2022 – Page 5 – Education & Teacher Conferences Skip to main content

Yearly Archives: 2022

Older posts
Newer posts
Handwritten Notes or Laptop Notes: A Skeptic Converted?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 16, 2022

Handwritten Notes or Laptop Notes: A Skeptic Converted?

Read More

Here’s a practical question: should our students take notes by hand, or on laptops?

If we were confident that one strategy or the other produced more learning – factual learning, conceptual learning, ENDURING learning – then we could give our students straightforwardly useful advice.

Sadly, the research in this field has – in my opinion – produced unhelpful advice because it rests on an obviously flawed assumption.

Happily, Dr. Paul Penn (Twitter handle @Dr_Paul_Penn) recently pointed me to a study with several pertinent benefits.

First, the researchers worked with 10-year-olds, not with adults. Research with college students can be useful, but it might not always help K-12 teachers.

Second, the research took place in the students’ regular classroom, not in a psychology lab. This more realistic setting gives us greater confidence in the research’s applicability.

Third, students took notes in both a science class and in a history class. The disciplinary breadth makes its guidance more useful.

Finally, this study – for reasons that I’ll explain – makes the “obviously flawed assumption” go away.

In this post,

I’ll start by explaining the new study.

Then I’ll explain the initial study (with the “obvious flaw”).

Then I’ll explain how the new study – by accident – makes that flaw go away.

I’ll wrap up with the big picture.

The Black Death, and Beyond

Researchers Simon Horbury and Caroline Edmonds had ten-year-olds watch videos in their history and science classes.

The history videos focused on the Black Death. The science video explored cells.

Students took laptop notes in one class, and handwritten notes in the other.

Immediately after the videos, and then again a week later, students took a multiple choice quiz. Questions covered both factual recall (“Where did the Black Death originate?”) and conceptual understanding (“Why were the wealthy less likely to be afflicted by the plague?”).

To be thorough, researchers even counted the number of words students wrote in their notes. (Believe it or not, this detail will turn out to be important at the end of this post.)

So, did it matter how students took notes?

Yup.

The study measures several variables, but the headline is: in both science and history, taking notes by hand improved learning – especially a week later.

The study includes lots of specifics — conceptual vs. factual, immediate test vs. week-later test — but that summary gets the job done.

Yes, this is a very small study (26 people at its biggest), so we shouldn’t think it’s the final word on the matter. But it offers good reason to believe that handwritten notes help.

Back to the Beginning

Like all research in this field, Horbury & Edmonds’s work rests atop a well-known study by Mueller and Oppenheimer, cleverly entitled “The Pen Is Mightier than the Laptop.”

I’ve written about this study several times before, so I’ll be brief here.

Mueller and Oppenheimer had one group of college students take notes by hand, and another group take notes on a laptop. They found that two variables mattered for learning:

Variable #1: the number of words students wrote. Crudely put: more words in notes resulted in more learning.

This finding isn’t terribly surprising. More writing suggests more thinking; more thinking suggests more learning.

Variable #2: the degree to which students reworded the lecture. Student who put the lecture’s ideas into their own words learned more than those who simply took notes verbatim.

Again, this finding makes sense. If I simply copy down the lecturer’s ideas, I’m not thinking much. If I put them in my own words, well, now I’m thinking more.

So far, so good. No obvious flaws.

Now the study gets tricky.

The students who took handwritten notes wrote FEWER words (that’s bad), so they had to REWORD the lecture (that’s good).

The students who took laptop notes could write MORE words (that’s good), so they ended up copying the lecture VERBATIM (that’s bad).

Which pairing of good+bad is better?

In Mueller and Oppenheimer’s conclusion, handwritten notes resulted in more learning.

It’s okay to write fewer words, as long as you’re rewording as you go. Remember: more rewording = more thinking.

Obvious Flaw

I promised several paragraphs ago to point out the obvious flaw in the study. Here goes:

Mueller and Oppenheimer saw an obvious possibility: if we TRAIN laptop note takers to reword, then they’ll get BOTH benefits.

That is, students who take laptop notes correctly get the advantages of more words and more rewording.

So much thinking! So much learning!

So, the researchers ran the study again. This time they included a third group: laptop note takers who got instructions not to reword.

What happened?

Nothing. Even though they got those instructions, laptop note takers continued to copy verbatim. They still remembered less than their handwriting peers.

The Mueller and Oppenheimer study draws this conclusion: since students can’t be trained to take laptop notes correctly – and they tried! – then handwritten notes are best.

WAIT JUST A SECOND. [Please mentally insert the sound of a record scratch here.]

The researchers told students – ONCE – to change a long-held habit (verbatim copying of notes). When students failed to do so, they concluded that students can’t ever change.

In my own experience, telling my students to do something once practically NEVER has much of an effect.

Students need practice. LOTS of practice. Practice and FEEDBACK. Lots of feedback.

Obviously.

In other words, I think the Mueller and Oppenheimer study contains a conspicuous failure in logic. We shouldn’t conclude that handwritten notes are better. We SHOULD conclude that we should teach students to take laptop notes and reword as they do so.

If they can learn to do so (of course they can!), then laptop notes will be better — because they allow more words AND rewording.

Muller and Oppenheimer’s own data make that the most plausible conclusion.

Conflicting Messages

To review:

The Horbury & Edmonds study suggests that handwritten notes are better.

The Mueller and Oppenheimer study suggests (to me, at least) that laptop notes will be better – as long as students are correctly trained to reword notes as they go.

Which advice should we follow?

My answer comes back to that obscure detail I noted in parentheses.

Horbury and Edmonds, you may remember, counted the number of words students wrote. Unlike the college students, who can type faster than they write, 10-year-olds don’t.

They wrote basically the same number of words by hand as they did on the laptop.

Here’s the key point: as long as students write as fast as they type, the hypothetical advantage that I predict for college laptop note-takers simply won’t apply to younger students.

