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Monthly Archives: January 2024

Putting It All Together: Connecting “Motivation” with “Teaching Style”
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January-28-2024

Putting It All Together: Connecting “Motivation” with “Teaching Style”

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Researchers tend to focus on particular topics in education.

Some folks study attention, while others look at motivation.

A research team here might look at working memory, while that team over there considers sleep.

And: let’s not forget about technology!

Of course, it’s useful to have specialists in each of these fields; each one is highly complicated.

At the same time, as teachers, we need to understand how all the pieces fit together.

College student smiling while taking notes on while studying

After all, if I’m successfully managing my students’ working memory load, but they’re not paying attention, then all my working-memory efforts have gone to waste.

For this reason, we’d like greater clarity about putting the pieces together.

For instance, you might wonder: what’s the relationship between cognitive load and motivation?

I’m so glad you asked…

Calling Austrialia

In a recently-published study, an international group of researchers asked almost 1300 Australian students in grades 7-10 to fill out surveys about their academic experience.

Some questions asked student to rate their teachers’ efforts to reduce the complexity of the material (that is, the “instructional load”):

On a scale of 1-7, they responded to statements like:

“When we learn new things in class, the teacher makes it easy at first.”

“As we work on tasks or activities in this class, the teacher gives good assistance.”

“In this class, the teacher makes sure we get enough practice before moving on to new tasks or activities.”

Other statements focused mental work the students were doing (that is, their “cognitive load”):

“The work in this class is very difficult for me.”

“The way information is presented in this class is too complex.”

Still others inquired about the teachers’ motivational strategies, and the students’ experience of motivation:

“The teacher communicates which learning goals he/she expects you to accomplish
by the end of the lesson;”

“The teacher doesn’t plan or organize too much. The lesson will just happen;”

“The teacher offers a very interesting, highly engaging lesson;”

“The teacher insists that you have to finish all your required work—no exceptions, no excuses”

As you can see right away, these researchers have an ENORMOUS amount of data to crunch as they calculate the relationships among all these variables.

By the way, we should note the researchers’ method here: they’re considering survey data. Some people — quite reasonably — worry that survey data can’t really capture classroom reality.

For instance, a student might perceive that “the teacher doesn’t plan or organize too much. The lesson will just happen.” But that perception might be entirely inaccurate.

With that caveat in mind, what did the researchers find?

The (Basic) Results: Reversing Assumptions

Given all the variables measured above, we can expect LOTS of findings — reported in graphs and equations and declarations.

What does it all boil down to?

The simple summary reverses a common belief.

Teachers often assume that “when my students feel motivated, they will learn more.”

These data suggest that “when my students learn more, they feel motivated.”

More precisely: according to the survey data, teachers who ensure that cognitive load remains managable help students learn more. That additional learning correlates with higher subsequent motivation.

This finding makes a rough-n-ready sense. For example: my students rarely clamor to learn grammar; they are, honestly, not super motivated to do so.

However, part of their demotivation results from the fact that grammar learning is notoriously difficult. (“Object complements,” anyone?) My students just feel bad when they keep failing at it.

If I teach well — that is, if I reduce the cognitive load of learning grammar — they are likelier to succeed at doing so. Result: they feel less demotivated. Heck, they might even feel motivated.

The (Advanced) Results: All That Lingo

Research ain’t research if it doesn’t include lots of niche-y terminology.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, the terminology here gets rather confusing.

Because the research team draws on two very different fields (working memory, motivation), and two different theories (cognitive load, self-determination), we can easily get bogged down in the terminological niceties.

For example, the researches consider a teacher’s motivational style along two axes: do the teachers support or thwart students’ needs; are they highly directive or not. The resulting four quadrants are broken down into further sub-categories, resulting in — I’m not joking here — EIGHT different teaching styles: “attuning,” “guiding,” “clarifying,” “demanding,” “domineering,” and so forth.

The word “autonomy” — quite an important word in self-determination theory — leads to particular puzzles.

