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Andrew Watson About Andrew Watson

Andrew began his classroom life as a high-school English teacher in 1988, and has been working in or near schools ever since. In 2008, Andrew began exploring the practical application of psychology and neuroscience in his classroom. In 2011, he earned his M. Ed. from the “Mind, Brain, Education” program at Harvard University. As President of “Translate the Brain,” Andrew now works with teachers, students, administrators, and parents to make learning easier and teaching more effective. He has presented at schools and workshops across the country; he also serves as an adviser to several organizations, including “The People’s Science.” Andrew is the author of "Learning Begins: The Science of Working Memory and Attention for the Classroom Teacher."

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What Do Teachers Get Right About Cognitive Science?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 16, 2020

What Do Teachers Get Right About Cognitive Science?

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Here’s a chance to test your knowledge about the teaching implications of cognitive science. Which answer would you pick to this question?

After teaching students the names of the branches of the US government and what each does, which would be the most effective way a teacher could help their students remember this information?

A) Have students read the facts for 10 days at the beginning of class.

B) Have students copy the facts into a notebook where they can reference them as needed.

C) Have students take a once-a-week quiz for 10 weeks where they recall the facts from memory.

D) Have students participate in a review game where they have to recall the facts from memory several times in one class period.

As you think about that question — which I’ll answer later in the post — ask yourself: what basic principle of learning informs your choice?

How Can We Discover What Teachers Know?

For several years now, Deans for Impact have worked to improve teacher education. In particular, they want schools of education to emphasize well-established principles from cognitive science.

They have done lots of great work to further this mission — including publishing this invaluable resource on the science of learning. (Quick: download it now!)

Of course, if they — and we — are going to help teachers improve, we have to know what teachers already believe and do. If teachers don’t believe in learning styles theory, then we don’t have to debunk it. (Alas, lots of teachers do.)

To answer that question, Deans for Impact developed a 54 question assessment of teacher beliefs, and administered it to 1000+ teachers in the fall of 2019. The question you answered above is one of those 54 questions.

Based on the answers they got, they now have a much better idea of typical beliefs and misunderstandings. As they note, however, these teachers are enrolled in education schools that are interested in cognitive science. So:

“the data generated from this assessment is more likely to overstate what most teacher-candidates know about learning science.”

With that caveat in mind, what did they learn?

What Do Teachers Know about Cognitive Science?

Unsurprisingly, D4I found a mixed bag.

In some categories, teachers-in-training did quite well. In particular, they had good information about the importance of building, and the right ways to build, feedback loops.

That’s really good news, of course, because feedback is so important.

In general, teachers also had a clear understanding that prior knowledge matters a lot. When students lack relevant background knowledge, they struggle mightily to learn.

Sadly, teachers overestimated the possibility of critical thinking.

Of course we want our students to have strong critical thinking skills. But, for the most part, those skills don’t exist generically. That is: I must have a great deal of specific content knowledge before I can think critically about a particular topic.

If that claim seems surprising or suspect, try to answer this question: are Dreiser’s novels more like Wharton’s or Dos Passos’s? Unless you know A LOT about Dreiser and Wharton and Dos Passos (and novels), you’ll struggle to have much to say.

Needs Improvement

Alarmingly, teachers-in-training scored only 33% on questions relating to “practicing with a purpose.” We learn almost everything by practicing in the right way, so this finding should encourage us to focus quite emphatically on this research field.

To do that, let’s return to the question at the top of this post. What kind of practice would help students remember information about branches of the US government?

A) Have students read the facts for 10 days at the beginning of class.

This choice spaces practice out. That’s good. But, it doesn’t allow for active recall. As we know from the world of retrieval practice, recall creates more lasting memories than mere review.

B) Have students copy the facts into a notebook where they can reference them as needed.

This choice is a dud. It requires students to do minimal processing (“copying”!), and to do it once. Nothing to see here. Move along.

C) Have students take a once-a-week quiz for 10 weeks where they recall the facts from memory.

Choice C requires recall (a quiz). And, it includes spacing (over 10 weeks!). Spacing + retrieval looks great!

D) Have students participate in a review game where they have to recall the facts from memory several times in one class period.

This option sounds fun — it’s a game! And, it includes active recall. But, alas, active recall combined with fun isn’t as beneficial as active recall combined with spacing.

So, we might be tempted by option D — in fact, 60% of teachers-in-training chose it. Only 13% opted for choice C: the one best supported by cognitive science. (By the way: if you’re interested in combining retrieval practice with spacing, check out this research.)

