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How to Capture Students’ Attention for Online Readings (tl;dr)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 29, 2021

How to Capture Students’ Attention for Online Readings (tl;dr)

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When do students focus while reading online?

When do they lose focus and let their minds wander?

Does the length of the passage being read influence the answer to these questions?

Several researchers, including Dr. Noah Forrin, have been exploring this topic, and have some interesting — and helpful! — answers.

Here’s the story:

The Research Setup

Happily, this question can be explored with well-established methods.

Forrin and his colleagues had 80 college students read articles from Wikipedia: topics included “the galaxy,” “Pompeii,” and “Sartre.” The passages were at a 9th grade reading level, and ran about 500 words.

Students read half of these passages in one-sentence chunks (averaging about 12 words). The other half they read in two-to-six sentence chunks (averaging 30 words).

As students read, Forrin interrupted them to ask if they were thinking about the reading, or thinking about any topic other than the Wikipedia passage.

And — here’s a key point — Forrin’s team asked if the students were mind-wandering intentionally or unintentionally. (Yes: in this field, “mind wander” is a verb.)

Why ask that odd question?

If students mind-wander intentionally, they and their teachers can (presumably) have some control over that problem.

However, if mind wandering is unintentional, then we all might struggle to fix this problem.

As the researchers say:

“intentional processes are presumably more likely to be changed by instructions and conscious strategies than are unintentional processes.”

So, what did Team Forrin find?

The Results

Sure enough, the passage length mattered.

More precisely, it mattered for unintentional mind reading (but not intentional). When reading the one-sentence passages, students unintentionally mind-wandered 19% of the time; when reading long passages, they did so 24% of the time.

Forrin’s team speculates that long passages act as a signal that students might find the passage uninteresting. In their grim summary, they write that

students’ increase in mind-wandering while reading educational texts may (1) emerge rapidly, (2) persist over time, (3) harm comprehension, and (4) be related to a decrease in interest.

Ugh.

Next Steps

So, what should we DO with this glum news?

First, as is always the case, I think teachers should use our experience to apply research wisely to our circumstances. For instance, if you don’t have your students do online readings, don’t worry about Forrin’s findings!

If, however, your students spend LOTS of time reading online, then his conclusions merit your attention.

Second, I think these findings add to an increasingly clear research conclusion: online reading doesn’t promote learning as much as old-fashioned ink-on-paper does.

To my mind Dr. Lalo Salmeron’s meta-analysis remains the most useful exploration of this question. He goes through important findings (no, the age of the reader doesn’t matter; no, we aren’t getting better at this skill) and interesting exceptions (prose fiction).

Third, Forrin himself offers a practical suggestion. If we MUST assign online readings, and we CAN break them down into smaller paragraphs, then maybe we should. His research suggests that doing so reduces the amount of unintentional mind-wandering.

Potential result: students concentrate better and learn more.

If he’s right, then Forrin’s research will have been well worth reading — long paragraphs and all.

When Do We Trust the Experts? When They Don’t Trust Themselves!
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 22, 2021

When Do We Trust the Experts? When They Don’t Trust Themselves!

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Back in 2010, three scholars published a widely-discussed paper on “Power Poses.” The headlines: when people adopt a strong stance (say, fists on hips, like Superman), they…

…take more risks in gambling tasks,

…change various hormone levels, and

…answer questions more confidently in interviews.

In other words, simply changing the way we stand can affect meaningful variables in our biology, and our performance on life tasks.

A TED Talk on the subject has gotten more than 61 million views. (Yes: 61,000,000!)

Of course, any claim this provocative may generate controversy. Sure enough, skeptics weighed in with counter-claims.

Then, in 2016, something quite shocking happened: one of the original researchers publicly withdrew her support for the claim.

Researcher Dana Carney wrote, with bracing forthrightness, “I do not believe that power pose effects are real.” (As you can see in this link, Carney herself put those words in bold type.)

She went on to list her concerns about the initial study (small sample size, “flimsy” data, and so forth), to include her skepticism on her CV, and to discourage others from studying the topic. *

Wow!

What Next?

In theory, science is gradually “self-correcting.” That is: if one group of researchers arrives at an incorrect conclusion, other researchers will – over time – sleuth out their mistakes. (Max Plank wryly observed that the process might take a long time indeed. In his grim formula, opponents don’t change their minds; they die out.)

Looking at Carney’s example, researcher Julia Rohrer wondered if we could speed that process up. What would happen, she wondered, if we gave researchers a chance to change their minds? What if we invited them to do what Carney did?

She and her colleagues spread the word that they hoped researchers might publicly self-correct. As she puts it:

“The idea behind the initiative was to help normalize and destigmatize individual self-correction while, hopefully, also rewarding authors for exposing themselves in this way with a publication.”

The result? Several did.

And, the stories these thirteen researchers have to tell is fascinating.

