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The Best Teaching Advice We’ve Got
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July 10, 2022

The Best Teaching Advice We’ve Got

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I’m on my annual vacation during this month, so I’ll be posting some articles that got attention during the last year.

This post, initially from December of 2021, looks at a proposed different way to “put all the research pieces together.”

You want to improve your teaching with psychology research?

We’ve got good news, and bad news.

And more good news.

Good News: we have lots and LOTS of research. We can talk about attention, or working memory, or the spacing effect, or motivation, or stress…the list is long. And super helpful.

So much practical advice!

Bad News: actually, the bad news is the same as the good news. We’ve got SO MUCH good research that it’s honestly hard to keep track of it all.

I mean, seriously. Should you start by looking at attention research? Or stress research?

Should we think about the motivational effects of student-teacher relationships, or the perils of working memory overload, or the benefits of desirable difficulty?

Which is most important?

Honestly, I think our next priority is not so much finding out new truths about learning, but organizing all the information we already have.

More Good News

If you agree that we really need someone to sort all these suggestions into a coherent system, you’ll be delighted to read this article by Stephen Chew (Twitter handle: @SChewPsych) and William Cerbin (@BillCerbin).

Other scholars — for instance, Barak Rosenshine — have put together a coherent system based on learning principles. Chew and Cerbin, instead, organize their system around cognitive challenges.

That is:

If students feel anxiety about a topic or discipline, that emotion will interfere with their learning.

If students have prior misconceptions, they will distort students’ understanding.

If classroom work or assignments go beyond working memory limits, students won’t learn effectively (or, at all).

When planning a course or a lesson or an assignment, teachers can think their way through these specific challenges. By contemplating each one, we can design our work to best facilitate learning.

Getting the Emphasis Right

If you’re thinking “this is such excellent news! It just can’t get any better!” — well — I’ve got some news: it gets better.

Chew and Cerbin write:

There is no single best teaching strategy for all students, topics, and situations. The proposed framework is not prescriptive … and can guide adaptation of teaching practice.

In other words, they’re not saying: here’s a list of things to do.

Instead, they are saying: here are several topics/problems to consider.

Teaching advice should not include “best practices.” (That’s a business concept.) It should include “best questions to ponder as we make decisions.” Chew and Cerbin make this point repeatedly.

Frequent readers know that I’ve been banging on for years with this mantra: “Don’t just do this thing; instead, think this way.”

We should think about our students’ working memory limitations. The strategies we use might differ for 1st graders and 8th graders.

We should think about the importance of transfer. A Montessori school and a KIPP school will (almost certainly) use differing strategies to reach that goal.

We should think about our students’ prior knowledge. The best way to measure that knowledge might be different for students with diagnosed learning differences.

Yes: we should consider these nine topics. But the ways we answer them must depend on our students, our schools, our curriculum, and ourselves.

For all these reasons, I recommend Chew and Cerbin’s article with great enthusiasm.

And, happily, you can meet Dr. Chew at our online conference in February! (In case you’re wondering: I was planning to write about this article before I knew he was joining the conference. A happy synchronicity.)

It’s All in the Timing: Improving Study Skills with Just-Right Reminders
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July 07, 2022

It’s All in the Timing: Improving Study Skills with Just-Right Reminders

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Some research-based teaching advice requires complex rethinking of our work.

For instance:

We know that “desirable difficulties” like spacing and interleaving help students learn. At the same time, this strategy might require a fair amount of reorganization in our unit plans.

On the other hand, today’s suggestions could hardly be simpler. They go like this:

First: encourage students to use a straightforward self-talk strategy (see below).

Second: remind them frequently.

The likely result; they’ll learn more!

The First Step: A Self-Talk Strategy

Our students often know what they should do. But, they struggle to make themselves do it.

So many plausible excuses. So many reasons NOT to follow through!

Over two decades ago, researchers devised a remarkably simple way to redirect those excuses: “if-then” statements.

The strategy goes like this:

The student starts by setting a goal.

“I want to read 15 pages of the novel.”

She then lists the likely problems that could interfere with that goal.

“My dog could distract me.”

“I could get bored.”

“I could get a text.”

Next, she lists solutions to those likely problems — phrased as “if-then” statements.

“If my dog distracts me, then I’ll ask my brother to play with him.”

“If my phone buzzes, then I’ll turn it off and give it to my parents.”

We have good research suggesting that this “if-then” structure creates highly beneficial mental shortcuts.

At the moment of distraction, the student doesn’t have to decide what to do. She has already decided; she simply has to execute the plan she made for herself.

This strategy sounds too simple to work. But, we’ve got good research suggesting it does.

A Second Step: Well-timed Reminders

So far, this strategy could hardly be simpler. Students set goals, make “if-then” plans, and get to work.

A recent study asks a useful question: how often should teachers remind students about these “if-then” plans?

Here’s a useful analogy:

When you take a medication, you probably don’t take all of it all at once. Instead, you probably take one pill a day — or something like that. The whole course of medication is divided into doses.

Well, should teachers divide this strategy into doses? Does it matter how often we prescribe this study “medication”?

