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Monthly Archives: February 2022

The Downsides of Desirable Difficulties
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 24, 2022

The Downsides of Desirable Difficulties

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For several years now, we’ve been talking about the benefits of “desirable difficulties.”

For instance, we know that spreading practice out over time helps students learn more than does doing all the practice at once.

Why? Because that schedule creates greater mental challenges. Our students must think harder.

In other words: “spacing” creates “desirable difficulty.”

Likewise, we know that jumbling many topics together during practice helps students learn more than does practicing only one thing at a time.

Why? Students face greater cognitive challenges as they try to figure out which strategy to use or topic to notice.

Desirable difficulty.

And: requiring students to use retrieval practice helps them lots more than simple review.

Yup, you guessed it: d_______ d__________.

A theory that is simultaneously counter-intuitive and common-sense. What’s not to love?

Not So Desirable

I’ll tell you what’s not to love: the big silence.

The phrase “desirable difficulty” implies, obviously, that our students might face UNdesirable difficulties.

And yet, very few people ever discuss — much less research — this topic.

So, what exactly would an undesirable difficulty be? How can I predict or spot them?

I discuss this question with teachers quite often, and I have two sets of suggestions.

The First Strategy

At a Learning and the Brain conference a few years ago, Dr. Robert Bjork (who coined the phrase “desirable difficulty” with his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Ligon Bjork) explained that DDs have two core features.

First: they require students to think harder about the material.

Second: despite the difficulties, students ultimately succeed.

By implication, difficulties that don’t meet those criteria aren’t desirable.

For instance, I’ve just assigned a final project on Macbeth to my sophomores: they must think about the play, create a new something (a set design, a costume plot, a new scene, etc.), and then explain their thinking.

I’ve warned my students quite strictly: they may use technology, but they should NOT get carried away with all the cool tech possibilities at hand.

If they know how to edit videos and want to shoot a scene, that’s fine. But they should not simply throw in 1001 cool editing effects. Those edits would make them think harder, perhaps, but not think harder about the play.

The work would be difficult, but not desirably difficult.

So, too, I might ask my students to write a sentence that uses noun clauses as both the subject of the verb and as an appositive, and also uses an introductory subordinate clause as an adverb.

In this case, my students would think harder (that’s Bjork’s first criterion), but they almost certainly wouldn’t succeed (Bjork’s second criterion).

Again: a difficulty, but not a desirable one.

In other words, we want to ramp up the difficulty — but not too far — without letting the focus subtly shift to another topic.

The Second Strategy

So, difficulties aren’t desirable if they don’t meet both of Bjork’s criteria.

Another way to recognize UNdesirable difficulties: MOST difficulties are undesirable.

So, I can make attention more challenging by — say — playing loud music while students read.

More difficult? Yes. Desirable? No.

I can vex my students’ working memory by giving them ten verbal instructions to remember and follow.

More difficult? Still yes. Desirable? Still no.

I could fiendishly reduce my students’ motivation by inculcating a fixed mindset.

You know the answer. That additional difficulty would in no way be desirable.

In other words, a few specific difficulties (spacing, interleaving, retrieval practice) can be desirable. Most others, however, simply are not.

TL;DR

Desirable difficulties — which require students to think harder before they succeed at their work — can foster deeper learning.

However, most classroom difficulties don’t meet that definition, and therefore aren’t desirable.

Whenever we champion desirable difficulties, we should be sure to mention and guard against the undesirable ones that imperil students’ learning.

Rationality by Steven Pinker
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
February 22, 2022

Rationality by Steven Pinker

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Over the last couple of years, we have often felt like the world is losing its collective mind. The news is profuse with interviews and shocking examples of apparent declines in rational thinking, and we are faced with regular internet propaganda that seems to assume we are not able to sort out the reasoned from the crazy. We are left to wonder “Why do people believe such crazy things? What is the human race coming to?” and we may begin to question our own sanity.  But there are plenty of books and studies out there that marvel at our irrational thinking already. Instead, Steven Pinker takes a less cynical view of human nature in Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. While he understands the appeal of studying cognitive bias and distorted perception, he laments the exoticization and excessive attention on our seemingly irrational behaviors and celebrates the evolutionary achievement of a rationality toolbox that has been tested by time and continues to be robust.

