Why “Complex” is good…

How many shades of gray can there be in a black and white world? We often view old movies as simple just because they were filmed in "black and white." The lack of complexity or color gives us the impression that they may not be as worthy of our attention today than in the past. Does everyone agree on this? I cite two examples to refute this simple idea: "Citizen Kane", and "Casablanca", both black and white films and two of the greatest ever made. They have amazing levels of complexity in a variety of modalities that are not always apparent to the novice (simplistic minded) film viewer. What can this then, tell us about ourselves as human beings? Do we see reflections of our own levels of "uncomplexity" within our evaluations of our external world?
The often cited, "Occam’s razor", says that all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the best. It may be a gift to be simple, and seeking some simplicity for the sake of occasional refuge or retreat can be especially healing for many people. However, constantly seeking to over-simplify our own lives tends to be counter-intuitive to the proper growth or learning process. By always wanting to view the world through "rose colored glasses", we often fail to see the greater complexities of life itself. Through growth, as in education, we naturally become more complex individuals. The type and depth of complexity, however, is ultimately up to us to determine. Do we want to be exceedingly deep and narrow or wide and shallow? (Yes, this choice does have some implications…)
This tendency of human nature to want to simplify life is somewhat hard-wired into our psyche. Unfortunately, too often it carries over into group interactions within school settings. The playgrounds, classrooms, and other areas where young people live their lives are constant battlegrounds of status and attention. It seems that nobody is immune. However, all human beings are complex individuals and all deserve respect as such. Too often these immature status-seeking youngsters do such harm in establishing their "pecking order", that it becomes necessary for educators to overcompensate in their instruction and treatment of many of the "low status" individuals. By recognizing the contributions of low status students within a group project, teachers can often attempt to validate the competence of such lower status students as well as offer an opportunity for greater learning within the context of such a project. This strategy often known as complex instruction, however, has both advantages and disadvantages.
By attempting to raise the status of an individual through designing instruction that relies on the varied competence of a variety of skills and abilities, a teacher can often successfully increase student learning and engagement. Indeed, the lower status student can be validated for his or her talents or abilities, which can bolster his or her self-esteem. As long as the learning task within a group is perceived as authentic and each group member’s contribution as essential and relevant, then this strategy may have a reasonable chance of succeeding. Through the strategy of complex group instruction, the "playing field" could be flattened to accommodate their varying abilities or talents.

However, there could be problems with complex instruction. The other group members must also function with less praise or status affirmation from the teacher. This effect may be recognized by some of the other members of the group, and thus, they may view the teacher’s actions as "favoritism" towards the lower status students, or as "sympathetic" to their cause. It is essential in this case for any teacher to be very specific in his/her praise of each student such that every person is recognized in some way. The evaluation of each group should also include a strategy for validation of a diversity of each group members’ contributed skills, such that everyone may get valid feedback for his/her contribution. Without such constructs, complex instruction, may only reinforce the stereotypes of status portrayed by the student peer groups.
A well-defined role structure and ability recognition system must be established prior to the task assignment, such that each group member will have an appreciation of his/her individual contribution and know that it is valuable and worthwhile. The task MUST require all group members to contribute to the overall project through their valued skill/ability in order for the entire project to succeed. This will not be easy to accomplish, but it is worthwhile to formulate a comprehensive plan that has a reasonable chance of success.
Evaluation criteria must include both criterion-referenced elements as well as self-referenced ones. The established group evaluation must also include the opportunity to recognize each group member’s contributed skill or ability in the evaluation process to celebrate the accomplishments of not only the overall group, but the individuals within the group as well.
Complex instruction requires significant planning and thought, but it can be extremely rewarding to all members of a group, not just the low status students. The higher status or gifted students, too, will benefit from the shifted reference frame necessary in complex instruction. This will allow them to explore a wider variety of talents and abilities both of themselves and others. Through viewing everyone’s abilities as relevant to accomplishment of school-related tasks, their perception of other students may help them establish better relationships. This will depend, however, greatly on the depth and complexity of the designed instruction.

Everyone needs to feel useful and challenged. Everyone wants to be a contributing member of a group and accomplish great things. These are basic needs that we all share as we attempt to become more complex beings. By shattering the status quo and leveling the field through carefully crafted group tasks, we can affect great positive change on the future.

Fertilizing the mind (developing concepts)

"How does one go about fine tuning a mind?"...Watson asks Sherlock Holmes. "Puzzles, problems of logic, mathematical equations...anything that makes you think in a new way..." Holmes responds. (From the movie: Young Sherlock Holmes) "For example, you are seated in a room with an all-southern view. Suddenly, a bear walks by the window. What color is the bear?"

