Symbolic Interactionism... Reflection on the work of Herbert Blumer
Blumer's work on Symbolic Interactionism was based on three simple premises:
1. The way we act depends on the meaning we assign to things.
2. Different individuals behave differently towards things depending on the meanings those things have for each person.
3. As we interact with other people, the meanings of those things can change.
Obvious really, aren't they. But what's perhaps less obvious are the subtle implications that make this an important feature of the learning/education process.
If we look at the world from a relativist standpoint and accept that everyone views and interprets the world differently, then the fact that this theory highlights the importance of the individual is hugely significant. When students come to a face to face class, they're faced with signs, symbols, visual and verbal cues that elicit a reaction. This is arguably even more significant in the online environment where such cues are embedded in written language e.g. pictures, descriptions, emojis, statistics, interface designs etc.
(Thumper69 (N.D.))
When a student enters your class (whether face to face or online), some might show excitement and interest. Some might be bored. But others might be properly frightened and confused. For some teachers and students the very idea of facing a computer might remind them of the stress and trauma they faced during the online pivot, feeling isolated, anxious, facing failure and fear. For others it might be a symbol of success, flexibility, opportunity and gaining a real sense of independence in their learning and working practices.
With the new term fast approaching, and my own sense of impending trepidation, this reminds me to think of the needs of the individual. But, more than that, this theory reminds me that I have the chance to interact with my students and change the way they interpret the world, and they have the chance to impact my world too. That's a huge statement! Educcation changing the world - isn't that what our profession is meant to do?!
But there's a catch. According to Blumer, this theory applies to the micro level of society. In other words, it only works if I take time to interact with each student on a 1-to-1 basis. Therein lies the rub. Think of all the 1-to-1 interactions, all the 1-to1 relationships a teacher needs to build, develop and manage. Think about the information flying back and forth between students, teachers and managers on a range of channels from emails, private messages, mobile devices, online meetings, face to face meetings... it's a lot to process right.
As teachers we often think about cognitive load (CL) usually in terms of the learning designs we apply in our teaching. But do we think about our own CL? For anyone who hasn't heard this term before CL refers to the amount of effort required to process new information. Collins (2020) writing about the impact of cognitive overload on nurses writes about the nature of cognitive load and cites some alarming statistics:
Intrinsic CL - "Intrinsic cognitive load refers to the level of cognitive effort you need to expend to complete a problem or task. As a clinician, the intrinsic load is affected by things that take place in and diminish short-term memory. These things could be stress factors such as lack of sleep, a sick child at home, or forgetting a dentist appointment. The intrinsic load can be compounded by larger, deeper emotions such as guilt, grief, and empathy, especially when stress factors reduce our ability to compartmentalise these emotions."
Now - hang on just a sec! Aside from all of the factors mentioned here, one stood out to me especially. Empathy. I read about this recently in the work of Brunzell and Norrish (2020). In relation to their work on trauma informed teaching practice they refer to interpersonal neurobiology. I had never heard of this concept before, but apparently when you're in a situation where someone you're with experiences an emotion, mirror neurons in our own brains respond and we experience similar emotions.
So not only is symbolic interactionism something to consider when seeing and interpreting cues, signs and symbols around us, or giving cues and information to others (ticks and crosses, written feedback, analytic-dashboard statistics) but the sheer volume and nature of these interactions have an impact our emotional wellbeing on a physical level! This stuff literally impacts the neurons in our brains! But we're not finished.
Extrinsic CL - "Extrinsic load describes the level of cognitive effort demanded of nurses by the working environment. Nurses and clinicians have little control over the extrinsic cognitive load placed upon them. When they arrive at work and are bombarded with information that they cannot control, they likely have a heavy extrinsic load."
I'm not a nursing practitioner, but this sure sounds familiar to me. There's lots of days when I'm at work and I just feel like I'm fire fighting to stem the flow of messages and emails.
