3. Epistemicinsight.com
LASAR@Canterbury.ac.uk
Each of your subjects in
secondary school gave a
contrived view of reality
It appeared that you
didn’t need to turn to
any other discipline to
help you to ask
questions, test claims
and establish
knowledge.
4. Epistemicinsight.com
LASAR@Canterbury.ac.uk
Epistemic Insight
• Knowledge about knowledge –
particularly knowledge about disciplines
and how they interact
• ‘It’s not just cross-curricular’ – it means
going beyond topic work to recognise
the distinctive questions, methods and
norms of thought of different disciplines.
8. Epistemicinsight.com
LASAR@Canterbury.ac.uk
Sample workshops: is it alive?
• What’s the difference between
being alive and appearing to
be alive?
• What does science say are the
criteria for ‘being alive’?
• Compare the insights that
science brings with the insights
your own subjective
experience brings – and notice
that you get a richer picture if
you add these perspectives
together?
12. Epistemicinsight.com
LASAR@Canterbury.ac.uk
“Brain scan can detect whether
or not you’re in love”
• One of life’s toughest questions to
answer is “What is love?” Childhood
games such as “He loves me, he loves
me not” set the parameters for us to
become infatuated with the validation of
love, but even after saying “I love you”
to a person, we may still not understand
the profound meaning of the sentiment.
• According to a recent study published in
the journal Frontiers in Human
Neuroscience, activity in regions of the
brain associated with reward,
motivation, emotion, and social
functioning are highest when we are in
love.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/what-love-mri-
scan-reveals-what-stages-romantic-love-
youre-brain-map-326080
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LASAR@Canterbury.ac.uk 15
What makes a question a science question … well it says it’s
science in the timetable, it says science on the front of the
book – and in secondary – it’s the name on the door and the
job title of the teacher!
17. Epistemicinsight.com
LASAR@Canterbury.ac.uk
Some questions are more
amenable to science than others
• Why did the Titanic sink?
• What is the most interesting book ever
written?
• Why did the great fire of London spread
so quickly?
• Why do things fall to the ground when
you let them go?
• Would a robot ever be given the status
of an electronic person?
• Why did the Romans come to Britain?
• Will we ever bring back dinosaurs?
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Sample EI objectives
•Year 5-6: Some methods are more
scientific than others.
•Year 7-9: Some questions are more
amenable to science than others.
•YEAR 10-11 (existing objective)
Students should appreciate “the
power and limitations of science”
18
20. Epistemicinsight.com
LASAR@Canterbury.ac.uk
Teachers
• Mr A (science): “we’ve had no cross-curricular
sessions here since I’ve been here – which is
(pause) 19 years. [laughs] I think they may be
useful, so that at least we know what [the] teacher
there is teaching.”
• Mr B (Science): “There is no relationship between
Religious Studies and science ... it is very hard for
pupils to actually see where those two can work
together.”
• Mr D (RE): “I’m not terribly familiar with the
science curriculum; I don’t think they’re terribly
familiar with mine.”
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Off-topic
“We don’t ask science teachers
questions any more at the moment,
because we don’t think that they’d
answer them. We wouldn’t have
thought (pause) – oh they won’t
answer that because it’s not on their
topic.” David age 15
Epistemic insight is both an intellectual virtue and a pedagogical approach. As a virtue it refers to students’ “knowledge about knowledge”, in particular their scholarly expertise and capacities to be wise about how knowledge is/can be formed and tested. It moves beyond topic work through recognising the distinctiveness of and interaction between the disciplines. So why are we arguing that epistemic insight is so important in the digital age?