Students move through a series of fairly well-defined phases defined by the Perry Scheme: dualism multiplicity relativism and commitment in relativism. The Perry Scheme explains student behavior along a continuum of cognitive development and it behooves teachers to learn the level which students are functioning at in order to set educational goals and instruction for their courses. Most students are dualists requiring gentle dismantling of their mental schema with contradicting evidence as they still see the world in black and white - right and wrong - with little room for ambiguity. In aggregate students instructors and the content make up the classroom climate.
Classroom climate consists of stereotypes tone faculty-student and student-student interactions and content. Content can affect learning through cognitive motivational and socio-emotional mechanisms. Students ascribe meaning to course material via these mechanisms which are informed by their preconceived facts concepts models perceptions beliefs values and attitudes some of which are useful for the course and others which are not. However this knowledge determines how students filter and interpret information.
Teachers can understand students’ prior knowledge by asking them to write brief essays on one of two topics: The Best Class I Ever Had or How I Learn Best and How I Know That. Teachers can use concept inventories (available on the Internet or in How Learning Works Appendix B) to determine gaps in students' knowledge and address misconceptions.
Teachers ought also to be mindful that growth like the sculpting of a Renaissance marble statue requires chipping away at the molds of a student's mind - creating a sense of loss uncertainty and inevitable resistance. Growth requires pain for the student is both the sculpture and the sculptor of their learning.
The goal of nudging students along the developmental continuum is to make them more comfortable with ambiguity and to construct their own knowledge. Trusting and respecting students leads them to engaging in class which hopefully leads to a classroom environment filled with nuanced informed intellectual pluralism. Teachers can validate potentially controversial statements students make in class promoting learning for all students by highlighting complexity and nuance.