Researchers, led by Dr. Jasmin Breitwieser, explored these questions with medical students in Germany.

The details of the study get complicated quickly. But the headlines go like this:

Students in the control group set daily study goals, but did not make if-then statements.

Students in the study group also set daily goals, and “internalized” this statement:

If I am thinking about stopping [before I reach my goal], then I will tell myself that I will continue to answer questions until I have reached my intended workload!

Students in this second group got reminders on various schedules — as many as 3 days in a row, and as many as 3 days without a reminder.

So: what did the researchers find?

Results Please

First: Breitwieser’s team found that students who made the if-then commitments scored higher on the exam than those who didn’t. *

Second — an this is the big news: dosing mattered.

When students got several reminders in a row, they reached more of their goals.

When those same students got no reminders for 3 days in a row, they reached less of their goals.

In other words: if-then statements help students achieve — especially if they recommit to them frequently.

Teaching Implications

Teachers really struggle to help students find motivation in their school work.

This if-then strategy provides a remarkably simple way to help students achieve their own goals.

So, suggestion #1: teachers should take time to help students formulate these if-then statements.

Suggestion #2: one dose isn’t enough. We should have students return to these plans frequently.

The exact schedule will depend, I suspect, on your specific circumstances. It will be different for 1st graders, 5th graders, and 9th graders. It will be different depending on your school and your culture, and perhaps even your approach to teaching.

Based on other research pools, I suggest that the reminders be relatively frequent, but unpredictable. We don’t want our students going through this process by rote; they should engage with it as earnestly as possible each time.

If we get the dosing right, this simple strategy can help our students study more effectively — and therefore learn more.

* The difference was quite small: only 2 points. However, and this is a big however, the researchers worked with medical students preparing for a high-stakes exam. They are already highly successful and highly motivated students. I suspect we’ll see more dramatic effects for other groups of students.

Breitwieser, J., Neubauer, A. B., Schmiedek, F., & Brod, G. (2021). Self-regulation prompts promote the achievement of learning goals–but only briefly: Uncovering hidden dynamics in the effects of a psychological intervention. Learning and Instruction, 101560.

 

An Amazingly Simple Way to Help Struggling Students (with Potential Controversy)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July 03, 2022

An Amazingly Simple Way to Help Struggling Students (with Potential Controversy)

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Imagine that you work at a school where these students consistently struggle compared to those students.

As teachers and school leaders, you’d like to help these students do better than they currently do; maybe do as well as those students. (Lower down in the post, I’ll say more about the two groups of students.)

What can you do?

Values Affirmation

One simple strategy has gotten a fair amount of research in recent years.

The idea goes something like this. If I am, say, a 12-year-old student, I might not really see how my school life fits with the rest of my life. They seem like two different world.

If teachers could connect those “two different worlds” — even a little bit — students would feel more comfortable, less stressed, better invested. Heck, they might even learn more.

To accomplish this mission, researchers provide students a list of values: loyalty, faith, friendship, hard work, justice, happiness, family, and so forth.

They then have students undertake a brief writing assignment. The instructions go something like this:

Choose one or more of these values that are most important for you personally. Write about why they are important. You won’t be graded on spelling or grammar; focus on explaining your ideas, values, and beliefs clearly.

The control group gets the same instructions, except that students choose values “that are the least important for you personally, but might be important to someone else.”

This strategy gets the somewhat lumpy name “values affirmation” — because it gives students a chance to affirm the values they hold.

This approach has been used in the United States in several studies, and has had some success. (See, for instance, here).

Across the Atlantic

But: would this strategy work elsewhere? What about, say, England?

Back in 2019, a group of researchers tried this approach with different groups of underperforming students. (Again, more on this topic below.)

They had two groups of 11-14-year-old students (the underperformers, the typical performers) do three “values affirmation” writing sessions: one in September, one in January, and one in April.

Of course, one half of both groups did the “values affirmation” version of the writing exercises; the other half did the control writing assignment.

What results did they find?

As was true in the US, the values affirmation writings had no effect on the typical performers.

However, it had a dramatic effect on the underperformers. Their math grades were higher at the end of the year (compared to the group that did the control writing). And their stress levels were considerably lower.

Because of the statistical method that the researchers used, I can’t say that values affirmation translated a B average into an A average. I can say that it had an effect size of 0.35 standard deviations — which is certainly noteworthy, especially to people who read research studies in this field.

In brief: this strategy costs literally zero dollars. It takes one hour over the course of a school year. And it helps underperforming students.

SO MUCH TO LOVE.

The Story Behind the Story

Up to this point, I’ve described what the researchers did. But I haven’t explained the psychological theory behind their strategy — because the theory prompts some controversy.

Now that we’ve looked at the strategy, let’s get to that theory.

Back in 1995, Claude Steele proposed a theory that has come to be called “Stereotype Threat.” It proposes a complex and counter-intuitive hypothesis.

To describe the theory, let me make up a non-existent stereotype: “blue-eyed people are bad at grammar.” (For the record, I’m regularly complimented on my blue eyes, and I teach a lot of grammar.)

Why might a blue-eyed student struggle on a grammar test?

