As you can see …show more content…
As outlined in assignment activity 2, I am particularly interested in how a teacher can support student thinking and engage critically in the social sciences, known as cognitive conflict. It is an interesting area to consider. To expand on what was outlined previously, Swan (2006:p53 - 79) states, that lessons that have cognitive conflict “ cause students to act, think, speak and evolve through their own motivation, while the teacher refrains from interfering or suggesting knowledge that he or she wants to appear”
I can see that throughout my observations that encouraging thinking within the classroom is key for a pupil 's development. As demonstrated in CAME (Cognitive Acceleration in Mathematics Education), in which cognitive conflict is a key element, Sayce (2010) cites the work of Adhami, Johnson and Shayer (1998) “it is only when mental structures are challenged, that accommodation of new data takes place, new links are made and learning moves on”. is important to note at this stage, that cognitive is crucial for all pupils across every key stage, as I believe it can have positive effect on any aged …show more content…
The first example, in a Y13 sociology lesson, demonstrated how cognitive conflict can be used within a starter activity, which can be seen in ‘Appendix 2’. A selection of images was presented to the pupils on screen, with no verbal instructions given by the teacher. The pupils had to decipher the images and categorise them in a way that made sense to them as a group, with the teacher then leading a discussion based on how they have categorized the images. The pupils, initially, were confused by this, expecting some form of input from the teacher. However, despite the confusion, the pupils started to engage with their peers in order to solve this task, known as the ‘cognitive conflict’. As Mudler Adhami (2007:p34-36) states, “ educators who use surprise in class activities are focusing on students being "taken aback" by a situation, hopefully causing them to ‘look again’ and spurring them to further effort to resolve an anomaly”. A group of pupils need, on occasion, to be encouraged outside of their comfort zone and by engaging in conflict, it allows the pupils to think outside of the box, develop their problem-solving skills and feel motivated to provide a