February 2020 – Education & Teacher Conferences

Are “Retrieval Practice” and “Spacing” Equally Important? [Updated]

Andrew Watson

February 28, 2020

Are “Retrieval Practice” and “Spacing” Equally Important? [Updated]

If you follow research in the world of long-term memory, you know you’ve got SO MANY GOOD STRATEGIES.

Agarwal and Bain’s Powerful Teaching, for instance, offers a delicious menu: spacing, interleaving, retrieval practice, metacognition.

Inquiring minds want to know: how do we best choose among those options? Should we do them all? Should we rely mostly on one, and then add in dashes of the other three? What’s the idea combination?

One Important Answer

Dr. Keith Lyle and his research team wanted to know: which strategy has greater long-term impact in teaching college math: retrieval practice or spacing?

That is: in the long term, do students benefit from more retrieval? From greater spacing? From both?

To answer this really important question, they carefully designed weekly quizzes in a college precalculus class. Some topics, at “baseline,” were tested with three questions at the end of the week. That’s a little retrieval practice, and a few days of spacing.

Some topics were tested with six quiz questions at the end of the week. That’s MORE retrieval practice, but the same baseline amount of spacing.

Some topics were tested with three quiz questions spread out over the semester. That’s baseline retrieval practice, but MUCH GREATER spacing.

And, some topics were tested with six quiz questions spread out over the semester. That’s extra retrieval AND extra spacing.

They then measured: how did these precalculus students do when tested on those topics on the final exam? And — hold on you hats — how did they do when tested a month later, when they started taking the follow-up class on calculus?

Intriguing Answers…

Lyle and Co. found that — on the precalculus final exam…

…extra retrieval practice helped (about 4% points), and

…extra spacing helped (about 4% points), and

…combining extra retrieval with extra spacing helped more (about 8% points).

So, in the relatively short term, both strategies enhance learning. And, they complement each other.

What about the relatively longer term? That is, what happened a month later, on the pre-test for the calculus class? In that case…

…extra retrieval practice didn’t matter

…extra spacing helped (about 4% points).

…combining extra retrieval with extra spacing produced no extra benefit (still about 4% points).**

For enduring learning, then, extra spacing helped, but extra retrieval practice didn’t.

…Important Considerations

First: as the researchers note, it’s important to stress that this research comes from the field of math instruction. Math — more than most disciplines — already has retrieval practice built into in.

That is: when I do math homework, every problem I solve requires me (to some degree) to recall the math task at hand. (And, probably, lots of other relevant math info as well.)

But, when I do my English homework, the paper I’m writing about Macbeth might not remind me about Grapes of Wrath. Or, when I do my History homework, the time I spend studying Aztec civilization doesn’t necessarily require me to recall facts or concepts from the Silk Road unit. (It might, but might not.)

So, this study shows that extra retrieval practice didn’t help over and above the considerable retrieval practice the math students were already doing.

Second: notice that the “spacing” in this case was a special kind of spacing. It was, in fact, spacing of retrieval practice. Of course, that counts as spacing.

But, we have lots of other ways to space as well. For instance, Dr. Rachael Blasiman testing spacing by taking time in lectures to revisit earlier concepts. That strategy did create spacing, but didn’t include retrieval practice.

So, this research doesn’t necessarily apply to other kinds of spacing. It might, but we don’t yet know.

Practical Classroom Applications

Lyle & Co.’s study gives us three helpful classroom reminders.

First: as long as we’ve done enough retrieval practice to establish ideas (as math homework does almost automatically), we can redouble our energies to focus on spacing.

Second: Lyle mentions in passing that students do (very slightly) worse on quizzes that include spacing — because spacing is harder. (Regular readers know, we call this “desirable difficulty.”)

This reminder gives us an extra reason to be sure that quizzes with spacing are low-stakes or no-stakes. We don’t want to penalize students for participating in learning strategies that benefit them.

Third: In my own view, we can ask/expect our students to join us in retrieval practice strategies. Once they reach a certain age or grade, they should be able to make flashcards, or use quizlet, or test one another.

However, I think spacing requires a different perspective on the full scope of a course. That is: it requires a teacher’s perspective. We have the long view, and see how all the pieces best fit together.

For those reasons, I think we can (and should) ask students to do retrieval practice (in addition to the retrieval practice we create). But, we ourselves should take responsibility for spacing. We — much more than they they — have the big picture in mind. We should take that task off their to do list, and keep it squarely on ours.

** This post has been revised on 3/7/30. The initial version did not include the total improvement created by retrieval practice and spacing one month after the final exam.

Andrew Watson

February 25, 2020

How to Help Struggling Readers?

Reading interventions can suffer from two lamentable problems.

First, they can — paradoxically — benefit strong readers without helping weak ones. Here we see the dreaded “Matthew Effect,” where the rich get richer — in this case, the strong readers get even stronger.

Second, they can require lots of training in complex theories and pedagogical strategies.

We would, of course, like a strategy that benefits everyone — especially the weaker readers. And, one that can be implemented without lots of time-consuming, pricey training.

If that sounds good to you, keep reading…

It’s So Simple, It Just Might Work…

Researchers in Great Britain wanted to test a remarkably simple proposal. What would happen if classrooms stopped teaching “leveled” short reading passages, and simply read two long, challenging books?

To answer this question, they worked with ~350 12-13 year-olds, and 20 teachers, in 10 schools. Teachers chose long novels that they deemed challenging; often, they chose books typically reserved for “higher ability” students: Frankenstein, for instance, or Now Is the Time for Running.

The researchers insisted that the teachers move at a fast pace. The classes had only 12 weeks to get through both challenging books. In fact, some participating teachers worried that the combination of challenging book + fast pace would be too much.

As long as they moved briskly, teachers had lots of freedom. Most read the books aloud for long stretches of time. Others used audio-book recordings, or had students take turns reading in circles. Many would stop to ask or answer questions. Basically they used their teaching skills in whatever way they deemed fit.

So, what happened? Were the teachers right to worry about the challenging book and the fast pace?

Dramatic Results

To measure the effect of this strategy, the researchers used a test of “reading age.” Students in these classes took that test before and after their 12-week reading adventure.

Students in all the groups they measured improved, including the average readers and the advanced readers.

But, what about the struggling readers? That is: what about those who were more that a grade level behind in their reading?

Their “reading age” score improved by 16 months. Three months of this strategy produced almost a year-and-a-half worth of gain.

That’s astonishing.

I should note: those struggling readers remained well behind their peers. But, gosh, they were a lot less behind than before. In other words, this intervention produced a reverse-Matthew Effect: everybody got richer, but the poor started to catch up.

A Hidden Surprise

Part of this research finding, by the way, surprised the researchers.

Half of the teachers in the study simply relied on their experience to make this strategy work. The others got a day-and-a-half of training in…

cognitive reading processes […], and pedagogic strategies including reading the text aloud in class at a fast pace, inference-making, guided group reading and the use of graphic organisers.

How much difference did that additional training make? Um. None. Students who had “untrained” teachers made as much progress as those who had “trained” teachers.

It was the strategy, not the training, that helped. (To be clear, the training led to some statistically significant differences, but not in the ultimate measure: who learned more?)

So, as far as we can tell from this research, we don’t need fancy training to make this strategy work. Our own teacherly experience is — on average — enough.

Boundary Conditions

First: this research was done with 12-13 year olds in an English education system. It might not apply to your teaching context. And, it isn’t remotely claiming to be a method for teaching students to read in the first place.

Second: I don’t know if this research has been replicated. We’re always more comfortable with a strategy when it’s been shown to work many times.

Third: the fact that this strategy seems to have worked for reading doesn’t mean it will work in other disciplines. We should not assume that, say, students will learn to play the violin simply by hearing someone play the violin; or learn to do math simply by watching others solve math problems.

At the same time, I do find this research helpfully intriguing. In fact, if you’re thinking about this strategy, I encourage you to read the initial study. It’s unusually well written. And, it includes helpful details — including comments from teachers in the study.

If you give this a try, I hope you’ll let me know how it goes. According to the initial study, the students loved it.

Andrew Watson

February 22, 2020

Revisiting Our San Francisco Conference

I had planned to write a post describing our most recent conference, last weekend in San Francisco (“where every day is cardio day”).

However, one of our attendees — Mark Barrett — got there first. I thought he did such a good job of summarizing so many of the speakers that you’d enjoy reading his words.

Thankfully, Mark agreed to let me copy his post here. I also encourage you to check out his blog, “Education Rumination.”

This past Family Day long weekend, my admin partner, Rupi and I headed down to San Francisco for the Learning and the Brain Conference. This 55^th edition of the Conference was themed, Educating Anxious Minds, and had a record-setting 2500 participants attend from around North America and beyond. The inspiration for the conference came as a result of recent reports finding that many children and teens are experience significant stress, anxiety, and mental health issues. The purpose was to help education professionals reduce anxiety and stress in schools; address teen depression and challenging classroom behaviours; foster coping skills and mindful practices; create trauma-sensitive schools; and improve school success by prompting positive teacher-student relationships.

As the Professional Development Chair for the North Vancouver Administrators Association, this conference was particularly relevant for me on a couple of fronts. Firstly, I am in the midst of organizing our annual Administrators Conference in Whistler, and our theme for 2020 is the BCPVPA domain of Relational Leadership. Many of the speakers touched on how school-based administrators can positively impact school climate, culture and student anxiety through instructional care models that support staff. High relational leadership capacity is certainly an integral aspect of any successful care model. Secondly, in my same role as NovA Pro-D Chair, I’ve created a network of 5 different book clubs for my colleagues. One of the books being read, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, was authored by the first keynote speaker, Dr. Bruce Perry, and it was enlightening to hear his behavioural science-based approach to understanding anxious students.

Bruce Perry

Throughout the conference I attempted to live-Tweet to my professional network some of the best sound bites. Many of my favourite take-aways were from one of the first keynotes, By Dr. Perry. Among them included:

“Our primary work in the classroom is to first regulate the child, or else you can’t connect with them. Humans are relational creatures.”
Photo by Mark Barrett
The key to a trauma-informed classroom is to recognize there needs to be differential dosing of curricular content based on the needs of the child.
“A regulated classroom is a rhythmic classroom and a relational classroom. If you stay calm, it will calm them (students) down.”
“Administrators need to think about instructional care models.” Because a dysregulated adult can never regular a dysregulated child.

Dr. Perry’s talk hit many of the themes that would be highlighted throughout the conference, including that when we attend to the wellness of adults who care for children, we are better positioned to tend to the wellness of students, and that relationships are key to everything, including the personalization of learning.

Dan Siegel

Dr. Dan Siegel was also a highlight speaker for me, and I was pleased to have the opportunity hear him speak not once, but twice. As a neuropsychiatrist, I appreciated hearing from a perspective grounded in neural science. One of the key phrases he used was, “Where attention goes, neural firing flows and neural connection grows.” Essentially what this means is that the adolescent brain goes through a process of pruning some neural networks, and enhancing others by laying down myelin. We strengthen the neural networks we use, and lose those we don’t. The lesson for educators here is to encourage students in devoting their energies towards those networks they want to build and enhance; to pursue their areas of passion and routines that reinforce health and wellness.

One of the more amusing anecdotes was about the development of the teenage brain in comparison to other adolescent species. Dr. Siegel described how adolescent gazelles will also engage in risky behaviour by running up to their natural predators and then running away. While this may, on the surface, seem exceptionally foolish, Dr. Siegel explained that the ability to lead is enhanced when one has been to the precipice of danger and navigated back from it successfully.

Adolescence is also the time when many species begin pushing for their own independence, and look to leave the relative comfort of, what Dr. Siegel calls, “The Oatmeal House”. (The home where your parents prepare your oatmeal for you every morning! And do your laundry… and pay the bills, etc. etc). As adolescents prepare to leave the safety of the family collective, social acceptance among their peer group becomes vitally important; so much so that they will cave to peer pressure to gain it and may even act contrary to their values or morals. From a neuro-science perspective, however, this is actually a survival instinct; because without the safety of the group, those left on the outside looking in have their entire existence jeopardized.

Other gems from Dr. Siegel included:

The ‘3 Rs’ of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic are important, but it’s important to also teach the ‘new’ 3 Rs: Reflective skills, Relationship skills, Resilience skills. My colleague Brad Baker also suggested an additional R; ‘Respect’.
Defining what ‘integration’ means with respect to relationships and the brain. Integration is where different aspects of a system become linked, but don’t lose their uniqueness. Integrative relationships stimulate the growth of the integrated brain, leading to regulation and optimal health. Adversity, conversely, impairs brain integration.
The identification of ‘4 Ss’ that help promote an integrative brain and, by extension, health and well-being: Safety, being Seen (students need to noticed), Soothed (fears), Security (trust).
F.A.C.E.S. is an acronym used to characterize the features of wellbeing: Flexible, Adaptive, Coherence, Energized, Stable

Other Great Speakers

Two other speakers I enjoyed listening to included Dr. Mona Delahooke’s talk on Using Brain Science to Reduce Anxiety, Toxic Stress, and Behavioural Challenges and Clay Cook’s breakout session on Teacher Stress & Wellbeing.

Dr. Delahooke, in her empathic approach, suggested that challenging student behaviours are an adaption to autonomic nervous system cues, and that there is a difference between wilful misbehaviour and a subconscious adaptation. The behaviours are only the metaphorical tip of the iceberg, and that it’s our responsibility in caring for our children to delve beyond the surface, seek to understand, and support students as best we can. I also appreciated Dr. Delahooke’s notion that self-regulation needs to begin first with co-regulation; that the external interaction between students in your classroom/building needs to be upskilled and regulated before attention can be turned inwards for students.

Clay Cook’s breakout session about Promoting Teacher’s Stress Reduction, Emotional Wellbeing, and Positive Social Interactions, really hammered home the theme that unwell adults have difficulty promoting well children. He also discussed how psychological safety for staff creates a collaborative and innovative learning culture, and that ‘climate’ is how people feel, while ‘culture’ is how people behave. Finally, Clay noted that high-performing environments and frequent ‘ratcheting-up’ of expectations for students are a potent risk factor for mental health disorders, just as other factors like poverty are. This idea gave me pause for reflection on how it is we can continue to maintain high expectations and the pursuit of excellence in our students, while simultaneously supporting their mental health and wellbeing.

Overall the conference was a wonderful learning experience, and I found the speakers to generally be highly engaging, knowledgeable and informative. My notes here represent only a handful of the many talented presenters we saw. In the end, I left having a better understanding of some of the latest science-based research supporting the work we’re already doing with our students around mental health and wellness, and a renewed appreciation for the commitment I have to building the best relationships I can both with and among my staff. Lastly, it was also a great opportunity to network with education professionals from the U.S., Canada and beyond. If you’re considering attending one of the bi-annual Learning and Brain Conferences in either San Francisco or New York, I would highly recommend that you do!

Mark Barrett

Editor’s note: we also have a conference in Boston every fall. We hope you’ll be able to join us — and Mark — soon!

Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem by Eileen Kennedy-Moore

Rebecca Gotlieb

February 19, 2020

Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem by Eileen Kennedy-Moore

Letting go of the concern “am I good enough” and reducing self-focused thoughts are critical for building self-confidence, according to clinical psychologist and author, Eileen Kennedy-Moore. She suggests that supporting kids as they develop relationships, habits of perseverance, skills for learning, and their own value and voice are the key to building authentic self-confidence. Kennedy-Moore’s book, Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem brings parents scientifically backed, clear, and actionable practices for supporting self-esteem in children ages 6-12.

Previous efforts to boost children’s self-esteem (e.g., by giving every child a trophy) were misguided and counter-productive, leading to narcissism, reduced empathy, depression, and anxiety. Self-esteem is shaped by both natural temperament and experience. Children tend to have relatively high self-esteem in the first several years of life and then experience a reduction in self-esteem and an increase in self-consciousness in the pre-teen and teen years, when they become more self-focused.

Strong and healthy connections with parents, siblings, and friends are a critical source of confidence for young people. Kennedy-Moore suggests that how parents respond to children’s mistakes matters for their self-esteem. She suggests sequentially taking time to cool down, then broaching a conversation with the child by offering an excuse for why the child may have made the mistake, describing why the mistake was problematic, and encouraging the child to think about how he can ameliorate the situation and move forward. Conversely when children do something well, parents should show pleasure, offer measured praise, especially for actions within the child’s control, and teach children how to graciously accept compliments. Parents should teach children that we are all developing and have room for improvement. Sibling relations can boost self-esteem, but when a child compares himself to his siblings, which is common to do, problems may arise. Kennedy-Moore suggests parents avoid comparing siblings and instead celebrate each child’s successes and focus on shared values and traits in the family. To make friends children need not to avoid off-putting behaviors (e.g., emotional outbursts and tattle-tailing), so teaching self-calming exercises can be beneficially. Additionally, they need to build connections, so it is important to teaching about the role of reciprocity, kindness, and common-ground in friendships.

To experience self-confidence, children need to feel competent, which comes when they persist at difficult but worthwhile endeavors and when they let go of perfectionism, according to Kennedy-Moore. Parents can promote persistence by normalizing the experience of struggling. Stories of their own struggles or stories of the child overcome struggles when she was younger are effective. Parents can help children notice their own progress, guide children to engage in activities that will capitalize on their strengths, and help children find mentors. Parents can help counter perfectionism by: creating safe spaces to make mistakes; focusing on the learning process rather than performance outcomes; teaching the value of matching one’s effort to the importance of the task; and emphasizing that parents’ love does not need to be earned. Kennedy-Moore also suggests encouraging self-kindness by modeling kind self-talk and making time for fun activities.

Children with low self-esteem may struggle to make even simple decisions. Parents can deconstruct common myths about decision-making, e.g., teaching that there is no singular perfect choice to be uncovered if one simply analyzes the situation thoroughly enough. Parents can give kids opportunities to make simple choices and show that we need to make the most of the decisions we make.

Children with low self-esteem may also feel different than their peers. Parents can help by teaching children how to talk about their differences with pride and how to deal with prejudice. Offering examples of inspiring people with similar differences, helping the child see himself as a whole-person and not just someone with one difference, and encouraging children to contribute their talents to help others are ways to reduce feelings of “differentness.” Additionally, teaching children about media biases can reduce the extent to which the media exacerbates their feelings of differentness. If children are facing bullying, parents can help their children learn to be a less attractive target for bullying by caring less about the bullying behavior and learning to ignore mean gossip. It may be necessary also to enlist help from a teacher.

Kennedy-Moore concludes by suggesting that helping children move past the frequent self-evaluation that undermines confidence, involves them experiencing compassion, awe, and deep engagement with activities. These experiences connect us to other people, make us appreciate the vastness of our world, and ground us in the present moment. As children come to have more and more of these experiences, they will develop genuine and enduring self-esteem, which will set them on a trajectory of success and fulfillment.

Kennedy-Moore, E. (2019). Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

Sharing the Learning and the Brain Experience with Colleagues

Andrew Watson

February 18, 2020

Sharing the Learning and the Brain Experience with Colleagues

You’ve just gotten back from a Learning and the Brain conference, and – frankly – you’re revved up!

You’ve learned so much new information and gained so many new perspectives, you just want to share it all with your colleagues right away.

Of course, it can be challenging to synthesize and organize all that information. Where do you begin? How do you fit all the pieces together? What was the name of that researcher again?

Happily, lots of people have done this synthesis work for you.

In the past, for instance, I’ve recommended this document by Deans for Impact. In a few brisk pages, it summarizes 6 key findings from the world of cognitive science.

Today’s News

I recently stumbled across another synthesis: this one with a twist. It doesn’t just boil lots of information down to easy-to-understand pages. (Although it certainly does do that.) This synthesis provides questions, examples, and activities to help you share the information with other teachers.

For instance: like many other writers (me included), this one focuses on the science of attention. Simply put, students don’t learn about information they’re not attending to.

This Learning Curriculum (2.0) reinforces that crucial point with a video you might show your colleagues.

It describes teaching strategies that – once we understand the importance of attention – will clearly be more and less effective.

It offers specific classroom suggestions and a warning or two. (Videos get students’ attention. But, alas, students might attend to surface features and miss the core concept we want them to understand.)

It also provokes deeper thought with questions you might put to fellow teachers.

Beyond Attention

Of course, this Learning Curriculum goes beyond attention. It considers working memory (my obsession), and prior misconceptions, and retrieval practice, and a host of other important topics.

I don’t agree with everything written here. (Heck, I don’t agree with everything written anywhere.) But, I think this curriculum…

synthesizes and organizes lots of essential information,

offers specific examples with getting bogged down in details, and

creates something usefully new: a strategy for sharing this information with other teachers. (I particularly like the “hinge questions” designed to be sure teachers understand the principles in application.)

For those reasons, I encourage you to check it out. I hope you’ll let me know your thoughts

“The” Effect of “Exercise” on “the Brain”

Andrew Watson

February 15, 2020

“The” Effect of “Exercise” on “the Brain”

A month ago, I wrote about a Twitter feud focusing on exercise during learning.

When a PE teacher posted a video of his students reading on exer-cycles, edu-Twitter irrupted with champions (“love it!”) and critics (“bonkers!”).

My response at the time was:

First: I rather suspect that exercise during learning will distract students from their reading; however,

Second: we don’t have research on this specific question; and

Third: in the absence of research, it’s probably good for PE teachers to be experimenting in this realm.

In other words: Edu-Twitter, relax.

Today’s Update

Since that mini-controversy, I’ve stumbled across an intriguing research addendum.

Researchers in Germany wanted to know: how does exercise affect the brain. More specifically, does a difference in intensity level matter?

That is: if I exercise 35% below lactate threshold, will that influence brain connectivity differently than if I exercise 20% above that threshold? (“Lactate threshold” measures intensity of exercise; the specifics aren’t super important here.)

To answer that question, they had had about 2 dozen men exercise at those different levels on different days.

The specific results quickly turn into a tornado of acronyms. But, briefly summarized, the researchers found that:

Low intensity exercise enhanced connectivity in networks that help process cognitive and attentional functions, while

High intensity exercise enhanced connectivity in networks that help process emotional responses.

And surprisingly (to me), high intensity exercise also diminished connectivity in networks that process motor coordination.

In other words, “exercise” does not have “an” effect on “the brain.”

Instead, different kinds of exercise have distinct effects on particular brain regions and networks.

Core Conclusions

First: in the short term, different exercise intensities may influence brain regions differently.

Second: that “short term” caveat is important. Notice for instance that high intensity exercise muddles motor coordination networks. Why would that be? The study’s authors suggest it indicates temporary “motor fatigue.”

That is: exercise doesn’t make us worse at motor coordination over the long term — that would be bizarre. Instead, it temporarily tires us out. Presumably, motor coordination bounces back after we stop exercising.

So, too, we might be tempted to enhance cognitive function with low-intensity exercise. But, just as the motor-fatigue effect was temporary, so too the cognitive-function effect might be temporary.

Third: back to those readers on bicycles. I don’t think this research applies directly to that classroom experiment. (Although, if low-intensity exercise really improves cognitive function — even temporarily — that finding makes those bikes somewhat more appealing. That is: low-intensity exer-cycling might improve the students’ cognition and focus while they read.)

Instead, I think it highlights the importance of patience and specificity. Until we have more research on this specific point, I don’t think we have nearly enough reason to cry either “bravo!” or “bonkers!”

Instead, let’s gather more data. And, in the meanwhile, we can encourage one another in reasonable classroom experiments.

And yes, I do mean even PE class experiments including exer-cycles.

Andrew Watson

February 12, 2020

Welcome to San Francisco!

We can’t wait to see you at our conference this weekend: Educating Anxious Brains.

Various reports have found that many children and teens are experiencing significant stress, anxiety, and mental health issues.

More than 1 in 20 children ages 6-17 (and one in three teens) suffer from anxiety disorders, according to a June 2018 study in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. A new UC Berkeley study finds that college students have seen a sharp rise in anxiety over the past decade and an American College Health Association study reveals that sixty-two percent of college students report a significant level of anxiety. In addition, according to a 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), almost forty-five percent of all children in the US have experienced at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE).

Discover how toxic stress, anxiety, and trauma negatively affect developing brains, student behavior, and academic success.

This conference will help you reduce anxiety and stress in your schools and practice; address teen depression and challenging classroom behaviors; foster coping, calming, mindful practices; create trauma-sensitive schools; and improve school success by promoting positive teacher-student relationships.

If you’ll be there, you might want a quick preview of our upcoming speakers.

You can meet many of them at this link. And, many more right here.

If you can’t join us in San Francisco, perhaps you’re free the weekend of May 1st in New York City. We’ll be exploring the Schooling of the Self…

Interested in Action Research? Try This Instead

Andrew Watson

February 09, 2020

Interested in Action Research? Try This Instead

We don’t do a lot of cross posting here at Learning and the Brain. I believe this is the first time we’ve done so while I’ve been editor.

I think the initiative below is very exciting, and you — Learning and the Brain readers — are just the right audience to take advantage of it.

In this post, Ben Keep and Ulrich Boser of the Learning Agency Lab explain how we teachers can do valuable research in our own classrooms.

If that grabs your attention: read on!

New technologies can help educators become high-quality researchers.

When it comes to teaching, there are a million questions to ask about the nature of instruction.

What examples to use? What analogies to draw on? What sequences to teach new ideas? The people in the best position to both ask and answer these questions are often teachers.

Teacher-driven research isn’t new, but — at least in the U.S. — it’s relatively rare. Teaching loads are high and work hours are long, making teachers reluctant to lead education research projects, even when they want to. And, generally speaking, the U.S. school system is not set up to support teacher-driven research.

But in spite of the challenges, teachers want to engage in research. One survey found that over 90% of teachers wanted to influence the direction of research. And 59% wanted to participate in research themselves.

One way to engage is through action research, which certainly has its place in the field. And while the approach has clear benefits, it also has some limitations — like missing comparison groups.

A new kind of tool might help solve this problem. Over the next year, different learning platforms plan on offering tools to assist teachers in running their own research projects. Take ASSISTments ETRIALS Project. There’s already currently a small community of teachers who are performing independent classroom research on ASSISTments and that’s scheduled to expand.

RCE Coach also has plans to put out a version of their software this fall that will facilitate teacher use of the platform. They plan on fostering collaborations and providing workshops and other resources to support teacher research.

There’s also Carnegie Learning’s UpGrade platform. The company has plans to release an easy-to-use UI that lets teachers perform research on the platform. They’re particularly interested in testing whether letting students move ahead at their own pace benefits student outcomes.

These tools all help teachers run randomized controlled trials in their classrooms. That is, they help teachers to randomly assign students to different instructional conditions so that we can figure out which teaching approaches work best — and why.

Action Research Isn’t Action(able) Enough. Or why RCTs?

Current teacher-driven research efforts emphasize action research, which is an approach to deliberately reflecting on one’s own teaching practice with an aim to improve it. Under this model, teachers will often experiment with new teaching approaches, conduct interviews or surveys of students, and make detailed observations along the way. Often, the entire class makes a change, and the teacher reflects on whether the change was effective at improving learning outcomes.