After all, laptop notes provide additional benefit only if students write more words. These younger typists don’t write more words.

Since handwritten notes produce more learning, let’s go with those!

Final Thoughts

In this post, I’ve considered two studies about note taking and laptops.

In truth, several studies explore this field. And, unsurprisingly, the results are a bit of a hodge-podge.

If you want a broader review of research in this field, check out this video from Dr. Paul Penn, who first pointed me to the Horbury and Edmonds study:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXLHxf__poE

Given the research we have, I DON’T think we can make emphatic, confident claims.

But, based on this study with 10-year-olds, I’m much more open to the possibility that handwritten notes are — at least in younger grades — the way to go.

Horbury, S. R., & Edmonds, C. J. (2021). Taking class notes by hand compared to typing: Effects on children’s recall and understanding. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 35(1), 55-67.

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological science, 25(6), 1159-1168.

Too Good to Be True? “Even Short Nature Walks Improve Cognition”?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 08, 2022

Too Good to Be True? “Even Short Nature Walks Improve Cognition”?

Read More

Good news makes me nervous.

More precisely: if I want to believe a research finding, I become very suspicious of it. After all: it’s easy to fool me when I want to be fooled.

Specifically: I’m an outdoors guy. I’ve worked at summer camps for ages, and love a good walk in the forests around Walden Pond.

So, when I read research showing that even a brief nature walk produces cognitive benefits, I’m both VERY EXCITED and EXTRA SKEPTICAL.

Let’s start with the assumption that it’s just not true.

Persuade Me

The research I’m speaking of is in fact a review article; it summarizes and compares the results of 14 studies. (The review article was flagged by Professor Dan Willingham, one of the leaders in translating science research for the classroom.)

These 14 studies shared important commonalities:

First: they looked at “one-time” exposure to nature. They didn’t look at — say — outdoor education programs. Instead, they looked at — say — a brisk walk in a park near the school.

Second: these “one-time exposures” were all relatively brief — somewhere between 10 and 90 minutes.

Third: these “brief, one-time exposures” did NOT deliberately focus the participants on nature. That is: students didn’t walk in the park to learn about trees and birds. They walked in the park to have the experience of walking in the park.

I might be skeptical about one study. I might be skeptical of two studies. But if 14 studies (or a substantial percentage of them) all reach the same conclusion … well, maybe I’ll be persuaded.

Equally interesting: these studies ran the K-16 gamut. We’re not looking at a narrow age-range here: more like two decades.

Conclusions (and Questions)

So, what did this potentially-persuasive bunch of studies show?

YES: in 12 of the 14 studies, brief, one-time, passive exposure to nature does benefit cognition.

More specifically, researchers found benefits in measures of directed attention and working memory.

They looked for, but did not find, benefits in measures of inhibition (another important executive function).

And, crucially, they did not measure academic performance. If a walk in nature enhances attention and working memory, we can reasonably predict that it will also improve learning. But: these studies did not measure that prediction.

Because this review covers so many studies, it’s easy to get lost in the details.

One point I do want to emphasize: the impressive variety of “exposures.”

Some students walked or played in a park, woods, or nature trail.

Some simply sat and read outdoors.

Amazingly, some walked on a treadmill watching a simulated nature trail on the monitor.

In fact, some simply sat in a classroom “with windows open on to green space.”

In other words: it doesn’t take much nature to get the benefits of nature.

Inevitable Caveats

First: in these studies, exposure to nature helped restore attention and working memory capacity that had been strained.

It did not somehow increase overall attention and WM capacity in an enduring way. Students recovered faster. But they didn’t end up with more of these capacities than they started with.

Second: most of these “exposures” included some modest physical activity.

How much (if any) of the benefit came from that physical exertion, instead of the greenery?

We don’t yet know.

A Skeptic Converted?

I have to say, I’m strongly swayed by this review.

In the past, I’ve seen studies that might contradict this set of conclusions.

But the number of studies, the variety of conditions, the variety of cognitive measures, and the range of ages all seem very encouraging.

Perhaps we can’t (yet) say that “research tells us” brief exposures to nature benefit students. But I feel much more comfortable speculating that this belief just might be true.

Working Memory: Make it Bigger, or Use it Better?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 02, 2022

Working Memory: Make it Bigger, or Use it Better?

Read More

Cognitive science has LOTS of good news for teachers.

Can we help students remember ideas and skills better?

Yes, we can! (Check out retrieval practice and other desirable difficulties).

Can we promote students’ attention?

Yes, we can! (Posner and Rothbart’s “tripartite” theory gives us lots of guidance.)

Can we foster motivation?

Yes, we can! (As long as we’re modest about expectations and honest about the research, growth mindset can help.)

At the same time, we’ve occasionally got bad news as well.

Do cell phones distract students from their work?

Yes, they do! (Even when they’re turned off.)

Do students have “learning styles”?

Not in any meaningful way, no. (As Daniel Willingham says: when it comes to learning, people are more alike than different.)

The WORST News

I regularly talk with teachers and school leaders about working memory.

After a definition and some fun exercises, I emphasize three key points:

First: working memory is ESSENTIAL for learning. No academic information gets into long-term memory except through working memory. (Really.)

Second: it’s sadly LIMITED. (You probably can alphabetize 5 random words. You probably can’t alphabetize 10. You’ve run out of WM.)

Third: we know of no artificial way of making it bigger … except for letting children grow up. (WM capacity increases as we age, until our early twenties. No, you don’t want to know what happens next.)

This third point consistently creates genuine consternation.

Because: we REALLY want to make working memory bigger. After all: it’s essential, and it’s limited.

And because: almost every other cognitive function CAN get bigger.

If you want to learn more Spanish, practice Spanish. You’ll learn more.

If you want to get better at meditation, practice meditation; you’ll get better.

If you want to increase your working memory – and, trust me, you do – common sense suggests that practice should help.