In the first place, these self-corrections came from a remarkably broad range of fields in psychology. Some researchers studied extraversion; others, chess perception. One looked at the effect that German names have on professional career; another considered the credibility of Swedish plaintiffs.

One – I’m not inventing this topic – considered the relationship between testosterone and wearing make-up.

Stories to Tell

These researchers, in fact, went into great detail — often painful detail — during their self-corrections.

They worried about small sample sizes, overlooked confounds, and mistakes in methodology. They noted that some replications hadn’t succeeded. Several acknowledged different versions of “p-hacking”: a strategy for finding p values that hold up under scrutiny.

A few, in fact, were remarkably self-critical.

Tal Yarkoni wrote these amazing words:

I now think most of the conclusions drawn in this article were absurd on their face. … Beyond these methodological problems, I also now think the kinds of theoretical explanations I proposed in the article were ludicrous in their simplicity and naivete—so the results would have told us essentially nothing even if they were statistically sound.

OUCH.

With equally scathing self-criticism, Simine Vazire wrote:

I cherry-picked which results to report. This is basically p-hacking, but because most of my results were not statistically significant, I did not quite successfully p-hack by the strict definition. Still, I cherry-picked the results that made the contrast between self-accuracy and peer accuracy the most striking and that fit with the story about evaluativeness and observability. That story was created post hoc and chosen after I had seen the pattern of results.

Others, however, critiqued their own methodology, but held up hope that their conclusions might be correct; “These claims may be true, but not because of our experiment.”

What Should Teachers Do?

These self-corrections might tempt us, or our colleagues, to cynicism. “See? Science isn’t objective! Researchers are just makin’ stuff up…”

I would understand that reaction, but I think it misses the point.

In truth, all ways of knowing include weaknesses and flaws.

Science, unlike many ways of knowing, acknowledges that awkward truth. In fact, science tries to build into its methodology strategies to address that problem.

For this reason, research studies include so many (gruesomely tedious) details.

For this reason, psychology journals require peer review.

Indeed, for this reason, researchers try to replicate important findings.

Obviously, these strategies at self-correction don’t always work. Obviously, researchers do fool themselves…and us.

However, every time we read stories like these, they remind us that — as a profession — scientists take correction (and self-correction) unusually seriously.

In fact, I think the teaching profession might have something to learn from these brave examples.

How often do schools — how often do teachers — admit that a success we once claimed might not hold up under scrutiny?

As far as I know, we have few Yarkonis and Vizires in our ranks. (I certainly have never made this kind of public statement.)

In brief: this kind of self-correction makes me trust both the profession of psychology and these individual researchers even more. If you’re conspicuously willing to fess up when you’re wrong, you deserve a much stronger presumption of trustworthiness when you ultimately say you’re right.

* By the way: one of Carney’s co-authors continues to defend power poses emphatically. You can read Amy Cuddy’s response at the end of this article.

 

Beyond Slogans and Posters: The Science of Student Motivation
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 15, 2021

Beyond Slogans and Posters: The Science of Student Motivation

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In many cases, cognitive science offers clear teaching advice.

You’re curious about working memory? We’ve got LOTS of strategies.

Wondering about the limits of attention? Good news!

Alas, in other cases, research doesn’t give us such clarity. If, for instance, I want to ramp up my students’ motivation, what should I do?

Should I put up posters with uplifting quotations?

Should I encourage grit?

Or, should I promote a “growth mindset”?

If you’d like answers to these specific questions — and the broader questions that prompt them — I have a place to start: meet Peps Mccrea.

In his new book Motivated Teaching, Mccrea sorts though dozens/hundreds of studies to create a clear, readable, research-informed, and practical guide to the science of student motivation.

Here’s the story…

Evolution, and Beyond

Mccrea, sensibly enough, starts with an evolutionary perspective.

Humans face a cognitive problem: the environment offers us so many stimuli that we can struggle to know where to focus our attention. (Teachers REALLY care where students focus their attention.)

Motivation helps solve this problem. If I’m motivated to do Y, I will attend to Y; if I attend to Y, I just might learn it. As Mccrea pithily writes, “Motivation is a system for allocating attention.” *

How then do teachers amp up motivation?

For an initial answer to this question, Mccrea turns to behavioral economics. In his formulation, students feel motivated to learn when

… they see the VALUE in what they’re learning,

… the ODDS ARE GOOD that they can learn it, and

… the COSTS of learning are low.

If we manipulate these variables just right — increasing the odds of learning, reducing the costs — those teacherly efforts create student motivation.

For instance, I’ve spent years emphasizing the importance of classroom routines. From my perspective, they reduce working memory load — usually a good thing.

From Mccrea’s perspective — thinking about that cost/benefit formula above — routines reduce the costs of learning. Once students have classroom systems and mental systems in place, they can easily use them to learn more complex material.

As Mccrea says: we should make “the process of learning easy, whilst keeping the content of learning challenging.” (You see what I mean about his catchy summaries?)

