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Does Banning Classroom Technology Improve Engagement? Learning?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-18-2019

Does Banning Classroom Technology Improve Engagement? Learning?

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We’ve got many reasons to believe that technology — whatever its benefits — can distract from learning.

Heck, according to one study, the mere presence of a cellphone reduces available working memory. YIKES.

Unsurprisingly, we often hear calls for technology-free zones in schools. Laptop bans have ardent champions.

One group of researchers wanted to know: what effect might a technology ban have on the tone of the classroom?

Would such a ban complicate the students’ relationship with the professor?

Would it affect their engagement with the material?

And, of course, would it benefit their learning?

The Study

One professor taught four sections of the same Intro to Psychology course. Cellphones and laptops were forbidden from two sections, and allowed in two.

At the end of the course, researchers measured…

Students’ rapport with the professor: for instance, students rated statements like “I want to take other courses from the professor,” or “I dislike my professor’s class.”

Students’ engagement with the class: for instance, “I make sure I study on a regular basis,” or “I stay up on all assigned readings.”

Students’ grades — on 3 exams during the term, and on their overall final grade.

That’s straightforward enough. What did they find?

The Results, Part I: Hang On to your Hat

You might predict that a technology ban would improve class tone. Freed from the distractions of technology, students can directly engage with each other, with their professor, and the material.

You might instead predict that a ban would dampen class tone. When teachers forbid things, after all, students feel less powerful.

Hutcheon, Lian, and Richard found that the tech ban had no effect on the students’ rapport with the professor.

They also found that the ban resulted in lower engagement with the class. That is, on average, students in a tech-free class said they did class readings less often, and put forth less effort.

This finding held true even for students who preferred to take notes by hand: that is, students who wouldn’t be inclined to use laptops in class anyway.

The Results, Part II: Hang On Tighter

The researchers hypothesized that students in the technology-ban sections would learn more. That is: they’d have higher grades.

That’s an easy hypothesis to offer. Other researchers have found this result consistently (famously, here).

However, Hutcheon and Co. didn’t get that result. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups.

But, they got a result that did approach significance: the technology-ban sections learned less. On the final exam, for instance, the tech-ban sections averaged an 84.30, while the tech-permitted sections averaged an 88.04.

The difference between a B and a B+ might not be statistically significant…but it sure might feel significant to those who got the B.

What On Earth Is Going On?

The researchers wonder if the tone of their tech ban led to these results. To be honest, when I read the policy on “Technology Use in the Classroom,” I thought it sounded rather harsh. (For example: “Repeated infractions will result in points lost on your final grade.”)

So, perhaps a more genially-worded ban would impede class engagement less, and allow for more learning.

But, that’s just a guess.

For me, the crucial message appears in the authors’ abstract:

“[T]hese results suggest that instructors should consider the composition of students in their course prior to implementing a technology ban in the classroom.”

In other words, technology policies can’t be the same everywhere. We teach different content to different students in different schools. And, we are different kinds of teachers. No one policy will fit everywhere.

To be crystal clear: I’m NOT saying “This study shows that a tech ban produced bad results, and so teachers should never ban technology.”

I AM saying: “This study arrived at helpfully puzzling results that contradict prior research. It therefore highlights the importance of tailoring tech policies to the narrow specifics of each situation.”

As I’ve said before, teachers should follow relevant research. And, we should draw on our best experience and judgment to apply that research to our specific context.

Critical Thoughts on Teaching Critical Thinking
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-15-2019

Critical Thoughts on Teaching Critical Thinking

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Over at The Learning Scientists, Althea Need Kaminske asks if we can teach critical thinking.

Reasonably enough, she argues that it depends on our definition of “critical thinking.”

Let’s consider two different kinds:

Type I Critical Thinking: Within Disciplines

Type II Critical Thinking: Across Disciplines

Kaminske’s answer goes like this:

Teaching critical thinking within disciplines (type I) is hard, but can be done.

Teaching critical thinking across disciplines (type II) is really hard, and can sort of be done.

Type I: Critical Thinking Within Disciplines

When we learn a lot about any particular subject, our increased knowledge of that subject allows us to think critically about it. Especially if we practice thinking critically.

