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But Does It Work In The Classroom? (A Hint: YES!)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-30-2019

But Does It Work In The Classroom? (A Hint: YES!)

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Teachers who follow brain research have probably heard of “interleaving.”

This teaching strategy encourages us to mix up different kinds of practice problems, rather than sort them tidily into distinct bunches.

Imagine, for instance, that your math curriculum includes these four units:

A: graphing lines

B: calculating the area of circles

C: simplifying expressions

D: solving inequalities

I might be tempted to have have my students review graphing one night. The next night, they would focus on circles. The next, they would simplify expressions. And so forth. (Researchers call this “blocking.”)

Or, I could have them practice all four skills each night. (“Interleaving.”)

So, does blocking or interleaving help students learn better?

One Useful (but Incomplete) Answer

We have “known” the answer to this question for a long time.

The answer is: interleaving. By a lot.

When students interleave while practicing, they learn information more durably.

However, the verb “know” is in quotation marks above because we “know” that answer in a very particular setting.

The best-known research of interleaving took place in a college psychology lab.

Students learned formulas to calculate the volumes of irregular solids. Those who interleaved practice did better on a quiz two weeks later than those who blocked.

To be clear: this is a great study. (I always show it when I talk about interleaving with teachers. The graphs get gasps — really!)

But: does interleaving work for K-12 students? Does it work for anything other than irregular solids?

And, crucially: does it work beyond 2 weeks? We want our students to remember for months — even years. Two weeks is nice, but…we’re actually curious about much longer periods of time.

A Second (Much More Complete) Answer

Doug Rohrer’s team have just published a study looking at real-life interleaving in real-life classrooms.

They worked in five different schools, with fifteen different teachers, and almost 800 7th graders.

And, the test covered quite different topics — the four listed at the top of this post: graphing lines, calculating areas, simplifying expressions, solving inequalities.

And, get this: the study lasted for several MONTHS. From the first interleaved practice set to the final test was something like 145 days.

The results: the students who interleaved remembered more than those who blocked. By a lot.

(If you’re statsy, you’ll be impressed to know that the Cohen’s d averaged 0.68. For an intervention that costs basically nothing, that’s HUGE.)

In addition to these data, Rohrer &  Co. gathered information from an anonymous teacher survey.

They got lots of good news. For instance:

14 teachers agreed (or strongly agreed) that interleaving raises scores.

13 thought it helped low-achieving students. (15 thought it helped high-achieving students.)

11 said they could use interleaving without changing the way they usually teach.

12 said other teachers can do it with little or no instruction.

(Check out page 9 for further survey results.)

Why Does Interleaving Work?

Rohrer’s team offers two answers to this question.

First, interleaved practice automatically produces two other benefits: spacing and retrieval practice.

Second, think for a minute about blocking. If students do practice problems that all require the same strategy (aka, blocking), then they have to execute that strategy. But, as Rohrer points out:

“Interleaved practice requires students to choose a strategy and not merely execute a strategy.”

This additional level of desirable difficulty requires students to practice selecting strategies: an essential part of using learning in the real world.

In Sum:

Rohrer’s study concludes with a few caveats.

Interleaving probably takes (a little) more time than blocking.

It probably has less of an effect over shorter periods of time. That is: you’ll see bigger results on chapter tests and year-end assignments than on weekly quizzes.

Crucially: students probably need a little blocked practice early on to get hold of a topic or concept. We shouldn’t start interleaving while initially explaining an idea.

But, the headlines focus on great news.

Interleaving works with real students in real classrooms. It’s easy to add to our teaching habits. It costs almost nothing. And: it genuinely helps students learn.

 

 

 

More Contradictions in the Adolescent Sleep/Technology Debate
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-27-2019

More Contradictions in the Adolescent Sleep/Technology Debate

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A month ago, I described an impressively large study (17,000+ adolescents) looking at the effects of technology on adolescent sleep and well being.

As I summed it up in the title of that post: “Surprise! Screen time (even before bed) doesn’t harm adolescents.”

Today, I’m linking to another large study (6600+ adolescents) showing … just the opposite.

The main findings for this study was that late-night technology use — especially once the room lights were off — predicted a lower “health-related quality of life” for adolescents.