Learning Is Individual AND Social

Of course, learning takes place in a social context, and Mccrea studies that research pool as well.

For instance, he highlights the importance of school and classroom norms. If students see that, around here, we all act a particular way, they’re likelier to join in the normal behavior they see.

For this reason, Mccrea advocates taking the time we need to articulate and re-establish our norms. Early work now will pay off later in the year.

By the way, Mccrea’s chapter here reminded me of a powerful story. At the high school where I work, a new freshman once used a mild slur to insult a classmate. Before the teacher could do anything, one of the student leaders looked up and said five simple words: “We don’t do that here.”

Imagine the power of that sentence. If the new student wanted to be a part of “we” and “here,” he needed to change his behavior pronto.

Norm established.

The Big Pictures

In Mccrea’s system — to answer the questions that opened this post — motivation does not result from uplifting posters. It produces grit, but does not result from it. (Mccrea does not specifically mention growth mindset.)

In fact, he specifically discounts “fun” as a good way to motivate students. Fun is an extrinsic driver: one that we should use sparingly, and as infrequently as possible.

Instead, he argues that if teachers focus on five key drivers of motivation, their cumulative results will foster motivation; and thereby attention; and thereby learning.

When you start reading Mccrea’s book, be aware that he’s explicitly aiming for “ultra-concise.” He has, in fact, boiled an early draft of 200,000 words to this slim volume of 10,000 words. (You read those numbers right — two hundred thousand words boiled down to ten thousand. **)

To achieve that goal, he gives few detailed examples, and saves research for links that you can follow. To imagine Mccrea’s suggestions at work in your context, you really should take time with the exercises he outlines on his page 112.

In other words: because he condenses research so effectively — like a bouillon cube — we readers need to soak it in our own context to let it expand and work its flavorful magic. You won’t get a detailed motivation checklist; you’ll get something much better — a way to think about motivation in many classroom contexts.

As someone who has written a book about research on motivation, I can tell you: Motivated Teaching is an excellent, readable, and practical book. It’s so short, you can easily read it twice.

In fact, after you’ve finished your first reading, you’ll be highly motivated to do so.

* Mccrea is GREAT at this sort of succinct formulation. In this review, I’m working really hard to limit the number of quotations from the book. I suspect I could compose a review almost entirely of his wise sentences.

** At the same time I read Mccrea’s book, I listened to Ollie Lovell’s podcast interview with him. This astonishing fact comes from that interview. By the way, if you DO like podcasts and you DON’T yet follow Lovell, now is an excellent time to start. He’s a one-man Learning and the Brain podcast in Australia.

Does Chewing Gum Improve Memory and Learning?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 08, 2021

Does Chewing Gum Improve Memory and Learning?

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I recently read a striking Twitter claim from a well-known teacher: chewing gum helps memory and concentration.

In fact, according to the teacher, research supports this claim: the tweet cites this study as one of many to make this gum-chewing suggestion credible.

I’m always on the lookout for practical strategies to boost memory and attention. If chewing gum gets the job done, well, that’s exciting news. (I can already hear the catchy new jingle: “Double your learning, double your fun, with Doublemint, Doublemint, Doublemint gum!”)

At the same time, I confess, the idea has a Mozart-effect whiff of implausibility.

I can imagine that, perhaps, chewing gum raises alertness levels (for some people); this increased alertness might result in greater learning. But I suspect that effect would wear off fairly quickly.

Of course, if good research consistently supports the claim, then I’ll admit my instincts mislead me. However, I’d like to take a look at that research first…

Early Steps

We start with good news. The well-known teacher said that research supports the claim, and then cited research.

I’m amazed how often that second step doesn’t happen.

Folks regularly claim that “research shows” that a teaching technique provides specific benefits, but won’t identify any specific research. “Oh, you know, all the research shows that…” (Pro tip: in psychology, it is NEVER true that “all the research” shows  anything. If someone says that to you, you can politely and confidently decline their advice.)

This teacher, however, gives us the crucial details. We can look for ourselves.

When we do, we get a bit more good news. This research study does indeed conclude that chewing gum helps with memory and attention. So far, so good.

At the same time, we can register some important concerns.

First: the study includes sixteen participants. Now, researchers have good reasons to run small studies; they let scholars know if they should run larger studies testing the same idea. However, teachers should never change our classroom based on such a small sample. We want MUCH more evidence. (How much more? Keep reading…)

Second: the study is published in The International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development. I don’t know anything about it (although its website says that it does use peer review). However, I’m inclined to rely on memory research in journals that focus on memory, rather than on engineering.

Third: the researcher’s technique for measuring attention is rather hunchy. The researchers videotaped participants, and looked for behavior that suggested inattention. As I’ve written before, that strategy doesn’t sound highly scientific.

And so: we can conclude that — yes —  this research supports the claim that chewing gum improves memory and attention. But given its size, provenance, and methodology, we probably want more evidence before we start making big changes to our teaching.

