January 2017 – Education & Teacher Conferences

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January-30-2017

TOP RESEARCHERS TO EXPLORE WAYS TO IMPROVE INSTRUCTION, MOTIVATION AND MINDSETS THROUGH SCIENTIFICALLY BASED STRATEGIES

MEDIA ADVISORY

January 30, 2017

Contact: Kristin Dunay

(781)-449-4010 x 104

[email protected]

THE SCIENCE OF HOW WE LEARN: ENGAGING MEMORY, MOTIVATION, MINDSETS, MAKING AND MASTERY

WHAT:	Next month, a distinguished group of cognitive scientists, psychologists and innovative educators will gather before a sold out audience of 2,000 educators at the Learning & the Brain^® Conference in San Francisco, CA, to explore the latest research on the most effective instructional strategies and feedback; ways to improve student motivation, mindsets, and content mastery; the benefits of makerspaces, design thinking, hands-on exploration, and active student-directed inquiry on learning; and the effects of praise on achievement.
SPONSORS:	The program is co-sponsored by several organizations including the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, both the Greater Good Science Center and the Building Blocks of Cognition Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, the Laboratory of Educational NeuroScience at the University of California, San Francisco, The Neuroscience Research Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Mind, Brain and Education Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Comer School Development Program at the Yale University School of Medicine, The Dana Foundation’s Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, Edutopia and The George Lucas Educational Foundation, the Learning & the Brain Foundation and both national associations of elementary and secondary school principals. The event is produced by Public Information Resources, Inc.
FACULTY:	Renowned Researcher John A.C. Hattie, PhD, will present “A Meta-Synthesis on the Science of How We Learn” during a keynote on Friday, February 17. Dr. Hattie, co-author of Visible Learning Into Action (2015) and Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn (2014) will outline a synthesis of meta-analyses relating to how people learn and show the differential effects of learning strategies on difference parts of the learning cycle. Dr. Hattie is the Director of Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Co-Director of the Science of Learning Research Centre. Daniel L. Schwartz, PhD, Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Education; Professor of Educational Technology; Director, AAALab, Stanford University; Co-Author, The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them (2016) and “How to Build Educational Neuroscience (2012, British Journal of Educational Psychology Roberta M. Golinkoff, PhD, Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Chair and Professor of Education, School of Education; Professor, Departments of Psychology, Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware; Associate Editor, Child Development; Co-Author, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children (2016) and Play = Learning (2009) Daniel Ansari, PhD, Cognitive Scientist; Professor, Department of Psychology & The Brain and Mind Institute; Principal Investigator, Numerical Cognition Laboratory, The University of Western Ontario; Co-Author, “Neuroeducation – A Critical Overview of an Emerging Field” (2012, Neuroethics) and “Culture and Education: New Frontiers in Brain Plasticity” (2012, Trends in Cognitive Sciences) Yong Zhao, PhD, Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education, College of Education, University of Oregon; Author, Counting What Counts: Reframing Educational Outcomes (2015), Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World (2014), World-Class Learners (2012) and Catching Up or Leading the Way (2009) Wendy L. Ostroff, PhD, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts; Cognitive Science and Developmental Psychology, Sonoma State University; Author, Cultivating Curiosity in the K-12 Classroom (2016) and Understanding Children’s Learning (2012)
WHEN:	Friday, February 17 – Sunday, February 19. Conference begins 1:30 PM. Contact Kristin Dunay at 781-449-4010 x 104 for media passes.
WHERE:	Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, CA
Learning & the Brain^® is a series of educational conferences that brings the latest research in the learning sciences and their potential applications to education to the wider educational community. Since its inception in 1999, more than 50,000 people in Boston, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago have attended this series. Learning & the Brain^® is also the producer of summer institutes and one-day professional development seminars for educators.

Executive Function: More Than Meets the Eye

Lindsay Clements

January-29-2017

Executive Function: More Than Meets the Eye

Executive functioning (EF) is a burgeoning research area for psychologists, neuroscientists, and educators. For some, EF might seem like the cognitive science flavor of the week. But for others, its study is uncovering a significant piece of the puzzle for how we learn, feel, and act. And those latter folks have a lot to show for it.