We might reasonably think that “autonomy” means “the teacher encourages students by giving them relatively more freedom to explore and solve problems on their own.” However, in this terminological world:

“Autonomy support … directs attention towards activities that are necessary for learning, thus reducing the proportion of cognitive load that is extraneous.”

Which is to say, teachers support autonomy by “directing” students in specific ways. Lots of student freedom might sound “autonomous,” but that’s not what the word “autonomy” means in this context.

To Sum Up

I’ve focused on this terminology because I think the study’s results are easy to misunderstand.

Here is their conclusion, quoted from the abstract:

We conclude that by using load-reducing strategies and a motivating style characterized by structure and autonomy support, teachers can reduce students’ cognitive load and improve their self-regulated motivation, engagement, and achievement.

In that sentence, “autonomy support” does NOT mean “give students lots of freedom” or “be sure to emphasize voice and choice.” Instead, it means “students can think effectively and autonomously when teachers direct them towards specific and manageable cognitive work.”

That effective thinking, it turn, results in more learning, and higher levels of motivation.

The big picture: by putting together two distinct research fields — cognitive load theory and self determination theory — we can start to get a clearer picture of complex classroom realities.

 

 

A final note:

The title of this blog post includes the phrase “teaching style” because the researchers use it.

That phrase, however, does NOT mean that “learning styles” are a thing. They’re not.

Evans, P., Vansteenkiste, M., Parker, P., Kingsford-Smith, A., & Zhou, S. (2024). Cognitive Load Theory and Its Relationships with Motivation: a Self-Determination Theory Perspective. Educational Psychology Review, 36(1), 7.

Overwhelmed Teachers: The Working-Memory Story (Part II) [Updated with Link]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January-24-2024

Overwhelmed Teachers: The Working-Memory Story (Part II) [Updated with Link]

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Last week, I offered an unusual take on working memory in the classroom.

Typically, I (and other writers) focus on the dangers of students’ working memory overload. Of course, we SHOULD focus on that problem — when students’ working memory is overloaded, they stop learning (temporarily).

Young teacher wearing sweater and glasses sitting on desk at kindergarten clueless and confused expression with arms and hands raised.

But last week, I focused on the dangers of a teacher’s working memory overload.

If I’m experiencing cognitive muddle, I won’t be able to explain concepts clearly, or answer questions coherently, or remember important school announcements. (Or, remember to buy the dog food on my drive home.)

So, I suggested teachers start by ANTICIPATING potential causes of working memory overload. (Say: teaching a complicated concept, or, unusual stresses at home.)

We should also be able to IDENTIFY working memory overload when it happens. (When my own working memory gets overloaded, I lose track of sentences and start garbling words.)

Next up:

Step #3: SOLVING — or mitigating, or reducing — working memory problems.

As always, the specific strategies that benefit me might not work for you. As my mantra goes: “don’t just do this thing; instead, think this way.”

The Power of Routines

By definition, routines live in long-term memory. Therefore, I don’t need to process them in working memory.

For that reason, classroom routines reduce my working memory load. (Important additional benefit: they also reduce working memory load for my students.)

So: I (almost) always begin class with a “do now” exercise. When students enter the classroom, they see that I’ve written questions on the board. They sit down and start writing their answers in their notebooks.

Once that routine has formed, I can use my working memory to process the answers that they’re writing, not to think about what I should be doing at this moment.

After we discuss their answers to my “do now” questions, I (almost) always review the previous night’s homework. I then remind them of their homework for the upcoming class. (This habit means that I don’t have to scramble and shout the assignment at them as they’re going out the door.)

Turn and talk? We have a routine.

Cold call? We have a routine.

Write your answers on the board? See previous answer.

By the way, Peps Mccrea wisely notes that creating routines takes time. That is: we initially spend class time on routine building, and therefore have less time for — say — learning.

But: once those routines are in place, we GAIN lots more time than we spent. And, because my working memory load has been reduced, I’ve got more working memory headroom to teach effectively.

