Christian Moore-Anderson

@cmooreanderson

● Educational author & biology teacher (11–18) ● Reader of enactive cognitive science & systems theory ● Author of Teaching Meaning, Difference Maker, and Biology Made Real Blog & ideas:

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Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· 20d

I read this paper yesterday. It discusses teaching about gaps in explanations that are hidden by terms such as "leads to". In the discussion it compares the two issues: content knowledge as a limit, & an epistemic grasp of explanations as a different limit. One is domain-specific, the other isn't.

RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS
Into the Black Box: Explicating Black Boxes and Its Effect
on Mechanistic Reasoning
Gur Arie Livni Alcasid | Michal Haskel-Ittah
Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· 28d

What do you think of Heinz von Foerster's broad mood on computing?

Harmlessly enough, computing (from com-putare) literally means to reflect,
to contemplate (putare) things in concert (com), without any explicit
reference to numerical quantities. Indeed, I shall use this term in this most
general sense to indicate any operation (not necessarily numerical) that
transforms, modifies, rearranges, orders, and so on, observed physical entities
(“objects”) or their representations (“symbols”). For instance, the
simple permutation of the three letters A,B,C, in which the last letter now
goes first—C,A,B—I shall call a computation; similarly the operation that
obliterates the commas between the letters—CAB—and likewise the
semantic transformation that changes CAB into taxi, and so on.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 12

Right, I think that fits my view on variation theory (from my book). I'm interested whether you'd call these distinctions (abstractions we perceive) as "information" in the ecological sense. I see these as differences that make a difference (to someone), so they aren't "out there"

Making perceptible the content that makes a difference is a key
move in teaching meaning. For this reason, these key distinctions
are known as the critical aspects in variation theory (I’ll use them
synonymously in this book). Critical aspects are, then,
distinctions that communities of teachers and experts agree are
important. Because they shape how we notice, make sense of,
and work with the content.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 12

Read "Teaching Meaning: What Works When Telling Isn't Enough" for a great alternative! christianmooreanderson.com/teaching-mea...

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 11

I mean, surely you hadn't paid more attention because Pask's work is the most impenetrable of all the cyberneticians! As a teacher, I've looked to Pask for certain things, but much I haven't found that useful, like P and M individuals, for example. This general idea is very useful (from my book):

Conversations are built on communication, but the two are
distinct. In the introduction, I presented communication
(which includes telling, exemplifying and demonstrating) as the
most basic and intuitive of teaching moves. The value of communication
is in its clarity.
Conversations arise when two participants become entangled in
communication. Their value lies in sharing, generating and
coordinating meanings.

The distinction is often observed in classrooms:
• A poor explanation by a teacher (the communication) may
prompt a talkative class to ask lots of questions
(the conversation).
• A carefully designed explanation (the communication) may
be given to a keen and attentive class. But little discussion
(the conversation) takes place between students and the
teacher to check their understanding.
Pask thought that the information age, networked computers
and the internet had endangered conversation.23 I fear that
classroom technology has pushed lessons in a similar direction.
The ability to project slide decks and virtually any video has
actively hindered conversation.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 10

This is a figure from one of my books. In flipped learning, the idea is that students do the learning without the teacher, and then converse about it some time afterwards. In my enactive view, the learning and the teaching are inseparable; they are mutual adaptation.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 4

No, don't always start from the same point (I can't always remember where I had started before). And yes, the order and what is discussed changes depending on the class. As I said in Teaching Meaning:

We should specify a lesson only somewhat; its content, and
the key distinctions we’ll vary. And then play through the
unfolding conversation in the direction we want to go.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 4

That's it! Every single diagram uploaded to my site. This is the next step, after my books, in developing a community I'd like to be part of. christianmooreanderson.com/models/ #EduSky #UKed #iTeachBio

Models for teaching biology

I dream of a community of biology teachers who draw and explore models with students. Unlike many slide decks, the models I share aren’t the lesson itself. They aren’t to be presented or delivered, but co-constructed in conversing, step by step; a teaching method I explain in my books, Difference Maker and Teaching Meaning.

Through sharing our best models and teaching moves:

We become better teachers: combining the best of professional coordination and teaching autonomy.
We have a lighter workload by avoiding laborious resource creation; our planning time involves making sense of models and checking subject knowledge.
Our students learn more by reaping the benefits of teaching without PowerPoint slides and developing understanding beyond knowledge.