So, for example, I’ve spent most of my life acting in, directing, and studying plays. I can (and do) think critically about the theater quite often.

I can tell you why the set worked, but the costumes didn’t. I can explain why this actor’s performance suited the first act of the play but not the second. I can opine that the director’s background (she does musicals more often than plays) has shaped her interpretation of this distinctly un-musical script.

Important warning:

This expertise takes quite a long time and explicit practice to develop. In a famous foundational study from 1981, Chi et al. found that graduate students (!) in physics thought more like undergrads than like professors.

That is: after years of high-level physics study, they still weren’t proficient at seeing below the surface features of a problem to its deep structures. They hadn’t yet mastered critical thinking in their discipline.

They still needed more practice.

Type II: Critical Thinking Across Disciplines

Important warning #2: the critical thinking skills I developed in the theater almost certainly don’t apply in other disciplines.

My theater skill/knowledge certainly won’t help me categorize physics problems.

They won’t help me — in Kaminske’s example — draw expert judgments about different types and qualities of beer. (I’d need LOTS MORE beer expertise to do so. Care to join me?)

Here’s a test you might try: watch 10 minutes of a rugby match. If you — like me — don’t know nothin’ about rugby, you’re unlikely to have much insight into the game you saw.

Why? Because we need LOTS of specific knowledge about and experience in rugby to have critical rugby insights. Our ability to think critically about lesson plans doesn’t help here.

For instance, Kaminske teaches a course on Statistics and Research Methods. For the course, her students have to do a literature review, and write it up as a persuasive essay. All of her students have taken a college course on persuasive writing:

This writing course focuses on writing essays and constructing persuasive arguments. I know that my students know how to do this. I also know that they have no idea how to transfer those skills to my class.

That is: demonstrated critical thinking in one kind of analytical college writing doesn’t transfer to another discipline. She has to teach them explicitly how to do so.

To be clear: Kaminske holds out some hope about about cross-disciplinary critical thinking. Quoting research by van Gelder, she argues that some strategies — such as visualization — promote critical thinking skills in many disciplines.

And yet, that hope is tempered with caution. As a cognitive psychologist with an interest in science fiction movies, she has critical insights into the Matrix, and similar shows.

However, my ability to think critically about cognitive psychology in these movies/shows does not necessarily mean I can think critically about the cinematography or directing. …

Or that I can think critically about any number of things outside of my very specific areas of training and experiences. My critical thinking is very good in a specific domains and less good outside of that domain.

Classroom Implications

Teachers have a finite number of hours that we can spend helping our students think. We should choose the most effective strategies to get that job done.

When we want students to think critically, we can help them do so in two ways.

First: we can teach them more information and skills within a particular topic.

If I want my students to think critically about poetry, they should read a lot of poems, and learn a lot about authors and genres and analytical strategies.

Second: we can give them many opportunities to engage in critical work.

The more time they spend comparing poems, or figures of speech, or genres of love poetry, the more skilled they will become at the critical thinking necessary to do so.

We might wish that cross-disciplinary critical thinking strategies (our type II) existed. Perhaps some — like visualization — do help.

Given what we know about type II critical thinking, however, our most effective strategy will be to focus on type I.

A Final, Sheepish Confession

Honestly, I wish this conclusion weren’t true. I wish we could teach a general critical thinking skill that would apply to all realms of cognitive activity.

I really like how that sounds.

But, scholars starting with Daniel Willingham (back in Why Don’t Students Like School?) have shown that we need lots o’ disciplinary knowledge, and lots o’ specific practice.

I think I serve my students — and my readers — best by acknowledging that frank truth.

Obsessed with Working Memory: Anticipating Overload
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-13-2019

Obsessed with Working Memory: Anticipating Overload

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We know what working memory is.

We know that we absolutely must work within the working memory capacity that our students have.

How, exactly, do we do that?

To develop our expertise, we must constantly ask these three questions:

First: As I look at my lesson plan, my syllabus, my test, my classroom, can I ANTICIPATE working memory overload?

Second: As I teach my class, can I IDENTIFY WM overload when it happens?

Third: How do I best MITIGATE or SOLVE those WM problems?

Today, let’s focus on ANTICIPATE.

#1: Information Processing

To anticipate WM overload, we should first look for places that require unusually high amounts of information processing.