The Adventure Continues

To see how others responded to this study, I plugged it into my two favorite ai platforms: scite.ai and connectedpapers.com. Alas, neither search produced any results. I’m guessing (but I don’t know) that the journal doesn’t meet the standards that these websites use.

Next, I searched for papers about chewing gum and learning.

The most cited paper, according to Google Scholar, comes from 2002. In it, Wilkinson and others conclude that chewing gum does indeed help memory (but not attention).

However, according to this paper by Tucha,

the chewing of gum did not improve participants’ memory functions. Furthermore, chewing may differentially affect specific aspects of attention. While sustained attention was improved by the chewing of gum, alertness and flexibility were adversely affected by chewing. In conclusion, claims that the chewing a gum improves cognition should be viewed with caution.

And this 2009 study by Smith concludes,

The results of this study showed that chewing gum increases alertness. In contrast, no significant effects of chewing gum were observed in the memory tasks. Intellectual performance was improved in the gum condition. Overall, the results suggest further research on the alerting effects of chewing gum and possible improved test performance in these situations.

In other words: three studies show a cluttered hodgepodge of results.

If we look at research findings about, say, retrieval practice, we find that – over and over – it helps! In this case, however, no consistent message comes through.

I’ve even looked for a meta-analysis about chewing gum and memory. (I wonder if I’m the only person in history to google “chewing gum meta-analysis.”)

This overview, noting that we can find clear evidence of both benefits and detriments, concludes that “the robustness of reported effects of gum chewing on cognition has to be questioned.”

To Sum Up

First: We have a surprising (to me) amount of research into the cognitive effects of chewing gum. However, that research doesn’t provide a clear picture if its benefits, or detriments.

We might have school or classroom policies about gum, but we shouldn’t claim that research has given us clear guidance one way or another.

Does chewing gum improve memory? We just don’t know.

Second: People often tell us: “you should change your teaching or your school policies: research says so!”

When that happens, start by looking at the research they cite. If it doesn’t inspire confidence, keep looking…

Jerome Kagan: A Teacher’s Appreciation
Guest Blogger
Guest Blogger
June 02, 2021

Jerome Kagan: A Teacher’s Appreciation

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A guest post, by Rob McEntarffer

 

I didn’t get to learn about Jerome Kagan (1929-2021) during my teacher’s college training. I regret that.

While I was a teacher, my contact with Kagan’s research was limited to teaching about temperament research during the developmental psychology unit of the high school psychology class I taught for 13 years.

Students learned about how Kagan measured infant temperament, and how those reactions predicted temperament later in life (Kagan, 1978). This research often helped my students think about how their thinking and behavior might be influenced by earlier factors in their lives, which opened a door for some of them in how they thought about themselves.

Kagan’s research helped us start great, research-informed discussions.

As a public-school administrator (assessment/evaluation specialist), I now realize that I could have learned much more from Kagan’s research.

I often focus exclusively on specific aspects of teaching and learning (like cognitive load, working memory, and retrieval practice) and ignore other important elements. As Chew (2021) and many others highlight, our models of teaching and learning need to include much more: student fear/mistrust, student mindset, and other self-perception and emotional factors that directly influence what students learn.

Kagan (2006) said:

“Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, … they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially toward those in need. This inbuilt ethical sense is a biological feature of our species.”

As I help teachers figure out how to create assignments that allow students to express what they are thinking, Kagan might remind me to think about how ethics, and an “inbuilt” ethical sense, could be usefully included in classroom discussions and assignments.

I experienced this sense often as a teacher: in my psychology classroom, our discussions about research often moved into discussions about ethics and feelings of compassion. We talked about what should be, not just what is.

As an administrator, Kagan can remind me to include these ideas in my current work. In the end, teaching and learning are also about ethics and care, not just about what environments create the most likely context for elaborative encoding.

I’m grateful for Jerome Kagan’s thoughtful, caring research, and thinking about this work will change how I work with teachers.

 

References:

Kagan, J., Lapidus, D., & Moore, M. (1978). Infant Antecedents of Cognitive Functioning: A Longitudinal Study. Child Development, 49(4), 1005-1023. doi:10.2307/1128740

Stephen L. Chew & William J. Cerbin (2021) The cognitive challenges of effective teaching, The Journal of Economic Education, 52:1, 17-40, DOI: 10.1080/00220485.2020.1845266

Kagan, J. (2006). On the case for kindness. In A. Harrington & A. Zajonc (Eds.), The Dalai Lama at MIT. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Dr. McEntarffer is an Assessment and Evaluation Specialist with the Lincoln Public School System in Lincoln, Nebraska.

You can read more at his blog, Not For Points.

