Epistemic Insight tutor toolkit

Tutor Toolkit

Aims and objectives
What is Epistemic Insight and what are Big Questions?
The Key Note
Incorporating Epistemic Insight into the classroom
Becoming more scholarly
Research expectations
An example lesson plan
Glossary of key terms

Aims and Objectives

This toolkit has the following aim and objectives.

Aim:

To ascertain a clear understanding of the Epistemic Insight Initiative and how it can effectively inform research and the development of cross disciplinary teaching and learning strategies within programmes.

Objectives:

To recognise the purpose and role of Big Questions within a cross disciplinary learning project and how they can facilitate students' understanding of the potential and limitations of distinct knowledge disciplines.
To identify effective cross disciplinary teaching and learning strategies in relation to Big Questions in which to incorporate within programmes.
To generate relevant Big Questions and teaching and learning strategies that effectively engage student teachers and highlight the purpose and goals of a cross disciplinary approach and the Epistemic Insight initiative.
To identify co-created research expectations and the role of the portal for sharing and collating research outcomes and data.

Watch the video here for an overview of Epistemic Insight taken from the media.

What is Epistemic Insight and what are Big Questions?

Epistemic insight refers to ‘knowledge about knowledge’, and particularly knowledge about disciplines and how they interact. Teaching epistemic insight goes hand in hand with teaching a knowledge-rich, broad and balanced curriculum. Gaining epistemic insight is about developing an appreciation of the strengths and limitations of individual disciplines by exploring how they work in cross disciplinary contexts, for example, the question 'why did the fire of London spread so quickly?' can be studied through science and history.

It is also about discovering how distinct disciplines and knowledge types can help us to think about big questions.

Big Questions are questions about the nature of reality and are typically controversial questions that bridge a range of disciplines. Examples of big questions include:

Can a robot be my friend?
What do we mean by 'you are what you eat'?

Watch the video here to view an example of how Epistemic Insight can be discussed to generate an understanding of how different types of knowledge have distinct roles in our understanding of questions and problems.

Watch the video here to view case studies of how Big Questions can be incorporated within a session to effectively address a range of disciplines and generate an understanding of the potential and limitations of different disciplinary types of knowledge.

The Key Note

All student teachers will have attended an Epistemic Insight key note at the start of the academic year. This will have informed them of the relevance and importance of Big Questions and cross-disciplinary teaching and learning within the curriculum. The students will also be made aware that this is also a priority area and focus within the Faculty of Education and will offer them the opportunity to be involved in research that affects the development of the curriculum for the future.

As such, student teachers will have an understanding of the purpose and aims of the Epistemic Insight initiative prior to its incorporation within the classroom.

Click here to download the key note

Incorporating Epistemic Insight into the classroom

Our student teachers would have received a mixed experience of subject disciplines and cross-curricular learning depending on which school they have worked at and their own experience of being taught as a pupil. Some may have encountered an overt cross-curricular curriculum, whereas others may have had very little experience of such an approach.

As such, incorporating Epistemic Insight into our programmes will require providing a clear and consistent message about the aims, purpose and role of Epistemic Insight and Big Questions in widening pupils understanding of types of knowledge specific to different disciplines, along with their potential benefits and limitations.

Many of the sessions and modules taught within the Faculty of Education already incorporate cross-curricular strategies and teach the benefits of this mode of learning; it is therefore to be expected that our student teachers will gain an experience of a cross-curricular approach whilst on their programmes. Given this, incorporating Epistemic Insight into many sessions and modules will require adaptive strategies and modifications rather than substantive revisions.

The following are typical key elements for incorporating an Epistemic Insight strategy within your module / sessions.

Introducing a learning theme and the types of questions relevant to the topic (more will be said about types of questions below).
Clarifying the aims and purpose of cross-disciplinary learning and the role of Big Questions within this approach.
Introducing the Discipline Wheel (or similar strategy) as a method for considering the range of disciplines and knowledge domains relevant to the learning questions (see diagram here).
Addressing with students how a topic can be effectively approached from a range of disciplines.
A method to allow students to reflect upon their experience of cross-disciplinary learning in relation to an understanding of different knowledge domains.
Allow students to identify what they now know about each discipline within cross-curricular sessions (how are those disciplines giving different views on a question / topic and how does this process generate an understanding of the different knowledge domains appropriate to each discipline?)

See some examples of tools and strategies below which you may wish to incorporate within your teaching, learning and research.

The Discipline Wheel - click to download a copy.

Becoming more scholarly

One of the aims of the Epistemic Insight initiative is to encourage pupils to become more scholarly - see below for an explanation of what it means to be scholarly, as well as the proposed expectations at each key stage.

Expectations of research

All student teachers within the Faculty of Education will have the opportunity to participate in Epistemic Insight guided research.

Some students teachers will have the opportunity to participate in Epistemic Insight independent research.

Example lesson plans

As the Epistemic Insight research project develops, example lesson plans will be found here; these will illustrate how the above Epistemic Insight strategies can be effectively incorporated within a session.

Glossary of key terms:

Scientism

An excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques. An ideology that promotes science as a normative and purportedly objective means by which society should determine values.

Epistemology

The theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope.

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