Skip to main content

A Learner's Experiment in Social Conformity

Currently, we are studying 'Stargirl' by Jerry Spinelli and exploring the ideas of tolerance, individuality, prejudice, and conformity. The driving question behind this unit is, "Do you Dare to be Yourself?" with the sub-question, "Do you Dare to Let Others be Themselves?". One of the assessments is an independent research project exploring the themes mentioned above, but of a topic and with a research question of each learner's own choosing.

Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971
One of my learners has been exploring the idea of conformity and has been researching the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Milgram Experiment and the Asch Experiment. He had already written the draft of his report but we'd spent some time discussing his desire to conduct an experiment of his own along the lines of the Asch Experiment. He wanted to know if his peers would conform, even when they clearly know that everyone else is wrong.

Today, as our lesson began, he informed me of his plans. His needs often have to be addressed as and when he has them. Fortunately, I was able to set the class off and we mangaged to discuss his ideas. He had one question that he wanted the majority of the class to purposefully get wrong - whilst two members of the class were to be unaware of the 'experiment', to see what they would do. Very quickly, I whipped up a plan that would allow his expeirment to take place.

First, I created a short Google Presentation 'test'. We decided to add in two 'dummy' questions before the 'experiment' question, to try to make is seem more authentic. I also decided that it should be set up as a test to measure how quickly the class can process information. The questions were multiple choice with three options, A, B and C and I stuck up a big A, B and C at different areas of my room for them to move to to show their answers. The first question asked who their English teacher is, with options including me, another teacher and a learner. The second question asked who their Form teacher is, with the correct answer, another teacher and another learner. The final, 'experimental' question asked who the Principal is, with the answers being the actual principal, George Clooney and President Obama.
Asch Experiment, 1951

Next, I sent off the two learners chosen to be 'unaware' to the staff room (the furthest room away from our classroom) to find a support teacher (who I hoped was not going to be there), telling them she had said she wanted to be with us to take part in something happening later in the lesson, but might have forgotten. Once they left, I quickly explained the experiment to the remaining members of the class, who decided to all go to President Obama for the 'correct' answer to the final, 'experimental' question.

The class then settled back into their work, when a learner, who we had forgotten had been at the nurse, appeared back in the room. He became a third 'unaware' to add to the mix. Minutes later, the two envoys returned, informing me they had searched high and low for the support teacher, had found her, and she was on her way! Seconds later, she appeared at the door apologising profusely for having forgotten we had arranged for her to be in the lesson! I managed to take her aside and explain the situation (she was aware of the learner's research and had been involved in discussions about his experiment) and she decided to stay - which added more authenticity to the situation.

Learners continued with their writing and when the time for that portion of the lesson was up, I gathered them into the middle of the room to explain the test that the support teacher and I wanted to perform on them. I explained that they were to go to the letter on the wall of the answer they considered correct as quickly and sensibly as possible. With a laptop set up to record the 'experiment', we started.

The three questions were shown successively, in the same order outlined above. And guess what - all THREE of the 'unaware' students followed the majority to the incorrect answer that President Obama is our school Principal! It was incredible. They said they just went along with the crowd, without really reading the question properly or thinking about it properly, confirming just how easily we conform to the majority viewpoint.  It was brilliant and I admit that I was a little shocked by just how easily they followed along. After a pause they did look twice and then moved, but their initial response was to go with the crowd.

I am so proud of this learner's progress, his thinking that has gone into this research, and his desire to put into practise his research. Once he has included his own experiment alongside the other research, I am looking forward to reading the final draft of his report which opens:

"Were things like the holocaust committed by monsters who eat golden foiled babies for dinner, or were they committed by 'normal' people, the kind of people who play ball with the children and the dog, or go to the theatre to enjoy a school performance, the kind of person who would help an old lady cross the road? These experiments show that, under the right conditions, people can do horrible and illogical things."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

All comments gratefully received - thanks for taking the time to read :)
Anonymous comments and spam will be removed.

