Conceptions of uncertainty and complexity: the case of teaching

and learning climate change

Brendan HallCeAL, University of Gloucestershire

30/10/08

• Uncertainty, complexity and education

• Case study: climate change

• The research: theoretical frameworks

• The research: methodology

• The research: provisional findings

• Where to from here?

• Discussion

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things

we don't know we don't know.”

Donald Rumsfeld (2002)

“There is a lot of complexity in the world. The world is complex. That complexity is beautiful. I love trying to understand how things work. But that's because there's something to be learned from mastering that complexity.”

Howard G. “Ward” Cunningham (2004)

Uncertainty, complexity and education

• Challenges to “settled assumptions” of knowledge and truth (Blake 1996)

• Uncertainty pervades all aspects of education – offers challenges and possibilities (Atkinson 2000, Floden and Buchmann 1993)

• “Higher education is about complex learning” (Knight 2001)

• The world is “supercomplex” (Barnett 2000)

Teaching uncertainty and complexity?

'Doodle from Versailles' (November 1918) by David Lloyd GeorgeImperial War Museum 

©

Uncertainty, complexity and climate change

• ‘Climate change’ is broadly concerned with 3 things:• Understanding• Predicting• Acting

• The climate system is complex – ordered forcing + chaos (Rind 1999)

• Understanding of individual components may be fairly good but composite effect is uncertain (Gautier and Solomon 2005)

• Models can be constructed but have limitations (Shackley et al. 1998)

• Complexity Uncertainty

“The multiplicity of models is imposed by the contradictory demands of a complex, heterogeneous nature and a mind that can only cope with a few variables at a time; by the contradictory desiderata of generality, realism and precision; by the need to understand and also to control; even by the opposing esthetic [sic] standards which emphasise the simplicity and power of a general theorem as against the richness and the diversity of living nature. These conflicts are irreconcilable” (Levins 1966)

“Climate change science necessitates the ability to deal with uncertainty on several levels – not only

uncertainty about the workings of the complex physical climate system, but also uncertainty

with respect to social and cultural processes that mediate human response to changes within the

system”

- Rebich and Gautier (2005, p. 355 )

The case of climate change

The case of climate change

• Climate change provides a case study for analysing conceptions of uncertainty and complexity

• What are academics’ conceptions of uncertainty/complexity?

• How are they addresses in the curriculum?

• How do students respond?

• What are the implications?

The research: Theoretical frameworks

• Troublesome Knowledge (Perkins 1999)• Threshold Concepts (Meyer and Land 2003)• Post Normal Science (Funtowicz and Ravetz

2003)

Troublesome Knowledge

• Perkins (1999) identifies several forms of knowledge, all of which may be potentially ‘troublesome’ in some way for a learner

• Ritual Knowledge – routine/ritual response• Inert Knowledge – “the mind’s attic”• Conceptually Difficult & Alien Knowledge –

difficult/complex/counter-intuitive• Tacit Knowledge – implicit within discipline

Threshold Concepts

“Within certain disciplines there are certain ‘conceptual gateways’ or ‘portals’ that lead to a previously inaccessible, and initially perhaps ‘troublesome’, way of thinking about something” (Meyer and Land 2005)

Students must cross these thresholds in order to progress within the discipline

Threshold Concepts - Characteristics

• Troublesome – conceptually difficult, alien etc.• Transformative – brings about a significant shift in the

learner’s perception of a subject• Integrative – reveals the previously hidden

interrelatedness of different concepts (Carmichael et al. 2007)

• Irreversible – unlikely to be unlearned• Bounded – leading into new conceptual terrain• Re-constitutive – effecting a change in the learner’s

subjectivity• Discursive – entailing a changed use of language on the

part of the learner.• Liminality – a space that must be ‘crossed’ to occasion

shift in identity, likely to be uncomfortable (Meyer and Land 2005)

Uncertainty and complexity as troublesome

knowledge/threshold concepts

Do they fit the criteria?• Conceptually difficult/alien• Tacit?

• Transformative, integrative, bounded etc.

• These frameworks provide a means of analysing uncertainty and complexity as concepts as well as informing research design.