In Sum

Generally speaking: keep Deans for Impact on your radar. They’re a GREAT (and greatly reliable) resource for our work.

Specifically speaking: this most recent report lets us know where we should focus most urgently as we help teachers improve our profession.

Overcoming Potential Perils of Online Learning [Repost]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 13, 2020

Overcoming Potential Perils of Online Learning [Repost]

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In June of 2019, I wrote about Dr. Rachael Blasiman’s research into the effect of typical distractions on online learning.

Given the current health climate, I thought her work might be especially helpful right now.

The key take-aways here:

First: (unsurprisingly) distractions interfere with online learning, and

Second: (crucially) we can do something about that.

In brief, we should start our online classes by teaching students how to learn online…

Here’s the post from June.

Online learning offers many tempting — almost irresistible — possibilities. Almost anyone can study almost anything from almost anywhere.

What’s not to love?

A tough-minded response to that optimistic question might be:

“Yes, anyone can study anything, but will they learn it?”

More precisely: “will they learn it roughly as well as they do in person?”

If the answer to that question is “no,” then it doesn’t really matter that they undertook all that study.

Rachael Blasiman and her team wanted to know if common at-home distractions interfere with online learning.

So: can I learn online while…

…watching a nature documentary?

…texting a friend?

…folding laundry?

…playing a video game?

…watching The Princess Bride?

Helpful Study, Helpful Answers

To answer this important and practical question, Blasiman’s team first had students watch an online lecture undistracted. They took a test on that lecture, to see how much they typically learn online with undivided attention.

Team Blasiman then had students watch 2 more online lectures, each one with a distractor present.

Some students had a casual conversation while watching. Others played a simple video game. And, yes, others watched a fencing scene from Princess Bride.

Did these distractions influence their ability to learn?

On average, these distractions lowered test scores by 25%.

That is: undistracted students averaged an 87% on post-video quizzes. Distracted students averaged a 62%.

Conversation and The Princess Bride were most distracting (they lowered scores by ~30%). The nature video was least distracting — but still lowered scores by 15%.

In case you’re wondering: men and women were equally muddled by these distractions.

Teaching Implications

In this case, knowledge may well help us win the battle.

Blasiman & Co. sensibly recommend that teachers share this study with their students, to emphasize the importance of working in a distraction-free environment.

And, they encourage students to make concrete plans to create — and to work in — those environments.

(This post, on “implementation intentions,” offers highly effective ways to encourage students to do so.)

I also think it’s helpful to think about this study in reverse. The BAD news is that distractions clearly hinder learning.

The GOOD news: in a distraction-free environment, students can indeed start to learn a good deal of information.

(Researchers didn’t measure how much they remembered a week or a month later, so we don’t know for sure. But: we’ve got confidence they had some initial success in encoding information.)

In other words: online classes might not be a panacea. But, under the right conditions, they might indeed benefit students who would not otherwise have an opportunity to learn.

I’ve just learned that both of Dr. Blasiman’s co-authors on this study were undergraduates at the time they did the work. That’s quite unusual in research world, and very admirable! [6-11-19]

Does Teaching HANDWRITING Help Students READ?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 11, 2020

Does Teaching HANDWRITING Help Students READ?

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I recently saw a newspaper headline suggesting that teaching students HANDWRITING ultimately improves their READING ability.

As an English teacher, I was intrigued by that claim.

As a skeptic, I was … well … skeptical.

In this case, we have two good reasons to be skeptical. First, we should always be skeptical. Second, claims of transfer rarely hold up.

What is “transfer”?

Well, if you teach me calculus, then it’s likely I’ll get better at calculus. If you teach me to play the violin, it’s likely I’ll get better at playing the violin. But: if you teach me to play the violin, it’s NOT likely that this skill will transfer to another skill — like calculus. (And, no: music training in youth doesn’t reliably improve math ability later in life.)

In fact, most claims of transfer — “teaching you X makes you better at distantly-related-thing A” — end up being untrue.

So, is it true — as this newspaper headline implied — that handwriting skills transfer to reading skills?

The Research

This newspaper article pointed to research by Dr. Anabela Malpique, working in Western Australia.

Her research team worked with 154 6-7 year-olds around Perth. They measured all sorts of variables, including…

…the students’ handwriting automaticity (how well can they write individual letters),

…their reading skills (how accurately they read individual words),

…the amount of time the teachers reported spending in reading/writing instruction.

