The Learner's Prior Knowledge: a Critical Review of Techniques for Probing its Organization

Summaries English How can a teacher quickly gain a useful insight into a pupil's present ideas? How can he discern the major connections in the learner's existing thought content? This article discusses several different approaches. It examines the theoretical assumptions underlying them and considers how easily they could be adapted in the classroom as part of a diagnostic approach to teaching. The author suggests a more explicit distinction between the publicly agreed version of a scientific concept and the multiple private versions held by individuals. Learning can then be viewed as development and change of the latter, as words (concept labels) change or extend their meanings. The teacher's role is at first that of a diagnostician who tries to describe the learner's existing private concept. Later he may see himself as provocateur of its changes and extensions. It is also argued that terms such as ‘cognitive structure’ and ‘concept map’ do not adequately represent the fluidity of thought in which the changes occur. Any useful conceptualization of how a learner's thought is organized must include some picture of its dynamics as well as its statics. Nevertheless some of the methods reviewed could be adapted in the classroom and might enhance the effectiveness of both teaching and learning.