 

Why Don’t Students Like School? (2nd. ed.) by Daniel T. Willingham
Rebecca Gotlieb
Rebecca Gotlieb
May 28, 2021

Why Don’t Students Like School? (2nd. ed.) by Daniel T. Willingham

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Why don’t students like school? Daniel T. Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, addresses this and nine other significant questions about how the human mind works and the implications for teaching in his book aptly titled, “Why Don’t Students Like School?” The second edition of this book, with new information about technology now included, was recently released. Willingham’s overarching advice to teachers is to “know your students;” the book explains what about one’s students a teacher should strive to know and how to act on that knowledge.

The ten cognitive science principles for teachers that Willingham highlights are principles that he argues: (1) are true all the time and across contexts, (2) have robust supporting evidence (which Willingham organizes into comprehensive lists to help readers learn more), (3) can impact student performance, and (4) have actionable implications for teachers. By offering insights into students’ minds, Willingham aims to help teachers improve their practice not by prescribing how to teach, but by giving insights into what teachers might expect from their students based on the teaching decisions they make. Willingham is par excellence in his ability to translate cognitive science for an educator audience; this evidence-based, comprehensive synthesis will be of great utility for many educators, and the thought-provoking questions he includes throughout make this book an excellent option for a teacher book club/discussion group.

Much of the reason that students don’t like school (aside from social challenges) has to do with the fact that school rarely finds the sweet spot between to-be-learned content being too hard and too easy, according to Willingham. While we are naturally driven to satiate our curiosity, we also find thinking to be difficult and will default to what we remember rather than puzzling through something new. To make students more inclined to learn teachers can pique curiosity by explaining the question behind content the teachers wish students to learn, connect with students in other ways they find engaging (e.g., through comedy, stories, and demonstrating care), and avoid overloading the amount of information students have to hold in mind at one time.

Many teachers are concerned that teaching students the kinds of facts they need to perform highly on standardized tests undermines efforts to help them develop deep thinking skills or to think like a “real scientist” or a “real historian.” Willingham argues that students are well-served to learn the background information that they do in school because they need these facts to become strong readers and critical thinkers who are able to connect disparate ideas, hold information in mind, and develop sound predictions. Additionally, Willingham explains that the more one knows, the more one is able to acquire additional knowledge.

Experts–people who can create new knowledge in their field after practicing in the field for many years—think qualitatively differently than do novices. As such, we should strive for students to develop a deep understanding, but not to do exactly what experts do, since these same behaviors may not be fruitful without first having that deep understanding. To facilitate deep understanding and abstract thinking educators can help students link new content to information they already know, provide diverse and familiar examples of a concept, and offer analogies. We remember what we think about; to help students remember content, educators should reflect on what their lessons make students think about. Persuading students of the value of knowing the content, using a story-like arc in lectures, and engaging students emotionally can facilitate long-term memory. For memorization of basic information, Willingham lists several common mnemonics (e.g., using acronyms) that can be helpful.

The role of intelligence in education is a perennial and thorny issue. Importantly, Willingham notes the inherent worth of all students regardless of intelligence or talents.  He provides convincing evidence that intelligence can change with hard work and is more affected by our environment than genes. Focusing on the learning process rather than raw abilities, teaching that hard work pays off and that proficiency requires practice, and normalizing failure can lead to a boost in students’ academic performance. (Willingham notes, however, that effects of a so-called “growth mindset” on academic performance are small and there is not sufficient evidence about how to teach this mindset successfully in school.) While there is true variability in students’ intellectual abilities, Willingham shows that there are not consistent differences across people in the way they learn (i.e., their “learning style”). Willingham argues that the content to be taught, more than the learning format preferences of students, should drive the way one teaches a lesson.

Educators have heard too many promises about a tech-based education revolution. In spite of this, Willingham argues that technology has not fundamentally changed how our minds work and the effects that it does have on cognition are often unexpected. Willingham suggests that before adopting new technologies in schools, educators consider the evidence about the tool. Screen time can take students away from devoting their time to activities that might provide greater cognitive benefit and a reprieve from social pressures. For these reasons, it may be beneficial to limit technology use.

After devoting considerable attention to the minds of students, Willingham concludes by considering how teachers can support their own cognitive and professional growth. Teaching, like any cognitively demanding skill, must be practiced to lead to improvement. That practice should include measures such as isolating individual subskills to refine, receiving feedback from knowledgeable colleagues, trying new techniques, watching tapes of one’s own teaching, learning more about human development, and recognizing that the process of improving may be hard on one’s ego.

Why Don’t Students Like School? is great summer reading for teachers looking to improve their practice. For other works by Daniel Willingham, see The Reading Mind and Raising Kids who Read.

Willingham, D. T. (2021). Why Don’t Students Like School? Second edition. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.

 

Let’s Talk! How Teachers & Researchers Can Think and Work Together
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 25, 2021

Let’s Talk! How Teachers & Researchers Can Think and Work Together

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Once you say it out loud, it’s so obvious:

Teachers benefit from learning about psychology and neuroscience.