And, they measured handwriting automaticity and reading skills at the beginning and end of the year. For that reason, they could look for relationships among their variables over time. (As you can see, Malpique’s research focuses on many topics — not just the writing/reading question that I’m discussing in this post.)

Tentative Conclusions

To their surprise, Malpique’s team found that more fluent letter formation at the beginning of the year predicted more fluent word reading at the end of the year. In their words, this finding

suggest[s] that being able to write letters quickly and effortlessly in kindergarten facilitates pre-reading and decoding skills one year later.

In other words: this research allows the possibility that teaching writing does ultimately help students read single words.

However — and this is a big however — the researchers’ methodology does NOT allow for causal conclusions. They see a mathematical “relationship” between two things, but don’t say that the writing ability led to later reading ability.

They warn:

Experimental research is needed to confirm these findings[,] and systematically evaluate potential explanatory mechanism[s] of writing-to-reading effects over time in the early years.

They specifically note that they did NOT measure reading comprehension; they measured single word reading.

To put this in other words: we would like to know if

a) teaching letter writing leads to

b) improved letter writing fluency, which leads to

c) improved single word reading, which leads to

d) improved reading comprehension.

These findings make the b) to c) connection more plausible, but the certainly do not “prove” that a) leads to d).

Classroom Implications

This research doesn’t claim we should make big changes right away.

I do think it leads to this conclusion:

Some schools are replacing books with computers and tablets. I can imagine (although I haven’t heard this) that advocates might make this claim:

“In the future, no one will need to write by hand. Everything will be keyboarding, and so we need to get children typing as soon as possible. Let’s replace handwriting instruction with keyboarding instruction, to prepare our kids for the future!”

If we hear that argument, we can say:

“I have LOTS of objections to that logical chain. In particular, we have tentative reasons to believe that handwriting instruction improves reading. If that’s true — and we don’t yet know — we should be VERY wary of doing anything that slows our students’ ability to read. We might not be handwriting so much in the future, but we’ll be reading forever.”

In sum: I don’t think that newspaper article captured essential nuances. However, this research raises the intriguing possibility that transfer just might take place from writing instruction to single-word reading. We need more research to know with greater certainty.

But, given the importance of reading for school and life, we should be excited to find anything that can help students do better.

The Big Six: A Grand Summary
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 08, 2020

The Big Six: A Grand Summary

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Much of the time, this blog digs into a specific example of a specific teaching practice.

Within the last two weeks, I’ve written about spacing and interleaving in math instruction, a “big challenging book” strategy for struggling readers, and the potential benefits of cold calling.

At times, however, it’s helpful to zoom the camera back and look at THE BIG PICTURE.

What does cognitive science tell us about learning?

Today’s Grand Summary

Regular readers know that The Learning Scientists do a GREAT job explaining…well…the science of learning.

In particular, they focus on “six strategies of effective learning”:

Spacing

Interleaving

Retrieval Practice

Concrete Examples

Elaboration

Dual Coding

In a recent post, Dr. Megan Sumeracki does a typically helpful job giving a thoughtful overview of those strategies. Rather than summarize her summary, I’m encouraging you to give her post a quick read. It will help put the pieces together for you.

Wise Caveats

Sumeracki introduces her summary with this helpful note:

Before digging into the specifics of each strategy, it is important to note that they are very flexible. This is a good thing, in that it means they can be used in a lot of different situations.

However, this also means that there really isn’t a specific prescription we can provide that will “always work.”

Instead, understanding the strategies and how they work can help instructors and students. [Emphasis added.]

In other words — as you often read on this blog — “don’t just do this thing; instead, think this way.”

Cognitive science really cannot provide a script for teachers to read verbatim. Instead, it offers principles that we must adapt to our own specific classrooms and students.

So, if you increase spacing and retrieval practice, your students will — almost certainly — remember more over the long term. But: exactly how to do that will differ from classroom to classroom, grade to grade, culture to culture.

In other words: teachers should draw on scientific understanding of minds and brains to shape our work. But: teaching itself isn’t a science. It’s a craft, a passion, a profession.

Cold Calling and Bad Pizza
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 05, 2020

Cold Calling and Bad Pizza

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When I was in grad school, a well-known professor announced that — given everything we know about the effects of stress — it is professional malpractice to “cold call” on students. (To “cold call” means to call on a student who hasn’t raised her hand.)

Imagine the cascade of bad results.

When cold-called, the student feels stress. Cortisol levels go up. Excess cortisol interferes with learning. In fact, long-term excess cortisol damages the hippocampus. (You can check out this video here.)