Does this lesson include LOTS of new information? (Lots = “more than I usually do with this age group.”)

Does the lesson require students to put information together in new ways?

For instance: I’m working at a summer camp right now, and the assistant director told me about a lesson he had observed. A counselor was showing campers how to use a cook stove. To do so, he took about 20 minutes to show them all the steps involved.

GOOD NEWS: He showed the campers the steps correctly.

BAD NEWS: To use a cook stove, campers needed to learn lots of new information (what is a “valve regulator”?).

And, they needed to put all that information together into a new mental system.

12-year-olds simply can’t take in — and combine — that much new information. And: it’s easy to anticipate that problem.

#2: Dark Sides of the Force

As any Jedi Knight will tell you, the Force isn’t a problem. MISUSE of the Force is a problem.

So too, these two things I’m about to list aren’t bad. But, if we’re not careful about their use, we might overwhelm working memory.

Instructions: Of course, instructions help students do necessary steps, and can help them learn.

But, to follow instructions, students must remember them (that’s “holding”), and the follow them (that’s “reorganizing” and “combining”).  So, following instructions take lots of WM.

If your students seem to get lost while following even simple steps, try giving just one instruction, and letting them finish that before they get the next. (More solutions in a later post.)

Choices: Choices can motivate students, and so facilitate learning.

But, when a student faces cognitive struggles, choices ADD TO WM burdens.

For example:

A student might come to me and say: “I hate this sentence — it sounds so awkward. How do I make it better?”

I could say: “Well, try using an active verb. Or, reduce the number of prepositional phrases. Or, use parallelism to organize the logic. Or, use subordination to vary the rhythm.”

Now, each one of those suggestions has merit. But, too many choices just might make the thinking harder, not easier.

#3 Don’t Miss the Obvious

Tired students have lower WM capacity. So: teenagers can do better work at 10 am than at 8 am.

Over-Stressed students have lower WM capacity. We do want students to face challenges, but not challenges they don’t think they can overcome.

Grand Recap

To ANTICIPATE WM overload:

Review your lesson plans and assessments to be sure they don’t include too much new information, or too many new combinations of information.

Look out for too many instructions and too many choices.

Pay attention to students’ energy level and stress level.

Notice, by the way, that these guidelines necessarily call on your teacherly instincts and experience.

I can say: “don’t give too many instructions,” but how many is too many? As a 5th grade math teacher, you’ll know that … well … that lesson plan had too many.

But, tomorrow’s LP has fewer instructions. Or, perhaps it has simpler instructions. The same number of instructions, if they’re simpler, might just solve the problem.

Research can’t answer that question. Research CAN tell us what to look out for in our classrooms. We have to use our experience to translate that guidance for our day-to-day work.

In the next post: INDENTIFYING WM overload.

Growing Mindsets in Argentina?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-10-2019

Growing Mindsets in Argentina?

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Mindset theory has faced increasing skepticism in recent years.

For four decades — literally!–Carol Dweck and other researchers ran thoughtful studies with thousands of students. Over and over, they found that students who think about about their work in particular ways (shorthand, “growth mindset”) do better than those who don’t (“fixed mindset”).

Like other areas of psychology (think “power poses”), Mindset Theory has been caught up in the “replication crisis.”

In brief: if Mindset theory is true, then a mindset intervention should help no matter who does the intervening. It should work when Dweck’s team does it with her students, and when I do so with mine.

If it works only for Dweck, well, that doesn’t really help the rest of us.

And, several researchers have found that various strategies didn’t replicate.

A much publicized meta-analysis, published last summer, suggests that Mindset interventions had very small effects. (I myself think this meta-analysis has been over-interpreted; you can see my analysis here.)

Today’s News

Researcher and NYU professor Alejandro Ganimian has published research about a large-scale mindset intervention in Argentina.

Ganimian had 12th graders at 100 (!) schools read a passage arguing that “persisting through difficult challenges can develop the brain.”

The 12th graders then wrote “a letter to a classmate of their choice on the three main lessons from the reading and how they might help him/her.”

To keep the growth mindset message fresh, those letters were posted in the classroom.

He compared these students to 12th graders at 102 other schools that had not used this intervention.

