to developing an educational plan that supports the cultivation of intellectual character might be defining what intellectual virtues or cognitive abilities make up intellectual character. Pritchard (2018) does not provide a well-rounded idea of what these virtues might include but shortlists evaluating evidence, evaluating conflicting testimony, and prioritization as examples of such virtues. Research from constructivist pedagogy might offer additional insight into intellectual virtues which we will explore in the next section. Regardless of which traits or skills count as intellectual virtues, it is suggested that having a strong intellectual character comprising intellectual virtues is necessary for knowing how to manage and apply one’s cognitive abilities. Between these two related constructs (virtue and ability), the learner should theoretically be able to safely acquire their choice of knowledge to achieve their goals (Pritchard, 2018).

Constructivism and the Intellectual Virtues

Constructivism as a theory of knowledge and as a pedagogical approach might provide additional framing to our discussion of intellectual character. Within constructivism as a theory of knowledge, our perceptions and experiences (perceptual knowledge) are what are knowable to an individual. Our perceptual knowledge is a product of our actions and #reflections on our actions (von Glasersfeld, 2005). It seems that already we understand that #reflection is an intellectual virtue essential to forming intellectual character. Additionally, if knowledge is internal to one’s own mind, then this indicates that knowledge has to be built up individually making it difficult to know whether any two learners have acquired the same knowledge as a product of their perceptions and actions (von Glasersfeld, 2005). In order to know what learners have understood, they must learn how to communicate in language that demonstrates their process of accommodation and this language acquisition is naturally a result of social interaction. Therefore #communication might be another candidate for our set of intellectual virtues.

As a function of the process of cognitive equilibration, there is an endogenous loop in the learning process where the learner adapts to their environment while at the same time influencing their environment (Fosnot & Perry, 2005). #Reflection on the learning in-context that is centered inside a #community of discourse helps us to continue that #cycle of evolution (Fosnot & Perry, 2005). In order to make sense of new information in the equilibration process we attempt to resolve contradictions between our prior knowledge and the new information being #reflected upon (Fosnot & Perry, 2005). It might make sense then to say that #critical thinking as a system of thought benefiting our interpretation of the new knowledge and how we reconcile it with our priors is another key intellectual virtue. Since the nature of of the equilibration process is not linear (we described it above as cyclical), then the #critical thinking process might involve several #cycles of give and take to arrive at the optimal result - the construction of an idea that helps to explain and deal with contradictions in knowledge. 

The cycle of equilibration is also #collaborative and #creative. Learning is a constructive building process of meaning making which results in #reflective abstractions producing symbols within a medium or context (Fosnot & Perry, 2005). We board these symbols as a part of our individual schema that we can reach for and employ in new contexts of perceptions and actions. Meanings are a part of a #community of inquiry or practice as much as they are individually constructed. It takes #collaboration for new ideas to be communicated in to the #community and accepted as justified knowledge and #creativity for individuals to be able to apply the new knowledge to new contexts. As we explore these final strands of constructivism, taken together, our set of intellectual virtues relate to the key tenets of constructivism (Baviskar et al., 2009): 

• #critical thinking regarding prior knowledge and the mediating the dissonance between that prior knowledge and new knowledge.

• #communication in how new ideas are disseminated and accepted #collaboratively into a #community of discourse.

• #cyclical learning related to the process of equilibration involving the #creative application of new knowledge, receiving of feedback, #reflection on feedback, and repetition of this process.

The Role of Failure

It is clear from our investigation of intellectual character as an epistemic goal of education that the #process of learning is pivotal to successful equilibration. By failing, learners engage with the #process of learning rather than the product (Yong et al., 2020). Knowledge of #failure depends on #feedback and so the design of educational experiences ought to provide opportunities for low risk #failure and instant #feedback. Professional development for instructors and opportunities for implementing constructivist practice in teaching may not be consistently targeted or emphasized in teacher training (So, 2002; Scharber et al., 2021). Of a battery of teaching strategies related to constructivism, those closest to the idea of process-based teaching incorporating failure were found to be among the least likely to be employed by teachers in training (So, 2002). Opportunities to explain contradictions in knowledge, to explore scientific inquiry where the outcome is unknown, to work with minimal teacher help, and to test out ideas were those items listed in the battery of teaching strategies most closely related to productive #failure. 

Opportunities to consider the role of productive #failure in teaching and learning are potentially well-located in how we design e-learning experiences which is an important professional development topic for online course creators. Teacher beliefs have been shown to be particularly resistant to change making professional development a challenge in shifting pedagogical practices (Scharber et al., 2021). Therefore, considering professional development on productive #failure in the design on e-learning experiences should consider best practices in professional development. These are: content focused workshops that employ active learning that is #collaborative and sustained with appropriate use of modelling, coaching, and support from facilitators with opportunities for #feedback and #reflection (Scharber et al., 2021). The following professional development workshop will take these elements into account along with participants’ prior knowledge of educational technology by utilizing the Focus, Fiddle, and Friends model of professional development as proposed by Frank et al., 2012. In this model, lower-level participants require focus on foundational knowledge, intermediate level participants require opportunities to fiddle with applying the knowledge, while advanced participants benefit from discussing their ideas with friends. Note also that the levels are cumulative. Advanced learners will benefit from all three categories of focus, fiddle, and friends while intermediate learners will likely benefit from both focus and fiddle (Frank et al., 2012).