Holmes knew that in order to grow, his mind needed stimulation and an orderly context in which to assimilate and accomodate the new knowledge. He probably never knew Hilda Taba, but he certainly practiced much of what she has given us in the field of concept development.

In visits outdoors, I have often sat and watched the behaviours of animals to gain insight into natural patterns of learning. I've often wondered how an animal like a fawn learns all it needs in order to survive. It will start out shy and uncertain, barely able to stand up, searching for its mother and her influence to point it in a certain direction. It certainly has some instinct, but it has to quickly develop such concepts as food, danger, movement, and hiding without any type of noticeable language. It has a brain that seeks a certain order, like many other mammals, and attempts to quickly adjust and accomodate for this newly gained stimuli. It is in a sense, "hard wired" to quickly develop important ideas that will most likely remain for the rest of its life, but how does it develop all of those important concepts?

I have also observed similar behaviors in humans. For example, when watching an infant trying to learn to walk, he will try and get up, teeter a bit, then fall back down. Observing and attemtping to ascertain what happened, his brain will process some of this information filing it away for future use to try again later, perhaps creating in a rudimentary way, a concept of walking that can now be built upon later. How is this process of developing the idea of "walking" developed and how might the developing human brain be able to take advantage of certain fine tuning methods that the deer brain can not?

These examples begin to expose that in a rudimentary form, concept development, is a "natural" method in which many species learn. However, it only works on the highest level when the mammalian brain can algorithmically process the steps necessary to develop such a concept. Both the fawn and baby human may develop a concept of walking, but only the human brain can take the concept beyond simple movement. Our human advantage for meta cognition within concept development allows us to realize what we need in order to develop our concepts to this higher degree. Taba's more formal implementation of concept development steps map out a framework in which we can explore the nuances of this learning capability to a much higher degree in our (hopefully) more developed brain structures.

"Its so easy...even a cave man can do it"...The Geico insurance company seems to also be exploring these concept development beginnings in a lateral method through its commercials about early man and his ability to develop certain concepts. Yet, recent research into primate behavior shows that even chimpanzees can learn basic concepts such as numbers, counting, and some letters. Many can even have a vocabulary of several hundred words, even though they can not vocalize them as humans can. The structures in a mammalian brain seem to have steered humans toward developing concepts that will allow for higher levels of cognition. Now, I don't have any specific data for this claim, but through implementation of a learning strategy that parallels natural conceptual learning such as Taba's concept development, many more humans may be able to achieve higher cognitive levels in understanding of complex concepts.

Taba's structure of logical steps that involve the proper supporting (scaffolded) stimuli (questioning) at certain junctures to tease the learner's growth incessantly toward the conceptual goal, act as a type of catalyst for the learning process. The method (as Holmes might say) of fine tuning a mind is as important as the mind itself. Through listing, grouping, labeling, subsuming, and recycling, we see many of the same types of mind methods used by the great detective. Why did we admire the character of Sherlock Holmes so much? Precisely because he had trained his mind to not only observe, but also make inferences, connections, and draw conclusions about the complex world around him in ways that others could not. However, with the proper training, Holmes himself might even say that anyone could do what he did and reach the same conclusions. His seemingly miraculous insights, were merely the product of careful fine tuning of his mind through methods such as concept development.

Through noticing patterns in the chaos, Holmes could form concepts, make predictions, and interpret various pieces of data as they were interwoven in even more complex shapes. Concept development follows this type of scientific method strategy in its behaviors of gathering information, organizing data, making inferences, generating alternatives, making conclusions, and making generalizations.

Taba has tapped into a scientific, logical way to order or "fine tune" a mind such that a greater amount of cognitive growth can occur, and thus the development of a concept can take deeper root inside the mind. However, this method is not infalliable, as even Holmes himself would admit in some cases. Not all parts of life or the world follow algorithmic patterns or can be ferreted out with the use of logic. The whole picture becomes of greater importance sometimes than the devil within the details...

This method is especially effective with gifted learners, as that many will naturally gravitate toward this type of logical thinking method in their own explorations of concept development. However, to facilitate this type of method is not easy. It requires considerable training and an essential change in style and behavior. Sherlock Holmes was admired because he was able to train himself in these types of concept development methods when others could not. Today, we have the benefits of more information and knowledge about how humans learn than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his Victorian counterparts. Thus, we can now implement Taba's strategies and masterfully engage our gifted learners to aspire to out think even the great Mr. Holmes himself.

Perspective is increased through greater knowledge and wisdom. Hopefully, we have that today and can use our increased perspective to develop concepts for our learners to greater extents than ever before. All we have to lose is...the future. As Holmes would say: "The game is afoot."

So, what color is the bear in Holmes' puzzle? Fine tune your mind and see if you can successfully develop this concept on your own.