When I ponder the theoretical aspects of teaching and learning, I tend to gravitate toward two central ideas: interaction and resonance. Indeed, the intersection of these ideas undergirds my primary conceptual framework and research agenda.
This intersection can best be expressed by one of my favorite poetic passages, which is from “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens. The passage, which is actually the fifth way, goes as follows:
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
Now if we can resist, for a moment, getting too caught up in the Modernist symbolism of the blackbird itself, there is a great deal that we can learn from these lines.
From a teaching and learning standpoint, an instructor’s statement, in whatever media, however brilliant or eloquent, is ultimately fleeting. It doesn’t live on as a matter of its own existence or making, nor in the consciousness of its receiver, but rather in how it is appropriated by that consciousness, in how it resonates in that consciousness in the “just after.”
The real question is how can we write resonance in the consciousnesses of our students? How can we design our instruction to maximize that resonance? Does it have to do with the acoustical design of the environment, in the way that we prepare our students to learn in our classroom? Or rather does it depend more on the way we play the content?
While trying to prepare a student-centered lesson plan for teaching chemistry, I spontaneously thought of a way based on the well-known concept that a system naturally flows in a way to lower its potential energy. This thought was sparked by a diagram in the course’s textbook that illustrated how surface tension works. Fascinating, thought! This is based on natural laws of physics, and is probably applicable to human interactions on some level, maybe learning. The diagram mentioned above pictured a water molecule surrounded by other water molecules each interacting with the central molecule. The system is “stable” BECAUSE of the interactions; the more of it, the lower (more negative) the potential energy of the system is. Low PE, greater stability. And here is where I thought of the term “resonance,” a common term in chemistry to describe optimum stability. How interesting that there seems already to be a system out there in the world of education that is already using this term! I am trying to think of ways to implement my own version of this hypothetical phenomenon. How much can I learn that is relevant from you and your organization? … Los Angeles college instructor.