Steele’s research suggests a surprising internal process. When my blue eyes and I sit down to take the grammar test, I know the material well. However, I also know that stereotypes suggest I’ll do badly.

What happens? I do NOT (as many suspect) give in and let the stereotype become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, I decide to fight back. And, in a terrible paradox, my determination to disprove the stereotype leads to all sorts of counter-productive academic behaviors.

For instance: I might spend lots of time working on a very easy problem to prove that I know this grammar. Alas, I took so long on the easy problems that I don’t have time for the harder ones.

In this unexpected way, Steele argues, stereotypes harm students’ learning.

Enter the Controversy

Over the years, many researchers explored Stereotype Threat. They found that stereotypes about almost anything (race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, academic major) can affect performance on almost anything (math tests, sports performance, leadership aspirations).

Steele’s book Whistling Vivaldi is, in fact, an unusually easy-to-read book about a complex psychological phenomenon. Many Learning and the Brain speakers (Joshua Aronson, Sian Beilock) have studied and written about ST.

At the same time, other scholars have doubted this entire research field. They point to various statistical and procedural concerns to suggest that, well, there’s no real there there. (If you’re interested in the push back, you can read more here and here.)

Putting It All Together

In the English study I’ve been describing, the relevant stereotype is “people from relatively lower socio-economic status just aren’t as smart as others.” According to the study’s authors, this stereotype is the predominant academic stereotype in England, whereas US stereotypes focus more on race, ethnicity, and gender.

So, in their study, the authors explored the effect of Values Affirmation on students who did (and did not) receive free school lunches: a common proxy for socio-economic status.

Sure enough, Values Affirmation had no effect one way or the other on students who did not receive free lunches. Because they faced fewer stereotypes about their academic performance, they didn’t suffer the harm that ST might cause.

But, for the students who DID receive free lunches, that same writing exercise helped a lot. This strategy made them feel more like they belonged, so they presumably didn’t need to work as hard to disprove stereotypes.

For that reason, as described above, one hour’s worth of writing reduced stressed and increased grades.

TL;DR

This research suggests that a Values Affirmation writing assignment (it’s free!) can help some underperforming students learn more and feel less stress.

And, it also strengthens the case that Stereotype Threat might — despite the concerns about methodology — really be a thing.

Even if that second statement turns out not to be true, the first one is worth highlighting.

Want a simple, low-cost way to help struggling students? We’ve got one…

Hadden, I. R., Easterbrook, M. J., Nieuwenhuis, M., Fox, K. J., & Dolan, P. (2020). Self‐affirmation reduces the socioeconomic attainment gap in schools in England. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 517-536.

Sherman, D. K., Hartson, K. A., Binning, K. R., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Taborsky-Barba, S., … & Cohen, G. L. (2013). Deflecting the trajectory and changing the narrative: how self-affirmation affects academic performance and motivation under identity threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 591.

The Power of Us by Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
June 21, 2022

The Power of Us by Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel

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The broad use of social media, internet search engines, personalized news feeds, and other emerging information technologies have influenced the ways we have been constructing our identities. This has only accelerated during the ongoing pandemic as many of our social connections are accessed only through likes, links, and subscriptions. Taking a moment to reflect, we all notice how our identities are channeled into group memberships and conceptual echo chambers which have served to increase socio-political polarization and reduce the number of people we interact with who might challenge our views. The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony by Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel is an important update on identity research with direct relevance to the current landscape. The title suggests a monumental task, and the authors meet their proposal head-on, methodically taking the reader on an exploration of multiple identities and group affiliations while offering direction toward progress on many seemingly intractable problems.

Watching the news can often lead to a sense of loss, hopelessness, and confusion, but this text acts as a conceptual scaffolding allowing us to perceive the world in a way that reduces the sense of overwhelm. Keeping up with current events and managing our emotional responses leaves little time to identify and integrate new research into our perspectives and make sense of this changing world. Packer and Van Bavel do an exemplary job of translating and integrating social, psychological, cognitive, neuroscientific, and even genetic research and heightening your curiosity. Many of us are familiar with the early work on bias, racism, and in- and out-group relations, but when was the last time you checked your understanding and updated those ideas?  They unpack many of our socialized myths and misconceptions about previous research while offering new interpretations and tantalizing new avenues of thought. Integrating research in the lighter areas of food flavors, school spirit, and competitive sports outcomes with the weightier topics of race relations, violence, political divides, international politics, and fake news, the reader experiences the rigor without the exhaustion.

The rhetorical style feels like a coffee shop conversation with engaging intellectual appetizers keeping the text light and easy to digest, but still rich enough to drive a deeper intellectual challenge. This is no lecture from an ivory tower but instead an engaging debate. Unlike much of what we see every day, you will leave this text feeling integrated into the society around you, not a passive participant or confused onlooker. The multiple selves within you and those around you are connected and we can ignore or renew these connections; this initiates this process by making the unconscious conscious and adding to the conceptual foundation for personal and societal development.

Given that scientific thought is under constant attack, the book also addresses many of the challenges brought against science itself. But it does not attack the critics; instead, it offers up an important internal critique of the scientific process through a discussion of metascience and the search to discover if science is indeed uncovering truths or has created its own echo chambers. Overall, they find the scientific process successful but offer advice. For the researchers, it asks the important question of whether their labs have evolved to support their views or if researchers have actively sought intellectual debate and disagreement. While the authors rightly elevate scientific thinking as part of the solution, they increase awareness that science, like all other human endeavors, is not immune to bias. This same approach is important for educators, policymakers, and administrators to consider: how is the system you are part of addressing identity formation and what needs to change?

A common approach to social divide and fake news is to offer more information, but as the authors point out, more information does not remove the bias, and sometimes more information adds more interpretations. We need to build individual practices, systems, and opportunities to challenge and enrich our knowledge. After reading this book, you will be left with a sense of hope. While the book is critical and planned in its approach to the literature, it also is optimistic lighting potential paths out of the darkness and confusion.

“It’s Good for the Brain!”: The Perils of Pollution, the Benefits of Blueberries
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 19, 2022

“It’s Good for the Brain!”: The Perils of Pollution, the Benefits of Blueberries

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When I talk with teachers about psychology and neuroscience research, I frequently get a question in this shape:

“I’ve heard that X is really good for the brain. Is that really true?”

In this sentence, X might be blueberries. It might be water. It might be nature walks. Perhaps it’s a good night’s sleep, or green tea, or coffee, or merlot ice cream. (I think I made up that last one, but anything’s possible…)

So, should schools start serving blueberries, merlot ice cream, and green tea (and black coffee) to our students? Perhaps with a side of salmon — brain food for sure!

Works (Almost) Every Time

Here is a completely unsurprising research finding: the brain is a part of the body.

The brain is, in fact, physically attached to the body.

For this reason, everything that is good for the body is good for the brain. (Because, again, the brain is a part of the body.)

Is sleep good for the brain? Well, it’s good for the body, so; yes.

How about water? Yup.

Fruits/veggies? Sure.

Exercise? I’m in!

Simply put, when we take care good care of our bodies, we simultaneously tend to our brains — as a physical, biological object.

Said the other way around: we don’t need to develop special “brain enhancing” diets or programs or regimens. Anything that promotes our students’ physical health will automatically help their brains.

I was, in fact, inspired to write this post by an article I saw today about pollution. The summary:

“Higher exposure to air pollution is associated with higher functional brain connectivity among several brain regions in preadolescents.”

This conclusion strikes me as entirely sensible. Pollution changes the body; unsurprisingly it changes the brain. (Say it with me: the brain is a part of the body.)

Checking the Details

This first answer to the question works most of the time.

If, however, we need a more specific answer, we can easily investigate.

I once heard that, because brains need appropriate levels of hydration, we should think of water as “brain food.” The speaker exhorted us with this cry: “A bottle of water on every desk!”

And yet, the speaker’s logic collapses immediately. Yes, too little water is bad for the brain (because it’s bad for the body). We do want students to be properly hydrated.

But this obvious truth does not remotely suggest that additional water above that level yields extra benefits.

Yes, we should let students drink if they’re thirsty. Yes, a hot day in an arid climate might prompt us to provide “a glass of water on every desk.”

But we don’t need to make a big deal about extra water as an avenue toward extra learning.

You won’t be surprised to know: when I googled “Water is brain food,” the top hits were NOT research studies. They were advertisements for companies selling water.

Magical Blueberries

For reasons I don’t fully understand, the “brain food” claim often settles on blueberries. They’ve got antioxidants, I’m told. They’re great.

I’ve done just a little research here, and so far I’m underwhelmed.

First: there honestly isn’t much research on this topic.

Second: the research often focuses on rats. (Long time readers know my mantra: “Never change your teaching based on research into non-human animals.)

Third: the research on humans focuses on aging and dementia.

Now, I’m 56. I’m ALL IN FAVOR of dietary changes that reduce the likelihood of dementia.

But the idea that “because blueberries are brain food, students should nosh on them before a test” has absolutely no research backing (that I can find).

Students should eat blueberries because fruits and vegetable — in the right proportion — provide health benefits for the body. As far as I can tell, we don’t need to focus on targeted brain benefits.

TL;DR

Most everything that is good for the body is also good for the brain. So, don’t worry about special “brain benefit” claims.

If, instead, someone claims that X is good for learning, we teachers should indeed pay close attention — and especially pay attention to the details of the research.

Getting the Order Just Right: When to “Generate,” When to “Retrieve”?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 12, 2022

Getting the Order Just Right: When to “Generate,” When to “Retrieve”?

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When teachers get advice from psychology and neuroscience, we start by getting individual bits of guidance. For instance…

… mindful meditation reduces stress, or

… growth mindset strategies (done the right way) can produce modest benefits, or

… cell phones both distract students and reduce working memory.

Each single suggestion has its uses. We can weave them, one at a time, into our teaching practices.

After a while, we start asking broader questions: how can we best combine all those individual advice bits?

For instance: might the benefits of growth mindset strategies offset the detriments of cell phones?

Happily, in recent years, researchers have started to explore these combination questions.

Retrieval Practice, Generative Learning

Long time readers know about the benefits of retrieval practice. Rather than simply review material, students benefit when they actively try to recall it first.

So too, generative learning strategies have lots of good research behind them. When students have to select, organize, and integrate information on their own, this mental exercise leads to greater learning. (Check out a handy book review here.)

Now that we have those individual bits of guidance, can we put them together? What’s the best way to combine retrieval practice with generative learning?

A recent study explored exactly this question.

Researchers in Germany had college students study definitions of 8 terms in the field of “social attribution.”

So, for instance, they studied one-sentence definitions of “social norms” or “distinctiveness” or “self-serving bias.”

One group — the control group — simply studied these definitions twice.

A second group FIRST reviewed these words with retrieval practice, and THEN generated examples for these concepts (that’s generative learning).

A third group FIRST generated examples, and THEN used retrieval practice.

So, how well did these students remember the concepts — 5 minutes later, or one day later?

The Envelope Please

The researchers wanted to know: does the order (retrieval first? generation first?) matter?

The title of their study says it all: “Sequence Matters! Retrieval practice before generative learning is more effective than the reverse order.”

Both 5 minutes later and the next day, students who did retrieval practice first remembered more than those who came up with examples first (and, more than the control group).

For a variety of statistical reasons, I can’t describe how much better they did. That is: I can’t say “These student scored a B, and these score a B-.” But, they did “better enough” for statistical models to notice the difference.

And so, very tentatively, I think we teachers can plan lessons in this way: first instruct, then have students practice with retrieval, then have them practice with generation.

Wait, Why “Tentatively”?

If the research shows that “retrieval first” helps students more than “generation first,” why am I being tentative?

Here’s why:

We can’t yet say that “research shows” the benefits of a retrieval-first strategy.

Instead, we can say that this one study with these German college students who learned definitions of words suggests that conclusion.

But: we need many more studies of this question before we can spot a clear pattern.

And: we’d like some 1st grade students in Los Angeles, and some 8th grade students in Reykjavik, and some adult learners in Cairo before we start thinking of this conclusion as broadly applicable.

And: we’d like to see different kinds of retrieval practice, and different kinds of generative learning strategies, before we reach a firm conclusion.

After all, Garvin Brod has found that different generative learning strategies have different levels of effectiveness in various grades. (Check out this table from this study.)

To me, it seems entirely plausible that students need to retrieve ideas fluently before they can generate new ideas with them: hence, retrieval practice before generative learning.

But, “entirely plausible” isn’t a research-based justification. It’s a gut feeling. (In fact, for various reasons, the researchers had predicted the opposite finding.)

So, I think teachers should know about this study, and should include it our thinking.

But, we shouldn’t think it’s an absolute conclusion. If our own students simply don’t learn well with this combination, we might think about switching up the order.

TL;DR

Students learn more from retrieval practice, and they learn more from generative learning strategies.

If we want to combine those individual strategies, we’ll (probably) help students more if we start with retrieval practice.

And: we should keep an eye out for future research that confirms — or complicates — this advice.

Roelle, J., Froese, L., Krebs, R., Obergassel, N., & Waldeyer, J. (2022). Sequence matters! Retrieval practice before generative learning is more effective than the reverse order. Learning and Instruction, 80, 101634.

Brod, G. (2020). Generative learning: Which strategies for what age?. Educational Psychology Review, 1-24.

The Bruce Willis Method: Catching Up Post-Covid
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 05, 2022

The Bruce Willis Method: Catching Up Post-Covid

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In the third Die Hard movie, Brue Willis and his unexpected partner Samuel L. Jackson need to get to Wall Street a hurry. They commandeer a cab.

An experienced cab driver, Jackson suggests taking 9th Avenue south, but Willis insists on going through Central Park.

It turns out: he doesn’t mean taking the road that runs through the Central Park, but driving through the park itself — across crowded lawns, through busy playgrounds, past famous fountains, down winding bike-paths.

His desperate short-cut helps the team catch up.

In education these days, it seems that we need our very own Bruce Willis.

Because of Covid, our students are WAY BEHIND.

5th graders don’t know as much math as they used to. 2nd graders can’t read as well as they once could. 9th graders have lost even more social skills than 9th graders usually lose.

Because our students know less and can do less, we teachers want to help them CATCH UP.

And so we ask: what’s the educational analogue to driving through the park? How can we — like Bruce and Samuel — help our students learn faster?

Like lots of folks, I’ve been thinking about that question for a while now. I’ve got bad news, and worse news; and I’ve got good news.

The Bad News

The Bruce Willis Method does not exist in education.

We can’t “drive through the park.” We can’t, in other words, help students “learn the same amount, only faster.”

Here’s why I say so:

If we knew how to teach any faster, we would have been doing so already.

Seriously. Do you know any teacher who says, “I could have covered this curriculum in 10 weeks. But what the heck, I’m going to drag it out and take 12 or 13”?

I don’t. And I suspect you don’t either.

We have always been helping our students learn as best we could. If we knew better ways, we would have been using them.

Of course Willis can get through the park faster; it was a MOVIE!  Alas, we can’t follow his example.

