Benefits of APT

Deepening Understanding

Perhaps the greatest benefit of APT is the opportunity for students to develop their thinking and deepen their understanding—to make what some researchers call “epistemic progress.” [5] Beyond the skills of engaging with others effectively, epistemic progress is an indicator of more advanced understanding. At times, this kind of progress results from students making connections that they haven’t made before, often when the arguments of peers make the student rethink; at other times it involves students becoming aware that they have hit a roadblock—a question that must be answered before they can understand a phenomenon or solve a problem. 

For many in the education research community, this is the greatest affordance of APT. But it is likely to be the most challenging outcome to achieve. It requires that students be given tasks that provide the opportunity to develop their thinking, or that teachers respond flexibly when students’ contributions open unexpected lines of thinking. These are teaching skills that develop with experience.

Providing students opportunities to develop their thinking.

Watch how these teachers value student contributions, avoid evaluative comments, and challenge students’ thinking with probing questions.

Note the moves the teacher makes to get students to think more deeply. 

The teacher asks whether a seed is alive, a question that is intrinsically challenging for young children (and many adults). The students know that seeds are the source of plant life and many know that the seed “cracks open” and a living sprout emerges. 

The clip above is from:

Is a Seed Dead or Alive?

Science • Grade 2

  • Things to notice

    Most students will have an everyday understanding of what it means to be alive—an understanding that is not as nuanced as that of scientists. The seed is a good focus for developing students’ ideas: it shows some of the attributes of living (it can grow), but not others (such as movement, excretion, and respiration). 


    It is noteworthy how student ideas develop over the course of the discussion:

    • One student concludes that the thing inside is alive, but the outside shell is not.
    • A second student challenges that idea, arguing that if a thing can produce something living, then it must be alive.
    • Some students think that the seed cracking open is not inevitable, and that only with “components” —sunlight and water— will it become alive; thus, you can’t say that the seed itself is alive. 
    • Another student argues that we are alive when we are born, but we still need food and water to grow. So needing resources does not disqualify the seed from the category of living things. This analogy between seeds and babies is the type of connection that opens a new pathway for student thinking, and the teacher responds by elevating the idea for all to think about.

    As students begin to shift toward the position that seeds are alive, the teacher asks about the seeds in a bag in her cupboard. They have been there for two years and have not grown. As the video closes, several students are claiming that those seeds are dead. We can see that the exploration will continue; students now have to come to work with their ideas to accommodate a new situation.


    Why not just tell students that seeds are living things, but they can be dormant; and if they are beyond their lifespan or subject to conditions that they cannot tolerate, they will die? 

    • When students are told information such as this, they commonly do not remember it.
    • When students are told information such as this, they commonly do not remember it.
    • There is ample research evidence demonstrating that, for many scientific phenomena, student’s initial beliefs are very likely to persist even after they have been taught something different.  
    • However, when students take an initial position (in this case literally), then reconsider as new arguments are made by their classmates, the cognitive dissonance disrupts their initial thinking. The scientific answer becomes more meaningful and, thus, is more likely to be remembered—especially when there is a social and emotional dimension to the learning. 

As you watch, consider what the benefit of taking so much time to answer the question might be.

Students are given a seemingly straightforward task: to count the number of squares in the border of a 10 x 10 grid without counting each one individually. They work on their own to solve the problem, then share their methods with the group.

The clip above is from:

How Many Squares are in the Border of a 10x10 Grid?

Math • Grade 8

  • Things to notice

    The descriptions the students give of the different methods they used to solve the 10x10 problem allow students to see just how many different approaches can be taken to solving the same problem—most of which provide accurate answers, but a couple of which represent mistakes that are very commonly made. The talk deepens students’ understanding and cognitive flexibility by raising awareness of the many ways of reasoning that can lead to a correct answer. It is also generative: a student notes the similarities in two methods, one multiplying 4x10 and subtracting four and the other multiplying 4x8 and adding four. 


    While the teacher is responsive to student thinking, she has a very specific endpoint in mind, and the lesson is designed to lead students to that point. After exploring similarities and differences in methods, the teacher changes the task: apply any method to calculate the perimeter of a 6x6 grid. She then says she doesn’t care what the size is, she wants to know how to use a method that applies to the 10x10, 6x6, or any size grid. Here, students are given the opportunity to think productively about the fundamental gift of algebra: that single equations can provide the key to the relationship among variables, regardless of the value of any of the individual variables. 


    Importantly, students in this classroom see the close connection between the informal way we solve problems in our heads, and the formal structuring of mathematical equations. For the many who have struggled with math in school, this level of thinking will likely be recognized as both deeper and fundamentally enlightening. The interactions among students in this classroom that draw out different ways of thinking about a problem challenge a frequently held student belief: that mathematics is about applying formulas that must be memorized and that are not supposed to make sense.