Hope J. Hartman
BACEIS Model of Improving Thinking
Hartman & Sternberg (1993) A broad BACEIS for improving thinking. Instructional Science 21(5) 400-425
(Note: the formatting of figures 1 &
2 was eliminated when converting to html so I'll have to fix
them)
The BACEIS model is a theory of factors which affect intellectual performance. The BACEIS acronym stands for the following: B =behavior, A=affect, C=cognition, E=environment, I=interacting, S=systems (See Figures 1 & 2 for the structural model and an illustration, respectively). This systems model suggests that internal factors of the student's cognition and affect are related to each other and are also related to interacting external factors from student's academic and nonacademic environments. The combination of these factors and all of their reciprocal influences has implications for a student's intellectual performance in and out of school. In several chapters throughout this edited collection the reader will find applications of the BACEIS model to instructional design, to guide research, and to critique existing approaches to teaching for and with metacognition.
Many current programs and approaches to improving thinking skills, such as metacognition, tend to be overly narrow, often ignoring the affective domain and features of the environmental context. The BACEIS model is a comprehensive theory of internal and external factors affecting the development, retention, and transfer of thinking and learning skills. To improve a student's metacognition in particular or intellectual performance in general, one may intervene at any point in this complex array. The first two parts of this collection concentrate on aspects of metacognition which emphasize the student's internal supersystem: cognitive and affective components respectively; the next two parts address aspects of metacognition that are related to the student's external supersystem, comprised respectively of the academic environment and the nonacademic environment. Teacher thinking in the academic environment is the theme of Part III of the book, while cultural influences from the nonacademic environment are considered in Part IV. The final part is a concluding chapter by Robert J. Sternberg, discussing several chapters in this collection and his own view of metacognition as a subset of expertise.
The BACEIS model is compatible with Gruber (1985)'s description of the evolving-systems approach to creative work, which views the creative person as a system of loosely-coupled subsystems (knowledge, purpose, and affect). Each component system has a partially independent organization, different rules, and different relevant time scales. These components are in constant interaction. The "loose coupling" idea is important to contrast with a "tightly meshed set of gears," because it suggests that each system can exhibit some independent evolution (pp. 175-176).
Metacognition, conceptualized as the highest level of thinking in the cognitive component of the BACEIS model, can have a wide and varied impact on students' affect and intellectual performance in and out of school as well as on teachers' successes with their students. Teachers have at least two roles with regard to metacognition: to develop their students' metacognitive knowledge and skills, and to apply metacognition to their own instruction, curriculum and assessment.
Hartman and Sternberg (1993) hypothesized that the full implementation of the BACEIS model would enable students to develop a differentiated, refined, elaborated, and interrelated structure of knowledge, skills, and affect in all of their academic subjects. Consequently students will learn, retain, and transfer what they learn more effectively than when compared to implementing a discrete skills approach. The basic concepts underlying the approach are: differentiated, meaning that major types of knowledge, skills, affect, and characteristics of the environments involved in thinking and learning are recognized and explicitly attended to; refined, meaning that existing knowledge, skills, and affect are enhanced; elaborated, meaning that new knowledge, skills, and affect, and new dimensions of existing knowledge, skills, and affect are developed; and interrelated, meaning that knowledge, skills and affect are developed in conjunction with: (a) each other; (b) subject-specific content; (c) content across subjects; and (d) everyday life experience.