The results? Nada. Nothin’. Bupkis.

Specifically:

This intervention had “no effect on students’ propensity to find challenging tasks less intimidating.”

It didn’t increase the likelihood that they would pay attention in class.

By some rough/indirect measures, it didn’t have an effect on the participants’ academic success.

As Ganimian sums up his results:

In nearly all outcomes, I can rule out even small effects. …

This study suggests that the benefits of growth mindset interventions may be more challenging to replicate and scale in developing countries than anticipated.

What Should Teachers Do?

First: two clarifying points. a) Ganimian’s research hasn’t been peer reviewed and published in a journal. It is currently a working paper, hosted on his website.

And b) I myself am not a neutral source in this debate. I’ve written a book about mindset research, and so I read Ganimian’s work through that lens.

Second: I think mindset strategies are likeliest to have an effect when used all together as a consistent, unified approach to student motivation.

That is: I’m not at all surprised that a “one-shot” intervention doesn’t have big results. (Some research has found success with “one-shot” interventions; I’ve always been skeptical.)

So, if you want to use mindset research in your classrooms, don’t do just one thing, once. A motivational poster really won’t accomplish much of anything.

Instead, understand the interconnecting strategies that promote a growth-mindset climate, and use them consistently and subtly. Heck, I can even recommend a book that will show you the way.

Third: Here’s what I wrote last October:

We should not, of course, ask mindset to solve all our problems. Nor should we ask retrieval practice to solve all problems. Or short bursts of in-class exercise.

No one change fixes everything.

Instead, we should see Mindset Theory as one useful tool that can help many of our students.

Obsessed with Working Memory, Part II
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-07-2019

Obsessed with Working Memory, Part II

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In the first post of the series, we looked at the definition of working memory. Simply put, it allows brains to SHREK.

That is:

Select, Hold, REorganize, Kombine

This post considers three core ideas that we need to remember about WM.

1: Working Memory is CRUCIAL to Learning

“No academic information gets into long-term memory except through working memory.”

Simply put, students have to use WM to learn almost anything.

When students try to balance chemistry equations, they use WM.

When they sound out new words: WM.

When they compare Inca and Maya religions: WM.

When they transpose a song into a new key: yup, WM.

It is, in fact, hard to think of much that students do with low WM demands. For instance, when they sing “Happy Birthday,” that’s not much of a working memory task. After all, “Happy Birthday” is in almost everyone’s long-term memory.

Of course, if you’ve forgotten the name of the person whose birthday it is, you might feel your WM scramble when you sing: “Happy Birthday dear Hmm-Hmm, Happy Birthday to you.”

2: Working Memory is LIMITED

In the first post in this series, I asked you to alphabetize five days of the week. You could probably do that quite easily.

If, however, I asked you to alphabetize 10 months of the year, you would — almost certainly — crash before you got there. (Go ahead, try it. See what I mean?)

We have enough WM for five, but not enough for ten.

People experience WM overload frequently. For instance:

driving to an unfamiliar location requires lots of WM.

Exploring a new program on your computer.

Following a multi-step recipe.

Solving the problem in this video.

Let’s pause for a moment and put #1 and #2 together. Working memory is both CRUCIAL and LIMITED. That’s a very bad combination. (If you have a wry sense of humor, you might say it sounds like your school’s budget.)

So, let’s ask a vital question: how can we increase this vital cognitive resource?

3a: Good News about INCREASING Working Memory

We don’t have to do anything special. Working memory gets bigger as students get older.

In this way, WM is a  bit like height. As long as we’re treating students (and their bodies) well, they get taller. As long as we’re treating students (and their brains) well, working memory gets bigger.

The details here get technical — after all, we have several different ways we can measure WM. But, you can be confident that your 4th graders have more WM than they did when they were in 2nd grade. And, the 6th graders have more WM still.

This growth levels off in our early 20s. Alas, WM probably begins to decline (very slowly) soon after. But, don’t worry. All the extra information you have in your long-term memory makes up for the very modest decrements in your WM.

3B: Bad News about INCREASING Working Memory

We can’t.

Better said: we can’t artificially increase WM, beyond the natural increase that comes with growth and schooling.

Better said: we can’t YET do that.