An example of one of my drawn stock and flow models (global heating) on my site.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 3

Teaching Meaning's already earned 4.83⭐ from 17 ratings. This is a disruptive book. The EduCognitivist movement read research on study techniques & recreated the lesson in their image. I dig wider into cognitive science to create a model, not of study techniques, but of the lesson itself.

The book cover and rating of Teaching Meaning on the website goodreads.com

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 2

Time to start a new adventure:

The book cover for "Ecological Psychology"

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jul 1

Did you see the note at the end? I've always been fond of this passage by Spencer-Brown. He was a mathematician, but I think he captures understanding well.

This might be a helpful moment to introduce a distinction between following a course of argument and understanding it. I take understanding to be the experience of what is understood in a wider context. In this sense, we do not fully understand a theorem until we are able to contain it in a more general theorem. We can nevertheless follow its proof, in the sense of coming to see its evidence, without understanding it in the wider sense in which it may rest.

Following and understanding, like demonstrating and proving, are sometimes wrongly taken as synonymous. Very often a person is regarded as not understanding an argument, a process, a doctrine, when all that is certain is that he has not followed it. But his failure to follow may be quite deliberate, and may arise from the fact that he has understood what was presented to him, and does not follow it because he sees a shorter, or otherwise more acceptable, path, although he might not, yet, know how to communicate it.

Following may thus be associated particularly with doctrine, and doctrine demands an adherence to a particular way of saying or doing something. Understanding has to do with the fact that what ever is said or done can always be said or done a different way, and yet all ways remain the same.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 28

My in-laws have this fantastic variegated ficus. One leaf is entirely white! Losing its function & becoming parasitic. But look at that lone branch with no variegated leaves. I'm used to seeing branches with malformations, not ones with improvements. What happened? Epigenetic switch? Virus loss?

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 28

My distinction comes from Varela. Enactivism has its roots in the constructivism of 2nd order cybernetics. Von Foerster was considered a leader, and his work was fundamental for influencing Varela. So there is much overlap, but his enactivism foregrounds mutuality and so distinguishes it.

Poerksen: What you call the bringing forth of a world, related thinkers simply designate the construction of reality. The difference between these two concepts is, for me, that constructivists have traditionally foregrounded the subject part. You seem to plead for a more balanced view of the relationship between subject and object. You insist: there must be both; both are indispensable for the act of cognition.

Varela: That is the central idea. Only the co-construction of subject and object can overcome the traditional logical geography of the strict separation of knower and known, internal and external world. There is no subject, as the constructivists suggest, on one side, constructing its reality in the desired way. And there exists no object, as the realists believe, on the other side, which determines what happens in the organism. My view is that subject and object determine and condition each other, that knower and known arise in mutual dependence, that we neither represent an external world inside nor blindly and arbitrarily construct such a world and project it outside. My plea is for a middle way that avoids both the extremes of subjectivism and idealism, and the presumptions of realism and objectivism.

The philosophical problem factory

Poerksen: Perhaps two aphorisms by Heinz von Foerster could contribute to further clarification. He epitomises the central idea of realism with the words: “The world is the cause, experience the consequence.” The fundamental principle of constructivism is, however: “Experience is the cause, the world the consequence.”

Varela: I do not agree with either position. As one printed version of this conversation is intended for a German audience, I should like to state quite clearly and unambiguously: I am not a realist, and I do not consider myself a constructivist, however often I may be classified as such in Germany. Classical constructivism does not at all impress me as a convincing mode of thought because it posits one side of the cognitive process as absolute: the organism forces its own logic and its own models on the world. I do not believe that to be the case at all. Such an assumption appears to me to be a relapse into neo-Kantian thinking. I have been trying for years to keep my name out of this debate - but obviously I have not been very successful.

Poerksen: To repeat the question: when confronted by the distinction between subject and object, you refuse to side with one or the other?