I am, in fact, quite worried about all the talk of “catching up.” In my mind, it creates two clear dangers:

First Danger:

If we try to catch up, we’ll probably — in one way or another — try to speed up. We will, for instance, explore a topic in 2 weeks instead of 3 weeks. We will combine 3 units into 1.

However, the decision to speed up necessarily means that students spend less time thinking about a particular topic.

As Dan Willingham has taught us: “memory is the residue of thought.” If students spend less time thinking about a topic, they will learn less about it.

The result: they won’t catch up. Instead, they will be further behind.

In other words: such efforts to help students recover from Covid learning muddle will — paradoxically —  hinder their learning.

Second Danger:

If we believe that “catching up” is a realistic short-term possibility, we open ourselves up to inspiring-but-unfounded claims.

People who don’t work in schools will tell us that “you can’t solve problems with the same thinking that created those problems in the first place.”

Their claims might include words & phrases like “transformational” or “thinking outside the box” or “new paradigm” or “disrupt.”

These claims will almost certainly come with products to buy: new technology here, new textbooks there, new mantras yon.

They will sound uplifting and exciting and tempting and plausible.

But…

… any “research-based” claims will almost certainly extrapolate substantially beyond the research’s actual findings;

… these ideas won’t have been tested at scale in a realistic setting;

… such claims will defy core knowledge about cognitive architecture. (No, students can’t overcome working memory limitations simply because “they can look up everything on the internet.”)

In other words: because the goal (“catching up”) is so tempting, we might forget to be appropriately skeptical of inspiring claims (“your students can catch up if you only do THIS THING!”).

Now is the time to be more skeptical, not less skeptical, of dramatic claims.

The Good News

Despite all this gloomy news, I do think we have a very sensible and realistic option right in front of us.

I propose three steps for the beginning of the next school year.

Step 1: determine what our students already know.

In previous years, I could reasonably predict that my students know this much grammar and this much about Shakespeare and this much about analyzing literature.

Well, they just don’t anymore. I need to start next year by finding out what they really do know. (Hint: it will almost certainly be less — maybe dramatically less — than they did in the past.)

Step 2: plan a realistic curriculum building from that foundation.

If we meet our students where they are, they are much likelier to learn the new ideas and procedures we teach them.

In fact, they’re also likelier to strengthen and consolidate the foundation on which they’re building.

Yes, I might feel like my students are “behind.” But they’re behind an abstract standard.

As long as they’re making good progress in learning new ideas, facts, and procedures, they’re doing exactly the right cognitive work. They won’t catch up this year.

But if they make steady progress for several years, they’ll be well back on track.

Step 3: draw on the lessons of cognitive science.

In the paragraphs above, I’ve been highly skeptical of uplifting, simplistic quick-fix claims. (“If we revolutionize education with X, our students will learn calculus in 6th grade!”)

At the same time, I do think that teachers can make steady and coherent improvements in our work. When we understand the mental processes that lead to long-term memory formation, we can teach more effectively.

We should study…

… working memory function: the core mental bottleneck that both allows and impedes learning;

… the importance of desirable difficulties — spacing, interleaving, retrieval practice — in forming long-term memories;

… the sub-components of attention that add up to concentration and understanding;

… a realistic framework for understanding student motivation.

And so forth.

Understanding these topics will not “revolutionize education overnight.”

However, teachers who design lessons and plan syllabi with these insights in mind can in fact help their students consolidate ideas more effectively.

In other words: don’t follow Bruce Willis through the park.

Instead, we should learn how learning takes place in the brain. When our teaching is guided by that knowledge, our students have the best long-term chance of getting back on track.

Does a Teacher’s Enthusiasm Improve Learning?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 29, 2022

Does a Teacher’s Enthusiasm Improve Learning?

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Sometimes research confirms our prior beliefs.

Sometimes it contradicts those beliefs.

And sometimes, research adds nuance and insight to overly-broad generalizations.

Here’s the story:

Benefits of Enthusiasm

It seems too obvious to say that a teacher’s enthusiasm benefits learning. OF COURSE it would do that.

After all, what student wants a boring, unenthusiastic teacher?

But psychology is a science. We don’t just announce that our beliefs — even really obvious beliefs — are true.

Instead, we convert those beliefs into testable hypotheses. We run some experiments. We look at data.

IF the data from the experiment support the hypothesis, then we can start making (tentative) claims.

Once we start thinking scientifically about the effects of a teacher’s enthusiasm, we quickly run into difficult questions.

How, exactly, do we define “enthusiasm”?

One we’ve got a definition, how do we measure it?

What results are we looking for? Do we want enthusiasm to promote students’ attention? Their motivation? Their learning?

If we don’t have clear answers to those questions, we can’t proceed with a scientific answer. (We can, of course, have an answer based on personal experience. Those answers are important, but not the same thing as a scientific answer.)

Getting Specific

In a study published in 2020 — “Displayed enthusiasm attracts attention and improves recall” — several scholars took on those challenges directly.

They started by training teachers in behaviors that demonstrate high levels of enthusiasm (exuberant gestures, varied facial expression, excited & rapid speech, etc.) and low levels of enthusiasm (a few quiet gestures, fixed facial expression, vocal monotone).