This book was developed from a course Pinker taught at Harvard at the request of his students who were similarly having trouble making sense of this current reality and wanted tools to aid in social transformation. The reading is dense, but reads like a masterclass or engaging college course, mixing content with humor and politics, through Pinker’s usual excellent teaching and way with words.

Pinker introduces rationality through a unique intersection of evolution, psychology, and cultural anthropology. He begins by asking an important question: where and why does rationality emerge? In particular, he points out that logic, statistics, and scientific reason are not the sole products of some western or eastern modern enlightenment but are instead a natural progression found cross-culturally as a human adaptation to complement our biased cognition. Rationality is “a kit of cognitive tools that can attain particular goals in particular worlds” so it, therefore, emerges wherever humans flourish.

Rationality is not only available to the ivory-tower academics that pour over texts; it is available to everyone and can be found in unexpected places as a natural development. One example that Pinker returns to here from his previous work is the San people of the Kalahari desert, a modern hunter-gatherer society who have developed a well-tuned scientific set of reasoning skills that have allowed them to adapt to their environment. Far from intellectually primitive, the San people employ critical thinking and hypothesis testing in their daily lives. They use skills we attempt to teach our children. The San have developed advanced skills of probability theory and logic that allow them to use the information in their environments to their advantage: Bayesian reasoning is utilized to determine which tracks to follow when hunting; their survival depends on knowing the difference between correlation and causation. In addition, there is a kind of peer review process wherein an argument to methods of hunting or gathering can be brought by any individual into group discussions from which the group can evaluate new ideas and accept or reject those ideas based on their merits.

But this book is not about the San it is about finding rationality in our daily lives and applying it. The core of the book examines many of the classic studies by Thomas Schelling, Daniel Kahneman, and Amos Tversky who studied cognitive bias; but Pinker now recontextualizes them showing that regardless of our apparently irrational behavior, humans have evolved rationality and logic to guide our living in the world.

As you move through the book, you will encounter arguments about our better nature, about the opportunities rational thinking brings, and even some critique of politics and social institutions. The reader can enjoy engaging in a critical discussion concerning the shortcoming and opportunities of both the political right and left, but Pinker also takes political stances that may be unpopular and not always what one would expect. Whether you agree or not, this honest intellectual engagement is refreshing, gets the blood pumping, and prepares one for lively dinner table discussions.

One of the main goals in education is to scaffold the development of the rational thinking process. While the book is not on education per se, it brings to consciousness the thinking processes we want to see in our students, ourselves, and our social institutions. It also has some fun thought experiments that can be adapted to the classroom. But, moreover, this book takes us back to the rational and grounds us in reasoning skills that we too often take for granted. It gives us something to hold onto and appreciate even when the world seems out of its mind.

Too Good to be True: When Research and Values Collide
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 15, 2022

Too Good to be True: When Research and Values Collide

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Let’s start with some quick opinions:

Flipped classrooms…

… can transform education and foster students’ independence, or

… are often a waste of time, and at best just rename stuff we already do.

A growth mindset…

… allows students to learn and become anything, or

… is just an over-hyped fad with little research support.

Multiple-choice questions…

… help me see what my students already know (and help them learn), or

… reduce knowledge to trivia, and enforce an authoritarian view of learning.

It seem strange that our profession can contain such starkly contrasting beliefs about core practices.

But if your experience is like mine, you know that debates among teachers can quickly arrive at these extremes. (If you hang out on Twitter, you probably see these clashes at their fiercest.)

Resolving Conflict with Research (?)

When we come across such vehement debates, we might propose an obvious way to settle them: research.

If the science shows X, well then, we teachers should believe X. And, we should run our classes and our schools the X way.

Obviously.

Alas, this solution might not work as well as we would hope. A recent essay by Brendan Schuetze (Twitter handle, @BA_Schuetze) helps explains why.