That is: if you keep doing working memory exercises, your working memory should improve.

And yet, weirdly, it just doesn’t. People have tried and tried. Some companies make big claims.

Alas, we just don’t have consistent, robust research suggesting that any of these strategies work.

So, as I say, that’s really bad news.

Don’t Panic: There’s REALLY Good News

After all that bad news, it’s time for some good news. Let me start with an analogy.

I’m 5’10”.

I’m never the first pick for anyone’s basketball team. And: no matter how much I try, I’ll never get any taller.

However – and this is the key point – I can use the height I have more effectively. If I learn how to play basketball well (at my height), I can be a better player.

I’m not taller; my “height capacity” hasn’t changed. But my use of that height can improve.

So too, teachers can help students use the working memory they have more effectively.

In fact, we have LOTS of strategies for helping teachers do so. We have so many strategies that someone should write a book about them. (It’s possible I already did.)

For instance: “dual coding” doesn’t increase students’ WM capacity. It does, however, allow them to use more of the WM that they already have.

For that reason, dual coding – used correctly – can help students learn.

Don’t Stop Now

The good news keeps going.

Like dual coding, relevant knowledge in long-term memory reduces WM demands. The precise reasons get complicated, but the message is clear: students who know more can – on average – think more effectively.*

For that reason, a well-structured curriculum can help students learn. The knowledge they acquire along the way transforms WM-threatening tasks into WM-friendly tasks.

In many cases, simple common sense can manage WM load.

Once teachers understand why instructions take up WM space, we know how to dole out instructions more effectively.

Once we see why choices both motivate students’ interest and stress students’ WM, we can seek out the right number of choices.

So too, once we focus on “the curse of knowledge,” we start to recognize all the ways our own expertise can result in WM overload. This perspective powerfully reshapes lesson plans.

In other words: when teachers understand WM, we begin – naturally and intuitively – to adjust classroom demands to fit within cognitive limits.

That process takes time, with stumbles and muddles along the way. But the more we practice, the more skillful and successful we become.

And, notice this key point: none of these strategies make WM bigger. Instead, they help students use it better.

TL; DR

Although working memory is VITAL for learning, students (and adults) don’t have very much.

We therefore WANT to make it bigger.

The good news is: although we really can’t make it bigger, we really can help students use it more effectively.

When we shift our focus from making it bigger to using it better, we adopt teaching strategies that help students learn.

* For this reason, cognitive scientists get very antsy when they hear the claim that “students don’t need to know facts because they can look them up on the interwebs.” Because of working memory limits, students must have knowledge in long-term memory to use large amounts of it effectively.

Learning How to Learn: Do Video Games Help?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 25, 2022

Learning How to Learn: Do Video Games Help?

Read More

Long-time readers know: I like research that surprises me.

If a study confirms a belief I already have, I’m glad for that reinforcement. However, I have more to learn when a study challenges my beliefs.

As you’ll see below, I’m not always persuaded by challenging research. But: it’s always fun to explore.

Today’s Surprise

A study published last October grabbed my attention with its surprising title: Action video game play facilitates “learning how to learn.”

That title includes several shockers.

First: it suggests that action video games might be good for people.

Second: it suggests that they might even be good for learning.

Third: it suggests that “learning how to learn” is a thing. (I’m more skeptical about this concept than most; that’s a topic for another blog.)

Teacher and parent conversations often focus on the potential harms of action video games — both for children’s characters, and for their learning. So, this strong claim to the contrary certainly invites curiosity — even skepticism.

In fact, this study comes from researchers who have been looking at the cognitive benefits of action video games for several years now. Their work prompts lots of controversy; in other words, it might help us learn more about learning!

This study starts out with lots of promise…

Sims vs. Call of Duty

When you read research for a living (as I do), you start to develop an informal mental checklist about research methodology.

This study checks lots of boxes:

Plausible, active control group? Check.

Pre-registration? Check.

Appropriate uncertainty/humility? Check.

Sometimes when I look at surprising findings, I quickly dismiss them because the research paradigm doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

In this case, it all holds together well. (I should emphasize: I’m NOT an expert in this field, and other researchers might spot flaws that I don’t.)

The overall idea is straightforward enough. Researchers worked with two groups of college students.

First, researchers tested students’ “attentional control” and “working memory.”

Next, students played 45 hours (!) of video games.

The control group played games like Sims 3: in other words, a strategy video game, but not an action video game.

The study group played Call of Duty: Blacks Ops, and other such games that involve movement and aiming and navigating (and shooting).

Finally, they retested students’ attention and working memory. Here’s the kicker:

Researchers used new tests of working memory and attention. And, they watched to see how quickly students improved at these new tests.

Researchers wanted to know, in a tidy shorthand, did playing action video games help students “learn how to learn” these new attention/memory tests?

Results, and Implications

Did playing action video games help students learn new attention and memory tasks? YES.

Unfortunately, the research method here makes it hard to quantify the size of the benefit. (Bayesian statistics, anyone?) But the headline is: students in the action-video-game group did better than the strategy-video-game group at learning new cognitive skills.

What, then, should we conclude from this surprising research?

First: We have LOTS of reasons to dislike action video games, like “first-person shooters.” Many include morally repellent plot lines and actions. For some folks, the whole idea of a “game about shooting” is yucky.

At the same time, this study offers us a compelling, tantalizing clue — one that might encourage us to notice these games.

Here’s what I mean…

Second: If you focus on research into cognitive science, you know a) that working memory is ESSENTIAL to learning, b) we don’t have very much, and c) we don’t know of artificial ways to create more.

In other words: working memory limitations create a terrible bottleneck that constricts the potential for learning.

Other have tried to find ways to increase working memory. Some claim to do so. Very consistently, these research claims do not replicate.

BUT…

This study claims to have found a way to help increase working memory.

I can hardly overstate the importance of that news.

