Research on Classroom Teaching Strategies to Promote Deep Learning#
An Fuhai
(Northwest Normal University, Northwest Center for the Development of Ethnic Education, Lanzhou, Gansu 730070)
Abstract:
Deep learning is a form of understanding-based learning based on higher-order thinking, which emphasizes critical understanding, content integration, knowledge construction, and intentional transfer and application. Deep learning requires not only active participation from students but also active guidance from teachers through establishing teaching goals for higher-order thinking development, integrating meaningful connections in learning content, creating authentic scenarios to promote deep learning, and selecting evaluation methods that focus on continuous attention.
Keywords:#
Deep learning; Surface learning; Teaching strategies
Since the new curriculum reform, monologues and indoctrination in classroom teaching have gradually been replaced by new learning methods such as "autonomous, cooperative, and inquiry-based" learning, and dialogue has become the main theme of classroom teaching. This new dialogue-based teaching model has made qualitative leaps in stimulating students' learning interests, the breadth of student participation in classroom activities, and the state of teacher-student cooperation and communication. However, due to teachers' inadequate understanding of the connotation, principles, and implementation strategies of new learning methods, many problems have arisen in the implementation process of "autonomous, cooperative, and inquiry-based" learning. Investigations have found that in many classrooms that claim to be cooperative and inquiry-based, students are busy using various "tools" and engaging in "free" communication, often only staying at the level of understanding the process and steps of learning activities. From the perspective of classroom learning, compared with traditional rote memorization and mechanical training, "autonomous, cooperative, and inquiry-based" learning only changes the pleasure level of students' memorization of knowledge, but does not reflect the emphasis on autonomous learning, cooperative learning awareness, and scientific inquiry spirit emphasized by new learning methods. This learning process that focuses only on external forms and neglects its spiritual essence does not truly help students understand knowledge, experience emotions, and practice values, but only helps students remember knowledge, recognize emotions, and understand values. This shallow learning based on simple memorization and repetitive training has great limitations in promoting the development of students' abilities to understand knowledge, construct meaning, and solve problems. This study aims to address this problem by using the principles of deep learning to analyze the problems and reasons for shallow learning and then discuss strategies to promote deep learning from the perspective of teachers.
1. The Connotation of Deep Learning#
Deep learning theory believes that learning is not only an individual cognitive process of perception, memory, and thinking but also a social construction process rooted in social culture, historical background, and real life. [1] Deep learning, also known as deep-level learning, is a concept first proposed by American scholars Ference Marton and Roger Saljo in 1976 based on experiments on students' reading. It is a concept about the level of learning. [2] In fact, as early as 1956, Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives already implied the division of cognitive dimensions into different levels. [3] Ference Marton and Roger Saljo drew on Bloom's cognitive dimension level division theory and creatively proposed the concept of deep learning and promoted research on deep learning through experiments. Since then, many researchers have started to pay attention to deep learning. Scholars such as Biggs and Collis (1982), Ramsden (1988), and Entwistle (1997, 2001) have developed related theories of deep learning from different perspectives. [4] In recent years, deep learning has received increasing attention from educational researchers. In 2006, Professor Hinton from the University of Toronto in Canada and his student Salakhutdinov published an article on deep learning in the journal "Science," which sparked a wave of deep learning in academia in the 21st century. In January 2013, at the annual meeting of Baidu, China's largest internet search engine company, founder and CEO Robin Li announced the establishment of Baidu Research Institute, with the first key research direction being deep learning, and established the Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) for this purpose. In April 2013, the MIT Technology Review listed deep learning as the top breakthrough technology of 2013. [5] Although they have different definitions of the concept of deep learning, they have reached a basic consensus on the differences between deep learning and shallow learning and the understanding of the essence of deep learning. According to Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive domain learning objectives, which corresponds to the six levels of "knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, evaluation, and creation," [3] the cognitive level of shallow learning only stays at the levels of "knowledge and comprehension," mainly involving simple description and memorization or replication of knowledge. In contrast, the cognitive level of deep learning corresponds to the four higher-level cognitive levels of "application, analysis, evaluation, and creation," which not only involves memory but also emphasizes the application of knowledge and problem-solving. Therefore, a more intuitive expression is that shallow learning is at a lower cognitive level, which is a low-level cognitive skill acquisition involving lower-order thinking activities, while deep learning is at a higher cognitive level, which aims to acquire higher-order cognitive skills and involves higher-order thinking activities. Higher-order thinking is the core feature of deep learning, and developing higher-order thinking abilities helps achieve deep learning, while deep learning also helps promote the development of learners' higher-order thinking abilities. Deep learning is a form of learning that aims to promote students' critical thinking and innovative spirit. It not only emphasizes learners' active learning state, integrated and meaningful learning content, and analogical thinking learning methods but also emphasizes the improvement of students' higher-order thinking and complex problem-solving abilities. Deep learning not only focuses on learning outcomes but also values learning states and learning processes. Based on the above understanding, this study believes that deep learning is a form of understanding-based learning, which refers to learners setting higher-order thinking development and practical problem-solving as goals, integrating knowledge as content, actively and critically learning new knowledge and ideas, and integrating them into their existing cognitive structures. It also involves the ability to transfer existing knowledge to new contexts.
