Inclusive Learning and Educational Equity 5

Grasping Models for the Reorganisation of Information and Possessed 
Experience, their Clarification and Use in the Thinking-Promoting Environment 
of Team Learning
Seventh formers have extensive live experience, but it has not 
been systemised into science-based concepts, structures and systems. The ability of 
students as expert learners to employ models for the reconstruction of this experi-
ence tends to deepen their knowledge and understanding. Striving to develop the 
qualities of expert learners in their students, teachers successfully used structural 
models for the reorganisation of information. The observation of the lesson, where 
the students prepared for the analysis of work songs, revealed the process of how the 
properly chosen tool of visual thinking, group work and the possibility to use a 
variety of information sources enabled students to systemise their possessed 
unstructured knowledge into a system with clear logic. The teacher asked students 
to group old works performed in the past according to the seasons of the year: 
‘Draw a circle of past works. Divide it into four parts—four seasons of the year. 
There should be at least two activities in each part. Use the internet, your friends’ 
help, textbooks
’. Contemporary city children encounter a serious challenge in attrib-
uting the works performed almost a century ago to seasons of year. They are not 
very well aware of agricultural works (which are not typical of townspeople) and do 
not know the seasons in which they were carried out in. Vaidotas, Tadas and Antanas 
were members of the same group.
Vaidotas: What did they do in spring?
Tadas: They ploughed.
Vaidotas takes initiative in the discussion: And what about winter? In winter? They chopped 
wood.
(The student is right—people used to take care of wood in winter after the agri-
cultural work was over.)
Antanas: Do they chop wood in winter?
Tadas: So when do they chop wood?
Vaidotas: They chop ... (The student searches for information on the internet.)
Antanas: They chop wood in autumn.
Tadas: So, do they chop wood in autumn? Or in winter?
Vaidotas: They ploughed the land in winter. (The student is wrong.)
Tadas: It is impossible to plough in winter. Land is frozen.
Vaidotas: Ok, winter. What do they do in winter?
Tadas: People chop wood.
Vaidotas: Let’s write it down. They chop wood.
Vaidotas: They fish in winter. On the ice.
Vaidotas asks the teacher: Can people fish in winter?
Teacher Goda: Yes.
Vaidotas: When do they plough?
Teacher Goda: They plough two times. In spring and in autumn.
Vaidotas: I didn’t know that. (Observation, 17)
In this case, the students reorganised their inaccurate experiential knowledge into 
a logical system using the visual thinking tool ‘The circle of works in the past’, 
discussing with each other, providing arguments to support their idea, referring to 
the internet and checking with their teacher. The students successfully completed 
the assignment. Initially, inaccurate knowledge was turned into solid systemic 
A. Galkien
ė and O. Monkevičienė

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knowledge through the common process of knowledge construction, which is ben-
eficial to every child.