Offload the Job

Of course, lots of the teaching work we do requires nimble and effective response to moment-by-moment events — responses that can’t be made into a routine.

In these cases, recruiting working memory allies can be an enormous boon.

During the 2021-22 school year, I had the great good forture of sharing a class with another teacher.

When I found myself getting verbally tangled — a clear sign of working memory overload — I would often hand off:

“Oh, wow, I can feel a mental traffic jam coming on. Mr. Kim, can you take over? What was I saying? Can you clarify the muddle I just made?”

He would then un-knot the explanatory thread I had tangled, and I’d have time to regain my mental bearings.

This strategy also helped out during hybrid teaching.

With most of my students seated in the classroom before me, I could quite easily forget all about the one or two “participating” from the iPad.

A wise colleague suggested creating a “buddy” system. The remote students picked an in-class buddy — and the buddy would check in to be sure they understood the discussion, heard their classmates’ comments, and had a chance to ask questions.

Because the buddy had that responsibility, I didn’t have to worry about it so much. Voila: working memory load reduced.

Offload, Part II

As I noted last week, working memory selects, holds, reorganizes, and combines bits of information.

So, the less information I have to “select and hold,” the lower the working memory load.

One easy way to offload the “select/hold” responsibilities: WRITE STUFF DOWN.

A few examples:

Following Ollie Lovell’s advice, I’ve started crafting “bullet-proof definitions” of important concepts. Because such a definition requires precision and nuance, it’s easy to get the words or the phrasing wrong.

For those reasons, I write down my bullet-proof definitions. I don’t have to use working memory to recall the nuances; I’ve got them on the page right in front of me.

Another strategy:

I write down the start/end times for each of my lesson-plan segments.

That is: my lesson plan might note that we’ll have a discussion about comic and tragic symbols in Act 3 Scene 4 of Macbeth — the famous “banquet scene.”

My notes will include the important line-numbers and passages to highlight.

And, I’ll also write down the times: the discussion begins at 10:12, and goes to 10:32.

This level of detail might sound silly. However, if I DON’T write those times, my working memory will be extra cluttered.

That is: part of my working memory will be processing our discussion (“Notice that Benjamin’s point contradicts Ana’s earlier argument. Can we resolve that disagreement?”).

But at least some of my working memory will be trying to calculate how much more time to spend (“If I let this part of the discussion go on to long, then we won’t have time Act 4 Scene 1. When should I stop?”)

That extra working-memory drag will slow down my processing ability for the scene discussion.

These simple steps to offload working memory demands help me focus on the teaching part of my job.

Your Turn

The strategies I’ve outlined above have helped me reduce the working-memory demands of my own teaching. In theory, anyway, they should help me teach more effectively. (You’ll have to ask my students how effective they’ve really been…)

Of course, these specific strategies might not help you.

The goal, therefore, is NOT that you do what I do. Instead, I hope you’ll think the way I thought: how to anticipate, identify, and reduce working-memory problems.

The more time you devote to these steps, the lower your working memory demands will be. The result: your students too will appreciate the clarity and focus of your classroom.

 

Update: 2/4/24

It seems I’m not the only one focusing on working memory overload for teachers.

Here’s a recent blog post from Doug Lemov — with videos!

Get It Done by Ayelet Fishbach
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
January-23-2024

Get It Done by Ayelet Fishbach

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Screenshot 2024-01-23 at 12.24.30 PMOver the last few months, I have been working with a student who is retaking a class for a third time, not failing because the material was difficult for her but because she just could not get herself to progress. This is a pattern in college and life for her. She expresses a strong desire to succeed but struggles to muster the motivation needed to stay on track. Often, she begins a course or class projects with great intentions but finds her motivation waning over time. She even sets clear goals and then watches them sit on her desk. The recurring message she receives from others (and increasingly from herself) has been perhaps that she doesn’t want it badly enough, but when she self-reflects, this is a sentiment she vehemently disagrees with. She wants it with all her heart, and it brings her to tears but has been lost on how to move from “want” to “motivated.”

