Professional Development
Why seeing is not the same as observing
Teachers know this instinctively, but it matters to say it clearly: seeing is not the same as observing. Observation is not passive intake. It is an interpretive act in which students decide what matters, what counts as evidence, and how what they notice connects to an emerging explanation. Research consistently shows that observation is shaped by prior ideas and developing theories, not just by sensory input (diSessa, 1993; Ritchhart, 2015).
In KnowAtom classrooms, observation is treated as a thinking practice. Students are not just asked to look; they are expected to justify what they notice and explain why it matters. Evidence is not “what’s on the screen” or “what’s under the microscope.” Evidence is what students can point to, describe precisely, and use to support or revise a claim. Technology does not teach this on its own. The learning depends on how tools are positioned within the instructional task and lesson sequence.
Why teachers are right to be wary of digital images
Experienced teachers are right to be skeptical of digital images. Screens can flatten experience and oversimplify phenomena when they substitute for investigation. Images can also function as answer keys when they appear too polished or too early, signaling what students are supposed to see rather than inviting them to figure it out. Research on productive struggle cautions that when representations prematurely resolve uncertainty, they suppress sensemaking rather than support it (Kapur, 2016).
There is also a real risk of passivity. When students are positioned as viewers of images rather than producers of observations, observation becomes something done to them. This concern is especially relevant in science, where evidence-building depends on interaction with materials, tools, and peers.
KnowAtom’s stance reflects these concerns. The curriculum is intentionally hands-on and largely screens-off. Technology use in a lesson is always optional, not foundational. When it is used, it must strengthen thinking and discourse, not replace investigation or reduce students to spectators.
What digital images are actually doing in KnowAtom lessons
A key source of confusion in conversations about technology is treating all digital images as the same. In KnowAtom, digital images are not a teaching method. They are a specific kind of tool used for a narrow set of purposes.
Digital images most often appear in two places:
- During the phenomenon launch and Socratic dialogue, where shared visuals in the reader or used as backdrop to discussions help establish a common context and provoke questions.
- During or after investigations, where projected images support comparison, clarification, and collective reasoning about evidence students are already working with.
In both cases, the images are not intended to replace observation. They are intended to coordinate attention so students can reason together about the same thing.
For example, in Grade 1 Animals on Earth, students encounter images in the reader before any investigation. Those images do not function as evidence. They function as prompts for noticing, wondering, and questioning during discourse. Evidence emerges later, when students observe organisms or structures directly and connect those observations back to the ideas raised in discussion.
In middle school units such as Biodiversity or From Molecules to Organisms, students observe cells directly using microscopes. Projected microscope images are used sparingly to give the class a shared reference point when individual views differ or when scale and structure are difficult to articulate verbally. The image does not replace the slide on the microscope. It supports conversation about what students are already seeing. Medical-grade scanned microscope slides are offered in an interactive digital format to allow teachers the option of zooming in to greater resolutions than a normal classroom microscope would allow and these can be made available to students at the teacher’s discretion.
Shared images as a technology for collective reasoning
When digital images are used well, their primary function is social and epistemic, not visual. A shared image gives the class a common object to reason about. Instead of trying to infer what the teacher wants, students can point, disagree, revise, and build on one another’s ideas. This aligns with research on scientific argumentation, which emphasizes the importance of shared reference points for productive discourse (Berland & Reiser, 2011).
This is especially clear in KnowAtom’s Socratic dialogue routines. Images in the reader or projected visuals are not treated as explanations. They are treated as artifacts students can interrogate. The conversation shifts from “What is the right answer?” to “What does this show, and how do we know?”
Because everyone is looking at the same image, participation becomes more equitable. Students do not need perfect language or prior confidence to enter the conversation. They can reference visible features, patterns, or anomalies and build meaning collaboratively.
How technology stays secondary to investigation
One reason the technology theme can feel blurry is that, in KnowAtom classrooms, good technology use is intentionally understated. It never drives the lesson. It supports moments where shared sensemaking would otherwise break down.
Students still:
- Read and discuss their observations of phenomena together.
- Develop questions and disagreements through discourse.
- Conduct hands-on investigations in small teams.
- Analyze their own data and observations.
Technology steps in only when it helps students see relationships, compare interpretations, or refine claims more precisely. When it stops serving that purpose, it disappears.
This restraint is deliberate. It protects the integrity of observation as a thinking practice and ensures that technology remains in service of human-to-human learning rather than competing with it.
What changes when images support thinking instead of replacing it
When digital images are positioned as shared thinking tools rather than sources of answers, several shifts occur. Students reference one another’s ideas instead of deferring to authority. Claims become more precise because they must be defended against common evidence. Understanding deepens through comparison and revision, not confirmation.
In upper elementary units like Ecosystem Interactions, students use shared visuals to connect local observations to broader system patterns. In middle school, the same practice supports more sophisticated argumentation as students learn that scientific knowledge is constructed through collective reasoning.
This is the core design principle behind KnowAtom’s approach to instructional technology. Digital images do not make learning faster or cleaner. They make it more social, more accountable, and more precise, when and only when they are used with intention.
References
-
Berland, L. K., & Reiser, B. J. (2011). Classroom communities’ adaptations of the practice of scientific argumentation. Science Education, 95(2), 191–216.
-
diSessa, A. A. (1993). Toward an epistemology of physics. Cognition and Instruction.
-
Kapur, M. (2016). Examining productive failure, productive success, unproductive failure, and unproductive success in learning. Educational Psychologist, 51(2), 289–299.
-
Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating Cultures of Thinking. Jossey-Bass.
-
Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making Thinking Visible. Jossey-Bass.