Germane CL - "Germane cognitive load is the effort required to make sense of new information. If nurses receive a lab value with no context and must got to another system and retrieve past values and other related information to understand the complete picture that is a heavy germane load."
This one spoke to me on a number of levels. First, making sense of new information - how much time have we spent as teachers in the past few years getting used to new information, new systems, new policies, new ways of working etc. only to have those same things change every few weeks or months.
Second, new students - one of the things I love about my job is meeting new students and working with them to build a learning journey together. But that requires a constant exchange of information via 1-to-1 interaction (to use Blumer's language). Third, information infrastructure - a separate system for student attendance tracking, resulting, monitoring support, retrieving evidence of prior achievement, not to mention the choice between VLE, email or other conferencing systems for formative or summative assessment and feeedback, then having to duplicate any assessment results into other appropriate systems.
So, if we accept all of this information that is exchanged and processed by teachers every single year, then teaching is clearly a profession that brings with it a high cognitive load. So what? That's what teachers a paid and trained to deal with you might argue. Dr. Collins goes further and explains that:
"Nurses face cognitive overload due to the daily bombardment of calls, texts, alerts and alarm notifications, plus complex and incomplete information sent to them from multiple sources, including colleagues, mobile devices, patient monitors, and many other technologies. Distraction has been show to play a role in nearly 75% of medical errors, and studies have demonstrated that cognitive overload is a cause in 80% of medical device user errors."
"Nurses face cognitive overload due to the daily bombardment of calls, texts, alerts and alarm notifications, plus complex and incomplete information sent to them from multiple sources, including colleagues, mobile devices, patient monitors, and many other technologies. Distraction has been show to play a role in nearly 75% of medical errors, and studies have demonstrated that cognitive overload is a cause in 80% of medical device user errors."
I'm not sure if there exist studies or literature out there that examine the impact of cognitive load on teachers/educators. If there is then I would love to find out. But it's certainly a sobering thought and one that appears to impact our students too. Chuter (2019) highlights that the issue of social interaction and cognitive load are directly linked:
"When students have weak social connections, learning is limited through reduced executive function. Executive function serves as the command center of the brain which nimbly sorts and applies new learning. It is depressed by the stress and cognitive load caused by low social connection, and the following capacities are greatly diminished: Organisation, planning, & time management... Working memory and attention... Flexible transfer of knowledge & skills..."
When the very nature and means by which we interact with people has changed, and is continuing to change, whether we are teachers or students, then there is a clear impact on our ability to function.
As I come to the end of this article it feels like I've come full circle. I find myself thinking back to a previous blog post I wrote back in 2021 on information overload (feel free to have a look - I've linked it in the references below). But I also find myself thinking back to the writing of Vincent Tinto and his model of the college as overlapping and interlinked academic and social communities. Whether viewed from a micro perspective (as Blumer might advocate) or from a macro perspective, it seems clear to me that socialisation, community building, information infrastructure and effective communication protocols have a direct impact on learning.
What are your thoughts? You can follow me on twitter @McintoshMclean.
Reference
Blumer, H. (1969) Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method, London, University of California Press Ltd
Brunzell, T. and Norrish, J. (2020) Creating Trauma-Informed, Strengths Based Classrooms: Teacher Strategies for Nurturing Students Healing, Growth and Learning [ebook reader]. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Chuter C. (2019) The importance of social connections in schools [Online]. Available at: https://theeducationhub.org.nz/social-connection (Accessed 31st July 2022).
Collins, R. (2020) Clinician Cognitive Overload and Its Implications for Nurse Leaders, Nurse Leader, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 44 - 47.
McIntosh, M. (2021) Avoiding Information Overload - Quality and Kindness [Online]. Available at: https://mcsquaredreflections.blogspot.com/2021/03/avoiding-information-overload.html (Accessed 31st July 2022)
Thumper69 (N.D.) Perception Creates Reality [Online]. Available at: https://99memes.co/picture/perception-creates-reality-5F2O7NB69?s=cl (Accessed 29th July 2022)
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