How can teachers push students along the path of commitment to relativism?
Teachers can create environments and tasks that invite black/white thinkers to change themselves appreciate multiple points of view and accept them as legitimate. Students can do this by performing basic analysis comparing/contrasting and justifying their statements with reason and evidence. Teachers should be aware that conceptual change along Perry's Scheme takes time and students will not immediately display improvement (Alibali 1999; Chi & Roscoe 2002).
To design instruction appropriately teachers should assess both the amount and nature of students' prior knowledge.
Teachers can create a list of concepts and skills they expect students to have as prerequisites to the course and what students will learn during the academic term. Students can self-assess their level of competence for each concept or skill using a scale that ranges from cursory familiarity ("I have heard of the term") to factual knowledge ("I could define it") to conceptual knowledge ("I could explain it to someone else") to application ("I can use it to solve problems").
Teachers can also use brainstorming to uncover beliefs associations and assumptions students have assign a concept map activity (How Learning Works Appendix B) and give students sufficient time so they can have adequate time to revise and rebuild their mental models.
Although teachers should consider students holistically as intellectual social and emotional beings we are not responsible for guiding them through all aspects of their social and emotional lives (such as giving financial planning or dating advice).
Teachers should be collecting data about students to help inform teaching practice and learning about students is a way to build on our prior knowledge by learning more about the classroom context and using this information to adjust our instructional goals as necessary.