In fact, the mainstream interest in EF that has developed over the last two decades may be best summarized by typing “executive functioning” into the search bar on Amazon.com. Here you’ll find a wealth of books illustrating scattered, messy, and forgetful youth. In these works, authors offer parents and educators a pathway to better understand those children that forget their homework, fidget through class, and get lost in thought when they’re supposed to be finishing chores.

Yet while the disorganized adolescent is certainly one component of executive functions in action (or inaction), it merely scratches the surface of what research is uncovering. And with business booming in the EF world, so to speak, it is now more important than ever to take a step back and examine some of the ways that EF research is being applied in classrooms and households.

What is EF?

Executive functioning is an umbrella term that includes the cognitive processes of attention, self-regulation, mental flexibility (the ability to transition from or between one thought or action to another), and working memory [1].

We use EF when we do mental math to calculate a waiter’s tip; when we remember to raise our hand instead of blurting out an answer; when we attend to a science lecture; and when we describe the same event from the varying perspectives of multiple people.

Studies continue to uncover just how entrenched these processes are throughout the lifespan. EF is linked to several positive developmental outcomes, such as school readiness in early childhood [2] and the development of both crystallized and fluid intelligence in middle childhood [3].

Weak EF skills, on the other hand, go far beyond a messy backpack. Low EF has been found to predict difficulties with mathematics [4], externalizing problem behaviors in middle childhood [5], and harsh parenting in adulthood [6]. Challenges with EF also appear to play a role in a number of developmental disorders, such as ADHD and Autism [7].

Imaging studies show that the frontal lobe of the brain is the EF powerhouse, with the most rapid development of these skills occurring in early childhood [8]. While all children are born with the capacity to develop their EF, actual skill growth requires some degree of explicit practice and modeling. For this reason, much of the mainstream EF literature is geared toward K-8 parents and educators. The Harvard Center on the Developing Child, for example, offers a variety of strategies to support children’s EF growth. Picture sorting games for toddlers, memory games like Simon Says for kindergarteners, and fantasy role-play throughout elementary school serve this purpose.

Next Step: Step Back

There is little doubt that executive function skills exist or that they provide an important cognitive foundation for development. But a critical lens is essential when we begin to take empirical EF knowledge and apply it to youth.

In particular, let us tread lightly when we make a qualitative assumption about a child’s skill level, or how to improve it.

How can we be mindful of this caveat in daily practice? A good start is to question the tendency for EF skills to be dichotomized as high or low, good or bad. Of course, some children have different EF skills than others. But the growing instinct to take the attentive, obedient child and the fidgety, distracted child and fit them into either side of this dichotomy risks overlooking important individual contexts.

Imagine middle school student Joe. Joe lives in a high-crime neighborhood but attends a high-resource school in the next town over. As a result of his home environment, Joe has learned to self-regulate in ways that heighten his vigilance and attention to seemingly unimportant details. He is hyper aware of sights and sounds in the distance that, at home, imply an approaching stranger. In his classroom, however, Joe’s attention and self-regulation skills are less fitting, as the distant sound he is attending to instead of his math lesson is simply another student walking the hallway. Compared to his peers, who do not navigate such contrasting environments each day, Joe’s EF skill level concerns his teacher.

In this scenario, Joe is functional at home (high EF) yet distractible and inattentive at school (low EF). And if we can only fit Joe into the dichotomy of high or low EF, instead of on a fluid spectrum, his low-EF presentation at school is likely to make that call.

The factors that engender the presentation of high or low EF skills is an important distinction to make. Here, Joe’s distraction is different from his classmate Jane’s, which is a result of her ADHD. Accordingly, the support system that each needs is also different.

A crucial step toward accurately qualitatively assessing children’s EF, especially in schools, is therefore to attend to the interactions between the person and the world within which a child is situated. Before we call in the specialist, before we assign remediation, before we purchase the neurotraining software, let’s ask such questions as what are the social rules, values, and stressors that this child is navigating among?

Because for some children, a workbook of puzzles and concentration exercises ordered from Amazon may be enormously helpful. But for others, a consideration of context, resources, and resiliency is the better route.