Teachers then read two short passages to 4th and 5th grade public-school students. One passage was a story about a farmer; the other was a description of the habits and characteristics of dragonflies. (By the way: this distinction between the story and the description will turn out to be important.)

These passages together took about 3 minutes to read.

To measure the effect of high enthusiasm vs. low enthusiasm, researchers counted several variables, including…

… the number of seconds that students looked at the reader;

… the number of times that students smiled;

… and, the number of facts about the farmer story and dragonfly description that students recalled.

In other words: these researchers found ways to answer those scientific questions listed above. So far, so good.

Asking Tough Questions

At this point, we can ask some reasonable questions:

First, counting “number of seconds” seems like a basically plausible way of measuring attention. (We can quibble, and ask for other measures, and explain why that measure isn’t perfect, but it’s plausible on its face.)

However, I myself think that “counting smiles” seems unusually squishy for a research-based conclusion. Perhaps I’m being overly picky here, but “smiles” strike me as a highly amorphous unit of counting.

Second, the duration of the “enthusiasm” — all of 3 minutes — might not be a helpfully representative amount of time.

For instance: a teacher might delight students by telling jokes for a minute or two at the beginning of class. All that humor might get high ratings from students.

But: if that teacher keeps telling jokes, all that forced humor might get irritating after a while. So too, “high enthusiasm” might have one effect for 3 minutes and a very different effect after 30.

Third, the study measures how many facts students remember immediately after they heard the reading.

Of course, teachers don’t want students to remember just right away; we want them to remember for a long time. And the relationship between short-term and long-term memory gets really complicated.

Strategies that help immediate recall might not enhance long-term learning; Nick Soderstrom has the goods here.

Results?

So, what did the researchers find?

Any study that measures so many variables will produce LOTS of findings. Those findings will be difficult to summarize easily.

The study summarizes their findings in this sentence:

Our results confirm that displayed enthusiasm captures attention and that attention partially explains the positive effect of displayed enthusiasm on recall.

For the reasons listed above, I’m hesitant to accept that conclusion without several caveats. At a minimum, I wish it said “short-term recall.”

Even more important, I think this summary overlooks a crucial finding. Researchers found that “enthusiasm” enhanced short-term recall for the farmer story, but NOT for the dragonfly description.

This distinction leads to an important question: do you spend more time in your classroom telling (farmer-like) stories or providing (dragonfly-like) information and descriptions?

The answer to that question certainly varies from teacher to teacher, from grade to grade, from discipline to discipline, from culture to culture.

Even the most optimistic reading of this study suggests that high enthusiasm will help students remember the story, but not the information.

That’s an important distinction; one we should make clearly when offering advice to teachers.

The Bigger Picture

I myself have a hypothesis.

I suspect that a teacher’s consistent and genuine enthusiasm — not 3 minutes, not 3 weeks, but maybe 3 months or more — gradually creates a particular kind of classroom atmosphere.

That atmosphere — quietly, subtly, probably immeasurably — helps students appreciate the class work, the discipline, and the camaraderie/community.

For instance: a student recently described one of my colleagues this way: “Oh, Ms. So-and-So! She’s the ONLY reason I like English…” Knowing Ms. So-and-So’s enthusiasm for her subject,  I can certainly understand why she would inspire a doubting high-school student.

And I suspect her enthusiasm ultimately means that this student learns more English.

As you can see, my hypothesis doesn’t stem from research. Heck: it’s so nebulous that I don’t think it could be researched.

In other words: do I think that a teacher’s enthusiasm ultimately enhances learning? I do. And: my belief springs not from research, but from experience and common sense. *

Moe, A., Frenzel, A. C., Au, L., & Taxer, J. L. (2021). Displayed enthusiasm attracts attention and improves recall. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 911-927.

* To be clear: I haven’t done a comprehensive search for research on teacher enthusiasm. I did plug this study into ConnectedPapers.com, and quickly scanned the results. As far as I could tell from this very brief look, research in this field is pursuing lots of helpful and optimistic leads, but doesn’t yet have confident conclusions. If you know of persuasive research looking at this topic, I hope you’ll let me know!

When Analogies Go Wrong: The Benefits of Stress?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 22, 2022

When Analogies Go Wrong: The Benefits of Stress?

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An amazing discovery becomes an inspiring analogy:

Researchers at BioSphere 2 noticed a bizarre series of events: their trees kept collapsing under their own weight.

Why on earth would trees collapse? It doesn’t happen outside the BioSphere; so why would it happen inside?

And then the researchers figured it out. The BioSphere doesn’t have wind.

Trees react to the stress of wind by growing stronger. If they don’t get that beneficial stress, they can’t stand up when they become adult trees.

And here’s the heart-warming bit: that’s true for humans too.

As we grow and develop, we need some modest, reasonable stresses in our lives. Those small stressors make our emotional “tree trunks” strong, so we can manage the greater stresses of adult life.

I really want to make an uplifting poster right now — don’t you?

First Things First

This story that I’ve told begins with science: “Researchers at the Biosphere…”

And so, when I read that story, I felt a small shudder of delight. I can use this story to explain to students — and parents, and teachers — the benefits of reasonable/modest stresses in their lives.

