PME 2013 STUDENTING: THE CASE OF "NOW YOU TRY ONE" - Peter Liljedahl & Darien Allan

PME 2013 THE PHENOMENON Pretending to try to solve a problem. Doing their French homework in class. Pretending to use cell phone as a calculator. Copying homework from someone else. Mimicking the teacher’s example. Sharpening their pencil. Passive note taking. Pretending to have done homework. Pretending to be collaborating. Pretending to be doing in-class assignments. Pretending to be studying. Pretending to be reading. Forgot something in the locker. Going to the bathroom.

PME 2013 THE PHENOMENON Common Traits there is a façade (seems to be directional) it subverts the teacher’s intentions (not always deliberately) it isn’t learning! SO WHAT TO CALL IT?

PME 2013 STUDENTING The concept of studenting or pupiling is far and away the more parallel concept to that of teaching. [..] there is much more to studenting than learning how to learn. In the school setting, studenting includes getting along with one’s teachers, coping with one’s peers, dealing with one’s parents about begin a student, and handling the non-academic aspects of school life. (Fenstermacher, 1986, p. 39)

PME 2013 STUDENTING [T]hings that students do such as ‘psyching out’ teachers, figuring out how to get certain grades, ‘beating the system’, dealing with boredom so that it is not obvious to teachers, negotiating the best deals on reading and writing assignments, threading the right line between curricular and extra-curricular activities, and determining what is likely to be on the test and what is not. (Fenstermacher, 1994, p. 1)

PME 2013 STUDENTING Studenting is what students do while in a learning situation. conducive to learning conforms with the teacher’s wishes OR NOT

PME 2013 STUDENTING vs. GAMING conforming gaming learning STUDENTING

PME 2013 METHODOLOGY Observation Phase lots of observation in many classrooms short interviews (audio), field notes, video Taxonomy Building continuous analysis (grounded theory) looking for contexts and saturation in contexts Taxonomy Testing focused observation, field notes, interviews analytic induction

PME 2013 INITIAL CONTEXTS now you try one (PME 2013)  grade 10 (n=32) homework (PME-NA 2013)  grade (n=100) note taking (TBA)  grade 12 (n=30) …

PME 2013 TEACHER’S INTENTIONS Ms. DuoWell, I use them to give the students a chance to check their understanding of what we had just learned. This way, if they don't understand something we can catch it right away. ResearcherAnd what do the students do with these problems? Ms. DuoFor the most part they do the problems. You'll see when we are in there that there are a couple of boys in the back that don't do them but they don't really do anything. Everyone else, though, does them.

PME 2013 AMOTIVATION (N=3) disengaged for the full class. FrankI don’t get it. [shrugging his shoulders and looking back down at his cell phone] AndrewMy tutor will help me with this tonight. JasonI'm just tired today.

PME 2013 STALLING (N=4) went to the bathroom (n=2) sharpened their pencil looking for calculator BarryI was waiting until there was a break in the lesson.

PME 2013 FAKING (N=2) pretended to try KeeshaI don't want to mess up my notes. JenniferNot only will she give us the answer, she will give us the best answer. This is the one I want in my notes.

PME 2013 MIMICKING (N=17) constant referencing to the previously solved problem [n task  (n-1) example ] JohnThis is how we do things in this class. The teacher gives us an example and we write it down. Then she gives us one to try and we copy what we did in the example.

PME 2013 REASONING (N=6) tried it on their own reasoned their way through it anticipated next example KennethI don't know. Maybe. … I mean it all makes sense. If anything maybe the examples just showed me what kinds of questions are possible.

PME 2013 NOW YOU TRY ONE catching up on notes (n=0) N=32

PME 2013 NOW YOU TRY ONE

PME 2013 NOW YOU TRY ONE – Ms. Duo’s view Ms. DuoSo, as predicted, those three boys in the back didn't do much. But everyone else was pretty much on task. I mean, they didn't all get the problems right, but they did them. And the ones that made mistakes had a chance to learn from their mistakes when we went over it.

PME 2013 SO, WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? 1.It gives us insight into the student as opposed to the learner. didactic contract – “the teacher is obliged to teach and the pupil to learn” (Brousseau and Otte, 1991) learning is often NOT the goal 2.It has relevance for a great many teachers and a great many classrooms. verisimilitude – “the appearance of being true or real” (Oxford Dictionaries)

PME 2013 CONCLUSION - STUDENTING vs. GAMING conforming gaming learning STUDENTING

PME 2013 CONCLUSION - STUDENTING vs. GAMING conforming gaming learning STUDENTING

PME 2013 MORE WORK - THEORIZING ABOUT STUDENTS doing being … a student (Sacks) practical rationality (Aaron) law of least effort (Kahnemann) motivation and avoidance (Hannula) didactic tension (Mason) goal regulation (Hannula) self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan)

PME 2013 MORE WORK - TAXONOMY OF GAMING GAMING WITH FAÇADE (intentional) ALTERNATE IDEAS preferred learning style teacher is wrong institutional norms BEATING THE SYSTEM avoidance economy of action doing being practical rationality … NO FAÇADE (unintentional) wrong objective wrong rules

PME 2013 CONCLUSIONS - THEORIZING ABOUT TEACHERS THESE RESULTS … are recognizably problematic are a recognizable reality have verisimilitude are familiar provide a reality check YET … are seen as important to change are within the realm of things that can be changed

PME 2013 MORE WORK - THEORIZING ABOUT TEACHERS PROBLEMS PRESENTED IN OTHER RESEARCH: are seen as social engineering → teaching methods are seen as solutions in need of a problem are far removed from individual teachers’ classrooms are seen as abstract or theoretical represent an ideal do not easily bridge to the practical are often seen as systemic

PME 2013 Q & A QUESTIONS and ABUSE

PME 2013 THANK YOU!