1. Best, J.R. & Miller, P.H. (2010). A developmental perspective on executive function. Child Development, 81(6), 1641-1660.
2. Blair, C. & Razza, R.P. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Development, 78(2), 647-663.
3. Brydges, C.R., Reid, C.L., Fox, A.M. & Anderson, M. (2012). A unitary executive function predicts intelligence in children. Intelligence, 40(5), 458-469
4. Toll, S.W.M, Van der Ven, S.H.G, Kroesbergen, E.H. & Van Luit, J.E.H. (2011). Executive functions as predictors of math learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(6), 521-532.
5. Woltering, S., Lishak, V., Hodgson, N., Granic, I. & Zelazo, P.D. (2016). Executive function in children with externalizing and comorbid internalizing behavior problems. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(1), 30-38.
6. Deater-Deckard, K., Wang, Z., Chen, N. & Ann Bell, M. (2012). Maternal executive function, harsh parenting, and child conduct problems. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53(10), 1084-1091.
7. Craig, F., Margari, F., Legrottaglie, A.R., Palumbi, R., de Giambattista, C. & Margari, L. (2016). A review of executive function deficits in autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment,12, 1191-1202.
8. Brydges, C.R., Reid, C.L., Fox, A.M. & Anderson, M. (2012). A unitary executive function predicts intelligence in children. Intelligence, 40(5), 458-469.

Bilingual Advantage: Efficient Processing

Andrew Watson

January-27-2017

Bilingual Advantage: Efficient Processing

Recently, I linked to a study suggesting potential downsides to bilingualism: in at least this one study, bilingual students were less successful with metacognition than monolingual students.

In that post, I noted that this one detriment doesn’t mean that bilinguals are “bad at thinking” in some broad way, or that bilingual education is necessarily a bad idea. Instead, that study was one interesting data point in a large and complex discussion.

Well, that discussion has gotten even larger and more complex. A research team at the University of Montreal has explored the neural mechanisms that help adult bilinguals focus on some information without being distracted by other kinds of information.

Neuroscience is always complicated, but the simple version is this: bilinguals use more efficient networks to maintain focus on a particular information stream.

In other words: we’ve got research showing both advantages (efficient attention processing) and disadvantages (reduced metacognition) to bilingualism. So, what should we do?

In the end, teachers and parents can draw on research to explore these questions, but we must put many conflicting pieces together to draw the wisest conclusions.

The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs by Thomas R. Hoerr

Rebecca Gotlieb

January-25-2017

The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs by Thomas R. Hoerr

“Who you are is more important than what you know.” This principle forms the basis of The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs. Author Thomas R. Hoerr, who served as the head of the New City School in St. Louis for 34 years and teaches at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, argues that our schools needs to adapt to shape students into good spouses, workers, and citizens. We need to help students navigate flexibly the rapid changes they are likely to encounter (e.g., in the fragility of our natural environment, ubiquity of computers, and demographic diversity in society).

In an era when accountability and standardized tests dominate, it can be difficult to get school administrators, teachers, or parents to focus on social and emotional skills, but these skills may be what matters most for success. Specifically, Hoerr identifies five skills that make students successful and that students can refine with good teaching. Two of these are relationship oriented skills—empathy and embracing diversity—and three are about how people engineer their own thoughts and actions—self-control, integrity, and grit. This book is a useful guide for helping teachers and school principals foster “the formative five,” as it is filled with practical tips, recommended readings, descriptions of prototypical students who do or do not possess each skill, and quizzes about one’s own beliefs and practices around the skill.

The first of the formative five skills is empathy—adopting another person’s perspective to understand how that person feels. Empathy, Hoerr argues, is not simply taking another person’s perspective; rather it requires learning also to value and respect that person. Beyond shaping people who treat one another well, empathy facilitates success in business. Hoerr suggests teaching empathy by valuing growth in empathic abilities, teaching students to listen closely to others, and creating safe spaces for students to share personal stories.

The second of the relationship oriented skills, embracing diversity, involves appreciating the differences among the people with whom one interacts. Exercising this skill can feel uncomfortable; some may even reject the need for it. Indeed, our evolutionary roots as tribal people may partially explain why embracing diversity does not always come naturally. Nonetheless, in our diversifying world this skill not only is necessary, but also it can facilitate learning about people’s experiences. To fully embrace diversity we need to understand the complex history of discrimination and inequality in our society. We ought to guide students in understanding their own identities and how that shapes their interactions with others. Creating situations in which students can work collaboratively with diverse peers can help students embrace diversity. Schools need to ensure that all students are safe and treated with dignity.