At this point, I’m frankly flummoxed. I just don’t know how to sort out the contradictory research findings in this field.

For the time being, to preserve sanity, I’d keep these main points in mind:

First: don’t panic. The media LOVE to hype stories about this and that terrible result of technology. Most research I see doesn’t bear that out.

Second: don’t focus on averages. Focuses on the child, or the children, in front of you.

Is your teen not getting enough sleep? Try fixing that problem by limiting screen time. If she is getting enough sleep, no need to worry!

Is your student body managing their iPhones well? If yes, it’s all good! If no, then you can develop a policy to make things better.

Until we get clearer and more consistent research findings, I think we should respond — calmly — to the children right in front of us.

Best Font Name Ever: “Sans Forgetica”
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-25-2019

Best Font Name Ever: “Sans Forgetica”

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For well over a decade, teachers have heard that we should strive for the right level of “desirable difficulty.”

In brief: easy learning doesn’t stick. If we want to ensure our students learn material in lasting ways, we need to be sure they wrestle with the material just the right amount.

(Of course, getting to “just the right amount” requires lots of teacherly thought, experience, and wisdom.)

Many years ago, a Princeton undergraduate had an intriguing idea. Maybe we could increase desirable difficulty by using a difficult-to-read font.

His theory went like this. If readers have to concentrate just a little bit more to make sense of what they’re reading, that extra measure of concentration will be a “desirable difficulty.” The result just might be more learning.

He tested his theory in a psych lab. And then — being a thorough sort — he tested it for ten weeks in a nearby high school. The result: students learned more when they read material in a hard-to-read (aka, “disfluent”) font.

Amazing.

Today’s News

Researchers in Australia wanted to take this idea to the next level. They wanted to design an optimally difficult font.

They tried out several different strategies, including:

leaving out parts of letters,

having letters slant the wrong way,

even having parts of letters misalign with each other.

By testing different combinations of these potentially desirable difficulties, they came up with a winner — which they have deliciously dubbed “sans forgetica.”

In two different experiments, students remembered word pairs better when they studied them in sans forgetica, rather than a typically “fluent” font, or in other excessively “disfluent” fonts.

If you’re keen to play with typefaces, you can download that font at the link above.

You can check out their video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO2Eo6D5tNQ

Reasons to be Cautious

Of course, we should look before we leap.

First: later studies into disfluent fonts have led to decidedly mixed results. According to this meta-analysis, the results average out to zero.

My own hypothesis, as I’ve written here, is that disfluent fonts help only in particular circumstances.

If the cognitive challenges of a problem are already high, then a disfluent font might make them too hard. If the cognitive challenge is quite low, then a disfluent font might raise them to just the right level.

(As far as I know, no one has tested that hypothesis.)

Second: the Australian researchers haven’t published their findings. So, this research hasn’t yet been vetted in the way that research usually gets vetted. (The link above — like all news about sans forgetica — goes to a university press release.)

Third: common sense suggests that disfluent fonts include an important flaw: the more students read a particular font, the more fluent that font will become.

In other words: sans forgetica might start out optimally disfluent. However, over time, students will get used to the font. It will be increasingly fluent the more they use it.

If you want to try disfluent fonts, therefore, I suggest you use them sparingly. You should, I imagine, use them for particularly important information and assignments.

But, to ensure they remain disfluent, you should not have them be a regular part of your students’ reading experience.

To be clear, we have no research guidance at this granular level. As must be true with phrases like “desirable difficulty,” teachers must translate the helpful concept to the specifics of our daily classroom lives.

[A Specific] Movement Helped [Specific] Students Learn [A Specific] Thing
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-23-2019

[A Specific] Movement Helped [Specific] Students Learn [A Specific] Thing

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Can Movement Teach Math?

Here’s a vital question: How can we help young students learn math better?

We’ve got decades of research showing that children who understand a number line do better at many math tasks than those who don’t. In fact, when we teach them to understand the number line, they get better at those math tasks.

Researchers in Germany wondered if movement might help kindergarteners understand the basic principles of a number line.

That is: By moving their whole bodies to the left, they could see numbers get smaller. By moving their whole bodies to the right, they could see numbers get bigger.