Past Thoughts

CONNECTION

We had our kick-off meeting last week on Tuesday 5 February 2013. I was able to connect using Blackboard Collaborate , something I had not used before, but unfortunately had to leave as I was at school. However, with it being Chinese New Year I have had an extended weekend, so was able to catch up and watch the full recorded version. I have also had a cold so have not felt up to tackling the mountain of marking, but have caught up on my reading for the next meeting, namely Chapters 1-3 of the book, ' Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds '; my Tweets about the most interesting salient points for me personally, can be found under @MrsHollyEnglish under #flatclass. Having reached the end of Chapter 3, I have come across my first 3 of the 15 Flat Classroom Challenges. Having taken part in the survey assessing my current connectivity, I feel confident that I am currently in a good position - I already have established a sound PLN that I build on when I can and have added s...
57 comments
Read more

Building Feedback Literacy: Quantitative Insights into Feedback, Rubrics, and Formative Assessment

Feedback has long been recognised as one of the most significant factors influencing student achievement. Quantitative evidence, particularly from large-scale meta-analyses, consistently demonstrates that feedback interventions produce some of the highest effect sizes of any educational practice (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Wisniewski, Zierer, & Hattie, 2020). Yet, these same studies reveal a wide variation in outcomes, with some forms of feedback accelerating learning substantially, while others appear ineffective, or even detrimental. This paradox highlights a crucial challenge for educators: the mere presence of feedback is insufficient. Its impact depends on how clearly it communicates goals, how effectively it guides students’ next steps, and whether learners possess the capacity to interpret and apply it. This capacity is increasingly described as feedback literacy; the skills and dispositions students require to make sense of, use, and seek feedback to improve their learni...
Post a Comment
Read more

Habits of Learning

Habits of Learning:  Responsible, Reliable Management of  Online Activity For Module 3: Citizenship, of the Flat Classroom Teacher Course, we have been assigned 'Quadblog' groups; this gives us a taste of what it is like to try to work asynchronously towards a common goal with people we don't know and who are in different time zones. My group has been assigned the topic of Individual Awareness ,  which is one of the areas of awareness that permeate every area of digital citizenship. Within each of the five areas of awareness - technical, individual, social, cultural and global - there are four "rays of understanding": Safety, Privacy, Copyright, Fair Use, and Legal Compliance; Etiquette and Respect; Habits of Learning: Responsible, Reliable Management of Online Activity, and Literacy and Fluency. For the Quadblog group, I am tackling the understanding of Habits of Learning: Responsible, Reliable Management of Online Activity within the concept of individu...
1 comment
Read more

Collaboration: The Legacy

Dipping my toes... For the first three months of 2013, I took part in my first MOOC, 'Designing a New Learning Environment' offered by Stanford University via an initiative called Venture Lab . I signed up because it ties in with my Octopus's Garden Project and also because I wanted to experience this Flat Classroom-global-type of learning for myself. The course required us to watch weekly lectures and complete readings; for assessment we had to submit five individual assignments, one final team assignment and five peer assessments of other final projects. We signed up for teams of our choice and developed an area within new learning environments; developing our final project design based on our findings, readings and experience. Leading & Contributing I became team leader late on in the project as the original one, the one who set up the actual topic, went quiet and dropped off the radar. Having 40000 people taking part in a course makes it hard to communicate wi...
2 comments
Read more

From Alignment to Impact: Why Curriculum, Feedback, and Organisational Design Matter

This reflection draws on established research in curriculum design, instructional leadership, feedback, and school improvement, as well as my ongoing doctoral study in curriculum and learning sciences. It is written from a leadership perspective and informed by sustained engagement with departments, teams, and classrooms throughout this half term. The intention is to make visible the research-informed rationale underpinning current and future priorities for teaching, learning, and collaboration. A Shift in Perspective This half term, my work has taken me away from classrooms and more into meetings. I have spent sustained time with several Heads of Department in strategic planning discussions, in departmental meetings focused on implementation, and in conversations with teachers and parents regarding learning, assessment, and progress. While this is a different vantage point from earlier reflections grounded in classroom observation, it has provided an additional and highly valuable per...
Post a Comment
Read more