AND, psychologists and neuroscientists (in certain fields) benefit from learning more about classroom teaching.

These beliefs inspire our conferences and seminars and summer institutes, and they motivate this blog.

However — and this is a big however — conversations among these disciplines can prove a real challenge.

Why? So many reasons…

… These conversations often start with the assumption that teachers should be junior partners in this collaborative work. (Hint: we’re equal partners.)

… Each of these disciplines — including ours — starts with its own assumptions, builds off its own traditions, and papers over its own shortcomings.

… We all use our own complex terminology and vexing acronyms. (Quick: does ToM result from activity in the vmPFC, and should we discuss it in our IEPs?)

Given all these muddles (and many more), it’s impressive these conversations happen at all.

Today’s Resource

Dr. Cindy Nebel invited me to discuss these questions for a podcast over at The Learning Scientists.

We explore all these problems, along with dual coding, working memory overload, the importance of boundary conditions, and the complexities of motivation research.

We agree about many topics, disagree about a few, and solve as many problems as possible. (As a bonus, the link has a discount code for my newest book: The Goldilocks Map, A Teacher’s Quest to Evaluate ‘Brain-Based’ Teaching Advice.)

I’ve known Dr. Nebel for several years now. She and the other Learning Scientists do great work in this translation field, and they DON’T start with the assumption that teachers are junior partners.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

A Beacon in the Mindset Wilderness
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 18, 2021

A Beacon in the Mindset Wilderness

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For a few years now, I’ve been in the Mindset wilderness.

Three years ago, I spent lots of time tapping the brakes.

“Yes,” I’d say, “we do have plenty of good research behind this strategy. HOWEVER, let’s be realistic. A wall covered in upbeat slogans (“YET!”) just isn’t going to revolutionize education.”

I got a lot of side-eyes.

In 2018, several careful scholars published a blockbuster pair of meta-analyses, throwing doubt on the whole mindset enterprise. Their grim conclusions:

First: students’ mindset has little effect on their academic performance, and

Second: mindset intervention programs don’t provide much benefit.

Suddenly, I started sounding like a mindset enthusiast.

“Yes,” I’d say, “a focus on mindset won’t revolutionize education. HOWEVER: incremental increases in motivation can add up over time. We have SO FEW strategies to help with motivation, we shouldn’t ignore the ones that provide even modest benefits.”

I got even more side-eyes.

The Stickiest Wicket

In these conversations, one point has consistently created the greatest difficulties for my position.

Several mindset researchers have championed the efficacy of “one-shot interventions.”

That is: if students experience one carefully designed mindset-reshaping experience — a webinar, a presentation, an exercise of some kind — that “one shot” alone can help them transform a fixed mindset into a growth mindset.

I gotta say: I just don’t believe that.

My doubts stem not from research, but from experience. Having taught high-school students for thousands of years, I don’t think it ever happens that telling them something once meaningfully changes anything.

I don’t doubt the integrity of the researchers or the process they use. But their conclusion defies too much of my experience (and common sense) for me to take it on board.

Rarely do I use the “my experience trumps your research” veto; in this case, I’m really tempted.

What’s That? “A Beacon,” You Say?

A soon-to-be-published study — run by several of Team Mindset’s leading scholars — offers some support for this skepticism.

These scholars asked a perfectly sensible question: “can a one-shot mindset intervention help students whose teachers demonstrate a fixed mindset?”

That is: must the classroom context echo the explicit message of that one-shot intervention?

Or — in the words of the study — can the mindset “seed” grow in inhospitable “soil”? Are students (on average) independent agents who can overcome implicit classroom messages and act on their explicit mindset training?

To answer this question, the authors reviewed data from a very large study with more than 9000 high school students.

This study takes great procedural care to get the details right: students are randomly assigned to groups; teachers don’t know which student is in which group; teachers don’t know the hypothesis of the study — and so forth.

After a one-shot intervention at the beginning of 9th grade, researchers tracked students’ math grades at the end of the year.

The researchers also asked questions to learn about the teachers‘ mindsets. They wanted to know: did the teachers’ mindset shape the students’ response to the intervention?

The results?

Context Always Matters

Initially, no.

Immediately after the one-shot intervention, students who saw the growth-mindset messages expressed higher degrees of growthiness. Those in the control condition did not. And the teachers’ mindsets didn’t influence those early results.

However — this is a big however — at the end of the year that final sentence wasn’t true.

Students who BOTH heard the growth-mindset messages AND had growth-mindset teachers saw higher math grades.

Students who heard the growth mindset message BUT had fixed-mindset teachers did not.

And, to repeat, those results came months after the intervention itself.

To me, these results make perfect sense. A one-shot message won’t help if the daily classroom routine constantly undermines it; that message might sink in if classroom routines reinforce it.

After all, as the authors wisely write, “no psychological phenomenon works the same way for all people in all contexts.” *

Next Question

This research suggests that teachers’ classroom work can sustain explicit mindset interventions.