Varela: The goal of my work in cognitive science is not the dialectical negation of one side or the other. My question is not whether the world is represented in the organism, whether the subject is primary or whether the decisive influence is due to an object, my point is the total abolition of both extreme positions, not their affirmation or negation. My point is that neither the subject nor the object is primary. Both exist only in mutual dependence and in mutual determination.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 27

I'm still working on building a community of biology teachers playing the same teaching game, exploring and sharing the best moves and models. As a first move, I wrote my books; now I'm sharing every model I've designed and taught. christianmooreanderson.com/models/

A screenshot of my site, which says:
I dream of a community of biology teachers who draw and explore models with students. A vision explained in my books, Difference Maker and Teaching Meaning. Through sharing our best models and teaching moves:

We combine the best of professional coordination and teaching autonomy: We become better teachers with a lighter workload.
Students reap the benefits of teaching without PowerPoint slides and develop understanding beyond knowledge: Students learn more.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 21

What a fantastic review of my book Teaching Meaning! Thank you :D

This book arrived two months ago. It has taken me that long to read it…

Because this is a book not to be rushed!!!

Every page has something that leaves you imagining all the ways you could use it in your lessons.

Whether you are an ECT or a well seasoned teacher, whether you are a teacher of science, art, English, maths, etc this book presents the ways in which meaning is really made and gives evidenced insights on how you can help your students make meaning.

This book talks about how knowledge needs to acted upon by students to make meaning. They need to be able to take a new idea and explore it. Vary the ways it can be used, using the idea of “If X, then what?”, helping students see the limits in which their new knowledge can be used. We must not “confuse agreement with making meaning.”

This is a book to be savoured and I know it is one that I will be referring back to many, many times.

The cover of the book Teaching Meaning: What Works When Telling Isn't Enough.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 20

NEW POST: ● Understanding isn't just knowledge (and how we can teach it) → christianmooreanderson.com/understandin...

An image of a person throwing stones at a piece of paper to measure its size, influenced by Gregory Bateson.
We can only throw questions at students and see how many land.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 19

So what about what we do in lesson? We can't have students *do* settled knowledge. We can only focus on the immediate coping; how students *engage* with tasks. From enactive cognitive science I make this distinction in Teaching Meaning:

There’s a second, but related, problem with overly emphasising
agreement. It can be seen by distinguishing between two ways of
engaging: skilful coping (relying on established knowledge)
or exploring (enacting new knowledge).6
Skilful coping draws on existing ways of seeing and acting to get
things done. In other words, students can skilfully cope with a
task and still not learn what we’d like them to learn. They’re good
at learning contextual cues that help them say the right words at
the right time.7 Task completion can resemble understanding,
especially when all students are expected to give the
same answers.

Exploring, in contrast, reshapes those ways of seeing and acting:
altering what becomes possible for the student in that situation.
This is the purpose of sense-making exploration.
There’s an important relationship between the two. Preparing our
students to skilfully cope with whatever life throws their way is
exactly what we want to achieve. But to teach students to cope better,
they must learn to perceive and act in new ways; they must explore.
Therefore, if reshaping ways of seeing and acting is our goal in
the classroom, we must limit the use of coping as a successful
strategy for completing tasks.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 18

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 17

As a folk distinction it can work, but not as something serious. All learning must be inferred through a performance of some type. And all performances of newly taught material must involved learning to some degree. In Teaching Meaning I draw on enactivism to make this distinction:

Skilful coping draws on existing ways of seeing and acting to get
things done. In other words, students can skilfully cope with a
task and still not learn what we’d like them to learn. They’re good
at learning contextual cues that help them say the right words at
the right time.7 Task completion can resemble understanding,
especially when all students are expected to give the
same answers.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 17

In Teaching Meaning I make a different distinction: ways of "engaging" with the world. Both are clearly defined, but learning-performance isn't (I don't think it can be, neatly). How did it get so pervasive?

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 15

In Teaching Meaning, I point out the major failing in this view by referring to the Good Regulator Paradox: "The more teachers reduce errors and deviations, with the intention of doing a good job, the less they’ll know how well they’re doing."

As efficient as this sounds, it leads to a paradox.4 If teaching
involves agreement on an idea, part of a teacher’s role is to reduce
their students’ errors and deviations. But if students just provide
the correct (expected) answers, we know little about what they have
actually understood. So, the more we reduce our students’ errors
and deviations, the less we know how to respond as teachers.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 14

But Engelmann's assumptions have hard limits, and his successes were limited to very particular areas of teaching. If we want more discussion of teaching for understanding, we'll need to recognise that reproducing facts and procedures isn't enough: christianmooreanderson.com/direct-instr...