2. Characteristics of Deep Learning#
Deep learning and shallow learning have significant differences in learning goals, knowledge presentation methods, learners' learning states, and the transfer of learning outcomes. The characteristics of deep learning are mainly manifested in four aspects. First, deep learning emphasizes critical understanding of knowledge learning. Deep learning is a form of understanding-based learning that emphasizes learners' critical learning of new knowledge and ideas. It requires learners to maintain a critical or skeptical attitude towards any learning material, critically view new knowledge, think deeply, and integrate them into their existing cognitive structures. It establishes multiple connections between various viewpoints, requires learners to be good at questioning and analyzing problems based on understanding, and deepens their understanding of deep-level knowledge and complex concepts. [6] Second, deep learning emphasizes the organic integration of learning content. The integration of learning content includes the integration of the content itself and the integration of the learning process. The integration of the content itself refers to the connection between various knowledge and information, including the fusion of interdisciplinary knowledge and the connection between new and old knowledge. Deep learning advocates connecting new concepts with known concepts and principles, integrating them into existing cognitive structures, and thus promoting understanding, long-term retention, and transfer application of new knowledge and information. The integration of the learning process refers to the formation of cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies for content integration, storing them in long-term memory, and using methods such as charts and concept maps to facilitate the organization of connections between new and old knowledge. In contrast, shallow learning treats knowledge as isolated and unrelated units to be accepted and memorized, which cannot promote understanding and long-term retention of knowledge. Third, deep learning emphasizes the construction and reflection of the learning process. Construction and reflection refer to the assimilation and accommodation of knowledge through the bidirectional interaction of new and old experiences based on knowledge integration. It involves learners actively understanding and judging new knowledge, analyzing, distinguishing, and evaluating new concepts (principles) or problems using their existing knowledge and experience, forming self-understanding of knowledge, constructing new knowledge sequences, and continuously reflecting on and updating their self-constructed results. It forms an active check, evaluation, control, and transformation of learning. Construction and reflection are the essential differences between deep learning and shallow learning. Fourth, deep learning emphasizes the transfer and application of learning and problem-solving. Deep learning requires learners to have a deep understanding of the learning context, judge and grasp key elements, and be able to "apply, analyze, evaluate, and create" in similar contexts. They can also analyze and judge differences in new contexts and transfer and apply principles and ideas. If knowledge cannot be applied to solve problems in new contexts, then students' learning is only simple replication, mechanical memorization, and shallow understanding, still at the level of shallow learning. Another important goal of deep learning is to creatively solve real-world problems. Generally, real-world problems are not well-structured problems that can be solved by applying rules and methods in well-structured domains but ill-structured problems with scattered structures and complex rules. [7] Solving problems in such ill-structured domains requires not only mastering principles and their appropriate domains but also using principles to analyze problems and creatively solve them.