Does this kind of bodily movement help children think about numbers and math?

The short answer: yes.

When students compared numbers simply by checking boxes, they didn’t get better at various numerical measurements. When they compared numbers by moving left or right on a dance mat, they did — at least on some measurements.

The specific application of this principle will depend on you and your students. But, to get the conversation started, we can say:

Having kindergarteners manipulate a number line by moving left and right helped them understand some basic math better.

Specifics Matter

I’ve seen lots of enthusiasm lately about movement in classrooms. While I’m all in favor of allowing — even encouraging movement — I think we need to be precise and careful about the arguments for doing so.

The study cited above does NOT show that “movement helps students learn.” Instead, it shows that a particular movement helped particular students learn a particular topic.

Remember, earlier research had showed the importance of the number line. The researchers weren’t testing movement just because movement seemed cool. They tested it because the physical reality of a number line makes this idea so plausible.

Imagine, instead, that the study methodology described above were used to teach students about colors.

Of course, unlike the number line, colors aren’t an especially spatial concept. So, it’s not obvious that this same teaching technique would have benefits for this kind of learning goal.

To be clear: my point is not that movement is a bad idea. Instead, we should understand clearly why this movement will benefit these students while they learn this topic.

Maybe a particular movement fits with a particular cognitive process — as in the number-line example.

Maybe movement helps re-energize droopy students.

Maybe you’ve seen thoughtful research showing that students did better learning parts of speech (say) when they did hand gestures along with them.

In each of these cases, you’ve got a good reason to incorporate movement into the lesson plan. We should not, however, default to a sweeping statement that students must move to learn.

Your own teaching (and learning) experiences may show that — at times — quiet, motionless concentration create the very best learning environment.

 

Sorting Hats, Myers-Briggs, and the Perils of False Classification
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-21-2019

Sorting Hats, Myers-Briggs, and the Perils of False Classification

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Over at the Hidden Brain podcast, host Shankar Vedantam worries about our habit of sorting people into distinct categories.

When it happens at Hogwarts with a talking hat, such sorting can be cute. When it happens in real life, it can create real damage.

Vedantam, although a skeptic, offers a helpfully balanced exploration of this question. He even interviews a psychologist who worked for the Myers-Briggs Foundation to get the best argument in favor of its responsible use.

Of course, in schools this sorting habit shows up most perniciously with learning styles. Three key points to remember about this theory:

Learning Styles Theory makes specific predictions. Research does not bear them out. To the degree that research can show a theory to be false, this theory is false.

Instead, each of us is a learning style of one.

Luckily, we are more alike than different as learners. We can help students by maintaining optimal (relatively low) levels of stress. And, by reducing distracting stimuli in the classroom. Also, by using strategies that create “desirable difficulties.”

In other words: teachers don’t need to sort students into false categories. Cognitive psychology research helps us teach our students all unsorted, just as they are.

 

Not All of Us Work Effectively in a “Memory Palace”
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-19-2019

Not All of Us Work Effectively in a “Memory Palace”

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You’ve probably heard of the “method of loci,” or — more glamorously — the “memory palace.”

Here’s how the strategy works. If I want to remember several words, I visualize them along a path that I know well: say, the walk from my house to the square where I do all my shopping.

To recall the words, I simply walk along that path again in my mind. This combination of visuals — the more striking the better — will help me remember even a long list of unrelated words.

This method gets lots of love, most famously in Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein.

Surely we should teach it to our students, no?

Palace Boundaries

We always look for boundary conditions here on the blog. That is, even good teaching ideas have limits, and we want to know what’s outside those limits.

So, for the “method of loci,” one question goes like this: how often do you ask your students to memorize long lists of unrelated words?

If the answer is, “not often,” then I’m not sure how much they’ll benefit from building a memory palace.

Dr. Christopher Sanchez wondered about another limit.

The “method of loci” relies on visualization. Not everyone is equally good at that. Does “visuospatial aptitude” influence the usefulness of building a memory palace?

One Answer, Many Questions

The study to answer this question is quite straight-forward. Sanchez had several students memorize words. Some were instructed to use a memory palace; some not. All took tests of their visual aptitude.

Sure enough, as Sanchez predicted, students who used a memory palace remembered more words than those who didn’t.