My professor’s claim struck me as shocking, because Doug Lemov argues so strongly for cold calling in his much admired Teach Like a Champion:

“If I was working with a group of teachers and had to help them make the greatest possible improvements in the rigor, ratio, and level of expectations in their classroom with one technique, the technique I’d choose might well be cold call.”

That is: if we want students themselves to be doing cognitive work — a.k.a. “active learning” — Lemov thinks cold calling is the way to go. It serves four key functions:

First, it lets the teacher check students’ understanding,

Second, it creates a culture of “engaged accountability,”

Third, it helps the teacher speed up or slow down the pace, and

Fourth, it supplements other teaching strategies, like “turn and talk.”

Little wonder Lemov champions it so heartily.

Breaking the Tie?

We’ve got an expert in the neurobiology of stress saying cold calling is professional malpractice. We’ve got an expert in classroom teaching saying that cold calling is profession best practice.

How to we decide?

On this blog, we try always to find relevant research. In this case, the best study I can find was undertaken by Dallimore, Hertenstein, and Platt.

Team Dallimore — aware of both sides of this debate — looked at 16 sections of a college accounting course, including well over 600 students.

They kept track of the professors’ discussion techniques: in particular, did they cold call or not?

And, they followed a number of variables: in particular, how much did students voluntarily participate? And, how comfortable were the students in class discussion? (In other words: what happened to those cortisol levels my professor worried about?)

If the answers to those questions show a clear pattern, that might help us decide to follow my prof’s guidance, or Lemov’s.

The Envelope Please

In brief: cold calling produced good thinking results, and lowered (apparent) stress levels.

That is: in classes with infrequent cold calling, students’ voluntary participation remained the same throughout the term. In classes with high cold calling, their voluntary participation rose from 68% to 86%.

Dallimore’s team saw the same results with the number of questions students volunteered to answer. That number remained flat in the low cold calling classes, and rose in the high cold calling classes.

And, how about stress?

When asked to report their comfort level with class discussion, that level remained constant in low cold calling sections. Comfort levels rose in high cold calling sections.

So: when teachers cold called, their students voluntarily participated more, and they felt more comfortable in class.

Always with the Limitations

Dallimore’s study — combined with Lemov’s insight, guidance, and wisdom — suggests that cold calling really can benefit students.

However, any good teaching technique can be used badly. If it’s possible to make a bad pizza, it’s possible to make a bad version of any great thing.

So, if we’ve got students who have experienced ongoing trauma, we should make reasonable accommodations. If a student has an IEP that warns against cold calling, we should — of course! — heed that warning.

Also, I should acknowledge the limitations of this research. The study I’ve described was published in 2012, and it’s the most recent one I have located. Simply put: we don’t have much research on the topic.

And: research done with accounting students — most of whom are college sophomores — might not apply to your students.

Of course, Lemov works mostly with K-12 students, especially those who attend schools that have relatively high poverty rates. In other words: Dallimore’s research + Lemov’s research shows a wide range of effectiveness for this technique.

In sum: I’m sure teachers can use cold calling techniques badly — resulting in raised stress and reduced learning. But, done well, this technique offers real benefits.

If we create a respectful, supportive, and challenging classroom climate — including cold call — students can learn splendidly. This video shows the technique in action.

Training in Effective Skepticism: Retraction Watch
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 01, 2020

Training in Effective Skepticism: Retraction Watch

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When we teachers first get interested in research, we regularly hear this word of caution: “you should base your teaching on research — but be skeptical!”

Of course, we should be skeptical. But, like every skill, skepticism requires practice. And experience.

How can we best practice our skepticism?

The Company We Keep

Of course, the more time we spend listening to effective skeptics, the likelier we are to learn from their methodologies.

Many well-known sources frequently explore the strengths and weaknesses of research suggestions.

Dan Willingham regularly takes a helpfully skeptical view of research. (He’s also a regular, amusing twitter voice.)

Ditto The Learning Scientists.

Certainly this blog takes on the topic frequently.

Today, I’d like to add to your skepticism repertoire: Retraction Watch.

Unlike the other sources I mentioned, Retraction Watch doesn’t focus on education particularly. Instead, it takes in the full range of scientific research — focusing specifically on published research that has been (or should be?) retracted.

If you get in the habit of reading their blog, you’ll learn more about the ways that researchers can dissemble — even cheat — on their way to publication. And, the ways that their deceptions are unmasked.