So Many Ifs

IF playing action video games improves working memory (we’re not yet sure it does,) and

IF those WM gains result in better learning (this research team didn’t test that question), and

IF we can figure out WHY and HOW such games work their working-memory magic, and

IF we can get those benefits with a game that doesn’t include shooting/killing (and all those moral qualms (IF you have those moral qualms)),

THEN we might be at the beginning of a very exciting process of discovery here.

I’m very interested in following this series of possibilities. Honestly: finding ways to enhance working memory would be a real game-changer for our profession…and potentially our species.

In brief: WATCH THIS SPACE.

(A Final Note)

This study doesn’t look at “learning how to learn” in the way that most people use that phrase.

Typically, “LHTL” involves teaching students about cognitive science and encouraging them to use those use that knowledge as they study.

This research, however, isn’t investigating that strategy.

 

Zhang, RY., Chopin, A., Shibata, K. et al. Action video game play facilitates “learning to learn”. Commun Biol 4, 1154 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02652-7

The Art of Insubordination by Todd Kashdan
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
April 20, 2022

The Art of Insubordination by Todd Kashdan

Read More

The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively, a provocative title in a time of incredible social turmoil. One may think Todd B. Kashdan focuses on defying a system that is oppressive and conformist; the title brings to mind today’s dominant political polarization and the culture wars but also the professional and academic communities that decry individual dissent. In some ways, this is exactly what this book addresses, but in a more profound way, it is a book about taking the chances necessary to discover yourself and build a deeper understanding of your relationship with the society around you. It is a book about growth ­– about psychological creativity, bravery, and flexibility.

This ‘cookbook’, as the author describes it, is about cultivating the strength to explore, openness to ideas that you can stand behind, the power to stand up for your beliefs, and the wisdom of humility. The reader is asked to consider their personal internalized social expectations in a critical light ­– challenge both forms of cognitive bias but also challenge the passive acceptance of social values. This psychological nudge is delivered through historical examples that tickle the curiosity funny bone but are also incredibly relevant in light of current events. They range from topics such as the male basketball players’ resistance to throwing underhanded to our historical complicity in violations of civil rights. What does it take to remain complicit when we feel internal distress and what does it take to nurture the bravery necessary to practice small and large acts of rebellion? It’s easy to see these examples generalized to current efforts of organized labor and the frustrating attempts to return to a pre-COVID world in the classroom that had its own problems we never addressed. Even if you do not see yourself as a rebel, your daily life is filled with opportunities for small acts of insubordination that could improve your lived experience and our shared experience.

Throughout this guided self-exploration, we are also presented with a critical synthesis of scientific evidence from social-emotional research. This includes the surfacing the recent research investigating ‘grit’ as a psychological construct through a clever critique without dismissing it. He practices what he suggests in this book by demonstrating critique and humility, and he asks that you do the same. Even when I found myself wanting to disagree, I felt cleverly disarmed and open to very valuable lessons.

Communities of research and practice often lead us to question whether we belong. His practices will help you not only fight effectively to be heard but also facilitate your development as a better team player at work. It’s not always about finding a new bubble sometimes it’s about exerting personal agency in a skilled way helping others recognize your value but also humbly recognizing theirs. There are more options offered here than subordination, changing careers, or feeling the pressure to fight for your life.

The book also lends itself well to educators and parents. It has an entire section devoted to the deliberate scaffolding of ‘insubordinate’ children, and this easily is generalized to teaching. One of the core goals of education is to foster critical thinking, but too often our goal of critical thinking simply is interpreted as a need to ‘be critical’. The author drives home the point that being a critical thinker involves being humble, empathetic, creative, and open-minded. As much of our current discussions are in echo chambers, the book helps readers as parents and participants in society engage in new diverse social arenas where we can negotiate new realities. Kashdan does not just tell you how important this is, he also builds a road map and offers practical exercises to help you navigate the social and emotional difficulties that will arise when you meet dissenters.

Principled rebellion is not about fighting others, is about the deliberate effort to challenge a system. It is not about combating and tolerating others, it’s about welcoming and fostering ways of thinking. Kashdan encourages us to cultivate our creativity, bring together disparate ideas, and open our minds to challenge systems.

Don’t Hate on Comic Sans; It Helps Dyslexic Readers (Asterisk)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 16, 2022

Don’t Hate on Comic Sans; It Helps Dyslexic Readers (Asterisk)

Read More

People have surprising passions.

Some friends regularly announce that the Oxford comma is a hill they’re ready to die on. (I’m an English teacher, and yet I wonder: you’re willing to die over a punctuation mark?)

With equal energy and frequency, Twitter and Facebook resonate with mockery of the typeface Comic Sans. (Again, it’s a typeface. Why all the pique?)

Comic-sans mockery, however, often earns this earnest rebuttal:

“Comic sans helps dyslexic readers, who struggle with other fonts. Comic sans isn’t dreadful; it’s essential!”

I’ve read this statement so often that I simply assumed it’s true. Would Twitter lie?

Just Checking…

I have, in fact, seen the claim that “comic sans benefits dyslexic readers” twice this week.

However, I’ve started to notice a curious silence: no one cites specific research to back up that claim.

So, I thought I’d find it for myself.

Long-time readers know my routine. I surfed over to Google Scholar, and searched the terms “dyslexia” and “font.” And, to be on the safe side, I also searched “dyslexia” and “comic sans.”

From there, I used Scite.ai and Connectedpapers.com to follow up on my findings.

The results surprised me, so I thought I’d pass them along.

Does Comic Sans Benefit Dyslexic Readers?

I don’t know.

More precisely, I can’t find research that explores that question directly.

When I did the searches described above, I found several studies that seemed promising. And yet, when I looked at the specifics, I found that the researchers hadn’t explored exactly this question.

For instance:

Several studies cite the British Dyslexia Association style guide as their source for this recommendation.