3. Manifestations and Critique of Shallow Learning#
Shallow learning refers to a learning form in which learners learn new knowledge and ideas through simple description, repetitive memorization, and reinforcement training based on external motivation. Its characteristics are as follows: First, shallow learning is a form of learning based on external motivation. Shallow learning is a passive and negative learning conducted under the drive of external tasks. The content of exams is the main goal of shallow learning, and grading is the most effective method to promote shallow learning. Second, shallow learning is a form of learning based on memory. Generally, shallow learning only stays at the cognitive level of "knowing and understanding" and pays little or no attention to connecting new knowledge with existing knowledge and experience. It involves surface-level memorization of materials for exams, which cannot promote understanding and long-term retention of knowledge and cannot promote the development of students' higher-order thinking. Shallow learning is particularly prominent in current primary and secondary school classroom learning in China, and its forms mainly include the following aspects.
1. Learning Goals:
Since the new curriculum reform, the "three-dimensional goals" have replaced the "double bases" and become the main reference standards for teachers' teaching and students' learning. The reason why the new curriculum proposes three-dimensional goals is to correct the shortcomings of the previous curriculum that focused solely on knowledge imparting under the curriculum view of main knowledgeism and neglected students' spiritual development. However, due to teachers' inadequate understanding and implementation of the three-dimensional goals, the implementation of the three-dimensional goals has been greatly discounted. "Knowledge and skills are ossified or virtualized, processes and methods are simply coped with or incorrectly implemented, and emotions, attitudes, and values are labeled." The classification of curriculum goals according to the three-dimensional goals mainly aims to guide teachers to transform traditional teaching methods, focus on students' subjectivity, and better achieve curriculum goals. [8] However, since the proposal of the three-dimensional goals, many teachers have regarded the three-dimensional goals as teaching goals and believe that teaching goals include three dimensions: knowledge and skills goals, process and method goals, and emotional attitude and value goals. In the design of daily teaching, teachers are also accustomed to decomposing teaching goals into three categories: knowledge and skills, process and method, and emotional attitude and value. The premise of this classification statement is that classroom teaching content can be divided into three categories according to the three-dimensional goals, and classroom teaching can also be divided into three stages of achieving knowledge and skills goals, achieving process and method goals, and achieving emotional attitude and value goals, and guide students to learn step by step. However, because of the lack of accurate understanding and appropriate implementation of the classification of three-dimensional goals itself, the implementation of the three-dimensional goals has resulted in worrying learning outcomes. Not only have the process and method and emotional attitude and value, which are particularly emphasized in the curriculum reform, become formal, but even the achievement of knowledge and skills goals that we used to be proud of is limited to shallow levels. In other words, the goals of "application, analysis, evaluation, and creation" proposed by Bloom have not been achieved, and even the goals at the level of "memory and understanding" have not been achieved ideally. Some learning is even in a state of "zero learning." [3] [49]
2. Learning Content:
The new curriculum reform has downplayed the requirements of the "double bases" within the disciplinary field, strengthened the connection between curriculum content and students' lives and social and technological development, focused on students' learning interests and experiences, proposed a direction of curriculum integration, and set up comprehensive courses within a certain range, reducing the number of subject categories, emphasizing the connection between disciplines, reorganizing curriculum content, and organizing curriculum content in the form of practical activities. However, when we enter the classroom, we find that the acceptance of the idea of strengthening the connection between the curriculum and students' lives has been accepted by teachers, but this acceptance is limited to the level of ideas and superficial examples in the classroom. The acceptance of organizing curriculum content in the form of practice has also been recognized by teachers, but this recognition is only reflected in the "performance" in the "open class." The methods that guide teachers to help students learn have not fundamentally changed, and they have not connected the newly learned content with known concepts and principles, helping students integrate new learning into their existing cognitive structures and establish new and more complex cognitive structures. Instead, they still follow the guidance mode of accepting memory and reinforcement training. Therefore, although the content of the curriculum text has been integrated, and the organization form of the curriculum content has changed, the way teachers guide students to learn knowledge has not changed. Knowledge still appears in front of students as independent and unrelated faces. On the surface, it seems that the teaching goals of each class have been achieved, but because the newly learned knowledge is not logically connected to the existing knowledge, it is not integrated into the students' existing cognitive structures, and a knowledge network belonging to the students themselves is not constructed. This kind of learning, although it has mastered knowledge, cannot apply knowledge to solve problems and cannot transfer knowledge to new situations, is doomed to be trapped in the shadow of "mechanical learning."
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