Students benefit from developing skill in demanding the most of themselves. Hoerr cites the work of Walter Mischel (reviewed here) arguing that self-control—one’s ability to modulate one’s own actions and delay gratification—can have a major impact on one’s long-term well-being. Helping students to set goals and to be mindful of their current actions and the implications for their future can help them develop self-control. Hoerr references Angela Duckworth’s work about grit (reviewed here), or tenacity and perseverance, to argue that when we help shift students’ attitudes about what it takes to succeed, we prepare them for success and the rewards that come with sustained effort, deliberate practice, and pursuit of a passion. Especially given that today kids are praised for even minor accomplishments, it is important that students learn that to truly succeed they need to persist through failures. We can help students be “grittier” by touting the importance of grit.

The fifth skill is integrity, which has to do with being honest in one’s public actions, living in accordance with one’s personal values, and working to address social problems. To foster integrity it is helpful to model honesty, define integrity, highlight opportunities to act with integrity, and explain that it can be difficult to act with integrity.

Hoerr concludes by arguing that schools need a cultural shift to foster “the formative five.” Creating the desired schools culture is facilitated by ensuring that teachers, parents, administrators, and students all have strong relations and effective communication channels with one another. That the federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires the measurement of at least one nonacademic skill is a promising move towards focusing on personal skills that help students succeed. By developing students skill in empathizing, embracing diversity, exerting self-control and grit, and acting with integrity we can help raise a generation of students of whom we will be proud not only for what they know, but more importantly, for the people that they are.

Hoerr, T. R. (2016). The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs. ASCD.

“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”― W. Edwards Deming

Scott MacClintic

January-25-2017

“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”― W. Edwards Deming

Data Informed Instruction

Early Steps

There are a few key steps to effectively incorporating MBE (Mind, Brain & Education) ideas and concepts into one’s daily teaching routine. The first key is the low hanging fruit, namely, educating oneself on the research about learning and the brain and what the research suggests are effective pedagogies. If you are reading this blog, you are probably already familiar with one fantastic resource for such information (shameless plug warning!)) – www.learningandthebrain.com

There are certainly plenty of resources out there and I strongly encourage you to seek them out. This first step is critical and has become easier in the last few years as more and more of the actual research is available online and more and more has been written for teachers as the target audience.

The second key step involves actually trying something new in your classroom, whether it is using more retrieval practice exercises [1], incorporating movement [2] or perhaps shifting to a more student-centered model for class discussions [3].

Quantum Leaps

But wait, your work is not done! Trying something new based on the conclusions of a research paper you read is certainly a big step but how will you know that the change you made was effective? What is your evidence that the change you incorporated actually improved student learning? THIS is the difficult part.

Analyzing the impact or effect of a new pedagogy is quite complex and requires the collection and analysis of data. While you may not be able to perform a double-blind controlled experiment–the gold standard in scientific research–you CAN analyze the impact of your intervention and use data to inform your teaching practice going forward.

So how do you collect data that can help you improve your teaching practice?

I have found that one of the most useful tools for collecting data is one of the easiest to set up and use, but is frequently one of the least likely to be used by teachers – videotaping your class.

Watching a videotape of your class and objectively analyzing the tape for evidence of improved learning can be extremely enlightening, illuminating and humbling.

Did I really only give Hermione 2 seconds of wait time before I moved on to Draco?
Were the students really trying to take notes, listen to me deliver content and participate in the conversation simultaneously?
Did I really shake my head in disapproval as Luke responded to my question with an answer that was way off base?

I have yet to find a teacher who enjoys watching himself/herself on video but have found that most teachers who actually go through with it find the experience to be incredibly informative. Watching your video with a trusted colleague or Critical Friends group can be even more thought provoking and lead to fruitful conversations about teaching and learning.

Data 2.0

I have been playing around with an exciting new tool for data collection lately that has the potential to make the time consuming analysis of videotape seem like a thing of the past. The app does a deep dive into an audio recording from class and provides me with nearly immediate data to analyze.