You’ll also learn how much research relies on trust, and the way that such trust can be violated. That is: sometimes researchers retract their work when they learn a colleague — without their knowledge — fudged the data.

In brief, if you’d like to tune up your skepticism chops, Retraction Watch will help you do so.

And: the topic might sound a bit dry. But, when you get into the human stories behind the clinical sounding “retraction,” you’ll be fascinated.

Back in December, I wrote about another website that can help you see if a study has been cited, replicated, or contradicted. You can read about that here.

Are “Retrieval Practice” and “Spacing” Equally Important? [Updated]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 28, 2020

Are “Retrieval Practice” and “Spacing” Equally Important? [Updated]

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If you follow research in the world of long-term memory, you know you’ve got SO MANY GOOD STRATEGIES.

Agarwal and Bain’s Powerful Teaching, for instance, offers a delicious menu: spacing, interleaving, retrieval practice, metacognition.

Inquiring minds want to know: how do we best choose among those options? Should we do them all? Should we rely mostly on one, and then add in dashes of the other three? What’s the idea combination?

One Important Answer

Dr. Keith Lyle and his research team wanted to know: which strategy has greater long-term impact in teaching college math: retrieval practice or spacing?

That is: in the long term, do students benefit from more retrieval? From greater spacing? From both?

To answer this really important question, they carefully designed weekly quizzes in a college precalculus class. Some topics, at “baseline,” were tested with three questions at the end of the week. That’s a little retrieval practice, and a few days of spacing.

Some topics were tested with six quiz questions at the end of the week. That’s MORE retrieval practice, but the same baseline amount of spacing.

Some topics were tested with three quiz questions spread out over the semester. That’s baseline retrieval practice, but MUCH GREATER spacing.

And, some topics were tested with six quiz questions spread out over the semester. That’s extra retrieval AND extra spacing.

They then measured: how did these precalculus students do when tested on those topics on the final exam? And — hold on you hats — how did they do when tested a month later, when they started taking the follow-up class on calculus?

Intriguing Answers…

Lyle and Co. found that — on the precalculus final exam…

…extra retrieval practice helped (about 4% points), and

…extra spacing helped (about 4% points), and

…combining extra retrieval with extra spacing helped more (about 8% points).

So, in the relatively short term, both strategies enhance learning. And, they complement each other.

What about the relatively longer term? That is, what happened a month later, on the pre-test for the calculus class? In that case…

…extra retrieval practice didn’t matter

…extra spacing helped (about 4% points).

…combining extra retrieval with extra spacing produced no extra benefit (still about 4% points).**

For enduring learning, then, extra spacing helped, but extra retrieval practice didn’t.

…Important Considerations

First: as the researchers note, it’s important to stress that this research comes from the field of math instruction. Math — more than most disciplines — already has retrieval practice built into in.

That is: when I do math homework, every problem I solve requires me (to some degree) to recall the math task at hand. (And, probably, lots of other relevant math info as well.)

But, when I do my English homework, the paper I’m writing about Macbeth might not remind me about Grapes of Wrath. Or, when I do my History homework, the time I spend studying Aztec civilization doesn’t necessarily require me to recall facts or concepts from the Silk Road unit. (It might, but might not.)

So, this study shows that extra retrieval practice didn’t help over and above the considerable retrieval practice the math students were already doing.

Second: notice that the “spacing” in this case was a special kind of spacing. It was, in fact, spacing of retrieval practice. Of course, that counts as spacing.

But, we have lots of other ways to space as well. For instance, Dr. Rachael Blasiman testing spacing by taking time in lectures to revisit earlier concepts. That strategy did create spacing, but didn’t include retrieval practice.

So, this research doesn’t necessarily apply to other kinds of spacing. It might, but we don’t yet know.

Practical Classroom Applications

Lyle & Co.’s study gives us three helpful classroom reminders.

First: as long as we’ve done enough retrieval practice to establish ideas (as math homework does almost automatically), we can redouble our energies to focus on spacing.

Second: Lyle mentions in passing that students do (very slightly) worse on quizzes that include spacing — because spacing is harder. (Regular readers know, we call this “desirable difficulty.”)

This reminder gives us an extra reason to be sure that quizzes with spacing are low-stakes or no-stakes. We don’t want to penalize students for participating in learning strategies that benefit them.

Third: In my own view, we can ask/expect our students to join us in retrieval practice strategies. Once they reach a certain age or grade, they should be able to make flashcards, or use quizlet, or test one another.

However, I think spacing requires a different perspective on the full scope of a course. That is: it requires a teacher’s perspective. We have the long view, and see how all the pieces best fit together.