. The B AC E I S model is summarized below and an illustration of the model is presented in Figures 1& 2. REFORMAT
Components Internal to Student
Cognitive System Affective System
------------------------- ----------------------------------
metacogniton motivation
cognition affective self regulation
applications attitudes
-critical thinking, creative thinking
& learning strategies
-------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------
Components External to Student
Academic System Nonacademic System
-------------------------------------- -------------------------------
teacher background family background
content socio-economic status
class/school environment cultural forces
instructional techniques
-------------------------------------------------------------------
|
--------------------------------------
Behavioral Consequences
--------------------------------------
Fig. 1 BACEIS Model: Internal and External System Components that Interact to Produce Behavioral Consequences (Hartman & Sternberg, 1993)
INTERNAL SUPERSYSTEM
Keisha's Cognitive System Keisha's Affective System
Metacognition Motivation
skims makes mental images interested in learning content
self questions monitors comprehension wants to correctly answer questions
wants to please teacher and parents
Cognition Affective Self Regulation
encodes information expects to be good reader
comprehends values reading
Critical Creative Learning Attitudes
Thinking Thinking Strategies positive reading self concept
evaluates invents new selective attention curious about content due to
alternative way to relates new father's occupation
energy purify ideas to persists when reading difficult material
sources gasoline prior knowledge
EXTERNAL SUPERSYSTEM
Keisha's Keisha's
Academic Contextual System Nonacademic Contextual System
Teacher Characteristics Family Background
reading specialist native speakers of English
extensive teaching experience family reads and discusses books
positive attitude towards students and newspapers at meals
diverse teaching repertoire brothers and sisters are good readers
father owns gas station
Content (text) Cultural Forces
gasoline emissions reading is a survival skill in society
ozone in atmosphere (signs, labels, job applications)
cars vs. mass transit television inhibits reading
alternative energy source video games inhibit reading
Class Environment SocioEconomic Status
students can challenge authority father's income crucial for family support
resources accessible leisure time for reading
content at appropriate level money for books, newspapers,
Instructional Techniques
reciprocal teaching
imagery formation
BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES
correctly answers comprehension questions
paraphrases text
self regulates reading
writes essay, rejects author's conclusion & proposes new technology
This systems theory model views training intellectual development very broadly and suggests it can be approached through a broad array of functions and roles including teacher, administrator, theoretician, researcher, evaluator, curriculum specialist, staff development expert, and generalist who works with both across-domain and domain-specific components of thinking, a practitioner and an author/editor who disseminates ideas to maximize their impact.
MY LESSON PLAN MODEL: also from Hartman & Sternberg (1993)
The Rich Instruction Model lesson plan format is derived from this theoretical model, and is summarized below, showing a concrete application of the B AC E I S theory.
Rich Instruction Model
1. Explicit Objectives
A. Content
Subject matter of lesson, e.g. -Students will understand and be able to use quadratic equation.
B. Thinking Skills
1. Focused: specifically targeted for improvement in this lesson. Both cognitive and metacognitive dimensions explicitly addressed.
2. Tapped: others used in lesson, but not specifically targeted for improvement in the particular lesson
C. Attitudes
1. Focused: specifically targeted for improvement in this lesson. Both cognitive and metacognitive dimensions explicitly addressed.
2. Tapped: applicable to lesson, but not specifically targeted for improvement in the particular lesson
2. Lesson Plan Core
A. Why?: Immediate Purpose and Long Term Benefits
Teachers identify reasons for learning and communicate them to students.
B. What Should I Build On? Students' Prior Knowledge/Experience
Teachers identify relevant prior knowledge, skills, experience, and elicit them from students.
C. How? Instructional Techniques & Modalities
Teachers determine how they will achieve the targeted objectives, using a variety of instructional techniques and multiple modalities.
3. Transfer
Build at least two of these into each RIM unit.
A. Apply Within Subject, Across Tasks
B. Apply Across Subjects
C. Apply to Everyday Life
D. Practice for Automaticity
E. Several Varied Examples of Application
This page shows a teacher-developed science lesson based on this model.
Sample RIM Lesson*
1. Explicit Objectives
A. Content: Students will understand that science is not value free. Topic genetic engineering
B. Thinking Skills
1. Focused: encoding, evaluating
a. executive management
b. strategic knowledge
2. Tapped: inferring, generalizing
C. Attitudes
1. Focused: predispositions, openmindedness
2. Tapped: reflective style, locus of control
2. Lesson Plan Core
A. Why?
Immediate Purpose: so students understand that scientists are regularly confronted with ethical decisions.
Long Term Benefits: to promote openmindedness in judging scientists' decisions, and to learn to critically evaluate their own and others' positions. Purpose and benefits will be explicitly discussed in class.
B. What Should I Build On?
Students' Prior Knowledge/Experience: ten years of science education and a general understanding of values and decision making - to be discussed before the lesson.
C. How?
Instructional Techniques: give reading materials on pros and cons of genetic engineering, elicit relevant prior knowledge, model desired skills, ask higher-order questions.
Modalities: auditory, visual, verbal
3. Transfer
A. Apply Within Subject, Across Tasks
Follow-up exercise: in small groups students list four scientific areas where value questions would be important and indicate specific value questions
C. Apply to Everyday Life
Homework: interview 10 neighbors about their views on the value questions involved in women's rights to choose whether to have an abortion.
*adapted from D. McNamara (1986) Return to my home page
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11/03/01