As Schuetze outlines, Mindset Theory lives in a strange place in the world of education.

On the one hand: research suggests that specific growth-mindset strategies offer some students modest benefits under particular circumstances. (Better said: they sometimes or probably do.)

On the other hand: lots of teachers and school systems think that…well…a growth mindset means that “anyone who tries can succeed at anything.”

How can it be that researchers (often) have one view of an educational theory, and teachers (often) have such a dramatically different understanding of that same theory?

The Values We Hold Influence the Beliefs We Adopt

To answer this question, Schuetze focuses on “values-alignment.” That is: we (teachers specifically, people generally) are quick to endorse research that aligns with values we already hold.

If (and this is my example, not Schuetze’s) we value innovation and the transformative power of technology, we’re likelier to think that flipped classrooms will radically improve education.

We might even come across research supporting this value-aligned position.

If we value tradition and the transformative power of face-to-face conversation, we’re likelier to think that this flipped-classroom nonsense will fail quickly and spectacularly, and we’ll go back to the methods that have always worked.

We can easily discover research supporting this position as well.

In his essay, Schuetze takes the example of growth mindset.

In a well-sourced recap, Schuetze explains:

Teacher education programs tend to endorse transformative constructivist pedagogy (as opposed to more traditional pedagogy), where social justice and the socio-emotional needs of students are increasingly seen as legitimate educational concerns…

In line with this affective turn, teachers are encouraged to be concerned not only with intellectual development, but also with molding, inspiring, and caring for their students–or what might be summarized in one word as the “growth” of students.

Because teacher training programs encourage us to value students’ “growth” quite broadly, our profession tends to believe any research that holds up growth as an outcome.

And we might not ask hard questions before we embrace that belief.

More Concerns, Possible Solutions

In fact (I’m inferring this from Schuetze’s essay), we’re likelier to over-interpret the plausibility and effectiveness of that theory.

Imagine a modest, research-based suggestion aligns with our values:

Researchers say, “X might help these students a bit under these circumstances.”

We teachers hear, “X transforms students — it’s almost magic!”

In my experience — and here I’m going WAY beyond Schuetze’s essay — our hopeful beliefs then call up the very “evidence” we need to persuade ourselves:

Well-meaning teachers write hopeful books that extrapolate substantially from the research they cite.

Blog posts — in an effort to make complex research clear — gloss over the nuance and uncertainty that researchers typically highlight.

Edu-Tweeps with thousands of followers simplify complex ideas into 280 characters.

Suddenly, it seems “everybody believes” that “research shows” what we already value.

To face this problem, I think we need to combine several steps.

Too Good

In the first place, I think it helps to focus on Schuetze’s troubling insight. We might find, someday, that a teaching practice BOTH helps our students learn AND contradicts our values.

Perhaps flipped classrooms really do help students (for the most part), even though we value tradition and face-to-face pedagogy.

Or, to reverse the case,

Perhaps growth mindset strategies don’t really help, even though we value students’ overall growth above their narrow academic achievement.

In these cases, we should honestly accept the tension between research and values. If we act as if they align when they don’t, we won’t make decisions as effectively or thoughtfully as we should.

That is: we can quite appropriately say:

This intervention might not help students learn more. But it aligns with a core value in our community, so we’ll do it anyway.

In the second case, I think we should hone an odd kind of skepticism:.

If a research-based teaching suggestion sounds deeply good — that is, if it aligns with our values — then we have an extra responsibility to assume it’s too good to be true.

Does “authenticity” sound good to you? You should BEWARE a pedagogical strategy called “authentic exploration.”

Does “mindfulness” sound uplifting? You should BEWARE mindfulness initiatives.

Have you (like me) always enjoyed being outdoors with the trees? You (like me) should BEWARE any teaching initiative with the words “woods” or “nature” or “wilderness” in the title.

Of course, when you warily undertake a review of the research literature, you just might find that it does in fact support this core value. (Quick: let’s all study in a forest!)

But we owe it to our profession and our students to admit: the values we hold dear might lead us into too credulous acceptance of the next new thing.