That guide does recommend Comic Sans (and other sans serif fonts, including Arial). However, it doesn’t cite any research to support that claim.

Hmmmm.

This study, helpfully called “Good Fonts for Dyslexia,” does indeed ask 48 dyslexic readers to study passages in different fonts. It asks exactly the question we’re trying to answer.

However, this research team didn’t include Comic Sans among the fonts they studied.

They do recommend Helvetica, Courier, Arial, Verdana and CMU for dyslexic readers. But they have no recommendation one way or the other about Comic Sans.

Double hmmmmm.

Most of the studies I found focus less on font and more on web design. (And, the most common font-related conclusion I found is: fonts designed to benefit dyslexic readers don’t.)

At this point, I simply don’t have a research-based answer to this question.

To Be Clear…

This search genuinely surprised me. Given the frequency of the claim — just google it! — I assumed I’d find a robust research pool.

But, no.

Given the potential for controversy here, I want to answer some likely questions:

“Are you saying Comic Sans DOESN’T help dyslexic readers?”

No. I’m saying I can’t find a research-based answer either way.

“If you’re not an expert in dyslexia, how can you be so sure?”

Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m usually fairly skilled at finding the research basis behind educational claims. (Heck, I wrote a book about doing so.) But in this case, I simply couldn’t discover a convincing answer to the question.

“Look, this research right here shows that Comic Sans does help!”

AWESOME! Please share it with me so I can write a follow-up post.

“My student/child/colleague tells me that Comic Sans helps a lot.”

That kind of individual experience is useful and important. I hope that researchers explore this question, so we can know with greater confidence whether or not it helps most dyslexic readers.

“How long did you look?”

Maybe an hour, spread out over two days. I certainly could have missed something. I hope you’ll let me know if you’ve got a study that looks at this possibility.

TL;DR

You might have heard that Comic Sans helps dyslexic readers; you might have heard that “research says so.”

Those claims might be true, but I haven’t (yet) found research supporting them. If you know of that research, please send it my way!

Perspectives on Critical Thinking: Can We Teach It? How Do We Know?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 12, 2022

Perspectives on Critical Thinking: Can We Teach It? How Do We Know?

Read More

Imagine the following scenario:

A school principal gathers wise cognitive scientists to ask a straightforward question…

“Because critical thinking is an essential 21st century skill, we know our students need to develop critical thinking skills. If we want to create a school program or a class or a curriculum to foster critical thinking, what guidance can you give us?”

Happily, we don’t have to imagine. At last week’s Learning and the Brain conference in New York, I asked a distinguished group of cognitive psychologists* exactly that question.

The resulting conversation offered practical suggestions, provocative assertions, and a surprising amount of humor.

I’ll try to summarize that half-hour conversation here.

On the One Hand…

Let’s start at one end of the spectrum, with the most optimistic ways to answer the question:

First: we know what critical thinking is.

Dr. Laura Portnoy, for instance, considers critical thinking the ability to support claims with evidence and reason.

If I claim that “the earth orbits the sun,” I should be able to cite evidence supporting that claim. And I should be able to explain the logical process I use to make conclusions based on that evidence.

Dr. Ben Motz agrees with that foundation, and adds an important step: critical thinkers recognize and avoid logical fallacies.

A comprehensive list of logical fallacies goes on for pages, but critical thinkers typically question their own beliefs aggressively enough to avoid the most common mistakes.

Second: we know how to foster critical thinking.

The specifics of an answer probably vary by age and discipline. However, we’ve got specific curricular strategies to help us foster critical thinking among students.

Dr. Laura Cabrera, with this truth in mind, offers a specific bit of advice: start early.

If we want students to grow as critical thinkers, we shouldn’t wait until their sophomore year in high school. Kindergarten would be a fine place to start.

On the Other Hand…

All these optimistic answers, however, quickly give way to grittier – perhaps more realistic – assessments of the situation.

First: because critical thinking is so complicated, no precise definition holds true in a broadly useful way. In other words – politely speaking – we can’t exactly define it.

In cognitive psychology terminology, as Dr. Derek Cabrera put it, “critical thinking has a construct validity problem.” In fact, the five psychologists on the panel – professors all – don’t agree on a definition.

Second: This definition problem has terrible implications.

If we can’t define critical thinking, broadly speaking, then we can’t determine a consistent way to measure it.

And if we can’t measure it, we have no (scientific) way of knowing if our “critical thinking program” helps students think critically.

Third: In fact, if we can’t measure students’ critical thinking skills right now, we might not realize that they’re already good at it.

Dr. Dan Willingham – author of the well-known Why Don’t Students Like School – made this point at the beginning of our conversation.

“Why,” he asked, “do you think your students have a critical thinking problem? What measurement are you using? What do you want them to do that they can’t do?”

In other words: it’s not obvious we should start a critical thinking program. Because we can’t measure students’ abilities, we just don’t know.

Dr. Derek Cabrera made this point quite starkly: “My advice about starting a critical thinking program is: don’t.”

Don’t Start Now

Even if we could measure critical thinking, as it first seemed we could, teachers might not want to give it disproportional attention.

Fourth: some panelists doubt that critical thinking is any more important than many (many) other kinds of thinking – creative thinking, interdisciplinary thinking, systems thinking, fuzzy logic…the list goes on.

Dr. Portnoy, for instance, champions good old-fashioned curiosity. If students ask the right questions (critical or otherwise), they’re doing good thinking and learning.

Why, then, would it be bad if they aren’t doing critical thinking, narrowly defined?

The Cabreras, indeed, argue that students trained to think critically often get too critical. They stamp out potentially good ideas (that spring from imaginative thinking) with all their skills at critical thinking.

Fifth: opportunity cost.

Schools already have far too much to do well, as Dr. Willingham frankly pointed out.

If we plan to add something (a critical thinking program/curriculum), we should know what we plan to take out.