Here’s how it works: At the beginning of class I start an audio recording of the class on my phone and hit stop when the class is over. In the current iteration of the app, I upload the audio file to be analyzed and within an hour or so, I receive a report back on the class. Right now, the report includes data in 5 minute increments on:

My talking speed (words per minute)
How many questions I ask
The types of questions I asked – How? vs Why? vs What?
Percentage of the time that I was talking vs. the students were talking

Questions that I have been able to think more critically about with this data include:

Was my student-centered class discussion really as student-centered as I thought?
Am I asking questions that require surface level knowledge (“what”) or ones that will lead to more critical thinking on the part of my students (“why,” “how,” “if”)?
Am I speaking too fast when giving instructions as I set up an activity?

The app is still in its development phase and there are bugs to be worked out before it will be available to a wider audience; but if you are interested in participating in the pilot, you can sign up here. Of all the data collection tools out there, I think that this app has the potential to be an incredibly valuable tool for teachers as they attempt to evaluate the impact of changes in their practice.

For all of its potential uses, I do realize that their are potential dangers with the collection of this type of data. Who initiates the collection of the data? What if an evaluator or administrator wants to use the data? What are the privacy concerns about collecting this type of data? Who has access to the files and data?

All of these questions are important ones that need to be fleshed out to be certain; however, I believe that if properly used, this app has the potential to be a powerful tool for teachers who want to use data to inform their teaching as they incorporate new strategies and pedagogies.

http://www.retrievalpractice.org/
Donna Wilson, Move your body, grow your brain, March 12, 2014 [link]
Goldschmidt, M., Scharfenberg, F. J., & Bogner, F. X. (2016). Instructional efficiency of different discussion approaches in an outreach laboratory: Teacher-guided versus student-centered. The Journal of Educational Research, 109(1), 27-36. [link]

Andrew Watson

January-24-2017

Interactive Teaching at Harvard

Harvard’s Initiative for Teaching and Learning has posted videos of their most recent conference. The topic: interactivity.

As you listen to these Harvard professors, you might find yourself thinking: their students, and their teaching problems, sound a lot like my students and my teaching problems.

Pro tip: each video begins with a very generous introduction. If you skip ahead 3-5 minutes, you’ll get to the good stuff much more quickly…

It Ain’t What You Know, It’s…Oh, No, Sorry, It IS What You Know

Ian Kelleher

January-22-2017

It Ain’t What You Know, It’s…Oh, No, Sorry, It IS What You Know

I sense that the tide is beginning to turn on the knowledge-versus-skills debate, ‘21st Century’ or otherwise. There is an increasingly confident voice shouting a phrase that teachers have shouted for the few thousands of years that there have been teachers: knowledge is really important.

Yes, even in this Googleable world, knowledge is important. We could patiently wait for the “importance of knowledge” pendulum to swing back, or we could, as evidence-informed professionals, boldly provide an epistemic nudge [1].

This post is a concise argument for the importance of knowledge, and offers some research informed ideas for teachers on how to build it.

I recently heard Robert Pondisco, senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, give a wonderful talk at ResearchED DC on the importance of a recommitment to teaching knowledge. During his talk, Pondisco eloquently painted the picture of President Obama during his first Inaugural Address, glancing down the length of the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King Jr. said those famous words not that long ago.

And then Obama delivered the words in this clip. It was a powerful moment in American history. And Pondisco posed the question: what knowledge would children need to have to understand the significance of these words at this moment? Would they have this knowledge? How would they have got in? Who might have it and who might not? How does this fit in the existing inequality gap? Pondisco’s questions offer a fascinating thought experiment into the importance of knowledge.

Acknowledge the limits of active working memory

Active working memory can hold fewer things for less time than most people realize. Though it is hard to measure, 7 things for 30 seconds for adults is a well agreed upon estimate [2]. For children the numbers are lower. And there is a trade off too – we can hold more things but for progressively less time.

How do these limitations fit my argument?

Having knowledge stored in long term memory frees up the active working memory to more effectively help with higher order thinking tasks. In other words, having stored knowledge helps us think.