While engaging with her I began to read Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation by Ayelet Fishbach. And wow what a timely read! Unlike traditional productivity books, Fishbach delves into the science of motivation and offers insights on how to bridge the gap between wanting to do something and actually accomplishing it.

Engaging in discussions with my student about goal-setting and goal-sustaining advice from this book appears to have breathed new life into her journey. She has begun to see motivation as a skill that can be cultivated and is enthusiastic about doing so, especially within a social context of both our classroom interactions as well as working with her family. Importantly this enthusiasm is sustained. This experience has led me to view this book not only as a valuable self-help resource but also as a tool to assist others. Instead of dictating what individuals should do, it equips you with the scaffolding necessary to guide conversations with yourself and others that can support self-actualization.

The book’s first three parts primarily focus on three key ingredients for improving your drive to accomplish projects, not just mechanically getting lists of tasks done. Firstly, Fishbach provides guidance on articulating your goals effectively, ensuring that they serve as a driving force not just an artifact. Secondly, she addresses the challenge of maintaining motivation throughout the journey towards your goals. Lastly, she emphasizes the interconnectedness of our goals within the context of our busy lives and offers essential strategies to manage multiple goals.

She highlights the importance of recognizing that goal achievement is not solely an individual endeavor, but something influenced by our interactions with others. By harnessing these social connections, you can propel yourself forward and, in turn, help those around you. In the fourth section of the book Fishbach promotes the idea that goal-setting is a collaborative effort that can strengthen relationships. Through great stores and points of discussion, she equips readers with tools to become better mentors to their students or support systems for their families.

As a productivity book, this is also an easy read. While the insights are original and grounded in scientific research, these stories are informative, enjoyable, and brief. Any good productivity book should be a quick easy read from which you can extract useful tips and understand why you are about to embark on the suggestions offered, not a long drawn-out process that becomes another difficult goal to attain. While succeeding in this regard, this book is also hugely helpful to complement any other productivity methodology demonstrating that goals are not only things that need to get done but they add meaning to our lives, something often missed in other books.

In a world where people often feel disconnected, “Get It Done” serves as a valuable guide to socializing the practice of setting and achieving goals. It not only helps you enhance your self-control, patience, and mindset but also encourages a sense of community and shared purpose in pursuing meaningful goals.

Overwhelmed Teachers: The Working-Memory Story
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January-16-2024

Overwhelmed Teachers: The Working-Memory Story

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If I could pick one topic from cognitive science for ALL TEACHERS to study, that topic would be working memory.

This small mental capacity allows us to select, hold, reorganize, and combine bits of information (and other things).

So, if you try to put the five days of the work week in alphabetical order, you’re using your working memory.

Alas, because working memory is so small, it gets easily overwhelmed.

Quick: try to put the twelve months of the year in alphabetical order.

Unless you’re writing words down, you almost certainly can’t do it.

Why does this cognitive insight matter?

Because our students have to select, hold, reorganize, and combine bits of information ALL THE TIME. We call that “learning.”

Stressed teacher sitting in front of a white board with comlex mathematical equations on it

And the situation gets even scarier: when working memory is all-too-easily overloaded, learning stops.

Do you know a scarier sentence than “learning stops”?

For these reasons, I spend much of my professional life talking with teachers about working memory.

Given that I’ve even written a book on the topic, you’d think I’d run out of things to say. But…

More Things To Say

One working memory topic that gets relatively little attention: the teacher’s working memory.

That is: as teachers, we also must – at every second – select, hold, reorganize, and combine bits of information:

The lesson plan

The correctness of this student’s answer

The brewing argument between those two over there

The possibility of an un-announced fire-drill

The page number of the example I want to include

The insightful point I want to bring up at the department meeting next period

Oh, wait! I need to get orange juice on the way home…

This list could easily go on for pages.

In other words: students face the potential for working memory overload all the time. And: TEACHERS DO TOO.