From the post:
Engelmann’s model just considers the “logic” of the stimulus as determining the response. He said that, “an inference is based solely on the features of the examples that are presented”. And, he thought, the mind wasn’t the agent; “stimuli are the agents that make a difference, and the differences that are made are the responses.” (emphasis added).

Notice how in von Foerster’s diagram, the person’s intent depends on more than just their perception; it also depends on the meaning they’ve already made. At the same time, the way they actively make sense of the situation draws on that very same meaning.

Meaning, then, is central to the model and point to a key distinction. Engelmann argued that students were logic machines; thinking perfectly logically with the logical environment. In this model (and that of enactive cognitive science and variation theory), students think perfectly rationally with the meaning they’ve made.

The most interesting bit comes next: notice how the sense-making actively updates the meaning people hold.

According to the model, then, when our students perceive something and act in response, we may then think, “hey, they learnt it, they should now respond in the same way if I give them the same stimulus”. This was Engelmann’s idea.

But every time the student perceives something, their meaning is updated in some way. The next time we ask them the same question, we may get something different, something we didn’t expect.

On the outside, there’s another loop to consider. As students act, they perceive new things. For example, as they answer a question, they perceive our response to them: our body language, our words and tone. They also perceive their classmate’s responses. They make sense of this and continually update their meaning.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 14

Really nice review of my book, Teaching Meaning:

Interesting and thoughtful read. I really appreciated the author's perspective as a biologist, as even though the examples were in some cases rather specific to his subject, they had a much wider resonance that I could apply to my work as a language teacher.

The text felt personal and showed the author's clear passion for his subject, but also for how subjects aren't just a fixed entity, but a conversation between the subject, the teacher, and the students.

Highly recommended for all Secondary/High School teachers, and worthy of a staff book club read.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 13

Pues, esto es exactamente lo que he notado entre el profesorado de la eso en mi centro. Miles de examenes, y mucha énfasis en pillar al tramposo.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 12

New! ● How I Teach Human Reproduction: christianmooreanderson.com/models-11-14... After reading my work, many ask for more examples of models to draw in lessons. I have a dream that one day there will be a community of biologists playing the same teaching game, exploring & sharing the moves.

A lesson diagram I draw for students. It includes a cladogram showing when placentas evolved, a graph showing the relationship between body mass (of adults) and gestation period. And, a drawing of the fetus in the uterus, including the amniotic sack, umbilical cord, and placenta.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 11

Well, debating teacher autonomy versus teaching consistency is all the rage on LinkedIn, apparently. But when a well balanced post is written, hardly anyone reads it. People still want one-sided hot takes, it seems. christianmooreanderson.com/the-problem-...

A graph with two axes:
X = Collectively gain capacity (discretionary capacity made available by coordinating a way of teaching).
Y = Teacher's retained autonomy (discretionary capacity still available for coordinating a way of doing a curriculum).
There are two positions with higher teacher autonomy than collectively gained capacity: Siloed teaching, and systems in which there are shared general ideas.
The other positions gain more from coordinating. Shared scripts gives the worst outcome in terms of collectively gained capacity and teacher autonomy (giving the system a low capacity). Shared curricular EdTech platforms reduce the teacher's autonomy to low levels also, but can offer greater capacity through, for example, compiling lots of data on learning. Shared lesson structures and activities across teachers retains some teacher autonomy (the teacher can still decide what to say and do in lessons), and there are some gains from collective capacity through the networked sharing of ideas and resources. Finally, the best position for preserving teacher autonomy and gaining from coordination is a system of shared teacher principles and emergent resources. All is explained in the post.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 6

New post: ● The problem with "teaching consistency" ● christianmooreanderson.com/the-problem-... #EduSky #UKEd

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 4

I worked on some new models this year for exploring the digestive system in Year 10 biology. Still wondering how much I like them.

A stock and flow model of digestion in the mouth and stomach.

A stock and flow model of lipid emulsification and digestion in the intestine.

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· Jun 4

Top visits to my site in the last 7 days? Once again, the best engagement is by far from... Bluesky! LinkedIn is mainly shop-windowing. Bluesky is about community, reading, and genuine engagement.

30 visits from Bluesky, with 163 page views, and average sessions of 18 minutes.
20 visits from LinkedIn, with 21 page views (average session duration not logged)

Christian Moore-Anderson@cmooreanderson· May 28

14 ratings over on Goodreads: