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Warning: Misguided Neuroscience Ahead
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 27, 2022

Warning: Misguided Neuroscience Ahead

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I recently ran across a version* of this chart:

An (inaccurate) chart listing neurotransmitters: their effects and activities that enhance them

As you can see, this chart lists several neurotransmitters and makes recommendations based on their purported roles.

If you want to feel love, you should increase oxytocin. To do so, play with your dog.

If you want to feel more stable, you should boost serotonin. To do so, meditate, or go for a run.

And so forth.

On the one hand, this chart seems harmless enough. It recommends that we do quite sensible things — who can argue against “self-care,” or “hugging your children”? — and so can hardly provoke much controversy.

I, however, see at least two reasons to warn against it.

Willingham’s Razor

Most everyone has read Dan Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School?  (If you haven’t: RUN, don’t walk, to do so.)

Professor Willingham has also written a less well known book called When Can You Trust the Experts?, which offers lots of wise advice on seeing though bad “expert” advice.

One strategy he recommends:

Reread the “brain-based” teaching advice, and mentally subtract all the brainy words. If the advice makes good sense without them, why were they there in the first place? **

In the lists above, do we really need the names of the neurotransmitters for that advice to make sense?

To feel a sense of accomplishment, accomplish something.

If you want to feel better, eat chocolate.

To calm down, walk (or run) outdoors.

Who could object to these suggestions? Do we need multi-syllable words to embrace them?

I worry, in fact, that such charts create bad mental habits for teachers. Those habits sound like this:

If someone knows complicated neuro-terminology, then their teaching advice must be accurate. When a blogger uses the phrases “corpus callosum” and “research says,” therefore, I have to take their teaching advice.

No, you really DON’T have to take their advice. LOTS of people use the language of neuroscience to make their suggestions sounds more authoritative.

As I’ve written elsewhere, neuroscience rarely produces classroom-ready teaching advice.

PSYCHOLOGY gives teachers great ideas about memory and attention and learning and motivation.

A biological understanding of what’s happening during those mental functions (i.e., neuroscience) is fascinating, but doesn’t tell teachers what to do.

In brief: beware people who use neuro-lingo to advise you on practical, day-to-day stuff. Like, say, that chart about “happiness chemicals.”

When Simplification Leads to Oversimplification

My first concern: the chart misleadingly implies that neuroscientific terminology makes advice better.

My second concern: the chart wildly oversimplifies fantastically complicated brain realities.

For instance, this chart — like everything else on the interwebs — calls oxytocin “the love hormone.”

A smiley face with the word "oxytocin" as the smile

However, that moniker doesn’t remotely capture its complexity. As best I understand it (and my understanding is very tentative), oxytocin makes social interactions more intense — in both positive AND NEGATIVE directions.

So: when we add oxytocin, love burns brighter, hatred smoulders hotter, jealously rages more greenly.

To call it the “love hormone” is like saying “the weather is good.” Well, the weather can be good — but there are SO MANY OTHER OPTIONS.

The statement isn’t exactly wrong. But its limited representation of the truth makes it a particular kind of wrong.

So too the idea that dopamine is a “reward chemical.” Like oxytocin’s function, dopamine’s function includes such intricate nuance as to be difficult to describe in paragraphs — much less a handy catchphrase. ***

By the way: the most comprehensive and useful description of neurotransmitters I know comes in Robert Sapolsky’s book Behave. As you’ll see, they’re REALLY complicated. (You can meet professor Sapolsky at our conference in February.)

TL;DR

Yes, walking outside and hugging children and exercising are all good ideas for mental health.

No, we don’t need the names of neurotransmitters to make that advice persuasive.

We might worry about taking advice from people who imply that neuro-lingo does make it more persuasive.

And we can be confident that neurotransmitters are much, MUCH more complicated than such simplistic advice implies.

* I’ve made my own modified version of this chart. The point of this blog post is not to criticize the individuals who created the original, but to warn against the kind of thinking that produced it. “Name and shame” isn’t how we roll.

** I’m paraphrasing from memory. I’m on vacation, and the book is snug at home.

*** [Update on 12/30/22] I’ve just come across this study, which explores some of the contradictions and nuances in the function of serotonin as well.

Thrivers by Michele Borba
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
December 19, 2022

Thrivers by Michele Borba

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Michele Borba begins this book by making a very important distinction: we have sought to raise children who strive, but while strivers can reach for more, they are left feeling empty and with dwindling psychological reserves when their goals are not met. A necessary ingredient is a deep inner strength and grounded identity where one explores who they are rather than simply trying to prove their worth with extrinsic grades and accomplishments. We need a generation of thrivers with strong cores and character strengths that will enable them to move forward with purpose as they build their identities and maximize their potential. In her book, Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine, she prepares us to teach our children and create the best environment for kids to develop the seven core character strengths that lead to flourishing: increasing their self-confidence, empathy, integrity, self-control, curiosity, perseverance, and optimism. But we do this, not by imposing our beliefs, but by listening to our children and helping them discover who they are becoming.

One appreciates the important distinctions Borba makes as she compares not only strivers and thrivers but also draws important distinctions between self-esteem and confidence. This important attention to the words we use is one of the author’s fundamental strengths. The book teaches the reader not only what to do but clarifies a vocabulary that frames the discussion. But these distinctions are not platitudes, she backs them up with research even to the point of discussing research that shows the benefit of asking children for “helpers” as opposed to asking for “help.” When do we ask ‘why?’ When do we ask ‘who?’ Throughout the text, we are shown the benefit of these subtle changes that we can make that can mean a lot for identity development.

The research-driven focus of this book is grounded in the voices of young people and how they are making sense of the culture they are growing up in. We hear how children are interpreting the intentions of adults and how they view their personal strengths and aspirations. You will quickly find that these authentic voices echo the youth in your life, but here Borba helps us to situate these ideas into themes that allow us to deeply attend to what our kids are saying leading us to ways we can better support them. Importantly these pages also alert the reader to the questions we are not asking our kids. This rich dialogic structure makes the book a fun read as you see the frank, often funny, and always insightful ways kids explain their world. It is these voices that bolster the concrete recommendations that permeate the pages.

From the first chapter, you can navigate the book as you see fit guided by the early surveys to assess character strengths. The surveys and activities make for an interactive and reflective read while stirring your creativity as you develop the long-term project of trying to support a child’s development. While some of these activities are simple boards or charts to help children build these essential skills, much of the book is dedicated to helping you change your conversations. Borba takes simple regular activities and life events and suggests how we can converse with kids to grow their character strengths and explore identity and motivation.

While this book gives recommendations geared toward toddlers to young adults, I would also argue that it is loaded to the brim with concrete advice for self-improvement for the adult reader. Yes, of course, it can help one be a better mentor, but it also helps the reader to turn the activities on themselves. Who among us does not believe our self-confidence, empathy, integrity, self-control, curiosity, perseverance, and optimism can use some tweaking as we search for our own actualized selves? Many of the life hacks you will find in this book will apply to you as well. What is your own inner language you use to coach yourself? What are some of the character strengths you would like to improve? And how can you do some simple activities to explore yourself and help ground your own identity?  If you are reading this book to be a better mentor, teacher, or parent, this book can take you along in their journey not as a guide, but also as a partner.

The Limitations of Retrieval Practice (Yes, You Read That Right)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 18, 2022

The Limitations of Retrieval Practice (Yes, You Read That Right)

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Last week, I wrote that “upsides always have downsides.”

African American student wearing a bow tie, hand to forehead, looking frustrated and disappointed

That is: anything that teachers do to foster learning (in this way) might also hamper learning (in that way).

We should always be looking for side effects.

So, let me take a dose of my own medicine.

Are there teaching suggestions that I champion that have both upsides and conspicuous downsides?

Case in Point: Retrieval Practice

This blog has long advocated for retrieval practice.

We have lots (and LOTS) of research showing that students learn more when they  study by “taking information out of their brains” than “putting information back into their brains.” (This phrasing comes from Agarwal and Bain.)

So:

Students shouldn’t study vocabulary lists; they should make flash cards.

They shouldn’t review notes; insted, they should quiz one another on their notes.

Don’t reread the book; try to outline its key concepts from memory.

In each of these cases (and hundred more), learners start by rummaging around in their memory banks to see if they can remember. All that extra mental work results in more learning.

SO MUCH UPSIDE.

But wait: are there any downsides?

Let the Buyer Beware: Retrieval-Induced Forgetting

Sure enough, some researchers have focused on “retrieval-induced forgetting.”

Yup. That means remembering can cause forgetting.

How on earth can that be? Here’s the story…

Step 1: Let’s say I learn the definitions of ten words.

Step 2: I use retrieval practice to study the definitions of five of them. So, I remembered five words.

Step 3: Good news! Retrieval practice means I’ll remember the five words that I practiced better.

Step 4: Bad news! Retrieval-induced forgetting means I’ll remember the five words I didn’t practice worse. Yes: worse than if I hadn’t practiced those other five words.

In brief: when I remember part of a topic, I’m likelier to FORGET the part I didn’t practice. (Although, of course, I’m likelier to REMEMBER the part I did practice.)

So, retrieving induces forgetting. Now that’s what I call a downside.

Potential solution?

How do our students get the good stuff (memories enhanced by retrieval practice) without the bad stuff (other memories inhibited by retrieval practice)?

Here’s an obvious solution: tell our students about retrieval-induced forgetting.

Heck, let’s go one step further: tell them about it, and encourage them to resist its effects.

One research group — led by Dr. Jodi Price — tried just this strategy.

The research design here gets quite complicated, but the headline is:

They ran the same “retrieval-induced forgetting” study that others had run, and this time added a brief description of the problem.

In some cases, they added encouragement on how to overcome this effect.

So, what happened when they warned students?

Nothing. Students kept right on forgetting the un-practiced information (although they kept right on remembering the practiced information).

In brief: warnings about retrieval-induced forgetting just didn’t help. (Heck: in some cases, they seemed to promote even more forgetting.)

Alternative Solutions?

Much of the time, we benefit our students by telling them about reserach in cognitive science.

I routinely tell my high-school students about retrieval practice. I show them exactly the same studies and graphs that I show teachers in my consulting work.

In this case, however, it seems that sharing the research doesn’t help. Telling students about retrieval-induced forgetting didn’t stop retrieval induced forgetting.

Conclusion: it’s up to teachers to manage this side effect.

How? We should require retrieval of all essential elements.

For example:

When I teach my students about comedy and tragey, the definitions of those terms include lots of moving pieces.

I know that ALL THE PIECES are equally important. So I need to ensure that my retrieval practice exercises include ALL THE PARTS of those definitions.

Students don’t need to remember everything I say. But if I want them to remember, I need to ensure retrieval practice happens.

Each of us will devise different strategies to accomplish this goal. But to get the upside (from retrieval practice) we should mitigate the downside (from retrieval-induced forgetting).

TL;DR

Retrieval practice is great, but it might cause students to forget the parts they don’t retrieve.

Alas, we can’t solve this problem simply by warning our students.

So, we should structure our review sessions so that students do in fact retrieve EVERYTHING we want them to remember.

If we create such comprehensive retrieval, students can get the upsides and without the downsides.

 

 

Price, J., Jones, L. W., & Mueller, M. L. (2015). The role of warnings in younger and older adults’ retrieval-induced forgetting. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 22(1), 1-24.

Upsides Always Have Downsides: “Side Effects” in Education Research
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 11, 2022

Upsides Always Have Downsides: “Side Effects” in Education Research

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Here at Learning and the Brain, we believe that research can improve education.

Young man wearing a tie, showing thumbs up in one image and thumbs down in the other

Specifically, research into psychology (“how the mind works”) and neuroscience (“how the brain works”) can help teachers and schools. After all, we spend all day working with students’ minds and brains!

Every now and then, we should stop and look for flaws in our assumptions.

Are there ways that research might not help learning? Might it actually limit learning?

A recent article by Yong Zhao explores this important — and troubling — question.

The Medical Model

Doctors have long relied on research to test their hypotheses.

Does this treatment work better than that treatment? Let’s run a “randomized control trial” to find out.

Notably, medical research always includes this important question: what side effects* does a treatment produce?

That is:

Any treatment might produce specific benefits.

And, it might also produce specific harms.

Medical research looks for and reports on BOTH.

Sadly — and this is Zhao’s key point — education research tends to skip the second question.

Researchers look for benefits:

Does mindfulness reduce stress?

Can retrieval practice enhance learning?

Should students exercise mid-class?

When they measure the potential upsides of those “treatments,” they don’t always look equally scrupulously for downsides.

And yet: almost everything has downsides.

What to Measure, and When?

Why do we overlook the downsides?

Zhao offers two hypotheses.

First, we all agree that education is good.

If doing X helps students learn, then X is good! Its obvious goodness makes potential badness invisible.

Second, downsides take time — and alternative methods — to discover.

An example. I hypothesize a particular method will help students sing better. So, I test my method in a randomized control trial.

Sure enough, students with the new method sang better! My method worked!

However, my new teaching method just might make students hate singing.

To discover this “side effect,” I have to measure different variables. That is:

I need to check how well they sing (one set of measurements),

AND how much they like singing (a different set of measurements).

It’s also possible that the downside takes longer to arise. The improvement (right now) results in less enjoyment of singing (later on). If I don’t keep measuring, I’ll miss this “side effect.”

New Habits

As Zhao argues, our habit of overlooking potential downsides creates real problems.

For instance, Zhao takes the example of Direct Instruction.

Its proponents can show lots of research suggesting its strengths. Its detractors likewise.

How can these contradictory realities exist?

Well, any complex teaching method will have benefits and detriments. If we focus only on one — if we measure only one — we’ll necessarily miss the other.

Instead, Zhao argues, we should develop the rigorous habit of looking for both: the benefits of any teaching strategy, and also its downsides.

This realisic, complex reality will allow us to make better decisions in classroom and schools.

One More Step

Although Zhao doesn’t mention “opportunity costs,” I think they’re an important part of this conceptual re-think.

That is:

Every time I do use a particular teaching strategy, I don’t use the other one.

If I take time for this stress-reducing technique, I don’t have time for that stress-reducing technique.

Even if a strategy has good research behind it, even if it has relatively few “side effects,” I always want to know: have I given up a better strategy to make time for this merely good strategy?

For example, this point often comes up in discussion of Learning Styles Theory.

If you’ve spent any time in this field, you know: Learning Styles Theory simply doesn’t have good research support behind it.

Alas: it has LOTS of popular support, even among teachers.

When I show teachers the comprehensive research reviews contradicting the theory, they occasionally respond this way:

“Okay, but what harm is it doing? It might be true, so why not teach to my students’ learning style?”

For me, the clear answer is opportunity cost.

If we teachers ARE spending time on teaching methods that have no research support, we ARE NOT spending time on those that do.

If students ARE studying on the treadmill because they’re “kinesthetic learners,” they ARE NOT using study strategies with research support behind them.

Measuring opportunity cost requires subtle and humble calculations. We just might have to give up a long-prized approach to make time for an even better one.

If our students learn more, that sacrifice will have been worth it.

TL;DR

Like medical researchers, we should look both for benefits and for potential harms of any teaching suggestion.

This balanced perspective might take additional time, and might require consideration of  opportunity costs.

It will, however, result in a more realistic and useful understanding of teaching and learning.

*  Many years ago, I read that the phrase “side effects” is misleading. It makes unwanted effects seem unlikely, even though they’re just as likely as the wanted effects.

For that reason, I’m putting the words “side effects” in quotations throughout this post.

I believe it was Oliver Sacks who made this point, but I can’t find the citation so I’m not sure.

If you know the correct source of this insight, please let me know!

Zhao, Y. (2017). What works may hurt: Side effects in education. Journal of Educational Change, 18(1), 1-19.

Getting the Details Just Right: Retrieval Practice
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 06, 2022

Getting the Details Just Right: Retrieval Practice

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Can we ever research a topic too much? Can we reach a point where, well, there’s nothing really more to say about teaching better and learning more?

Perhaps, for instance, we’ve reached peak retrieval practice.

Blog readers – and conference attendees – know that actively recalling information results in greater learning than simple review.

For example: rather reminding my students of yesterday’s discussion of the Harlem Renaissance, I can ask them to write down the key details from memory.  When they make the mental effort to remember, they learn more.

This blog and many authors have written about this topic at length. What more is there to say?

I recently found a study that reminds us: there’s always more to say. If we want to combine teaching experience with researcher insight, we need to take time to get the details just right.

Here’s the story.

A Problem, a Solution, Another Problem

One problem with retrieval practice: it takes time.

I ask the question.

The students write their answers to the question.

I check their answers.

The minutes tick by.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could skip a few steps. How about this abbreviated version:

I ask the question.

The students think about their answers to the question.

I move on.

If my students truly think about the answers, then they’ll get the retrieval practice benefit in much less time.

This solution, however, creates its own problem.

If my students don’t write anything down, how can I know they actually think about the answers? Couldn’t they just nod and look earnest?

After all, what’s their motivation to do the thinking?

Let’s Check

A respected research team in this field has explored this set of problems, and their potential solutions.

In a recently published study, Megan Sumeracki and Johanny Castillo wanted to see if that first problem exists.

They had college students read a short passage. Some wrote answers to review questions; some were instructed to think about answers to those questions.

What happened a few days later?

Sure enough, the students who just thought about (but did not write down) answers were relatively confident that they’d remember information. (That is: they were more confident than those who wrote answers down.)

However, the thinkers actually remembered less than the writers.

Sure enough, as we predicted, students don’t always follow instructions to think about answers.

In other words: when I solve the first problem (retrieval practice takes time) by asking students simply to think, I create a second problem (students don’t really think).

How do we solve this conundrum? Can I solve BOTH problems?

Despair Not

Sumeracki and Castillo had an idea.

They repeated the “think about it” strategy, but this time with an additional ingredient: cold calling.

That is: they asked students to try retrieval practice by thinking about the answer. AND then they cold-called one student at random. (That is, they called on one student who hadn’t raised a hand.)

The researchers hoped to communicate this message: when told to think about the answer, students really should think about it – because they might actually have to answer the question.

What did they find?

Sure enough: students who thought about the answer now remembered as much as the students who wrote down their answers – presumably because they really did the thinking.

This two-part strategy – “retrieval practice by thinking” plus “cold calling” – takes less time AND produces the learning benefits of retrieving.

Problem solved!

One More Problem?

Some readers will have noticed that I raced past a potential controversy.

Truthfully, people do worry about cold calling.

Teachers worry that it creates a hostile, punitive environment. One grad school professor told me that cold calling ramps up stress, and stress destroys the hippocampus, so cold calling is malpractice.

Honestly, we don’t have lots and lots of research here.

One study I’ve found pushes back on the “ramps up stress” narrative. Others support that narrative.

And, as far as I know, we just don’t have good research in K-12 classrooms.

My own instincts say: yes, cold calling can be done badly. But, anything can be done badly. The key point is that cold calling can be done well.

If we create a classroom environment where making mistakes is an entirely normal part of the class routine – an environment that Doug Lemov calls a “culture of error” – then the potential stress of cold calling shouldn’t be a problem.

But, until we have actual research in many different classrooms, I can’t make that recommendation too emphatically.

The Sumeracki and Castillo strategy strikes me as a sensible solution to a real problem. More research on cold calling will make it more persuasive still.

Sumeracki, M. A., & Castillo, J. (2022). Covert and overt retrieval practice in the classroom. Translational Issues in Psychological Science.