And, crucially, palace builders with HIGH visualspatial aptitude recalled more words than those with LOW aptitude.

In fact, those with low aptitude said the memory-palace strategy made the memory task much harder.

This research finding offers a specific example of a general truth. Like all teaching strategies, memory palaces may help some students — but they don’t help all students equally.

This finding also leads to some important questions.

First: If a student has low visuospatial aptitude, how can we tell?

At this point, I don’t have an easy way to diagnose that condition. (I’ve asked around, but so far no luck.)

My best advice is: if a student says to you, “I tried that memory palace thing, but it just didn’t work for me. It’s so HARD!” believe the student.

Second: does this finding apply to other visualization strategies? More broadly, does it apply to dual coding theory?

Again, I think the answer is “probably yes.” Making information visual will help some students…but probably not all of them.

The Big Question (I Can’t Look…)

This next question alarms me a little; I hardly dare write it down. But, here goes…

As you know, learning styles theory has been soundly debunked.

However, might Sanchez’s research imply a kind of learning-anti-style?

That is, no one is a “visual learner.” But, perhaps some people don’t learn well from visual cues, and rely more on other ways of taking in information?

In other words: some students might have a diagnosed learning difference. Others might not have a serious enough difference to merit a diagnosis — but nonetheless struggle meaningfully to process information a particular way.

Those students, like Sanchez’s students with low visuospatial aptitude, don’t process information one way, and prefer to use alternate means.

So, again, that’s not so much a “learning style” as a “learning anti-style”: “I prefer anything but visual, please…”

I haven’t seen this question asked, much less investigated. I’ll let you know what I find as I explore it further.

The Best Teaching Book to Read This Summer: Powerful Teaching
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-17-2019

The Best Teaching Book to Read This Summer: Powerful Teaching

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Let’s describe a perfect book for a Learning and the Brain conference goer:

First: it should begin with solid science. Teachers don’t want advice based on hunches or upbeat guesswork. We’d like real research.

Second: it should include lots of classroom specifics. While research advice can offer us general guidance, we’d like some suggestions on adapting it to our classroom particulars.

Third: it should welcome teachers as equal players in this field. While lots of people tell teachers to “do what research tells us to do” – that is, to stop trusting our instincts – we’d like a book that values us for our experience. And, yes, for our instincts.

And, while I’m making this list of hopes for an impossibly perfect book, I’ll add one more.

Fourth: it should be conspicuously well-written. We’d like a lively writing voice: one that gets the science right, but sounds more like a conversation than a lecture.

Clearly, such a book can’t exist.

Except that it does. And: you can get it soon.

Memory researcher Pooja Agarwal and teacher Patrice Bain have written Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning. Let’s see how their book stacks up against our (impossible) criteria:

First: Begins with Research

If you attend Learning and the Brain conferences, you prioritize brain research.

We’re not here for the fads. We’re here for the best ideas that can be supported by psychology and neuroscience.

Happily, Powerful Teaching draws its classroom guidance from extensive research.

Citing dozens of studies done over multiple decades, Agarwal and Bain champion four teaching strategies: retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, and metacognition.

(As frequent blog readers, you’ve read lots about these topics.)

Agarwal herself did much of the research cited here. In fact, (researcher) Agarwal did much of the on-the-ground research in (teacher) Bain’s classrooms.

And Agarwal studied and worked with many of the best-know memory researchers in the field: “Roddy” Roediger, Mark McDaniel, and Kathleen McDermott, among others.

(BTW: McDaniel will be speaking at the LatB conference this fall in Boston.)

In short: if you read a recommendation in Powerful Teaching, you can be confident that LOTS of quality research supports that conclusion.

Second: Offers Classroom Specifics

Powerful Teaching is written by two teachers. Bain taught 6-8 grade for decades. And Agarwal is currently a psychology professor.

For this reason, their book BOTH offers research-based teaching advice AND gives dozens of specific classroom examples.

What does retrieval practice look like in the classroom? No worries: they’ve got you covered.

This strength merits particular attention, because it helps solve a common problem in our field.

Teachers often hear researchers say, “I studied this technique, and got a good result.” We infer that we should try that same technique.