And, we should have a high degree of confidence that the new program will actually succeed in its mission.

If we remove a program that does accomplish one goal and replace it with one that doesn’t, our efforts to improve schools will – paradoxically – have deprived students of useful learning.

Making Sense of the Muddle

All these points might seem like bad news: we (perhaps) don’t know what critical thinking is, and (perhaps) shouldn’t teach it even if we did. Or could.

That summary, I think, overlooks some important opportunities that these panelists highlighted.

Dr. Motz offers specific ways to define critical thinking. His talk at the conference, in fact, focused on successful strategies to teach it.

Even better: he wants teachers to join in this work and try it out with their own students.

The question we face, after all, is not exactly “can I teach critical thinking — generally) — to everyone?”

It is, instead: “can I teach critical thinking — defined and measured this way — to my students?”

If the answer to that question is “yes,” then perhaps I should make room for critical thinking in my students’ busy days.

Made wiser by these panelists’ advice, I know better how to define terms, to measure outcomes, to balance several thinking skills (including curiosity!).

When researchers’ perspectives on critical thinking helps us think critically about our teaching goals, we and our students benefit.

* The panelists: Dr. Derek Cabrera, Dr. Laura Cabrera, Dr. Benjamin Motz, Dr. Lindsay Portnoy, Dr. Dan Willingham.

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts…
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 26, 2022

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts…

Read More

Teacher training programs often encourage us to brighten our classrooms with lively, colorful, personal, and uplifting stuff:

Inspirational posters.

Students’ art work.

Anchor charts.

Word walls.

You know the look.

We certainly hope that these decorations invite our students in and invigorate their learning. (We might even have heard that “enriched environments promote learning.”)

At the same time, we might worry that all those decorations could distract our students from important cognitive work.

So, which is it? Do decorations distract or inspire? Do they promote learning or inhibit learning? If only we had research on this question…

Part I: Early Research

But wait: we DO have research on this objection.

Back in 2014, a team led by Dr. Anna Fisher asked if classroom decorations might be “Too Much of a Good Thing.”

They worked with Kindergarten students, and found that — sure enough — students who learned in highly-decorated rooms paid less attention and learned less than others in “sparsely” decorated classroom.

Since then, other researchers have measured students’ performance on specific mental tasks in busy environments, or in plain environments.

The results: the same. A busy visual field reduced working memory and attention scores, compared to plain visual environments.

It seems that we have a “brain-based” answer to our question:

Classroom decorations can indeed be “too much of a good thing.”

Taken too far, they distract students from learning.

Part II: Important Doubts

But wait just one minute…

When I present this research in schools, I find that teachers have a very plausible question.

Sure: those decorations might distract students at first. But, surely the students get used to them.

Decorations might make learning a bit harder at first. But ultimately students WON’T be so distracted, and they WILL feel welcomed, delighted, and inspired.

In this theory, a small short-term problem might well turn into a substantial long-term benefit.

And I have to be honest: that’s a plausible hypothesis.

Given Fisher’s research (and that of other scholars), I think the burden of proof is on people who say that decorations are not distracting. But I don’t have specific research to contradict those objections.

Part III: The Researchers Return

So now maybe you’re thinking: “why don’t researchers study this specific question”?

I’ve got good news: they just did.

In a recently-published study, another research team (including Fisher, and led by Dr. Karrie Godwin, who helped in the 2014 study) wondered if students would get used to the highly decorated classrooms.

Research isn’t research if we don’t use fancy terminology, so they studied “habituation.” As in: did students habituate to the highly decorated classrooms?

In the first half of their study, researchers again worked with Kindergarteners. Students spent five classes studying science topics in plainly decorated classrooms. (The visual material focused only on the topic being presented.)

Then they spent ten classes studying science topics in highly decorated classrooms. (These decorations resembled typical classroom decorations: posters, charts, artwork, etc.)

Unsurprisingly (based on the 2014 study), students were more distractable in the decorated classroom.

But: did they get used to the decorations? Did they become less distractable over time? Did they habituate?

The answer: a little bit.

In other words: students were less distractible than they initially were in the decorated classroom. But they were still more distractible than in the sparsely decorated room.

Even after ten classes, students hadn’t fully habituated.

Part IV: Going Big

This 2-week study with kindergarteners, I think, gives us valuable information.

We might have hoped that students will get used to decorations, and so benefit from their welcoming uplift (but not be harmed by their cognitive cost). So far, this study deflates that hope.

However, we might still hold out a possibility:

If students partially habituate over two weeks, won’t they fully habituate eventually? Won’t the habituation trend continue?

Team Godwin wanted to answer that question too. They ran yet another study in primary school classrooms.

This study had somewhat different parameters (the research nitty-gritty gets quite detailed). But the headline is: this study lasted 15 weeks.

Depending on the school system you’re in, that’s between one-third and one-half of a school year.

How much did the students habituate to the visual distractions?

The answer: not at all.

The distraction rate was the same after fifteen weeks as it was at the beginning of the year.

To my mind, that’s an AMAZING research finding.

Putting It Together

At this point, I think we have a compelling research story.

Despite our training — and, perhaps, despite our love of decoration — we have a substantial body of research suggesting that over-decorated classrooms interfere with learning.

The precise definition of “over-decorated” might take some time to sort out. And, the practical problems of putting up/taking down relevant learning supports deserves thought and sympathetic exploration.

However: we shouldn’t simply hope away the concern that young students can be distracted by the environment.

And we shouldn’t trust that they’ll get used to the busy environment.

Instead, we should deliberately create environments that welcome students, inspire students, and help students concentrate and learn.

Fisher, A. V., Godwin, K. E., & Seltman, H. (2014). Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children: When too much of a good thing may be bad. Psychological science, 25(7), 1362-1370.

Godwin, K. E., Leroux, A. J., Seltman, H., Scupelli, P., & Fisher, A. V. (2022). Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children’s Attention. Cognitive Science, 46(2), e13093.