LOTS of thoughtful people are working very hard on this problem, and have had some intriguing wins.

But, as of this post, we don’t have broad data suggesting that we can train up students’ WM with specially designed computer games, or exercises, or special diet, or whatever.

To be clear: this is a controversial field, and very accomplished people have devoted years of work to it. I hope — at some point — that this breakthrough does happen.

1+2+3a+3b = ?

We know

#1: that working memory is CRUCIAL in classrooms.

#2: that it’s LIMITED.

#3a & #3b: that we CAN’T artificially make it bigger.

Put those three conclusions together, and you arrive at this conclusion:

Teachers have to work effectively WITHIN THE WM CAPACITY THAT OUR STUDENTS HAVE.

In fact, we should be EXPERTS at working effectively within their WM capacity.

Every time we go beyond their limited capacity, they experience WM overload.

And, when students experience WM overload, they stop learning. This is why I’m OBSESSED with WM.

How do we do that? How can we work effectively WITHIN their working memory capacity?

The next several posts will cover this essential topic.

Beyond the Mouse: Pointing in Online Lectures
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-05-2019

Beyond the Mouse: Pointing in Online Lectures

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You know, of course, that the right kind of movement can help students learn. The nascent field of “embodied cognition” works to explore the strategies that work most effectively.

Here’s a collection of resources.

And, here’s a recent blog post about kindergarteners moving to learn the number line.

You also know that online learners easily get distracted, often because they multitask. (I say “they” because you and I would never do such things.)

This recent post shows that even folding laundry — a harmless-seeming activity — reduces online learning.

What happens when we put these two research pools together?

Specifically: can movement reduce distraction, and increase learning, for online learners?

Benefits of Online Pointing?

Several researchers — including the estimable Richard Mayer — wanted to answer that question.

Specifically, they wanted to know: do pointing gestures made by the teacher help online students learn?

They had students watch an online lecture (about “neural transmission,” naturally).

For the first group of students, the teacher pointed at specific places on relevant diagrams.

For the second group, the teacher pointed generally toward the diagrams (but not at specific pants of them).

For the third, the teacher moved his hands about, without pointing specifically.

For the fourth, the teacher didn’t move his hands.

Do different pointing strategies help or hurt?

Benefits Indeed

Sure enough, pointing matters.

Students in the first group spent more time looking at the relevant parts of the diagrams.

They did better on a test that day.

And — most important — they did better than the other groups on a test a week later.

Now: a week isn’t exactly learning. We want our students to remember facts and concepts for months. (Preferably, forever.)

But, the fact that the memories had lasted a week suggests it’s MUCH likelier they’ll last longer still.

Practical Implications

If your classroom life includes online teaching, or teaching with videos, try to include specific pointing gestures to focus students on relevant information. At least with this student population, such gestures really helped.

By the way, this study doesn’t answer an interesting and important question: “does student movement as they watch online lectures help or hurt their learning?”

We know from the study cited above that irrelevant movement (like folding laundry) doesn’t help. But: should students mirror your gestures as they watch videos? Should you give them particular gestures to emulate?

We don’t know yet…but I hope future research helps us find an answer.

Obsessed With Working Memory: Part I
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-02-2019

Obsessed With Working Memory: Part I

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When I attended my first Learning and the Brain conference, I had never even heard of working memory.

Now, I obsess over working memory. And, I think all classroom teachers should join me.

Heck, I think everyone who cares about learning, curriculum, teacher training, and education should think about working memory. All. The. Time.

In this series of posts, I’ll start by defining working memory (WM) today. And in succeeding posts, I’ll talk about using that knowledge most helpfully.

Trust me: the more we think about WM, the more our students learn.

Working Memory: An Example

As an example of WM in action, I’m going to give you a list of 5 words. Please put those words in alphabetical order. IN YOUR HEAD. (That’s right: don’t write anything down…)

Okay, here’s the list:

Think of the five workdays of the week. (Hint: if you live in a Western society, the first one is ‘Monday.’)

Now, go ahead and put those five words into alphabetical order. Don’t peek. I’ll wait…

 

Probably you came up with this list:

Friday, Monday, Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday

I do this exercise with teachers often. For most everyone, that’s fairly simple to do. I’m guessing you got it right quite easily.