When students’ working memory is overloaded, “learning stops.” When teachers’ working memory is overloaded, our effective functioning also stops. Cognitively, we bonk.

What to Do?

To manange student working memory, I encourage teachers to try a 3-part approach:

Try to ANTICIPATE working-memory overload. (If a lesson plan has lots of instructions, I can predict students’ working memory will crash.)

Try to IDENTIFY overload. (That face the student is making — that’s a sign!)

Try to SOLVE overload. (Using, say, dual coding, or powerful knowledge, or stress reduction…)

If we can do these three things, we’re likely to help students stay within a working-memory comfort zone.

I think that these same three categories might be useful in managing our own working memory.

So: can I ANTICIPATE when my working memory will be threatened in class?

Honestly, that’s easy!

When I have especially important or stressful obligations outside outside of school (say, a trip to the hospital after work).

When I’m teaching a new/complex topic.

When I didn’t get much sleep, and/or am sick.

When I’m managing multiple school roles: teacher AND dean AND coach AND adviser AND…

When I’m trying out a new kind of technology. (Remember your first weeks of zoom teaching?)

Of course, your list will differ from mine — because you and I are two different people. But I suspect you can, fairly easily, come up with your own version of this checklist: “if THIS is happening today, my working memory might really struggle.”

Good news: if you can anticipate when your own working memory might buckle, you know when to start shoring it up…

Check Your Mirrors

Once we have anticipated the times when our own working memory might be overloaded, we should then learn to IDENTIFY the experience of overload.

In my own work, I’ve learned to rely on three key indicators.

First: word salad.

Because I talk about complex and technical topics, I often talk in complex sentences with lots of technical vocabulary.

When my working memory gets overloaded, I find that my sentences fall apart. The subordinate clauses fight with the appositives, and I can no longer remember the subject of my verb.

Instead of trying to “identify” working memory overload, I might tell teachers to “redentify” it. (I don’t think “redentify” is a word.)

When I experience this word chaos, I know my working memory is in trouble.

Second: third of three

When I discuss working memory with teachers, they — of course! — ask questions.

I often say: “well, there are three answers to your question.”

But … you know where this is going … by the time I’m done with my second answer, I can’t even remember the question (much less the third part of the answer).

Yup: that’s working memory overload.

Third: emotional barometer

My own cultural background isn’t big on emotions. (Growing up, I was allowed to have mildly positive feelings, but everything else was discouraged. Mildly.)

For that reason, I’m not great at monitoring my own emotional state.

But I have learned: when I start feeling penned in and frustrated — when my chest is a little tight and breathing, a bit of a chore — that feeling almost always results from working memory overload.

My body is saying: “I just can’t handle this mental load right now!”

When that happens, I know: it’s time to break out my working-memory solutions!

Here again, your list might not look like my list: you’ll discover your own ways to identify working memory stress. But, that list might be a useful place to start…

The Last Step

If I can anticipate that my working memory will be overloaded (because, say, I’m explaining the differences between direct objects and subject complements)…

…and I can recognize that my working memory IS overloaded (because, say, I can’t coherently answer my student’s question)…

…then it’s time to SOLVE my working memory problems?

How do I do that?

Well: I don’t want to overwhelm the reader’s working memory — so I’ll write about that in next week’s blog post.

Reframing Motivation: Urgent vs. Interesting
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January-09-2024

Reframing Motivation: Urgent vs. Interesting

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You are walking through a museum after closing time, peering into room after room.

You might be planning a heist. Or, you might be executing a heist.

Does that distinction — “planning” vs. “executing” — influence your memories of what you see and learn?

According to recent research: yup.*

Here’s the story…

Bring in the Big Words

Research isn’t research unless we use fancy latinate words to name things. So, let’s get that done:

This study’s authors posit a difference between motivational states: interrogative vs. imperative. (I’m sorry that those words are so alike; don’t shoot the messenger.)