After all, it’s a GREAT story, and a great analogy.

Even better, I can share the research behind it. (That’s what I do for a living: share research with teachers, students, and parents.)

However, the website where I first read that story doesn’t link to any research.

Hmmm.

So, I started looking.

This trees-need-wind story (and its uplifting analogy) shows up frequently on the interwebs. In fact, I think I notice two waves — one around 2013, another around 2020.

But, exactly none of the articles included any scientific links — much less links supporting the claim.

Glimmers of Hope?

When I switched from Google to Google Scholar, I did find this brief report.

It appears in Science magazine — a highly reputable source — and includes this sentence:

The trunks and branches of large trees became brittle and prone to catastrophic and dangerous collapse.

So, have I found the scientific backing that this analogy was missing?

Alas, this sentence is but one part of a long catalogue of problems in BioSphere 2, as noted in that report:

Vines grew “exceptionally aggressive[ly].”

19 of 25 vertebrate species went extinct.

“All pollinators went extinct.”

CO2 levels, oxygen levels, temperature, and light exposure all went haywire.

And, NONE of these problems has much of anything to do with wind.

In fact, the word “wind” doesn’t appear in this brief article.

Simply put: as far as I can tell, the whole “wind makes trees stronger” story sounds great, but has no research backing — certainly not at Biosphere 2.

Some Conclusions

First: does wind help strengthen trees?

Maybe.

I’ve been reading about something called — believe it or not — “reaction wood.” You can read about it here.

Second: does manageable stress benefit people in the long run.

Sure.

Check out “Yerkes-Dodson.”

Third: should we use uplifting-but-false analogies to communicate important scientific truths?

As long as Learning and the Brain is here, heck no.

Failure to Disrupt by Justin Reich
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
May 17, 2022

Failure to Disrupt by Justin Reich

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Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education is a well-written critical synthesis of overzealous claims and unrealistic attempts to revolutionize education through technology. Its author, Justin Reich, is an Assistant Professor in the Comparative Media Studies department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he studies future learning. He is also the creator of several publications and EdX courses on education as well as the designer of online courses for teacher education (which he offers a critique of in the current work). His writing here, while critical of the field’s progress, is also inspiring with down-to-earth realism that gives the reader access to a balanced evaluation of technology’s impact on education.

The previous decades have been loaded with unfulfilled promises offered by technology. Fears that teachers would be replaced by computers were ultimately unrealized but too was the dream of a radical improvement and the democratization of a suffering education system. Bombarded by every innovation and the pandemic, the teacher and administrator could be forgiven for not seeing through the weeds of their own learning management systems. The claims have been loud, but the practice has become habitual and administrative without time or cognitive space for critical evaluation (although we have all had the best of intentions). Training new teachers on technology and standardizing systems have become the practices of everyday teaching. There is a lot out there, but no clear way to sort through it. This book is a nice place to catch up and get back in the game.

There is no doubt that this book is critical of aspects of the education-via-technology revolution, but Reich is not ranting against the use of technology. He instead grounds evaluation in research, breaking his insights into several themes. Schools, teachers, and society will often use new technologies not to innovate and transform ways of educating but instead they become new playgrounds for old practices. Current systems exhibit a strong gravity to maintain practices, and new technologies can become just another way to duplicate previous methods pulling along for the ride both what works and what doesn’t. Regarding computer-assisted instruction and assessment, we have found that these still are most effective at routine learning and highly formalized technical knowledge. They do not yet effectively tackle the development of communicative competence, critical thinking, abstract thinking, and reasoning. Furthermore, the promise of equity has not been borne out so far by the technology. It seems to be that those with greater access use the technology more frequently and more efficaciously than those who have been traditionally neglected by the system; as Reich argues, educational technology may widen already existing gaps. And finally, the promise of big data insights that have been so useful in other sciences has been severely limited by privacy laws and restrictions on student experimentation. The author dissuades us of the notion offered by the sales reps that the technology will be the magic pill of education. However, while these claims appear pessimistic, there is much more to this text than deconstructing the ed-tech industry.

Through engaging the book, the reader develops a better understanding of the larger ecology of instructional technologies. Reich arms the reader with systems of thinking and methods of evaluation that empower readers to be informed consumers of existing and emerging computer-aided instruction. Through this evaluation, Reich also makes the reader aware of their own practices in existing frameworks. I found myself rethinking what I was using technology for in the courses I teach but also learned about many other systems that were out there. What others are doing well, and how I could capitalize on their learnings to broaden my own impact. The reader can use this book similarly to tinker around the edges and discover what might work well for their content-specific learning goals while being aware of the potential caveats, persistent pitfalls, and opportunities while integrating technology in instruction.

One of Reich’s main points is that learning technologies are not wholly new. They are new forms of previous technologies and ways of thinking. We can also learn about current technologies by looking back at their historic forms and the theory that the new forms are built upon. This is also probably true of the field of education, often new theorists and practitioners repackage previous ideas and their successes or failures are somewhat predictable based on previous iterations.  Reich’s assessment of emerging systems helps unify this history and our ongoing missions in education.

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