Working Memory: A Definition

To succeed at that task, you undertook four mental processes.

First, you selected relevant information. Specifically, you selected the instructions that you read. And, you looked into your long-term memory to select the workdays of the week.

Next, you held that information. If you had let go of the instructions, or of the days of the week, you couldn’t have completed the task.

Third, you reorganized the days of the week according to the instructions. You started with a chronological list (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…), and converted it into an alphabetical lest (Friday, Monday, Thursday…).

In many WM tasks (but not this one), you might not only reorganize, but also combine information. If, for instance, you added up 7+12+4+18+6 in your head, you selected, held, and combined those numbers into a new number.

So:

Working memory is a limited, short-term memory capacity that selects, holds, reorganizes, and combines information from multiple sources.

In a later post, I’ll talk about some finer points in the definition of WM. For the time being, focus on those four verbs: select, hold, reorganize, combine.

Working Memory: An Acronym

Because WM is so important, it would be great if there were a handy acronym. Happily, there is!

Select

Hold

REorganize

Kombine

What does that get you? SHREK! (I know: I misspelled ‘combine.’ But: I lived in Prague for a year, so you can forgive me for that useful alteration.)

Working Memory in the Classroom

Now, ask yourself: which of these classroom tasks requires working memory?

That is: in which of these cases do your students have to select, hold, reorganize, and/or combine information?

Solving a word problem.

Comparing W.E.B. du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

Transposing a song into a new key.

Applying a new phonics rule to various combinations of letters.

Choreographing a dance routine.

The correct answer is: ALL OF THEM.

In fact, practically everything we do in school classrooms requires working memory. Often, it requires A LOT of working memory.

To Sum Up

We use WM to select, hold, reorganize, and combine (SHREK) information.

Students use WM constantly in classrooms, for practically everything they do.

Simply put: no academic information gets into long-term memory except through working memory. It’s that important.

Up next: we’ll highlight key facts about WM. Then we’ll talk about using that knowledge in your teaching.

If you’d like some homework, here it is:

Ask yourself: what work that students do in your own classroom requires working memory? Try to be specific: what are they selecting? What are they holding? And so forth…

Also ask yourself: what work does not require WM?

Does Smartphone Addiction Boost Anxiety and Depression?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June-29-2019

Does Smartphone Addiction Boost Anxiety and Depression?

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We frequently hear about the dangers of “smartphone addiction.” If you search those words in Google, you’ll find this juicy quotation in the second link:

The brain on “smartphone” is the same as the brain on cocaine: we get an instant high every time our screen lights up with a new notification.

“An instant high.” Like cocaine? Hmmmm.

You might even have heard that we’ve got research about the perils of such addictions. But: can we rely on it?

A recent study asked a simple question, and got an alarming answer.

How Do We Know What We Know About Phone Usage?

Studies about smartphones typically ask participants to rate their cell phone usage — number of minutes, number of texts, and so forth. They then correlate those data with some other harmful condition: perhaps depression.

Researchers in Britain wanted to know: how accurately do people rate their cellphone usage?

When they looked at Apple’s “Screen Time” application, they found that participants simply don’t do a good job of reporting their own usage.

In other words: depression might correlate with people’s reported screen time. But it doesn’t necessarily correlate with (and certainly doesn’t result from) their actual screen time.

In the modest language of research:

We conclude that existing self-report instruments are unlikely to be sensitive enough to accurately predict basic technology use related behaviors. As a result, conclusions regarding the psychological impact of technology are unreliable when relying solely on these measures to quantify typical usage.

So much for that “instant high.” Like cocaine.

What Should Teachers Do

As I’ve written before, I think research into technology use is often too muddled and contradictory to give us good guidance right now.

Here’s what I wrote back in May:

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.

I still think that advice holds. If your child’s attachment to the cellphone seems unhealthy, then do something about it.

But if not, we shouldn’t let scary headlines drive us to extremes.

Debunking Education Myths (Without Accidentally Reinforcing Them…)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June-27-2019

Debunking Education Myths (Without Accidentally Reinforcing Them…)

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Sadly, lots of learning myths clutter the field of education.

Right-brain/left-brain thinking? Myth.