According to this study, interrogative motivation links to

“broad attention and expansive information-seeking, which supports learning associations, developing cognitive maps, and, putatively, attaining future goals.”

That sounds REALLY GOOD, doesn’t it?

On the other hand, imperative motivation comes from a

“salient, urgent goal, yielding restricted information-seeking and memory that efficiently represents predictors of the imperative goal.”

So, this second motivation state focuses on predictors of the urgent (“imperative”) goal…but restricts memory more broadly.

For that reason, it’s not necessarily a bad motivational state — we want students to succeed at urgent goals! But it certainly sounds less aligned with most teaching and learning goals than the “broad attention and expansive information seeking” prompted by interrogative motivation.

So there we have it:

Interrogative = curious exploring to benefit future tasks

Imperative = urgent focus on current tasks

Let’s Get Thieving

Having established this distinction — interrogative vs. imperative — the researchers tested their idea with the museum heist story described above.

As you no doubt can see, people in the process of stealing paintings have a “salient, urgent goal”: steal the most valuable ones right now. That is: they’re in an imperative motivational state.

Those planning to steal paintings also want to get the good stuff; however, they have more time to explore, inquire, and double-check. They’re in an interrogative motivational state. (I am, of course, speaking from my own extensive experience of stealing from museums.)

So: does this cover story make any difference for the participants? According to the researchers’ (complex!) findings:

In the short term, those in an imperative motivational state (“steal now!”) did better — they stole more valuable paintings.

In the longer term — the next day — those in an interrogative motivational state (“plan now, steal later!”) REMEMBERED more of the paintings, and the information about them.

Cool, no?

Teaching Implications

At this moment, I’m switching from research summary to teacherly imagination. That is: the researchers don’t make the specific claims that I’m about to suggest.

But:

It seems to me helpful to remember that the narrative frameworks we offer our students matter.

If we tell them they’re learning this topic because THEY NEED TO DO SOMETHING IMPORTANT WITH IT RIGHT NOW, that imperative state will — sure enough — focus them on the most salient details.

And, if we tell they they’re learning the topic because THOUGHTFUL EXPLORATION WILL BENEFIT THEM DOWN THE ROAD, they’ll take more time to meander, explore, and muse. And: they’ll remember more.

Now — at times — that first strategy just might be the right one.

But I suspect that, more often, we want students to stroll through the museum and take it all in. That is: our students probably benefit from an interrogative motivational state more often than an imperative one — although imperative states also have occasional benefits.

Once More with the Caveats

Long-time readers know that I just have to add caveats.

First: this study is VERY new — published in mid 2023. I’ve looked at my standard resources (scite.ai, connectedpapers.com) and found literally NO related research.

In other words: this research approach is so new that others in the field haven’t had much time to process it officially yet.

Second: I think the research task might limit the applicability of the findings.

That is: “planning a museum heist” sounds cool/fun/intriguing — well, at least to me. So, I suspect the zest of the task might shape motivational states.

Thief peering around the corner of a wall at painting he might steal from a museum

Will the distinction between “imperative” and “interrogative” motivation matter when the students are studying … say … finding the area under a curve?

Or: Boyle’s law?

Or: diphthongs, the subjunctive, and the infield fly rule?

We don’t know yet, because we haven’t researched this strategy in classrooms. (At least: as far as I know.)

TL;DR

Students use and remember information differently depending on the motivational framework they’re in.

When doing work framed as “urgent/imperative,” they focus on success critera (good!) but don’t remember much else (potentially bad!).

When doing work framed as “useful for the future,” they focus less on immediate success (potentially bad), but remember more information later (good!).

Teachers might (might!) be able to use this distinction in guiding our own students’ work.

 

*  This research study is behind a paywall; my write-up is based on a pre-print. I’d be surprised if the differences between the draft I read and the final version mattered, but it’s possible.

Sinclair, A. H., Wang, Y. C., & Adcock, R. A. (2023). Instructed motivational states bias reinforcement learning and memory formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(31), e2304881120.