The Cognitive Apprentice



 In Creating cultures of thinking, Ron Ritchhart includes the idea of the 'dispositional apprentice' - whereby teachers model and nurture 'the very attitudes, values and behaviours we want to see in our students' (p.127). Taking this idea to the central area of concern - creating a culture of thinkin - Ritchhart advocates the teacher as leading the student as the 'cognitive apprentice'. This requires an overt modelling of thinking by the teacher: 'One needs to deliberately bring the thinking to the surface, to make it visible, whether it's in reading, writing or problem solving. The teacher's thinking must be made visible to the students and the student's thinking must be made visible to the teacher' (Collins, Brown and Holum 1991, p.3; cited in Ritchhart, p.130).

How might this work in practice?

In our English Extension class, we have been studying the novel Eucalyptus (1998) - a rather complex text which is a form of 'cultural hybrid': a novel and an anti-novel; an appropriation of a fairy tale structure, organised under an apparent taxonomy of trees. Our guided discussions in class have been about the nature of Bail's commentary on Australian culture through various literary techniques, including appropriation, anecodate, motif, embedded storyteller etc. As we approached an essay that the students have been asked to write, I felt it was time for me to model some of my own thinking about the text. Prior to the two lessons this took, we had read and discussed (through a thinking routine - Claim-Support-Challenge) two complex academic articles which examined the novel in relation to other contemporary Australian fiction, and cultural matters. My own presentation took the form of notes I had written, spoken aloud, with me highlighting certain 'thinking moves' such as 'connection making'. For example, in looking at an idea from the text, I was able to draw the students attention to ideas from the previous readings. 'I am making a connection here to the Fiander article in terms of the idea of 'an anxiety' about white writers' 'own connections to the land ...'. The 'Undertanding Map' provides some good language teachers can use to make their thinking explicit (for example, 'I'm uncovering complexity when I point to ...' or, 'I'm looking for the 'heart of the matter' in saying that ...). See:  http://www.ronritchhart.com/ronritchhart.com/COT_Resources_files/Understanding%20Map.pdf

On other matters, I had another of my student meetings, with Christina, who brought two pieces - a past essay, and a past short story (micro fiction). From the essay, we were able to identify her strengths in terms of structure and clarity. Christina, in re-reading her work, could see that there was more complexity to the topic than she had allowed for, and this helped us to set a goal for her discursive writing. In her own fiction, it was pleasing to see how she had shaped her language so sharply, with obvious skill and editing. And we could see where one metaphor fell flat, requiring an immediate reversal of logic to make sense. I felt really positive that a short time with the student allowed me to build a more personal connection and understand her as a writer and a thinker without it being at 'arm's length' in the tradition of marker first, helper second. The one-to-one time obviously has a strong connection to the cognitive apprenticeship, which implies the mentoring and guidance of the more experienced 'master' of the knowledge.