Teaching as Bounded Rational Design: Ecology, Practicality, and Rationality

• In Event: 29.049 - Reforming Teacher Reform

Abstract

Purpose
In this presentation the new conception of teaching as bounded rational design is explained and related to the larger conversation about teacher reform. In conventional approaches, teachers are seen to lack of knowledge, skills or beliefs necessary to change (Kennedy, 2010). Teachers, in turn, often argue that innovation proposals are not practical. In this contribution we elaborate a fundamentally new conception for understanding and changing teaching practices that takes classroom ecology demands and practicality issues very seriously.
Theoretical perspective
From an ecological point of view a classroom is not just a place where teaching and learning take place. Classrooms have characteristic dimensions
that constrain and guide teacher and student behavior (Author, 2006; Kennedy, 2008). A classroom is a crowded place with different preferences, abilities, and agendas, in which a restricted supply of resources and time are used to accomplish a broad range of objectives simultaneously. These factors combine to create pressures on all teachers to attain at least the following goals simultaneously: fostering student learning; covering content in time; increasing students’ continuing willingness to participate; maintaining lesson momentum; promoting classroom norms, and meeting their own personal needs (Kennedy, 2010). In order to successfully implement a change teachers need cost-effective procedures to convert ideals into concrete tasks and actions in a way that fits current classroom demands as well as the multiple goals they need to attain simultaneously (Author, 1977; Authors, 2015).
The argument draws on recent theories of bounded rationality that explain how people in complex situations, despite limited time and information
(capacity), are able to make adequate decisions to attain multiple goals simultaneously (Simon, 1996; Campitelli & Gobet, 2010). Two recent
bounded rationality theories are of particular importance for understanding and changing teaching practice. First, work on goal systems explicates how actions are embedded in a hierarchy of multiple goals and means related to a particular task (Kruglanski & Kopetz, 2009; Lord et al, 2010). Second, work on heuristics brings into focus the simplified, cost-effective rules that specify what to do in practical circumstances to achieve an end (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011).
The new conception of teaching as bounded rational design leads to the conclusion that teaching practice can only be understood and changed if we take explicitly into account the three bounds of rationality: complex classroom setting, teacher’s multiple goals and teacher’s limited resources (Authors, 2016). In this presentation we compare this profoundly new conception of changing teaching practices with traditionally held views of how teacher reform works.
Significance
The disappointing history of teacher reform effectiveness cries for new and perhaps radically different understandings and methods for working with the contextual and practical issues teachers face daily. The proposed framework begins with ecology and practicality to demonstrate how working with teachers can become a more successful experience for both teachers and reformers.

Author

• Walter Doyle, The University of Arizona