Post Normal Science

• ‘Normal’ science = puzzle solving within present paradigms (Kuhn 1996, Saloranta 2001)

• ‘Post-Normal’ science is science where:• Facts are uncertain• Values are disputed• Stakes are high• Decisions are urgent (Funtowicz and Ravetz 2003)

• Uncertainties in this instance are technical/methodological AND epistemological/ethical (Saloranta 2001)

• Extended peer community

Post Normal Science

Climate change is an excellent example of post-normal science. Decision making involves the interaction of the qualitative and quantitative at the science/policy interface

The research: methodology

• Initial plan based on phenomenography (Trigwell 2001)

• Included interviews with academics and students and questionnaire

• Subsequent move to a grounded theory approach to accommodate context (Haggis 2006)

• Open ended approach allows theory to emerge from data (Strauss and Corbin 1998)

The research: methodology

• Semi-structured interviews• Context• Thresholds/Troublesome Knowledge• Uncertainty/Complexity and strategies

• Academics teaching climate change on Geography programmes in England and Wales

• Grounded theory – ‘saturation’ (Strauss and Corbin 1998)

The research: preliminary findings

• Uncertainty and complexity – troublesome knowledge and thresholds

• “I think the very top [concept] for me is certainty, certainty and uncertainty”

• “To realise that science and what we find in science is changing all the time”

• “I don’t think many of them grasp that [uncertainty, criticality/evidence]”

• Tacit knowledge? • Complexity?

The research: preliminary findings

• The importance of context• Personal/academic background, departmental,

institutional context all have a bearing on teaching• How does this affect how uncertainty/complexity

are addressed?

• “I’m a pretty big fan of getting the chronology right...that’s probably because that’s where my expertise is”

The research: preliminary findings

• Implications/strategies• “The palaeoclimate toolbox”• “...being highly critical and looking at the balance

of evidence”• “It’s why I do it…”

Where to from here?

• Data collection is ongoing

• Exploration of context

• Students: How do they respond to teaching? Look at one cohort (observation)

References• Atkinson, E. 2000. The promise of uncertainty: education, postmodernism and the politics of possibility.

International Studies in Sociology of Education 10(1), 81-96 • Barnett, R. 2000. Supercomplexity and the curriculum. Studies in Higher Education. 25(3). 255-265• Blake, N. 1996. Between postmodernism and anti-modernism: the predicament of educational studies. British

Journal of Educational Studies 44, 42-65• Floden, R. E., Buchmann, M. Between Routines and Anarchy: preparing teachers for uncertainty. Oxford Review

of Education. 19(3). 373-382• Funtowicz S., Ravetz, J. 2003. Post-normal science. Report to International Society for Ecological Economics. In

Internet Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics. February.• Gautier, C., Solomon, R. 2005. A preliminary study of students’ asking quantitative scientific questions for inquiry-

based climate model experiments. Journal of Geoscience Education 53(4), 432-433• Haggis, T. 2006. Problems and paradoxes in fine-grained qualitative research: an exploration of ‘context’ from the

perspective of complexity and dynamic systems theory. Paper presented at Higher Education CloseUp 3, University of Lancaster, July 2006. From: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/events/hecu3/documents/tamsin_haggis.doc (9/9/08)

• Holbrook, N.J., Devonshire, E., 2005. Simulating scientific thinking online: an example of research-led teaching. Higher Education Research and Development. 24(3). 201-213

• Knight, P. T. 2001. Complexity and curriculum: a process approach to curriculum-making. Teaching in Higher Education. 6(3). 369-381

• Kuhn, T.S. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)• Meyer J H F and Land R 2003 ‘Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge 1 – Linkages to Ways of

Thinking and Practising’ in Improving Student Learning – Ten Years On. C.Rust (Ed), (OCSLD: Oxford)• Meyer, J. H. F., Land, R. (2005) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological

considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning, Higher Education. 49, 273-288 • Perkins, D. 1999. The many faces of constructivism. Educational Leadership. 57(3), 6-11 • Rebich, S., Gautier, C. 2005. Concept mapping to reveal prior knowledge and conceptual change in a mock

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climate change modelling: are GCMs the best tools? Climatic Change. 38. 159-205 • Strauss, A., Corbin, J. 1998. Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded

theory. (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications)• Trigwell, K. 2001. Phenomenography: Discernment and variation. From: http://

www.learning.ox.ac.uk/files/Phenom_ISL_paper.pdf (27/10/06)