Even project based learning needs knowledge

What about things like project based learning (PBL): the antithesis of the “lecture, lecture, test” mode of teaching? How important is it to be very purposeful in teaching knowledge when we want students to be on a voyage of independent exploration? It turns out that explicitly teaching knowledge in very deliberate ways is extremely important for PBL: make-or-break important, in fact.

I will tuck deeply into the deficiencies of PBL at a later date. But the crux of the research-supported argument is that for project based learning to have any measure of success, independent inquiry needs to be balanced with didactic instruction. Without foundational information, students lack sufficient knowledge and skills to be able to engage with the task.

In fact, failing to provide adequate support for knowledge and skills may actually contribute to the achievement gap, as students from disadvantaged backgrounds often enter school with deficiencies in knowledge and skills that are necessary for success in the project [3, 4, 5].

Part of pedagogical content knowledge, that highly interlinked combination of subject knowledge and how to teach it, is to know exactly what knowledge scaffolding students need in order to successfully launch into a project. So if we want to create great projects, which we do, we also need to be great at teaching knowledge – and great at discerning what knowledge that needs to be.

Teaching for stickiness

No matter where in the spectrum from direct-instruction-focused to project-focused we happen to be teaching, we need to get content knowledge to reliably stick in long-term memory. Fortunately there is robust research to guide us here. It suggests both things we should do and should not do.

Things Not To Do

(1) rereading notes

A trip down the aisles of Staples in August confirms what we already know – students love highlighters. But research suggests that the staple of studying, rereading notes or the textbook, is a terrible way to study. It tends to lead to what Brown, Roediger and McDaniel call “the illusion of fluency” [6], where students become so familiar with the text that they believe they know it before they actually do.

HIghlight

(2) misusing flashcards

Similarly, students tend to use flashcards in entirely the wrong way – which is hard for such a simple device. They tend to turn them over too quickly to see the answer. The key part is how one lingers in the moment of not knowing. The key part is the moment before you turn it over. Flashcards work best when students ponder difficult questions, even when the answers prove elusive.

Things To Do

(1) retrieval practice

Retrieval practice is this idea of trying to recall knowledge from memory. Even if a student is unable to, research suggests that the act of trying helps memory storage and recall. Retrieval practice can take many forms: self testing, proper use of flashcards or online tools such as Quizlet, or taking a sheet of paper and writing out everything you know on a subject.

But I am sure you can be creative and add to this list. The key is having students try deeply to recall, then having them check this against their notes or model answers.

(2) spacing

There is great research around the spacing effect. That is, students should study, leave a gap, then study again. We can, for example, coach students to space their studying rather than use massed studying. Massed studying does not lead to durable learning.

Instead, allowing your memory to get a bit rusty between study sessions makes the next study session more challenging. In doing so, it helps create knowledge that is both more durable and more flexible. This is a concept that Clark and Bjork call “desirable difficulty” [7].

But what is the optimal spacing gap for your students, your subject, and the content you are teaching? This is a great idea for you to play with and do your own disciplined inquiry. (You might check out Scott MacClintic’s forthcoming article on gathering classroom data for suggestions.)

(3) formative assessments

Replace pop quizzes with no- or low-stakes formative assessments. As you give these quizzes, say something along the lines of, “this is for you to figure out where you are, for me to figure out where you are, and for us both to adjust what we do accordingly.” This technique is retrieval practice plus. A further benefit is that more of the brain restructuring associated with learning occurs when we struggle and when we get things wrong [8, 9]. Getting things wrong is an important part of learning, and we need to craft no- or low-stress opportunities for this to happen.

(4) interleaving

Interleaving is a way to deliberately build the spacing effect into how you design your courses. Instead of starting the year with unit one, followed, perhaps, by unit two then unit three, there is an alternative way to organize things that will promote learning. After moving on to a new unit, plan on revisiting the core knowledge at least a couple more times at spaced intervals later on [10].

(5) pre-testing

“Research suggests that starting a unit of study with a pre-test helps create more enduring learning. It appears to give students something on which to hang subsequent information. This test should, of course, not be graded, or if it is, it should be graded for effort rather than correctness.

The other point of this pre-test is to give the teacher an idea of where the level of the class generally is, and what knowledge each individual student brings with them already, so that the teacher can tailor subsequent classes to best match the needs of the class. It is important to avoid seeding boredom, and to avoid the potential skipping of foundational knowledge that could prevent future learning. These are two common toxic effects on learning” [11].