But, most research takes place in college classrooms. And, the technique that works with that age group just might not work with our students.

How should we translate these research principles to our classrooms? Over and over again — with specific, practical, and imaginative examples — Bain and Agarwal show us how.

Third: Welcomes Teachers

Increasingly in recent months, I’ve seen scholars argue that teacherly instincts should not be trusted. We should just do what research tells us to do.

As I’ve written elsewhere, I think this argument does lots of damage—because we HAVE to use our instincts.

How exactly do research-based principles of instruction work in thousands of different classrooms? Teachers have to adapt those principles, and we’ll need our experience —and our instincts—to do so.

Powerful Teaching makes exactly this point. As Bain and Agarwal write:

You can use Power Tools your way, in your classroom. From preschool through medical school, and biology to sign language, these strategies increase learning for diverse students, grade levels, and subject areas. There are multiple ways to use these strategies to boost students’ learning, making them flexible in your classroom, not just any classroom.

Or, more succinctly:

The better you understand the research behind the strategies, the more effectively you can adapt them in your classroom – and you know your classroom best.

By including so many teachers’ experiences and suggestions, Agarwal and Bain put teacherly insight at the center of their thinking. They don’t need to argue that teachers should have a role; they simply show us that it’s true.

Fourth: Lively Voice

Scientific research offers teachers lots of splendid guidance … but if you’ve tried to read the research, you know it can be dry. Parched, even.

Happily, both Bain and Agarwal have lively writing voices. Powerful Teaching doesn’t feel like a dry lecture, but a friendly conversation.

For example:

Learning is complex and messy, it’s not something we can touch, and it’s really hard to define. You might even say that the learning process looks more like a blob than a flowchart.

Having tried to draw many learning flowcharts, only to end up with blobs, I appreciate this honest and accurate advice.

What’s Not to Love?

As a reviewer, I really should offer at least some criticism of Power Tools. Alas, I really don’t have much – at least not much substantive.

Once or twice, I thought that the research behind a particular finding is more muddled that PT lets on. For example, as I’ve written about before, we’ve got contradictory evidence about the benefits of retrieval practice for unstudied material.

But, as noted above, Agarwal is an important researcher in this field, and so I’m inclined to trust her judgment.

Mostly, I think you should put Powerful Teaching at the top of your summer reading list. You might sign up for the summer book club. Keep on eye on the website for updates.

Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying – A Guide for Kids and Teens by Barbara Oakley, Terrence Sejnowski, and Alistair McConville
Rebecca Gotlieb
Rebecca Gotlieb
May-15-2019

Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying – A Guide for Kids and Teens by Barbara Oakley, Terrence Sejnowski, and Alistair McConville

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Barbara Oakley, Terrence Sejnowski, and Alistair McConville have authored a students’ guide to learning. The book, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying – A Guide for Kids and Teens, is written in a way that is easily accessible to young people and full of helpful learning tips that are supported by neuroscience. It includes pictures illustrated by Oliver Young, vivid metaphors, comprehension questions, and chapter summaries to make the ideas stick. Learning How to Learn is essential for middle- or high-school libraries and would make an ideal gift to young people who are seeking to improve their performance in school.

Oakley and Sejnowski are the co-creators of the largest online course also titled “Learning How to Learn.” Oakley is a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Rochester Michigan. Sejnowski is a neuroscientist, Howard Hughes Medical investigator and professor at the Salk Institute and the University of California, San Diego.

Fittingly, at the outset, the authors explain that one helpful learning strategy is previewing what you will read. They suggest being an active reader by taking notes and asking and answering questions while reading.

Oakley, et. al. explain that there is a network in the brain that supports focused thinking and a separate network that supports diffuse thinking. Typically, we do not engage these two networks simultaneously, but both are important. As such, we need to focus intently on our work sometimes and reward ourselves with opportunities to engage the diffuse-thinking network at other times. Procrastinating can interfere with high quality learning because we run out of time to study. The Pomodoro Technique, in which one eliminates distractions, sets a timer for 25 minutes, focuses intently on one task for that whole time, and then rewards oneself with a diffuse thinking task (like exercise), can be effective for combatting procrastination. The authors suggest also starting with the tasks you least want to do and setting a time to stop working for the day to promote focus while working.

