Learning outcomes:
- LO1: Highlight the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning.
- LO2: Recognize how different disciplines approach reading, and produce and communicate knowledge.
- LO3: Identify which disciplines use deductive or inductive instruction, whether these approaches adequately facilitate learning, and how teaching approaches can be improved.
Reading, knowledge, and expertise
At their base, all academic disciplines are interested in asking, and answering, questions about the world around us — whether it is a climate scientist attempting to model the impact of carbon emissions on sea levels, or an art historian attempting to understand how and why medieval painters depicted kingship. While academic disciplines vary a great deal in terms of the questions that interest them and the kinds of evidence that they produce, they do share two ways of reasoning, one of which — deductive reasoning — features more prominently in the scientific and mathematical disciplines, and the other of which — inductive reasoning — tends to be more characteristic of the humanities and qualitative social sciences. In deductive reasoning, an individual begins by adopting (or creating) a theory, which they then refine by collecting data, making observations, and analyzing their “fit” with the original hypothesis. These observations might lead to the confirmation, modification, or rejection of the original theory. Inductive reasoning, on the other hand, starts with raw (perhaps even chaotic) observations, and works “upward” from said observations to develop a hypothesis or more theoretical or narrative understanding of the observed phenomena. While there exists no pure example of either inductive or deductive reasoning in the real world — all researchers use some of both — these approaches do often show up quite vividly in the way that members of different disciplines organize their teaching. It is not accident, for example, that historians—who often move inductively, from jumbled facts to elegant theory in their research — often teach students the same way, by confronting them with puzzles and challenging them to develop a theory about them.
As a teacher, then, your decision on whether you want to use an inductive or deductive approach to teaching specific content may well be influenced by the discipline to which you belong.
Please use this pre-reflection journal to consider a time when you were taught something, by reflecting on the following questions:
- Which instruction approach (deductive or inductive) did your instructor take? Were you confronted with examples and asked to develop a theory? Or given a theory and asked to apply it to examples? Did this approach adequately support your learning of the content?
- How do you approach reading for the purposes of retention and comprehension?
- How has your approach to teaching been shaped by your discipline’s approach (inductive or deductive) to reading, comprehension, and the communication of knowledge?
Your reflection should not exceed 300 words.
Note:
Because this journal is meant to be a space in which you can reflect on your own, unique experiences as a learner and teacher, there are no “right” or “wrong” answers, and your pre-reflection (at the beginning of a module) and post-reflection (at the end of a module) entries in this course will be marked on a submission basis only. Therefore, if you do not submit a journal entry, you will simply be ineligible to receive the associated grade. However, completion and submission of each entry is in your benefit, as these entries will aid in your journey to becoming a reflective practitioner.