A thought on how these suggestions link to assessment

Since a little kid, I have always enjoyed words. Some are more fun to play with than others, of course, but one of the best is ‘facile.’ We often use it to refer to someone who appears so good at something they do it with an effortless ease. But its more nuanced meaning is to refer to a demonstration of thinking that at first glance seems neat, concise and elegant, but which on closer inspection is only neat, concise and elegant because it is oversimplistic, itself lacking in nuanced details.

So this article, I believe, leads us to a future one that needs to be written: how do we avoid facile demonstrations of knowledge by our students? How do we craft assessments that steer students away from this? Or, as Rob Coe and David Didau put it, where will students think hard in this lesson? But in the time before this second article is written, I encourage you to explore this idea yourself. And if you have ideas as to what should go in such an article, please let us know.

Thank you, Troy Dahlke, for this playful term
Cowan, N. (2008). What are the differences between long-term, short-term, and working memory?. Progress in Brain Research, 169, 323-338. [link]
Education Endowment Foundation Analysis [link]
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86. [link]
Kirschner, P. A., & van Merriënboer, J. J. (2013). Do learners really know best? Urban legends in education. Educational psychologist, 48(3), 169-183. [link]
Brown, P. C., Roediher, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Clark, C. M., & Bjork, R. A. (2014). When and why introducing difficulties and errors can enhance instruction. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying the Science of Learning in Education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum. [link]
See this accessible research summary from Robert Bjork at UCLA
Moser, J. S., Schroder, H. S., Heeter, C., Moran, T. P., & Lee, Y. H. (2011). Mind Your Errors Evidence for a Neural Mechanism Linking Growth Mind-Set to Adaptive Posterror Adjustments. Psychological Science, 21(2), 1484-1489. [link]
Blasiman, R. N. (2016). Distributed Concept Reviews Improve Exam Performance. Teaching of Psychology, 44(1), 46-50. [link]
Whitman, G. and Kelleher, I. (2016). Neuroteach: Brain science and the future of education. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Puzzled by Adolescents? Or, by Adolescence?

Andrew Watson

January-21-2017

Puzzled by Adolescents? Or, by Adolescence?

Let Sarah-Jayne Blakemore sort it all out for you in this introductory Ted Talk from 2012.

Andrew Watson

January-18-2017

Does Size Matter?

AdobeStock_88957262_Credit

Is a man’s amygdala larger than a woman’s? And: why does it matter?

The amygdala is central to neural networks that process strong negative emotions: especially fear and anger. Because psychological studies have shown gender differences in the expression of these emotions, researchers have hypothesized that men might have a larger amygdala, on average, than women do.

That is, gendered behavior might have a biological foundation in a gendered brain.

According to a recent meta-analysis of 46 studies: not so much. Lise Eliot’s research team found no statistically significant difference between male and female amydalae.

(More precisely: men’s amygdalae are–on average–10% larger than women’s; but, men’s BRAINS are–on average–10% larger than women’s. So–relative to brain size–there is no meaningful difference.)

Of course, male and female brains are not identical. And: behavioral differences between genders are important.

However, if Eliot’s results hold up, we can no longer say that these behavioral differences result from meaningfully different amygdala sizes.

Research Morsel: a Potential Downside for Bilingualism?

Andrew Watson

January-18-2017

Research Morsel: a Potential Downside for Bilingualism?

Research into the benefits of bilingualism has gotten lots of attention in recent years. For example, some scholars argue that being bilingual protects our cognitive dexterity as we age.

However, a recent study suggests a potential downside for bilinguals. Folke et. al. find that, compared to their monolingual peers, young bilingual adults have a harder time with metacognitive processing — that is, analyzing their own cognitive performance.

If further research supports this finding, then teachers and scholars will have to add this potential short-term cognitive detriment to their calculus as they consider long-term cognitive benefits.

To be clear: this research does not show that being bilingual is cognitively bad, or that bilingual education is a bad idea. Instead, it offers one potentially interesting data point for a complex discussion — a discussion that must consider benefits, detriments, and many, many unknowns.

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