Abstract
Knowledge and non-knowledge, or ignorance, seemingly antithetical, are actually symbiotic. In essence, knowing is about learning about (what is), learning from (what causes and what is the consequence of), learning with (how to deepen learning with the better exploration of), and learning for (how to pursue a greater) ignorance. That is, ignorance sets off, drives, materializes, measures, and guides learning. However, in school teaching, the predetermined lesson plans and textbook contents often pre-specify and confine ignorance to a set of to-be-answered questions, which misconstrues knowing as a process of solving preset ignorance, thus reducing learning to information gorging—a stiff notion of learning unfits for the ever-changing and morphing world of tomorrow. On the basis of Nepistemology and Enactivism, this study presents an "ignorance-driven teaching and learning model", which characterizes both teachers and students as the "perturbing agent", who disturbs the extant knowledge structure, and the "ignorance spelunker", who explores and exposes the unknown inherent in the learning process. The purpose is to deepen and widen teaching and learning by working ignorance into students’ preconceptions, construction, deconstruction, reconstruction, reflection, and creation of knowledge. The goal is to improve the ability to raise better questions, so students learn to collide their extant schema with learning materials, lectures, discussions, suspicions, reflections, and imaginations to create ample ignorance space. The implementation of this model in 3 classes revealed positive responses from students. Analyses of students’ questions showed how ignorance-driven instruction expanded both teachers’ and students’ knowledge beyond teaching materials and lesson plans.
Author Information
Jeng-Yi Tzeng, National TsingHua University, Taiwan
Yu-Hsiang Chiu, National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress