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Monthly Archives: June 2020

What’s the Ideal Size for Online Discussion Groups?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 24, 2020

What’s the Ideal Size for Online Discussion Groups?

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We’re all learning lots about online teaching these days: new software (Zoom), new vocabulary (“asynchronous”), new fads (teaching in pajamas).

In many cases, we’re just going with our instincts here. Relying on our experience, we know to [insert technique here].

But because this is Learning and the Brain, we’d like some research to support whatever technique we inserted.

I’ve been reading about “online social presence” lately, and the research here offers lots of helpful insights.

Defining and Exploring “Social Presence”

Unlike many terms in the world of educational psychology (I’m looking at you, “theory of mind”), “online social presence” means what it sounds like.

When we’re together in a classroom, my students and I have a social presence. We’re aware of ourselves as a functioning group. We rely on lots of familiar cues — body language, facial expression, direction of gaze — to navigate those social relationships.

Of course, those familiar cues barely function online. What does “direction of gaze” mean when my laptop camera sees me looking at the lower left image in a Zoom video array?

Many teachers I talk with instinctively know to focus on building a greater sense of online classroom community. Breakout rooms and discussion boards, for instance, let students work with each other in smaller groups.

While it’s hard to participate effectively in a discussion with 30 people — heck, it’s hard to think clearly in an online discussion that large — the right-sized group might foster better conversations and closer connections.

But: what’s the “right-sized group”?

Instincts and Research

In informal discussions, I keep hearing “four or five.”

For no explicit reason, it just seems plausible that we can track an online conversation among the five of us. More than that will get hard to track. Fewer than that will get awkwardly quiet.

Unsurprisingly, researchers have been looking at this question.

One research team, for instance, measured their students’ evaluations of “social presence” in an online masters class in — appropriately enough — “Assessment and Data Analysis.”

For half the term, these students participated in online discussion boards with all 16 members of the class.

For the second half, their discussion groups shrank to 4 or 5.

What did the researchers learn?

Initial Findings, and Beyond

Sure enough, the smaller groups made a big difference.

According to the students’ own ratings, they felt that the small groups enhanced social presence. And, intriguingly, they felt a greater sense of commitment to this smaller group. (Large groups often create a sense of “social loafing,” where participants feel that others will do the heavy lifting.)

In the students’ own words:

“I felt as though I became very familiar with another student’s ideas and thoughts when I was in a small group of four.”

“This format allows us to connect more to previous conversations instead of having to rehash material that was discussed in earlier conversations.”

In other words, we’ve got some research that supports our teacherly instincts: 4 or 5 students works well to promote online social presence.

Always with the Caveats

At the same time, I think we should keep an open mind on this topic.

First: we don’t have lots of research here. I’ve found a few studies, and they all point in roughly the same direction. But we don’t have nearly enough research to have strong opinions, or to be granular in our recommendations.

That is: we don’t know if different age groups benefit from different numbers in small groups. We don’t know about cultural differences. We don’t know if physics discussions benefit from larger numbers than do … say … history discussions. (I don’t know why that would be true, but we don’t have research either way.)

Second: I think we should focus particularly on the students’ age. Most of the research I’ve seen focuses on college students.

This study I’ve briefly summarized looked at graduate students — who had, by the way, signed up for an online masters program. In other words: they’re probably especially open to, and especially interested in, online discussions.

So, I wouldn’t be surprised if this research doesn’t apply directly to 2nd graders.

Because I’m a high school teacher, I don’t have a prediction if younger students would do better in smaller or larger groups. If you teach K-8, I hope you’ll let me know what your predictions would be.

In Sum

Teachers can foster social presence in online classrooms by having relatively small breakout groups and discussion boards.

Until we get more detailed research, we can follow our teacherly instincts to right-size those groups. The research we have suggests that 4 or 5 is the place to start.

“How to Study Less and Learn More”: Explaining Learning Strategies to our Students
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 16, 2020

“How to Study Less and Learn More”: Explaining Learning Strategies to our Students

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Because cognitive science gives us such good guidance about learning, we want to share that information with our students.

“Study THIS WAY!” we cry. “Research says so!”

Alas, all too often, students don’t follow our advice.

A key part of the problem: the research that supports our advice is — ahem — really complicated and abstract. We might find it convincing, but our students’ eyes glaze over when we try to explain.

Because I talk frequently talk with students about brain research, I’m always on the lookout for research that…

… is methodologically sound,

… supports useful studying advice, and

… is easy to explain.

I’ve found such a study [updated link], and I think we can explain it to our students quite easily.

Two Are Better Than One

We all know the research showing that sleep helps consolidate long-term memory formation (fun studies here).

We all know the research showing that spreading practice out is better than doing it all at once (fascinating research here).

How about doing both? How about doing two study sessions, and sleeping in between them?

If we could convince our students to adopt those two strategies, that would be GREAT.

And, the research necessary to test that advice is — conceptually, at least — easy to do.

Students learned a topic: French-Swahili word pairs. (This research was done in France.)

Half of them did that at 9 am, and then tested themselves 12 hours later, at 9 pm. (Note: they did not sleep between these two sessions.)

How many times did these non-sleepers have to go through their flashcards to get all the answers right?

On average, they reviewed flashcards 5.8 times to get all those word pairs right. (For the sake of simplicity, let’s just call that 6.)

The other half learned the French-Swahili word pairs at 9 pm. They then got a good night’s sleep, and tested themselves 12 hours later, at 9 am.

How many times did the sleepers go through flashcards to get all the word pairs right? On average, they got them all right on the third attempt.

That’s right: instead of 6 review sessions, they needed 3.

Can We Do Better?

Okay, so far this study is easy to explain and shows real promise. Because they spread practice out AND slept, they cut study time IN HALF to get all the answers right.

But, so far this research measures learning 12 hours later. That’s not really learning. What happens if we test them later?

Specifically, what happens if we test them 6 months later?

Hold onto your hat.

When the researchers retested these students, the non-sleepers remembered 4 of those word pairs. The sleepers remembered 8 pairs.

So: HALF as much review resulted in TWICE as much learning 6 MONTHS later.

The Headline Please

When I talk with students about brain research, I start with this question: “Would you like to study less and learn more?”

I have yet to meet the student who doesn’t get behind that goal.

This easy-to-explain study shows students that half as much review leads to twice as much memory formation — if they both spread practice out over time and sleep between review sessions.

I think we have a winner.

Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive
Rebecca Gotlieb
Rebecca Gotlieb
June 16, 2020

Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive

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How are you feeling? We ask this question often because our feelings are an important source of information about our internal lives, yet too often we do not ask or answer with sincerity. Marc Brackett, a Yale professor and Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, argues that our emotions, though messy, make us human. Further, when we deny ourselves permission to feel, as we often do, we as individuals and a society suffer adverse consequences. In Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and our Society Thrive Brackett draws on his extensive research expertise and personal experiences to teach skills for recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions. This book will be of interest to readers wishing to improve their own emotional lives, parents striving to better support their children’s social-emotional skills, educators wishing to implement high-quality social-emotional learning initiatives, employers and employees wishing to improve both the culture at work and the bottom line, and those interested in working towards a more equitable, creative, and compassionate society.

Although western philosophical tradition contends that emotions interfere with rational thought, since Darwin we have understood that emotions are important for our survival, shaping our learning, memory, decision-making, and actions, and health. Brackett details the ways in which our culture of ignoring emotions is adversely affecting all of us, and especially young people. Fortunately, emotional skills (i.e., skills for magnifying our strengths and navigating through social challenges) can be taught Teaching these skills can improve well-being, creativity, academic performance, relationship quality, and leadership skills. Brackett and colleagues developed the RULER framework to summarize the critical skills for building emotional competency.

The first skill in the RULER acronym is recognizing emotions through verbal and non-verbal signals in ourselves and others.  Factors such as culture, personality, context, and technology can affect our ability to recognize emotions. A “mood meter,” which sorts emotions based on the degree of pleasantness and on the degree of energy or arousal, can be helpful in understanding the range of emotions that exist and how they relate to one another.

The second RULER skill, and perhaps the hardest to master, is understanding emotions or seeking to answer why one feels a certain way. We should listen to others’ emotional experiences not just to be sympathetic but also to discover the underlying causes of their experiences. Brackett suggests we act like “emotion scientists” developing and testing hypotheses about why we feel certain ways and seeking to gather evidence through question-asking that supports or refutes these hypotheses.

Although there are over 2,000 emotion-related words in English, in general Americans, know and use relatively few emotion words. Labeling emotions facilitates making sense of our emotional experiences, regulating emotions, and helping one another. As such, labeling acts as a hinge between the recognition and understanding components of RULER and the expression and regulation components.

Expressing emotions, including negative emotions, and listening to others’ expressions of emotion are key for understanding, empathizing, and helping one another. Expressing emotions can help build supportive relationships. The final component of RULER, regulating emotions, provides individuals power over which emotions they experience, when and how they experience them, and how they express their emotions. Brackett suggests a few helpful strategies for regulating emotions, including mindful breathing to calm the body and mind, reinterpreting the cause of an emotional experience to change the experience, and planning ahead to avoid triggers of unwanted emotional experiences. He suggests also shifting attention away from stressful encounters, engaging in self-talk, and taking a moment to pause before making decisions with long-term consequences based on short-term emotions.

Emotional regulation is a lifelong journey. Parents can support their children’s emotional skills by honing their own emotional skills and by initiating family conversations about the emotional culture and expectations in the family. Both teachers and students are experiencing a high degree of stress in school. Students will do better in the classroom when they have a strong relationship with their teachers and when they can learn material that feels relevant and important. Teachers understand the importance of social-emotional learning but many feel that they do not have the time or know-how to teach it. Based on his extensive experience introducing the RULER curriculum to schools, Brackett suggests that strong school-based social-emotional learning initiatives require buy-in from all staff, should be practiced daily in a proactive (not reactive) manner and should be integrated into the curriculum across all grade levels and developmental stages.

With the clear, personal, and research-backed insight Brackett strives for nothing short of creating a better society, by encouraging us all to give ourselves and others permission to feel.

Brackett, M. (2019). Permission to feel: Unlocking the power of emotions to help our kids, ourselves, and our society thrive. Celadon Books.

What’s Better Than Caffeine (And Doesn’t Require Electrodes)?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 12, 2020

What’s Better Than Caffeine (And Doesn’t Require Electrodes)?

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Although we can’t improve our students’ working memory capacity, we can help them use the WM they’ve got more productively.

We have lots of teaching strategies to accomplish this goal. Well-designed visuals, for instance, divide WM demands between visual and auditory channels. In this way, they functionally reduce cognitive difficulties.

Our students could also do what our colleagues do: use caffeine to boost cognitive performance. When I have my morning tea, that jolt of caffeine doesn’t increase my working-memory capacity, but it helps me use it better. (In the short term, the cognitive result is the same.)

Is there anything else we can do that doesn’t involve drugs?

So Crazy That It Just Might Work

How about exercise?

If caffeine jolts me awake enough to help me use WM more effectively, couldn’t old-fashioned exercise have that same effect?

Researchers in Canada wanted to know just that. Is exercise as effective as caffeine in temporarily boosting WM performance?

To answer this question, they did all the things you’d want them to do. They had different groups of participants take WM tests before and after different combinations of caffeine and exercise.

They controlled for age. They controlled for the amount of caffeine that people usually drank. They controlled for the amount of exercise that people usually did. (If you want all the details, you can read ’em here.)

The result: sure enough, exercise temporarily boosts WM function as much as caffeine does.

And, it doesn’t lead to a post-caffeine crash they way caffeine use does. (Yes: the researchers did measure “caffeine withdrawal symptoms.”)

In this case, 20 minutes of moderately paced walking did the trick. In schools, I’m thinking recess, or PE, or even passing time between classes just might serve the same function.

If we want our students to think more clearly, let them move.

But Can’t We Zap the Brain with a Gizmo?

Given the importance of working memory for schools, you’d think someone would make a brain zap app.

Oh wait, they have. Lots of times.

My friend Scott MacClintic just sent me a link to this “biolelectric memory patch,” which claims what you expect it to claim. (They have in-house research to show that it works!)

Happily, the article Scott sent me includes many reasons to be skeptical of this gizmo. If you’d like another set of reasons, you can check out this article over at JSTOR daily.

The short version is: recent decades have see LOTS of products claiming to enhance WM capacity. With alarming consistency, those products just don’t work. Lumosity’s wallet is $2,000,000 lighter after a fine for misleading claims. (You read that right: two million dollars.)

So, who knows, maybe at last this will be the brain gizmo that works. If I had two million dollars, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Until we get better research, we’ve got two proven strategies to help students use working memory well: skillful teaching, and exercise.

The Limits of “Desirable Difficulties”: Catching Up with Sans Forgetica
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 04, 2020

The Limits of “Desirable Difficulties”: Catching Up with Sans Forgetica

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We have lots of research suggesting that “desirable difficulties” enhance learning.

That is: we want our students to think just a little bit harder as they practice concepts they’re learning.

Why is retrieval practice so effective ? Because it requires students to think harder than mere review.

Why do students learn more when they space practice out over time? Because they have to think back over a longer stretch — and that’s more difficult.

We’ve even had some evidence for a very strange idea: maybe the font matters. If students have to read material in a hard-to-read font, perhaps their additional effort/concentration involved will boost their learning.

As I wrote last year, a research team has developed a font designed for exactly that reason: Sans Forgetica. (Clever name, no?) According to their claims, this font creates the optimal level of reading difficulty and thereby could enhance learning.

However — as noted back then — their results weren’t published in a peer-reviewed journal. (All efforts to communicate with them go to their university’s publicity team. That’s REALLY unusual.)

So: what happens when another group of researchers tests Sans Forgetica?

Testing Sans Forgetica

Testing this question is unusually straightforward.

Researchers first asked participants to read passages in Sans Forgetica and similar passages in Arial. Sure enough, they rated Sans Forgetica harder to read.

They then ran three more studies.

First, they tested participants’ memory of word pairs.

Second, they tested memory of factual information.

Third, they tested understanding of conceptual understanding.

In other words, they were SUPER thorough. This research team didn’t just measure one thing and claim they knew the answer. To ensure they had good support behind their claims, they tested the potential benefits of Sans Forgetica in many ways.

So, after all this thorough testing, what effect did Sans Forgetica have?

Nada. Bupkis. Nuthin.

For example: when they tested recall of factual information, participants remembered 74.73% of the facts they read in Sans Forgetica. They remembered 73.24% of the facts they read in Arial.

When they tested word pairs, Sans Forgetica resulted in lower results. Participants remembered 40.26% of the Sans Forgetica word pairs, and 50.51% of the Arial word pairs.

In brief, this hard-to-read font certainly doesn’t help, and it might hurt.

Practical Implications

First, don’t use Sans Forgetica. As the study’s authors write:

If students put their study materials into Sans Forgetica in the mistaken belief that the feeling of difficulty created is benefiting them, they might forgo other, effective study techniques.

Instead, we should encourage learners to rely on the robust, theoretically-grounded techniques […] that really do enhance learning.

Second, to repeat that final sentence: we have LOTS of study techniques that do work. Students should use retrieval practice. They should space practice out over time. They should manage working memory load. Obviously, they should minimize distractions — put the cell phone down!

We have good evidence that those techniques work.

Third, don’t change teaching practices based on unpublished research. Sans Forgetica has a great publicity arm — they were trumpeted on NPR! But publicity isn’t evidence.

Now more than ever, teachers should keep this rule in mind.