The authors explain that brain cells or “neurons” and the paths of communication between them form our thoughts. The more we activate these paths of communication the stronger they become and the better we learn.  They explain that our working memory capacity—the ideas we hold in mind at one time—is limited, but our long-term memory ability is unlimited. Our goal should be to move information efficiently from working memory to long-term memory. As such, the authors suggest that rather than studying by merely rereading, we should actively pull ideas out from the to-be-learned material. We can use songs, metaphors, and analogies to help form connections between ideas and support long-term memory. We should clarify ideas that we do not understand by asking for help or searching the internet. To remember ideas we should pay attention when absorbing information, avoid tricking ourselves into thinking we know material that we do not (i.e., do not look at the answers at the back of the book), and construct visual representations of ideas. We should also avoid multi-tasking, which dampens our working memory ability. The authors suggest other helpful strategies such as varying the places you study, relying on multiple senses to reinforce learning, and journaling about what you have learned and what you still need to study.

Oakley, et. al. advocate for involvement in clubs or activities that relate to your interest and spending time with people who can stimulate your thinking. They also explain that learning about topics that are very different from one’s interest can actually improve one’s understanding in the domain of interest. New subjects or skills may not feel fun at first, but with dedicated effort they may become enjoyable.

The authors mention the importance of getting sufficient sleep, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet.

They offer test-taking tips. For example, they suggest breathing deeply and reframing anxious feelings during testing as feelings of excitement about the opportunity to show what you know.  They suggest starting a test by glancing at the hardest problems so that you can passively think about those challenging questions while working on simpler ones.

The authors conclude on an optimistic note. Just because a student has been performing poorly in school does not mean he or she will always struggle. Having a positive attitude about learning, especially when paired with knowledge about ways to learn effectively, can carry a student far.  Appreciating that learning is an empowering experience and that it is a privilege that many young people do not have can help students make the most of their learning.

Oakley, B., Sejnowski, T., & McConville, A. (2018). Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying.New York, NY: Tarcher Perigee.

Pointing Out Online Mistakes Like a “Jerk”: More Misuses of Psychology Research
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-13-2019

Pointing Out Online Mistakes Like a “Jerk”: More Misuses of Psychology Research

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Headline writers face a difficult task, I suspect.

On the one hand, they want to capture the gist of the article. On the other hand, they really want you to click the link.

I thought about this puzzle when I read this recent headline:

People Who Point Out Grammar Errors Online Are Pretty Much Jerks, Study Finds

That’s an arresting claim. After all, the word “jerks” doesn’t often appear in psychology research papers…

Digging Deeper

So, what does this particular study say? Are people who “point out” online grammar errors “jerks”?

Researchers Boland and Queen asked themselves this question: does someone’s personality profile influence their response to written mistakes — such as typos or grammar errors?

(By the way: it would seem odd if the answer were “no.” If there is such a thing as a personality profile, shouldn’t it capture — among other things — the way people respond to one another’s errors?

But, in the field of psychology, we don’t just assume things. We research them. That’s what Boland and Queen do here.)

To answer their question, B&Q had 80+ people read short paragraphs: people’s responses to a “housemate wanted” ad.

Some of the responses were error free. Some included typos: “maybe we would mkae good housemates.” Some included grammatical errors: “If your someone who likes to play tennis…”

Participants then evaluated the authors of each paragraph. They also filled out a personality survey measuring “the big five” personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

So, here’s the research question: did their personality traits predict their responses to grammatical errors and typos?

The Results

The answer is: a smidge.

For instance, people with higher ratings of agreeableness didn’t much care about grammatical errors. People with lower agreeableness ratings cared a bit.

How much?

Well, on average, people with lower agreeableness scored an error-free message as a ~4.2. But, they rated a message with two grammar errors as a ~4.0

On a 7 point scale, does that 0.2 difference really matter? It was statistically significant. But, the researchers’ methodology makes it hard to evaluate the difference.

Here’s a hypothetical. When my students study using method A, they average an 80 on the unit test. When they study using method B, they average an 80.5.

Method B might be “better” in a way that’s statistically significant. But, it’s honestly not significant in the way that you and I use that word. If, for instance, method B takes 3 times as long as method A, that extra 0.5 point almost certainly wasn’t worth it.

