My original work was called the ‘Learning Pit’. It is this term that is best known around the world. Later, I built a teaching framework around the Learning Pit by adding four stages – concept, conflict, construct, consider – and called this the ‘Learning Challenge’.
The four stages of the Learning Challenge are:
CONCEPT – choosing a key concept that your students are familiar with. This concept will form the basis for questioning and ‘concept stretching’ (see Module 3).
CONFLICT – creating cognitive conflict in the minds of your students in order to take them into the Learning Pit. This sense of conflict between two or more ideas should lead to deeper and more productive thinking.
CONSTRUCT – constructing meaning by connecting, analysing, sorting, categorising and grouping ideas into an arrangement that is accurate and makes sense to your students.
CONSIDER – inviting your students to consider their journey through the Learning Pit; to think about the ways in which their thinking has changed; and to identify the strategies they used that could be applied in other contexts.
