There's a tendency to think of prior knowledge as having a wholly positive impact on current and future learning, but learning is complex, and our brains are messy things.
Hi Marc, thanks for the article, which is fascinating.
"For example, Sonja Hermann and her colleagues found that primary school children in Germany with lower initial scores in mathematics displayed greater learning gains than middle range and higher achievers."
This section has me a little confused. My working assumption is that students with lower initial scores are likely to have less complete background knowledge than peers. Is that an incorrect assumption? Is Hermann's claim related to the quality of teaching at the point of intervention or something else?
The explanation Hermann proposes is that German maths education focusses heavily on foundational maths. allowing those with poorer prior knowledge to catch up faster (although never quite enough to close the gap completely).
Interestingly, another German study (Thorsten and Linberg, 2022) looked at language competency and found children with lower language skills at 5 had made less progress by the time they were 9 than those who had above language skills at 5 (which is what we might expect). Progress also correlated with mother's level of education, so it wasn't just the school environment playing a role.
Perhaps that take home is that interventions work up to a point, but there are many other factors involved.
Ah, so I guess when Hermann is talking about prior knowledge she means 'prior' as in before starting schooling. And that the expected outcome of the foundational math approach is in a sense a flattening of outcomes - the distribution of attainment closing while also rising. It would be interesting to know if that continues in the German system or if at some point they change approach, such as introducing more ability grouping, which then leads to a potential widening of the gap in performance/learning.
I agree on the take home. It's why in the end all theories and practices meet with the reality of individual children. Which is in some ways why teaching is so challenging and dare I say it, fun.
Hi Marc, thanks for the article, which is fascinating.
"For example, Sonja Hermann and her colleagues found that primary school children in Germany with lower initial scores in mathematics displayed greater learning gains than middle range and higher achievers."
This section has me a little confused. My working assumption is that students with lower initial scores are likely to have less complete background knowledge than peers. Is that an incorrect assumption? Is Hermann's claim related to the quality of teaching at the point of intervention or something else?
Hi Tom.
Thanks for reading.
The explanation Hermann proposes is that German maths education focusses heavily on foundational maths. allowing those with poorer prior knowledge to catch up faster (although never quite enough to close the gap completely).
Interestingly, another German study (Thorsten and Linberg, 2022) looked at language competency and found children with lower language skills at 5 had made less progress by the time they were 9 than those who had above language skills at 5 (which is what we might expect). Progress also correlated with mother's level of education, so it wasn't just the school environment playing a role.
Perhaps that take home is that interventions work up to a point, but there are many other factors involved.
Ah, so I guess when Hermann is talking about prior knowledge she means 'prior' as in before starting schooling. And that the expected outcome of the foundational math approach is in a sense a flattening of outcomes - the distribution of attainment closing while also rising. It would be interesting to know if that continues in the German system or if at some point they change approach, such as introducing more ability grouping, which then leads to a potential widening of the gap in performance/learning.
I agree on the take home. It's why in the end all theories and practices meet with the reality of individual children. Which is in some ways why teaching is so challenging and dare I say it, fun.