So too in this case. The less agreeable folks might, on average, give lower ratings. But, 0.2 points hardly seems like a big enough deal to worry about.

So, Are People Who Point Out Online Grammar Errors Jerks?

First: NO ONE POINTED OUT ANY ONLINE GRAMMAR ERRORS. It just didn’t happen.

Second: The study shows that people with a relatively low agreeable rating feel more judgey about online grammar mistakes.

It does not show that people who comment on grammar mistakes have lower agreeableness scores.

And it certainly does not show that this particular person who just commented on a post has a low agreeableness score.

Those questions are related, but different. And, the differences really matter. Especially if you’re going to call someone a jerk.

Teaching Implications

When you see a headline like “Science Shows Group X Are Jerks,” have confidence it’s a wild overstatement.

So, when “science says” that …

“Teaching method X makes kids brilliant.”

“Cell phones make the world dumb and cruel.” (Or, “Cell phones will transform education and make classrooms perfect.”)

“This one habit will change your classroom forever.”

…follow up with the underlying research. See what the research says specifically. Decide whether or not it works for you and your students.

A Final Note

I’m honestly hoping that this article includes either a typo or a grammatical mistake. If it does, please point it out to me. I promise I won’t think you’re a jerk…

Today’s Unpopular Research Finding: Potential Perils of Mindfulness
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-11-2019

Today’s Unpopular Research Finding: Potential Perils of Mindfulness

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Mindfulness has a great reputation.

Students and teachers can start meditation programs quite easily. And, we’ve heard about its myriad benefits: reduced stress, greater concentration, enhanced classroom cooperation.

If we can fix so many school problems for (essentially) no money, what’s not to love?

Today’s Headline: “Particularly Unpleasant” Experiences

We’ve heard about all the good things that mindfulness can produce. Does it lead to any bad things?

Several researchers in Europe wanted to know if it led to “particularly unpleasant” experiences: “anxiety, fear, distorted emotions or thoughts, altered sense of self or the world.”

In particular, they asked if these experiences occurred during or after meditating.

They surveyed 1200+ people who had practiced meditation for at least two months. (The average experience meditating was, in fact, six years.)

Amazingly, more than 300 of them — 25% — reported a “particularly unpleasant” experience.

And, their findings are in line with two earlier studies (here and here), which reported 25% and 32% of meditators had such experiences.

The rate was lower for religious meditators, and slightly higher for men than women. The kind of meditation mattered somewhat. And (surprisingly for me), the rate was higher among those who had attended meditation retreats.

Lots of other variables didn’t matter: for instance, years of meditation experience, or length of meditation session.

Classroom Implications: Don’ts, and Do’s

Don’t Panic. If you’re currently running a mindfulness program, you don’t need to abandon ship.

Keep in mind:

This study asked respondants one question. We can’t draw extravagant conclusions from just one question.

The study focused on adults, not K-12 students.

We can’t draw causal links. That is: we don’t know, based on this study design, if the meditation led to the “particularly unpleasant” experience. We don’t even know what that rate would be for people in a control group.

We’re still VERY EARLY in exploring this question. We’ve now got 3 studies pointing this direction. But, we need more research — and more consistent ways of investigating this link — to know what to make of it.

Do’s

First: Use this research to improve the mindfulness program you have, or the one you’re planning.

That is: If you’ve got such a program, or have one under consideration, ask yourself, do you see signs that your students have unpleasant experiences?

Are you giving them permission and opportunity to say so?

Do the people running the mindfulness session know what to do if they get that kind of response?

After all, this research team isn’t asking schools and teachers to stop meditating. Like good scientists, they’re looking at both potential benefits and potential detriments.

Second: More generally, let this research be a healthy reminder. Almost all school changes lead to both good and bad results.

While mindfulness breaks might have lots of benefits, they might well have some downsides. So too with everything else.

We should always ask about the downsides.

When doesn’t retrieval practice help? Being outside might help some students learn something, but could it hamper others trying to learn other things?

When we actively seek out both the good and bad in the research-based practices we adopt, we’re likelier to use them more thoughtfully and effectively.

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