Why Time is a Teacher’s Greatest Commodity…and What to Do When You Don’t Have Enough of It
Guest Post
Guest Post
March 23, 2022

Why Time is a Teacher’s Greatest Commodity…and What to Do When You Don’t Have Enough of It

Read More

Today’s guest post is by Jim Heal, Director of New Initiatives, and Rebekah Berlin, Senior Program Director at Deans for Impact.

Long-time readers know how much I respect the work that Deans for Impact does. Their Resources — clear, brief, research informed, bracingly practical — offer insight and guidance in this ever-evolving field.

Ask any teacher to name a rare commodity in their profession and there’s a good chance they will reply with the word: “Time.” Whether it’s time to plan, grade, or even catch one’s breath in the midst of a busy school day, time matters.

Time is perhaps most important when it comes to time spent focusing on the material you want students to learn. So, how do you ensure that you’re making the most of the time you have with students and that they’re making the most of the way you structure their time?

Water Is Life

To answer this, let’s consider the following scenario. You’re a 7th Grade ELA teacher teaching a lesson on ‘Water is Life’ – a nonfiction text by Barbara Kingsolver. One of the objectives for this lesson is: Analyze the development of ideas over the course of a text.

You know from reading the teacher’s guide that student success will require them to compare two parts of the reading: a section describing a lush setting with an abundance of water and another describing an arid setting where rain hardly ever falls. Comparing the two will allow students to explore one of the main ideas of the text: The environmental role played by water and water sustainability.

Here is the section of the lesson[1] designed to address these aims. Take a moment to read it and consider when students are being asked to think deeply about comparing the two settings:

You arrive at school on the morning you’re due to teach this content, and there’s an unexpected announcement for students to attend club photo sessions for the yearbook during your lesson.

Big Changes, Little Time

At this point you realize that, by the time your class gets back together, you’ll need to cut ten minutes from this part of the lesson and now you have a choice to make:

If you only had twenty minutes to teach the thirty minutes of content you had planned for, how would you adapt your plan so that the most important parts of the lesson remained intact?

Let’s begin addressing this challenge with a couple of simple truths:

First: The harder and deeper we think about something, the more durable the memory will be. This means that we need students to think effortfully about the most important content in any lesson if we want it to stick.

Second: If you treat everything in the lesson as equally valuable and try to squeeze it all into less time, students are unlikely to engage in the deep thinking they need to remember the important content later.

Therefore, something’s got to give.

To help determine what goes and stays, you’re going to need to differentiate between three types of instructional tasks that can feature in any given lesson plan.

Effortful Tasks

Tasks and prompts that invite students to think hard and deep about the core content for that lesson.

In the case of ‘Water is Life’ a quick review of the plan tells us the effortful question (i.e. the part that directs students to the core knowledge they will need to think deeply about) doesn’t come until the end of the allotted thirty minute period.

This question is this lesson’s equivalent of the ‘Aha!’ moment in which students are expected to “analyze the development of ideas over the course of the text” (the lesson objective) by exploring the way the author uses juxtaposition across the two settings.

If you reacted to the shortened lesson time by simply sticking to the first twenty minutes’ worth of content, the opportunity for students to engage in the most meaningful part of the lesson would be lost. It’s therefore crucial to ask what is most essential for student learning in each case and ensure that those parts are prioritized.

Essential Tasks

Foundational tasks and prompts that scaffold students to be able to engage with the effortful questions that follow.

Just because effortful thinking about core content is the goal, that doesn’t mean you should make a beeline for the richest part of the lesson without helping students build the essential understanding they will need in order to engage with it effortfully.

In the case of ‘Water is Life’ – even though some of the tasks aren’t necessarily effortful, they are an essential stair step for students to be able to access effortful thinking opportunities.

For example, consider the moment in the lesson immediately prior to the effortful thinking prompt we just identified:

As you can see, even though we want students to go on and address the effortful task of juxtaposing the language in each of the two settings, that step won’t be possible unless they have a good understanding of the settings themselves. This part might not be effortful, but it is essential.

In this example, it isn’t essential that students share their understanding of each setting as stated in the plan, but it is essential that they do this thinking before taking on a complex question about juxtaposed settings. In other words, the instructional strategy used isn’t essential, but the thinking students do is.

Armed with this understanding, you can now shave some time off the edges of the lesson, while keeping its core intentions intact. For instance, in a time crunch, instead of having groups work on both questions the teacher could model the first paragraph and have students complete the second independently.

Strategies like these would ensure students engage more efficiently in the essential tasks – all of which means more time and attention can be paid to the effortful task that comes later on.

Non-Effortful, Non-Essential Tasks

Lower-priority tasks and prompts that focus on tangential aspects of the core content.

Lastly, there are those parts that would be nice to have if time and student attention weren’t at a premium – but they’re not effortful or essential in realizing the goals of the lesson.

If your lesson plan is an example of high-quality instructional materials (as is the case with ‘Water is Life’) you’ll be less likely to encounter these kinds of non-essential lesson components. Nevertheless, even when the lesson plan tells you that a certain section should take 30 minutes, it won’t tell you how to allocate and prioritize that time.

This is why it’s so important to identify any distractions from the ‘main event’ of the lesson. Because effortful questions are just that: they are hard and students will need more time to grapple with their answers and to revise and refine their thinking – all of which can be undermined by non-essential prompts.

For instance, it might be tempting to ask…

…“What was your favorite part of the two passages?”

…“What does water sustainability mean to you?”

…“Has anyone ever been to a particularly wet or dry place? What was it like?

These might seem engaging – and in one definition of the term, they are – it’s just that they don’t engage students with the material you want them to learn. For that reason alone, it’s important to steer clear of adding questions not directly related to your learning target in a lesson where you’re already having to make difficult choices about what to prioritize and why.