This has led to a lot of fascinating work. But one of the limitations of action research is that, without a meaningful group comparison, it’s hard to know whether the proposed change made a difference.

Putting teachers in charge of running RCTs offers several intriguing benefits. First, teachers are likely to ask questions that researchers might not think of. The tests would also be in the context of a real classroom environment. And the results could be put into practice immediately.

Second, a wider group of teachers becoming involved with research might help bridge the research-practice divide. Teachers do not often learn about the science of learning during teacher training programs. Simultaneously, many teachers feel like existing education research is inaccessible, hard-to-understand, or simply not relevant.

Transparent randomly controlled trials would also give teachers the ability to hone their intuitions about instructional choices. By posting the study design before posting the results, teachers, researchers, and anyone else who was interested could make predictions about what’s likely to happen. This gives people the kind of practice they need to become expert forecasters.

Of course, the approach also comes with significant challenges. With average class sizes of around 25 students, a single class yields very small sample sizes for carrying out RCTs. Teachers also have varying experience with research methods. And it’s still unclear what platform features will best serve the teachers-as-researchers community, and which questions simply can’t be tested using learning platforms.

More Actionable ResearchRCTs In Action

Do students benefit from solving math problems with pencil and paper (as opposed to on a computer)?

Suppose we had a group of students perform a homework assignment where they solved problems with pencil and paper, while a comparable group of students solved the same homework problem on a computer (with no incentive to write it out). Would the first group learn more or less than the second?

A math teacher in Maine — Bill Hinkley — actually decided to test this very question, through an RCT. One group of students was encouraged to use paper and pencil, and had to turn in a piece of paper showing their work. The other group of students went through the homework problems as usual — through a computer screen. Both groups saw and submitted their answers through the same math platform: ASSISTments.

The result? Students who used paper and pencil outperformed those who didn’t by about 13 points. The difference was just shy of statistical significance, but suggestive given the small sample size (15 students in one condition, 12 in the other). Bill Hinkley plans to replicate and expand on the experiment in the near future.

Want To Join The RCT Teacher Research Community?

What would happen if we could scale up this style of research? There are 3.7 million teachers in the U.S. If just one percent of them started engaging in education research, there would be 37,000 teacher-researchers. The largest education research association, AERA, by comparison, has about 25,000 members.

Suppose each teacher-researcher only performed one experiment a year. That’s still 37,000 small experiments, run in realistic, noisy, classroom settings using rigorous research methods. Imagine what we might learn.

Interested in using RCTs in your classroom? Get in touch with us: Email Ulrich at [email protected]

We’re looking to build a community of teacher researchers who are doing this work in schools every day.

How Does Self-Control Really Work? Introducing a Debate

Andrew Watson

February 06, 2020

How Does Self-Control Really Work? Introducing a Debate

Every teacher I know wishes that our students could control themselves just a little bit better. Or, occasionally, a whole lot better.

Rarely do we worry that students have too much self-control.

All these observations prompt us to ask: how does this thing called self-control really work?

In the field of psychology, that question has led to a fierce debate. If you’d like to enter into that debate, well, I’ve got some resources for you!

A Very Brief Introduction

Roy Baumeister has developed a well-known theory about self-control. You can read about it in depth in his book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, written with John Tierney.

Think of self-control as a kind of inner reservoir. My reservoir starts the day full. However, when I come down for breakfast, I see lots of bacon. I know I…MUST…RESIST…BACON, and that self-control effort drains my reservoir a bit.

However, once I finish my oatmeal and leave the kitchen, the bacon no longer tempts me so strongly. I’ve stopped draining the reservoir, and it can refill.

Baumeister’s theory focuses on all the things that drain the reservoir, and all the strategies we can use to a) refill it, or b) expand it.

Baumeister calls this process by a somewhat puzzling name: “ego depletion.” The “depletion” part makes good sense: my reservoir is depleted. The “ego” part isn’t as intuitive, but we’ll get used to that over time.

The key point: in recent years, the theory of ego depletion has come under debate — especially as part of the larger “replication crisis” in psychology.

Some say the theory has (literally) hundreds of studies supporting it. Others note methodological problems, and worry that non-replications languish in file drawers.

Welcome Aboard

Because self-control is so important to teachers, you just might be intrigued and want to learn more.

One great resource is a podcast, charmingly titled “Two Psychologists, Four Beers.” A couple times a month, Yoel Inbar and Michael Inzlicht get together over a few brews and chat about a topic.

In this episode, they talk about this controversy at length and in detail. SO MUCH interesting and helpful information here.

One key point to know: Inzlicht himself is a key doubter of Baumeister’s research. He’s not a dispassionate observer, but an important critic.

