How can one evaluate a deeper awareness? As we go through the different stages of the

method (approach, exploration, etc.) this implies a deeper and deeper understanding of

the Question in the text. The teacher can evaluate a grown awareness by checking

whether another attitude (of wonder, understanding) has been acquired. This is checked

by the later questions and by the different approaches to the text. When the students

e.g. answer rightly the questions that come after an illustration, it means that they

have acquired more understanding and a changed perception.

But what is a right answer? We do not want to give a quantitative method for evaluating here.

How could we evaluate awareness and wonder with numbers?

We suggest an intuitive evaluation by the teacher.

Therefore, the teacher should have an attitude of wonder himself, in order to check if

the students' attitude has changed. The teacher will have to notice from his own way of

looking at reality what has happened to his pupils. From his own perception the teacher

can be corrective, when the answers given by the student do not correspond. This will be

necessary when the students don't want to commit themselves in any way.

We realize that this implies that different teachers will judge differently and maybe

choose other questions as the right ones. But we do not want to impose one perception

as the right one, nor can we measure it in a quantitative way. On the other hand,

proceeding as such will enable freedom, improvisation, new findings and exitement to

each individual teacher.

Note:

We could keep in mind Marzano’s Dimension 4 which deals with the application of knowledge to new meaningful situations. It applies to 'WHY' not in the way the student would e.g. learn how to do an experiment in chemistry, but rather in the way that someone who has fallen in love sees the world differently than before. As 'WHY' tries to develop a different way of perception in the student, he will, this perception being achieved, look at his or her world differently than before. He will consider what he learns in school and elsewhere in a more coherent way and hopefully, in a more meaningful way. At last we hope he will apply his new perception in the form of a different way of living.

Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, e.a.: Dimensions of Learning Teacher's Manual.