For those reasons, I think we can (and should) ask students to do retrieval practice (in addition to the retrieval practice we create). But, we ourselves should take responsibility for spacing. We — much more than they they — have the big picture in mind. We should take that task off their to do list, and keep it squarely on ours.

** This post has been revised on 3/7/30. The initial version did not include the total improvement created by retrieval practice and spacing one month after the final exam.

How to Help Struggling Readers?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 25, 2020

How to Help Struggling Readers?

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Reading interventions can suffer from two lamentable problems.

First, they can — paradoxically — benefit strong readers without helping weak ones. Here we see the dreaded “Matthew Effect,” where the rich get richer — in this case, the strong readers get even stronger.

Second, they can require lots of training in complex theories and pedagogical strategies.

We would, of course, like a strategy that benefits everyone — especially the weaker readers. And, one that can be implemented without lots of time-consuming, pricey training.

If that sounds good to you, keep reading…

It’s So Simple, It Just Might Work…

Researchers in Great Britain wanted to test a remarkably simple proposal. What would happen if classrooms stopped teaching “leveled” short reading passages, and simply read two long, challenging books?

To answer this question, they worked with ~350 12-13 year-olds, and 20 teachers, in 10 schools. Teachers chose long novels that they deemed challenging; often, they chose books typically reserved for “higher ability” students: Frankenstein, for instance, or Now Is the Time for Running.

The researchers insisted that the teachers move at a fast pace. The classes had only 12 weeks to get through both challenging books. In fact, some participating teachers worried that the combination of challenging book + fast pace would be too much.

As long as they moved briskly, teachers had lots of freedom. Most read the books aloud for long stretches of time. Others used audio-book recordings, or had students take turns reading in circles. Many would stop to ask or answer questions. Basically they used their teaching skills in whatever way they deemed fit.

So, what happened? Were the teachers right to worry about the challenging book and the fast pace?

Dramatic Results

To measure the effect of this strategy, the researchers used a test of “reading age.” Students in these classes took that test before and after their 12-week reading adventure.

Students in all the groups they measured improved, including the average readers and the advanced readers.

But, what about the struggling readers? That is: what about those who were more that a grade level behind in their reading?

Their “reading age” score improved by 16 months. Three months of this strategy produced almost a year-and-a-half worth of gain.

That’s astonishing.

I should note: those struggling readers remained well behind their peers. But, gosh, they were a lot less behind than before. In other words, this intervention produced a reverse-Matthew Effect: everybody got richer, but the poor started to catch up.

A Hidden Surprise

Part of this research finding, by the way, surprised the researchers.

Half of the teachers in the study simply relied on their experience to make this strategy work. The others got a day-and-a-half of training in…

cognitive reading processes […], and pedagogic strategies including reading the text aloud in class at a fast pace, inference-making, guided group reading and the use of graphic organisers.

How much difference did that additional training make? Um. None. Students who had “untrained” teachers made as much progress as those who had “trained” teachers.

It was the strategy, not the training, that helped. (To be clear, the training led to some statistically significant differences, but not in the ultimate measure: who learned more?)

So, as far as we can tell from this research, we don’t need fancy training to make this strategy work. Our own teacherly experience is — on average — enough.

Boundary Conditions

First: this research was done with 12-13 year olds in an English education system. It might not apply to your teaching context. And, it isn’t remotely claiming to be a method for teaching students to read in the first place.

Second: I don’t know if this research has been replicated. We’re always more comfortable with a strategy when it’s been shown to work many times.

Third: the fact that this strategy seems to have worked for reading doesn’t mean it will work in other disciplines. We should not assume that, say, students will learn to play the violin simply by hearing someone play the violin; or learn to do math simply by watching others solve math problems.

At the same time, I do find this research helpfully intriguing. In fact, if you’re thinking about this strategy, I encourage you to read the initial study. It’s unusually well written. And, it includes helpful details — including comments from teachers in the study.

If you give this a try, I hope you’ll let me know how it goes. According to the initial study, the students loved it.

Revisiting Our San Francisco Conference
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 22, 2020

Revisiting Our San Francisco Conference

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I had planned to write a post describing our most recent conference, last weekend in San Francisco (“where every day is cardio day”).

However, one of our attendees — Mark Barrett — got there first. I thought he did such a good job of summarizing so many of the speakers that you’d enjoy reading his words.

Thankfully, Mark agreed to let me copy his post here. I also encourage you to check out his blog, “Education Rumination.”

