The idea of intellectual need (IN) has received much interest from instructors in trying to design tasks that engage students in impasse-driven learning. However, we argue that the literature on IN is currently insufficient for supporting the careful design and implementation of tasks meant to provoke IN. In this paper, we examine two particular shortcomings: (1) What exactly IN can be created for, and (2) How an instructor might support students in navigating the experience of resolving the confusion and constructing the targeted meanings. For the first of these, we describe the category error of thinking of producing IN for a “topic”, and use the idea of conceptual analysis to suggest a way to address this shortcoming. For the second, we bring in control-value theory to explain what an instructor might attend to in order to ensure that the disequilibrium stays productive and does not lead to frustration and disengagement.
Location: Presenter:Aaron Weinberg, Ithaca College; Michael Tallman, Oklahoma State University; and Steven Jones, Brigham Young University