Three Key Steps

It’s worth noting that, even though our example scenario started with a surprise announcement, this phenomenon doesn’t only play out when lesson time gets unexpectedly cut. These kinds of decisions can happen when you know your students will need more time to take on an effortful question than the curriculum calls for, or even when lesson time is simply slipping away faster than you had anticipated. In either case, you would need to adjust the pacing of the lesson to accommodate the change, and bound up within that would be the prioritization of its most important parts.

There are steps one can take to ensure the time you have becomes all the time you need. Here are three such strategies informed by Deans For Impact’s work supporting novice and early-career teachers:

Identify the effortful tasks – aka the opportunities for effortful thinking about core content within the lesson. These effortful ‘Aha!’ moments can appear towards the end of the lesson, so don’t assume that you can trim content ‘from the bottom up’ since that could result in doing away with the most important parts for student learning.

Determine which are the essential tasks – aka the foundational scaffolds students will need in order to engage with those effortful thinking opportunities. These stepping stone tasks will often deal with the knowledge and materials students need to engage in the effortful part of the lesson. Even though they can’t be removed, they can be amended. If in doubt, concentrate on the thinking students need to do rather than the surface features of the instructional strategy.

Trim those parts of the lesson that don’t prompt effortful thinking or the foundational knowledge required to engage in it. This means that anything NOT mentioned in the previous two strategies is fair game for shrinking, trimming or doing away with altogether. Ask yourself whether this part of the lesson is instrumental in getting students to engage deeply with the content you want them to take away.

So, even if lesson time always feels like it’s running away (which it often is!) there are steps we can take to ensure teachers (and subsequently students) make the most of it.

Jim Heal is Director of New Initiatives at Deans for Impact and author of ‘How Teaching Happens’. He received his master’s in School Leadership and doctorate in Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Rebekah Berlin is Senior Director of Program at Deans for Impact. She received her Ph.D. in teaching quality and teacher education from the University of Virginia.

If you’d like to learn more about the work of Deans for Impact, you can get involved here.

[1] “Grade 7: Module 4B: Unit 1: Lesson 1” by EngageNY. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

 

Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12 by Peter Liljedahl
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
March 21, 2022

Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12 by Peter Liljedahl

Read More

Initially, I looked at this title and thought “not another best practice book” the bookstores already have too many poor books on how to teach content effectively. However, I begrudgingly opened Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning and found an unexpected reward. As a learning scientist, I was pleasantly surprised by Peter Liljedahl’s approach to education. There is no ivory tower mentality here: no belief that teachers need to align with abstract theory or laboratory learnings not grounded in practice. Liljedahl really sees teachers! The contents of this book come from countless observations and trials in real classrooms and the best practices that emerged from them.  He begins with a basic premise in his observations asking what the factors that encourage “thinking” in the mathematics classroom are; and then, based on extensive research, he unwraps 14 concrete and often deceptively simple recommendations that have emerged.

Yes, a best practices book can be a page-turner. I am not a math teacher, and I would say I did not have a pleasant experience with math in my youth. However, what I was reading here really resonated with me, and the recommendations for enhancing learning are not isolated to mathematics. The reader’s attention is drawn to practices that, at times, seem minor but can have big impacts on learning.  Consistent with the author’s notion of encouraging thinking, the material is presented in such a way that it provokes curiosity. Amazingly simple questions spark interest: where should students practice math: whiteboards on the wall, whiteboards on the table, posterboards, or notebooks? He takes us through the investigation predicting our thinking and ending each section with frequently asked questions that reveal he has had plenty of field experience with teachers and skeptics.

Each chapter engages the teacher’s likely goals and a comparison to student goals. Throughout the book, I found myself in the narrative of each giving me insight into my learning and my teaching. Take group work that is central to every active classroom: when we are instructors, we plan groupings carefully; but when we are students, we often have another interpretation of instructor efforts in mind, and we have our own social goals. Liljedahl brings these into some alignment, so both student and teacher work toward deeper thinking. As the author points out, students and teachers love to think and think deeply when the conditions facilitate and don’t interfere or distract.

While each chapter ends with a summary of the main points in the form of macro and micro moves that we can take as educators, the meat of the chapters offers valuable context and back up the claims in ways that allow us to spread the knowledge captured in these pages among our peers. I tried to critique every suggestion, but the author was particularly good at anticipating this doubt, and those points not addressed in the main narrative were given direct attention in the frequently asked questions sections at the end of each chapter, a part that I particularly enjoyed.

But best practices mean little in standardized systems that constrain our ability to create — “There is no more time. There is no room to add more. ” Stop fretting, evidence is loaded into these pages that refute that the teacher is too constrained to enhance learning in these ways. The author breaks down curricular time into minute-by-minute activities demonstrating that these practices enable efficient use of classroom time. Other concerns about making sure you meet curricular demands are also addressed. Not all activities are curricular and that’s ok; instead, they often prepare the learner to do curricular activities effectively. Constrained by finance? Alternatives abound and are supported by previous implementation and testing. If you have reasons to not enhance student learning as suggested, be prepared to have those concerns alleviated.

So the book is useful for teachers, but what about the researcher who yearns for an academic discussion. If this is you, you also have something great to learn on these pages. This book is an illustrative guide of one excellent way to do great learning science research. The researcher will learn from Liljedahl’s communication and experience with teachers. But will also be tickled by the attention to detail and nuance that is enjoyable in all scientific endeavors. Science is about seeing and noticing and letting the data teach us. This is what you will find here making it an excellent lighthearted college text for preparing teachers or researchers.

Often an education book offers much for the reader as both a teacher and a learner. This book is no exception. Take some of these practices to your own learning opportunities, places of work, research labs, and faculty meetings. Enjoy thinking deeply with Liljedahl.

Liljedahl, P. (2020). Building thinking classrooms in mathematics, grades K-12: 14 teaching practices for enhancing learning. Corwin Press

Older posts
Newer posts