This past Family Day long weekend, my admin partner, Rupi and I headed down to San Francisco for the Learning and the Brain Conference.  This 55th edition of the Conference was themed, Educating Anxious Minds, and had a record-setting 2500 participants attend from around North America and beyond.  The inspiration for the conference came as a result of recent reports finding that many children and teens are experience significant stress, anxiety, and mental health issues.  The purpose was to help education professionals reduce anxiety and stress in schools; address teen depression and challenging classroom behaviours; foster coping skills and mindful practices; create trauma-sensitive schools; and improve school success by prompting positive teacher-student relationships.

As the Professional Development Chair for the North Vancouver Administrators Association, this conference was particularly relevant for me on a couple of fronts. Firstly, I am in the midst of organizing our annual Administrators Conference in Whistler, and our theme for 2020 is the BCPVPA domain of Relational Leadership.  Many of the speakers touched on how school-based administrators can positively impact school climate, culture and student anxiety through instructional care models that support staff.  High relational leadership capacity is certainly an integral aspect of any successful care model.  Secondly, in my same role as NovA Pro-D Chair, I’ve created a network of 5 different book clubs for my colleagues.  One of the books being read, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, was authored by the first keynote speaker, Dr. Bruce Perry, and it was enlightening to hear his behavioural science-based approach to understanding anxious students.

Bruce Perry

Throughout the conference I attempted to live-Tweet to my professional network some of the best sound bites.  Many of my favourite take-aways were from one of the first keynotes, By Dr. Perry.  Among them included:

  • “Our primary work in the classroom is to first regulate the child, or else you can’t connect with them. Humans are relational creatures.”
    Photo by Mark Barrett
  • The key to a trauma-informed classroom is to recognize there needs to be differential dosing of curricular content based on the needs of the child.
  • “A regulated classroom is a rhythmic classroom and a relational classroom. If you stay calm, it will calm them (students) down.”
  • “Administrators need to think about instructional care models.” Because a dysregulated adult can never regular a dysregulated child.

 

Dr. Perry’s talk hit many of the themes that would be highlighted throughout the conference, including that when we attend to the wellness of adults who care for children, we are better positioned to tend to the wellness of students, and that relationships are key to everything, including the personalization of learning.

Dan Siegel

Dr. Dan Siegel was also a highlight speaker for me, and I was pleased to have the opportunity hear him speak not once, but twice.  As a neuropsychiatrist, I appreciated hearing from a perspective grounded in neural science.  One of the key phrases he used was, “Where attention goes, neural firing flows and neural connection grows.”  Essentially what this means is that the adolescent brain goes through a process of pruning some neural networks, and enhancing others by laying down myelin. We strengthen the neural networks we use, and lose those we don’t.  The lesson for educators here is to encourage students in devoting their energies towards those networks they want to build and enhance; to pursue their areas of passion and routines that reinforce health and wellness.

Photo by Mark Barrett

One of the more amusing anecdotes was about the development of the teenage brain in comparison to other adolescent species.  Dr. Siegel described how adolescent gazelles will also engage in risky behaviour by running up to their natural predators and then running away.  While this may, on the surface, seem exceptionally foolish, Dr. Siegel explained that the ability to lead is enhanced when one has been to the precipice of danger and navigated back from it successfully.

Adolescence is also the time when many species begin pushing for their own independence, and look to leave the relative comfort of, what Dr. Siegel calls, “The Oatmeal House”.  (The home where your parents prepare your oatmeal for you every morning! And do your laundry… and pay the bills, etc. etc).  As adolescents prepare to leave the safety of the family collective, social acceptance among their peer group becomes vitally important; so much so that they will cave to peer pressure to gain it and may even act contrary to their values or morals.  From a neuro-science perspective, however, this is actually a survival instinct; because without the safety of the group, those left on the outside looking in have their entire existence jeopardized.

Other gems from Dr. Siegel included:

  • The ‘3 Rs’ of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic are important, but it’s important to also teach the ‘new’ 3 Rs: Reflective skills, Relationship skills, Resilience skills. My colleague Brad Baker also suggested an additional R; ‘Respect’.
  • Defining what ‘integration’ means with respect to relationships and the brain. Integration is where different aspects of a system become linked, but don’t lose their uniqueness.  Integrative relationships stimulate the growth of the integrated brain, leading to regulation and optimal health. Adversity, conversely, impairs brain integration.
  • The identification of ‘4 Ss’ that help promote an integrative brain and, by extension, health and well-being: Safety, being Seen (students need to noticed), Soothed (fears), Security (trust).
  • F.A.C.E.S. is an acronym used to characterize the features of wellbeing: Flexible, Adaptive, Coherence, Energized, Stable

Other Great Speakers

Two other speakers I enjoyed listening to included Dr. Mona Delahooke’s talk on Using Brain Science to Reduce Anxiety, Toxic Stress, and Behavioural Challenges and Clay Cook’s breakout session on Teacher Stress & Wellbeing.