Critical Thinking in the Classroom

Collaboration & Critical Thinking For the penultimate assignment of my PBLU Project-Based Learning Teaching Certification capstone project, The Octopus's Garden (see my Project Based Learning Journal for all posts relating to this course), I had to reflect on the collaboration and critical thinking that I had fostered and measured in the project. COLLABORATION In the first phase of the project, we spent a lot of time reworking the bie.org collaboration rubric so that it became our own as team work was identified in the Need to Know as something important that the learners wanted to work on.  Learners were given blown-up copies of the rubric and sent off in groups to rework it by adding or amending as they felt appropriate, with the intention of bringing all the suggestions together to create a new personalised and co-constructed rubric. Learners showed excellent critical thinking skills by indepently researching behaviours on the Internet for specific skills. For ex...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's all about Choice and Voice

Collaborative Planning in PBL In Phase 3 of The Octopus's Garden Project, Grade 7 and Grade 8 have been working on the importance of visuals in getting their message across clearly and effectively to their audience. They recently collaborated to decide how to proceed with their final design presentations. Using the feedback and reflections from their Phase 2 presentations, along with some lesson on slide design and visual story-telling, they created a list of  guidelines  to guide their final designs.    Introduction to Slide Design: 7 Rules for Creating Effective Slides from Alex Rister Lots of critical thinking happened as learners made important decisions about how teams would be formed, how the presentation would work, what would be included and the order each section would occur in. Learners took part in a poll to decide on team formation for this Phase and then, using the guidelines and learning from the slides above, worked on planning out...
Post a Comment
Read more

Creativity Runs Wild

“There’s probably no better example of the throttling of creativity than the difference between what we observe in a kindergarten classroom and what we observe in a high school classroom.” (Levine) Wherever in the world I have been teaching, one of the most common observations of my classroom by other teachers is that it is "like a primary classroom". This is, more often that not, said in a derogatory and dismissive way, as if the colourful and expressive landscape of learning created through explorations of language and literature is a negative thing. That I cannot possibly be teaching a secondary curriculum if they seem to be creating so much..."mess" (as it has also been called). I have never paid much attention to this; I believe that my IB Diploma English Literature class learnt a great deal about the symbols, motifs, characters, language, themes and setting through the mural we painted all over the classroom. They learnt to problem solve and collaborate...
4 comments
Read more

Classroom Management Portals

One of the challenges of any big project is managing the different streams and places information and creation is happening. Challenge 16 of the Flat Classroom certification also requires us to explore and create a Classroom Management Portal. For my PL, I use NetVibes to manage my PL as I am usually doing about 3 or 4 online courses at once; without NetVibes, I would get totally lost! Here is a screenshot, open on my Flat Classroom Certified Teacher tab. NetVibes allows you to set up different tabs for different projects and add the content you need. I love it because I can include all the different websites and feeds etc that I need for any particular project, all on one tab, all in one place - and best of all, I can include a 'To Do List' widget so I can list my tasks - and more importantly, tick them off as I go :) I have not used NetVibes as a CMP though, as I use Edmodo . However, for this challenge, I created one for my project The Octopus's Garden ; my capst...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why “I Taught It” Does Not Mean “They Learned It”

One of the most common frustrations I hear teachers express is, “I have taught them this already.” This observation is valid and deeply felt, but it requires a shift in perspective. Cognitive psychology and brain-based learning research offer a clear explanation: students filter out far more than they filter in , and teaching does not automatically lead to learning. The opening chapters of Learning That Sticks  (Goodwin, 2020) outline the scale of this filtering problem. Our sensory systems relay 11 million bits of information per second , yet the brain can consciously process only around 120 bits per second . This means that “our brains simply cannot squeeze 180 bits of information into a 120-bit mental pipe (Levitin, 2015).” Much of what is said in a classroom, therefore, never makes it past the sensory register. In a world where students receive “the equivalent of 174 newspapers of information every day,” the brain is constantly working to “separate the trivial from the importa...
Post a Comment
Read more