Here’s my question: do students need that intervention in the first place? Is the teacher’s classroom practice enough?

I do share LOTS of research with my students: research into retrieval practice, and multitasking, and spacing. I DON’T even mention mindset research, or exhort them to embrace their inner growth mindset.

Instead, I simply enact the mindset strategies.

The classroom rewrite policy encourages and rewards multiple drafts.

I frequently comment on the benefits of cognitive struggle. (“Good news! If you got some questions wrong on that retrieval practice exercise, you’re likelier to learn the answers in the future. The right kind of practice will help you learn.”)

I regularly emphasize what I don’t know, and am excited when I learn something new. (I recently told my sophomores that I have NO IDEA how to interpret the symbolism of Tea Cake’s rabies in Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of my students promptly offered up an explanation; I’m genuinely enthusiastic to have his insight — and the class knows that!)

As I see it, growth mindset isn’t something to talk about. It’s something we demonstrate: quietly, un-fussily, daily.

I’m hoping that — someday — research will support this belief as well.

* Although most psychology studies can put off even the most determined reader, this one has been written (it seems) with a lay reader in mind. Although the technical sections are indeed quite technical, the early sections are easy to read: clear, logical, straightforward. If you’re interested in the topic, I recommend giving these early sections a read.

“Compared to What”: Is Retrieval Practice Really Better?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 11, 2021

“Compared to What”: Is Retrieval Practice Really Better?

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When teachers turn to brain research, we want to know: which way is better?

Are handwritten notes better than laptop notes?

Is cold-calling better than calling on students who raise their hands?

Is it better to spread practice out over time, or concentrate practice in intensive bursts?

For that reason, we’re excited to discover research that shows: plan A gets better results than plan B. Now we know what to do.

Right?

Better than What?

More often than not, research in this field compares two options: for instance, retrieval practice vs. rereading.

Often, research compares one option to nothing: starting class WITH learning objectives, or starting class WITHOUT learning objectives.

These studies can give us useful information. We might find that, say, brief exercise breaks help students concentrate during lectures.

However, they DON’T tell us what the best option is. Are exercise breaks more helpful than retrieval practice? How about video breaks? How about turn-n-talks?

When research compares two options, we get information only about the relative benefits of those two options.

For that reason, we’re really excited to find studies that compare more than two.

Enriching Encoding

A recent podcast* highlighted this point for me.

A 2018 study compared THREE different study strategies: rereading, enriched encoding, and retrieval practice.

Participants studied word pairs: say, “moon-galaxy.” Some of them studied by reviewing those pairs. Some studied with retrieval practice (“moon-__?__”).

Some studied with enriched encoding. This strategy urges students to connect new information to ideas already in long-term memory. In this case, they were asked, “what word do you associate with both “moon” and “galaxy”?

My answer to that question: “planet.” Whatever answer you came up with, you had to think about those two words and their associated ideas. You enriched your encoding.

Because this experiment looked at three different study strategies, it gives us richer insights into teaching and learning.

For instance, students who reviewed remembered 61% of the word pairs, whereas those who enriched their encoding remembered 75% (Cohen’s d = 0.72). Clearly, enriched encoding is better.

But wait, what about students who used retrieval practice?

Even Richer

Students in the retrieval practice group remembered 84% of their word pairs.

So, yes: “research shows” that enriched encoding is “better than review.” But it’s clearly not better than retrieval practice. **

In fact, this point may sound familiar if you read last week’s blog post about learning objectives. As that post summarized Dr. Faria Sana’s research:

Starting class with traditional learning objectives > starting class without traditional learning objectives

but

Starting class with learning objectives phrased as questions  > starting class with learning objectives phrased as statements

In fact, Sana looked at a fourth choice:

Teachers immediately answer the questions posed in the learning objectives >?< teachers don’t immediately answer the questions posed in the learning objectives.

It turns out: providing answers right away reduces students’ learning.

Because Sana studied so many different combinations, her research really gives us insight into our starting question: which way is better?

Friendly Reminders

No one study can answer all the questions we have. We ALWAYS put many studies together, looking for trends, patterns, exceptions, and gaps.

For instance, boundary conditions might limit the applicability of a study. Sana’s research took place in a college setting. Do her conclusions apply to 10th graders? 6th graders? 1st graders? We just don’t know (yet).

Or, if you teach in a school for children with a history of trauma, or in a school for students with learning differences, or in a culture with different expectations for teachers and students, those factors might shape the usefulness of this research.

By comparing multiple studies, and by looking for studies that compare more than two options, we can gradually uncover the most promising strategies to help our students learn.

* If you’re not following The Learning Scientists — their website, their blog, their podcast — I HIGHLY recommend them.

** To be clear: this study focuses on a further question: the participants’ “judgments of learning” as a result of those study practices. Those results are interesting and helpful, but not my primary interest here.