Friendly On Ramp

However interested you are in the topic of self-control, you might not have 80 minutes to devote to it.

Or, you might worry it will be overly complex to understand the first time through.

Good news! Ahmad Assinnari has put together a point-by-point summary of the podcast.

You could read it as an introduction to an upcoming debate, and/or follow along to be sure you’re tracking the argument clearly. (BTW: Assinnari refers to Inzicht both as “Inzlicht” and as “Michael.” And, beware: it’s easy to confuse “Michael” with “Michel,” another scholar in the field.)

So, if you’d like to learn more, but you’re not sure you want to read Baumeister’s book, this post serves as an introduction to Assinnari’s summary. And, Assinnari’s summary introduces the podcast.

With these few steps, you’ll be up to speed on a very important debate.

A Fresh Approach to Evaluating Working Memory Training

Andrew Watson

February 04, 2020

A Fresh Approach to Evaluating Working Memory Training

Because working memory is SO IMPORTANT for learning, we would love to enhance our students’ WM capacity.

Alas, over and over, we find that WM training programs just don’t work (here and here and here). I’ve written about this question so often that I’ve called an informal moratorium. Unless there’s something new to say, or a resurgence of attempts to promote such products, I’ll stop repeating this point.

Recently I’ve come across a book chapter that does offer something new. A research team led by Claudia C. von Bastian used a very powerful statistical method to analyze the effectiveness of WM training programs.

This new methodology (which I’ll talk about below) encourages us to approach the question with fresh eyes. That is: before I read von Bastian’s work, I reminded myself that it might well contradict my prior beliefs.

It might show that WM training does work. And, if it shows that, I need to announce that conclusion as loudly as I’ve announced earlier doubts.

In other words: there’s no point in reading this chapter simply to confirm what I already believe. And, reader, the same applies for you. I hereby encourage you: prepare to have your beliefs about WM training challenged. You shouldn’t read the rest of this post unless you’re open to that possibility.

New Methodology

One problem with arguments about WM training is that sample sizes are so small. In one recent meta-analysis, the average sample size per study was 20 participants.

In a recent book on cognitive training, von Bastian, Guye, and De Simoni note that small sample sizes lead to quirky p-values. In other words, we struggle to be sure that the findings of small studies don’t result from chance or error.

Instead, von Bastian & Co. propose using Bayes factors: an alternate technique for evaluating the reliability of a finding, especially with small sample sizes. The specifics here go WAY beyond the level of this blog, but the authors summarize handy tags for interpreting Bayes factors:

1-3 Ambiguous

3-10 Substantial

10-30 Strong

30-100 Very Strong

100+ Decisive

They then calculate Bayes factors for 28 studies of WM training.

Drum Roll, Please…

We’ve braced ourselves for the possibility that a new analytical method will overturn our prior convictions. Does it?

Well, two of the 28 studies “very strongly” suggest WM training works. 1 of the 28 “substantially” supports WM training. 19 are “ambiguous.” And 6 “substantially” suggest that WM training has no effect.

In other words: 3 of the 28 show meaningful support of the hypothesis. The other 25 are neutral or negative.

So, in a word: “no.” Whichever method you use to evaluate the success of WM training, we just don’t have good reason to believe that it works.

Especially when such training takes a long time, and costs lost of money, schools should continue to be wary.

Three Final Notes

First: I’ve focused on p-values and Bayes factors in this blog post. But, von Bastian’s team emphasizes a number of problems in this field. For instance: WM training research frequently lacks an “active” control group. And, it often lacks a substantial theory, beyond “cognitive capacities should be trainable.”

Second: This research team is itself working on an intriguing hypothesis right now. They wonder if working memory capacity cannot be trained, but working memory efficiency can be trained. That’s a subtle but meaningful distinction, and I’m glad to see they’re exploring this question.

So far they’re getting mixed results, and don’t make strong claims. But, I’ll keep an eye on this possibility — and I’ll report back if they develop helpful strategies.

Third: I encouraged you to read von Bastian’s chapter because it might change your mind. As it turns out, the chapter probably didn’t. Instead it confirmed what you (and certainly I) already thought.

Nonetheless, that was an important mental exercise. Those of us committed to relying on research for teaching guidance should be prepared to change our approach when research leads us in a new direction.

Because, you know, some day a new WM training paradigm just might work.

von Bastian, C. C., Guye, S., & De Simoni, C. (2019). How strong is the evidence for the effectiveness of working memory training? In M. F. Bunting, J. M. Novick, M. R. Dougherty & R. W. Engle (Eds.), Cognitive and Working Memory Training: Perspectives from Psychology, Neuroscience, and Human Development (pp. 58–75). Oxford University Press.

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