 

Photo by Mark Barrett

Dr. Delahooke, in her empathic approach, suggested that challenging student behaviours are an adaption to autonomic nervous system cues, and that there is a difference between wilful misbehaviour and a subconscious adaptation. The behaviours are only the metaphorical tip of the iceberg, and that it’s our responsibility in caring for our children to delve beyond the surface, seek to understand, and support students as best we can.  I also appreciated Dr. Delahooke’s notion that self-regulation needs to begin first with co-regulation; that the external interaction between students in your classroom/building needs to be upskilled and regulated before attention can be turned inwards for students.

Clay Cook’s breakout session about Promoting Teacher’s Stress Reduction, Emotional Wellbeing, and Positive Social Interactions, really hammered home the theme that unwell adults have difficulty promoting well children.  He also discussed how psychological safety for staff creates a collaborative and innovative learning culture, and that ‘climate’ is how people feel, while ‘culture’ is how people behave.  Finally, Clay noted that high-performing environments and frequent ‘ratcheting-up’ of expectations for students are a potent risk factor for mental health disorders, just as other factors like poverty are.  This idea gave me pause for reflection on how it is we can continue to maintain high expectations and the pursuit of excellence in our students, while simultaneously supporting their mental health and wellbeing.

Photo by Mark Barrett

Overall the conference was a wonderful learning experience, and I found the speakers to generally be highly engaging, knowledgeable and informative.  My notes here represent only a handful of the many talented presenters we saw.  In the end, I left having a better understanding of some of the latest science-based research supporting the work we’re already doing with our students around mental health and wellness, and a renewed appreciation for the commitment I have to building the best relationships I can both with and among my staff.  Lastly, it was also a great opportunity to network with education professionals from the U.S., Canada and beyond.  If you’re considering attending one of the bi-annual Learning and Brain Conferences in either San Francisco or New York, I would highly recommend that you do!

Mark Barrett

Editor’s note: we also have a conference in Boston every fall. We hope you’ll be able to join us — and Mark — soon!

Sharing the Learning and the Brain Experience with Colleagues
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 18, 2020

Sharing the Learning and the Brain Experience with Colleagues

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You’ve just gotten back from a Learning and the Brain conference, and – frankly – you’re revved up!

You’ve learned so much new information and gained so many new perspectives, you just want to share it all with your colleagues right away.

Of course, it can be challenging to synthesize and organize all that information. Where do you begin? How do you fit all the pieces together? What was the name of that researcher again?

Happily, lots of people have done this synthesis work for you.

In the past, for instance, I’ve recommended this document by Deans for Impact. In a few brisk pages, it summarizes 6 key findings from the world of cognitive science.

Today’s News

I recently stumbled across another synthesis: this one with a twist. It doesn’t just boil lots of information down to easy-to-understand pages. (Although it certainly does do that.) This synthesis provides questions, examples, and activities to help you share the information with other teachers.

For instance: like many other writers (me included), this one focuses on the science of attention. Simply put, students don’t learn about information they’re not attending to.

This Learning Curriculum (2.0) reinforces that crucial point with a video you might show your colleagues.

It describes teaching strategies that – once we understand the importance of attention – will clearly be more and less effective.

It offers specific classroom suggestions and a warning or two. (Videos get students’ attention. But, alas, students might attend to surface features and miss the core concept we want them to understand.)

It also provokes deeper thought with questions you might put to fellow teachers.

Beyond Attention

Of course, this Learning Curriculum goes beyond attention. It considers working memory (my obsession), and prior misconceptions, and retrieval practice, and a host of other important topics.

I don’t agree with everything written here. (Heck, I don’t agree with everything written anywhere.) But, I think this curriculum…

synthesizes and organizes lots of essential information,

offers specific examples with getting bogged down in details, and

creates something usefully new: a strategy for sharing this information with other teachers. (I particularly like the “hinge questions” designed to be sure teachers understand the principles in application.)

For those reasons, I encourage you to check it out. I hope you’ll let me know your thoughts

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