Making “Learning Objectives” Explicit: A Skeptic Converted?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 04, 2021

Making “Learning Objectives” Explicit: A Skeptic Converted?

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Teachers have long gotten guidance that we should make our learning objectives explicit to our students.

The formula goes something like this: “By the end of the lesson, you will be able to [know and do these several things].”

I’ve long been skeptical about this guidance — in part because such formulas feel forced and unnatural to me. I’m an actor, but I just don’t think I can deliver those lines convincingly.

The last time I asked for research support behind this advice, a friend pointed me to research touting its benefits. Alas, that research relied on student reports of their learning. Sadly, in the past, such reports haven’t been a reliable guide to actual learning.

For that reason, I was delighted to find a new study on the topic.

I was especially happy to see this research come from Dr. Faria Sana, whose work on laptop multitasking  has (rightly) gotten so much love. (Whenever I talk with teachers about attention, I share this study.)

Strangely, I like research that challenges my beliefs. I’m especially likely to learn something useful and new when I explore it. So: am I a convert?

Take 1; Take 2

Working with college students in a psychology course, Sana’s team started with the basics.

In her first experiment, she had students read five short passages about mirror neurons.

Group 1 read no learning objectives.

Group 2 read three learning objectives at the beginning of each passage.

And, Group 3 read all fifteen learning objectives at the beginning of the first passage.

The results?

Both groups that read the learning objectives scored better than the group that didn’t. (Group 2, with the learning objectives spread out, learned a bit more than Group  3, with the objectives all bunched together — but the differences weren’t large enough to reach statistical significance.)

So: compared to doing nothing, starting with learning objectives increased learning of these five paragraphs.

But: what about compared to doing a plausible something else? Starting with learning objectives might be better than starting cold. Are they better than other options?

How about activating prior knowledge? Should we try some retrieval practice? How about a few minutes of mindful breathing?

Sana’s team investigated that question. In particular — in their second experiment — they combined learning objectives with research into pretesting.

As I’ve written before, Dr. Lindsay Richland‘s splendid study shows that “pretesting” — asking students questions about an upcoming reading passage, even though they don’t know the answers yet — yields great results. (Such a helpfully counter-intuitive suggestion!)

So, Team Sana wanted to know: what happens if we present learning objectives as questions rather than as statements? Instead of reading

“In the first passage, you will learn about where the mirror neurons are located.”

Students had to answer this question:

“Where are the mirror neurons located?” (Note: the students hadn’t read the passage yet, so it’s unlikely they would know. Only 38% of these questions were answered correctly.)

Are learning objectives more effective as statements or as pretests?

The Envelope Please

Pretests. By a lot.

On the final test — with application questions, not simple recall questions — students who read learning-objectives-as-statements got 53% correct.

Students who answered learning-objectives-as-pretest-questions got 67% correct. (For the stats minded, Cohen’s d was 0.84! That’s HUGE!)

So: traditional learning objectives might be better than nothing, but they’re not nearly as helpful as learning-objectives-as-pretests.

This finding prompts me to speculate. (Alert: I’m shifting from research-based conclusions to research-&-experience-informed musings.)

First: Agarwal and Bain describe retrieval practice this way: “Don’t ask students to put information into their brains (by, say, rereading). Instead, ask students to pull information out of their brains (by trying to remember).”

As I see it, traditional learning objectives feel like review: “put this information into your brain.”

Learning-objectives-as-pretests feel like retrieval practice: “try to take information back out of your brain.” We suspect students won’t be successful in these retrieval attempts, because they haven’t learned the material yet. But, they’re actively trying to recall, not trying to encode.

Second: even more speculatively, I suspect many kinds of active thinking will be more effective than a cold start (as learning objectives were in Study 1 above). And, I suspect that many kinds of active thinking will be more effective that a recital of learning objectives (as pretests were in Study 2).

In other words: am I a convert to listing learning objectives (as traditionally recommended)? No.

I simply don’t think Sana’s research encourages us to follow that strategy.

Instead, I think it encourages us to begin classes with some mental questing. Pretests help in Sana’s studies. I suspect other kinds of retrieval practice would help. Maybe asking students to solve a relevant problem or puzzle would help.

Whichever approach we use, I suspect that inviting students to think will have a greater benefit than teachers’ telling them what they’ll be thinking about.

Three Final Points

I should note three ways that this research might NOT support my conclusions.

First: this research was done with college students. Will objectives-as-pretests work with 3rd graders? I don’t know.

Second: this research paradigm included a very high ratio of objectives to material. Students read, in effect, one learning objective for every 75 words in a reading passage. Translated into a regular class, that’s a HUGE number of learning objectives.

Third: does this research about reading passages translate to classroom discussions and activities? I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know. In these three studies, Sana’s students remembered more when they started reading with unanswered questions in mind. That insight offers teachers a inspiring prompt for thinking about our daily classroom work.

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