The “learning pyramid”? Myth.

And, of course, “learning styles”? Epic myth.

How can we best combat all these myths?

As teachers and school leaders, we see an obvious strategy. If we want people to stop thinking the wrong thing, we should teach them the right thing.

More information, more skill in processing that information, will save the day.

Or, Not…

Alas, we’ve got lots of research showing that this obvious strategy doesn’t work.

In fact, it produces “backfire effects.”

The more we talk about about all the facts that rebut the myth, the more familiar the myth seems. Our attempts to undo a myth turn out to reinforce it — simply because people hear so much about it.

Another problem: the more facts we use to rebut myths, the less mental processing space people have to consider them. As is so often the case: when trying to rebut myths, less information is more powerful.

A Handy Resource

Happily, John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky have produced “The Debunking Handbook” to help us end myths without reinforcing them.

The focus on highly practical strategies:

Using best alternative explanations

Using graphics

Limiting contradictory information

With this handbook as a guide, you can help your colleagues get past the quaint falsehoods that interfere with learning.

And as a result, you’ll clear up time for the teaching strategies that truly help students flourish.

 

Powerful Evidence: Self-Control Training Works — and Changes Brains
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June-24-2019

Powerful Evidence: Self-Control Training Works — and Changes Brains

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Whenever we put a lot of effort into a project, we really want to believe that it helped.

For that reason, we might somehow overlook the signs that our efforts fell short. Or, we might exaggerate skimpy data to suggest that we succeeded.

To overcome these all-too-human tendencies, we need well designed research to gather and analyze data. The only way to demonstrate success is to look hard for failure.

Taking It Up a Notch

To look especially hard for failure, we might look at two different kinds of evidence.

For example: does self-control training work?

To answer this question, let’s start by having 11-year-olds go through a self-control training program. At the same time, we’ll identify a control group that doesn’t get the training.

We can see if the training worked in two different ways.

First: several years later, have those children (now 25 years old!) provide information about their lives. Have they completed high school? College? Do they have a job? Have they been arrested? Do they frequently get in fights?

We can also have their parents fill out similar surveys. Oh, and we’ll have the control group fill out surveys as well.

Are the children who got self-control training likelier to have more education and a job? Less likely to harm themselves and others? If yes, those differences suggests that they used those self-control strategies well.

Second: we can look at their brains.

In particular, we have decades of research showing the importance of a particular brain region for self control.

Roughly speaking, we want self-control regions of the brain — the prefrontal cortex (PFC) — to communicate well with the emotional drivers of human behavior. Better PFC communication means better self-control.

That brain region is in the middle (medial) part of the underside (ventral) of the PFC. So, we call it the ventromedial prefrontal cortex: vm-PFC. (Important note: neuroscience is fantastically complicated. This summary is a very streamlined version of a wildly intricate web of brain connectivity.)

So, after we survey the students who went through self-control training, we can have them hang out in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) gizmo.

Our hypothesis: trained students should have better vm-PFC connectivity between the PFC and brain regions that process emotions.

Today’s Research

A team of 14 researchers have in fact done all that.

An organization in rural Georgia called “Strong African American Families” wanted to improve the prospects of children living in poverty. They developed a program that included training for parents, and for their 11-year-old children.

Parents learned about “emotional support, [and] high levels of monitoring and control.”

The children “focused on forming goals for the future and making plans to attain them.” They also learned about strategies to use when encountering racism.

14 years later (!!), the researchers gathered both kinds of data described above. That is: the children (now 25) filled out surveys. And the had an fMRI scan to measure vm-PFC connectivity.

Sure enough, both measures suggested that the training made a real difference.

That is: the children who had the training did better on measures of adult self-control. And, they had higher levels of vm-PFC connectivity.

Reasonable Conclusions

The program run by Strong African American Families was tailored to the circumstances of its participants. We should not, in other words, conclude that their program will work for everyone.

But: we have quite persuasive evidence that their program had the effects it intended — poor children grew up as more responsible adults than un-trained peers.

And: we have a good neurobiological explanation for the different behavior — their altered life trajectory included developmental differences in the vm-PFC.

All these findings give us hope that well designed self-control programs can indeed have the effect that we want them to. That’s not just wishful thinking.

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