I (hope I) value my students’ development too much to let that happen.

New Research: Unrestricted Movement Promotes (Some Kinds of) Creativity
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 08, 2022

New Research: Unrestricted Movement Promotes (Some Kinds of) Creativity

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Teachers like creativity.

We want our students to learn what has come before, certainly. And, we want them to do and think and imagine new things with that prior knowledge.

We want them, in ways big and small, to create. How can we best foster such creativity?

Over the years, I’ve often heard that walking outside promotes creativity.

Because I work at a summer camp, I’m in favor of almost anything that promotes being outside. Alas, it turns out, this data pool didn’t hold up very well.

Since that time, lots of folks have focused on the walking part of “walking outside.” Several studies do suggest that simply walking around ramps up creative output. (For instance, here.)

Can we be more specific than “walking around”? Do some kinds of walking boost creativity more than others?

Defining Creativity

Ironically, the study of creativity begins with mundane, even tedious, tasks: defining and measuring it.

Researchers often focus on two kinds of creativity.

First, my students might come up with something new and useful.

Researchers measure this flavor of creativity (“divergent”) in a fun way:

Think about, say, a brick. Now, list all the things you might do with a brick.

The answer “build a wall” doesn’t score very high, because almost everyone says “build a wall.”

The answer “raise the water level in my pool by throwing lots of bricks in” does score high, because — well — because nobody ever says that. This answer is new and (assuming you care about the water level in your pool) useful.

Second, my students might see hidden connections.

Researchers measure this flavor of creativity (“convergent”) in another fun way:

Think about these three words: cottage, swiss, and cake.

Can you think of a word that pairs with each of those to make a meaningful phrase? (Answer: “cheese.” As in, cottage cheese, etc.)

Researchers in Germany wanted to know: what kind of walking might increase DIVERGENT creativity.

Here’s what they found…

It’s All About the Freedom

Researchers Supriya Murali and Barbara Händel asked participants to walk or to sit.

And, they asked them to do so in restricted or unrestricted ways.

Unrestricted walkers, for instance, could walk around a large room however they pleased. Restricted walkers had to walk back and forth down the middle of the room. (Notice: all this walking was inside.)

Unrestricted sitters sat in a solid chair (no wheels, no reclining features) with a view of the full room. Restricted sitters sat in the same chair, but with a computer screen in front of them. The “fixation cross” on the screen implied (if I understand this correctly) that the participants should remain focused on the screen.

What happened afterwards, when they took a test on divergent thinking?

Headlines:

Walkers scored higher on tests of divergent creativity than sitters.

Participants without restrictions (both walking and sitting) scored higher than their restricted peers.

For some interesting reason, unrestricted movement reduces restrictions in subsequent mental activity.

Classroom Implications

As I think about this research, it implies some happy, practical suggestions.

If we want our students to launch an explicitly creative assignment — start composing a poem, imagine an approach to studying a historical question, plan an environmentally-friendly city — we can give them an extra boost of physical freedom.

Walking outside might be good.

But if they can’t walk outside (that’s just not possible in many schools), then walking inside could be good.

Heck, if 25 students walking around in the classroom sounds like too much chaos, maybe they can choose a new place to sit for a while.

In other words: this research suggests that the actual movement (walking/sitting) matters, and that the relative degree of restriction also matters.

Even if students sit in solid chairs, their freedom to choose seats or move seats or sit cross-legged (or whatever) might jostle some creative energy in useful ways.

TL;DR

As long as we don’t make our claims too strong or grand, this research allows a sensible claim: “by reducing physical limitations for a while, we might help students expand their mental activity and creativity.” *

* I should note that the sample sizes in these three studies are quite small: 20, 17, and 23. Were these studies repeated with larger sample sizes (and/or in more classroom-like conditions), I’d be more confident and emphatic in drawing these conclusions.

Kuo, C. Y., & Yeh, Y. Y. (2016). Sensorimotor-conceptual integration in free walking enhances divergent thinking for young and older adults. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1580.

Murali, S., & Händel, B. (2022). Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting. Psychological research, 1-14.