Category Archives: L&B Blog

You come to Learning and the Brain conferences — and to this blog — because you want research-based insight into teaching and learning.

We sincerely hope that you get lots of those insights, and feel inspired by them.

At the same time, all sorts of work has to go on behind the scenes to make sure such advice has merit. Much of that work seems tedious, but all of it is important.

For instance: definitions.

When researchers explore a particular topic — say, “learning” — they have to measure something — say, “how much someone learned.”

To undertake that measurement, they rely on a definition of the thing to be measured — for example: “getting correct answers on a subsequent test = learning.”

Of course, skeptics might reject that definition: “tests don’t reveal learning. Only real world application reveals learning.”

Because these skeptics have a different definition, they need to measure in a different way. And, of course, they might come to a different conclusion about the value of the teaching practice being measured.

In other words:

If I define learning as “getting answers right on a test,” I might conclude that the Great Watson Teaching Method works.

If you define learning as “using new concepts spontaneously in the real world,” you might conclude that the Great Watson Teaching method is a bust.

The DEFINITION tells researchers what to MEASURE; it thereby guides our ultimate CONCLUSIONS.

A Case in Point

I recently read an article, by Hambrick, Macnamara, and Oswald, about deliberate practice.

Now, if you’ve spent time at a Learning and the Brain conference in the last decade, you’ve heard researcher K. Anders Ericsson and others present on this topic. It means, basically, “practicing with the specific intention of getting better.”

According to Ericsson and others, deliberate practice is THE key to developing expertise in almost any field: sports, music, chess, academics, professional life.

Notice, however, that I included the slippery word ‘basically’ in my definition two sentences ago. I wrote: “it means, basically, ‘practicing with the specific intention of getting better.’ ”

That “basically” means I’m giving a rough definition, not precise one.

But, for the reasons explained above, we shouldn’t use research to give advice without precise definitions.

As Hambrick, Macnamara, and Oswald detail, deliberate practice has a frustratingly flexible definition. For instance:

• Can students create their own deliberate practice regimens? Or do they need professionals/teachers to create them and give feedback?
• Does group/team practice count, or must deliberate practice be individual?

As the authors detail, the answers to those questions change over time.

Even more alarmingly, they seem to change depending on the context. In some cases, Ericsson and his research partners hold up studies as examples of deliberate practice, but say that Hambrick’s team should not include them in meta-analyses evaluating the effectiveness of deliberate practice.

(The back-n-forth here gets very technical.)

Although the specifics of this debate quickly turn mind-numbing, the debate itself points to a troubling conclusion: because we can’t define deliberate practice with much confidence, we should hesitate to make strong research claims about the benefits of deliberate practice.

Because — again — research depends on precise definitions.

Curiouser and Curiouser

The argument above reminded me of another study that I read several years ago. Because that study uses lots of niche-y technical language, I’m going to simplify it a fair bit. But its headlines were clear:

Project-based learning helps students learn; direct instruction does not.

Because the “constructivist” vs. “direct instruction” debate rages so passionately, I was intrigued to find a study making such a strong claim.

One of my first questions will sound familiar: “how, precisely, did the researchers define ‘project-based learning’ and ‘direct instruction.’ ”

This study started with these definitions:

Direct instruction: “lecturing with passive listening.”

Constructivism: “problem-solving opportunities … that provide meaning. Students learn by collaboratively solving authentic, real-life problems, developing explanations and communicating ideas.”

To confirm their hypothesis, the reseachers had one group of biology students (the “constructivism” group) do an experiment where they soaked chicken bones in vinegar to see how flexible the bones became.

The “direct instruction” students copied the names of 206 bones from the chalkboard into their notebooks.

After even this brief description, you might have some strong reactions to this study.

First: OF COURSE students don’t learn much from copying the names of 206 bones. Who seriously thinks that they do? No cognitive scientist I’ve ever met.

Second: no one — and I mean NO ONE — who champions direct instruction would accept the definition as “lecturing with passive listening.”

In other words: we might be excited (or alarmed) to discover research championing PBL over direct instruction. But we shouldn’t use this reseach to make decisions about that choice because it relies on obviously inaccurate definitions.

(If you’re interested in this example — or this study — I’ve written about it extensively in my book, The Goldilocks Map.)

In Brief:

It might seem nerdy to focus so stubbornly on research definitions. If we’re serious about following research-informed guidance for our teaching, we really must.

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Hambrick, D. Z., Macnamara, B. N., & Oswald, F. L. (2020). Is the deliberate practice view defensible? A review of evidence and discussion of issues. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1134.

I recently attended a (non-Learning-and-the-Brain) conference, and saw a thoughtful presentation that included a discussion of teachers’ professional standing.

In this blog post, I want to …

1. summarize this speaker’s thoughtful argument,
2. explain my own reasons for doubting it, and
3. consider some weaknesses in my own argument.

Teachers as Pilots

The speaker started by summarizing a common claim about teachers’ professional independence:

“Because teachers are highly-trained professionals, we should have the same freedom for independent action and creativity that other professionals enjoy. Rather than scripting and constraining teachers, schools should allow them the leeway to think, act, and teach with meaningful independence.”

I should be clear, by the way, that this speaker’s summary is NOT a straw man. I know that people make (roughly) this argument because a) I’ve heard other people make it, and b) I’m going to make a similar argument in just a few paragraphs.

To interrogate this pro-independence argument, the speaker asks us to think about other highly esteemed professionals: doctors, airline pilots, and engineers.

In every case, these professionals work in highly constrained conditions. In fact, we would be rightly shocked were they to want to escape those constraints. Imagine:

• If a pilot were to say: “today I think it would be fun to go through this pre-flight check list in reverse order. And, heck, I think I’ll skip step #27; I’ve never understood what it was for!”
• If an ER doctor were to say: “I understand that you’re experiencing chest pains, and the protocols suggest several tests. But honestly: you look healthy to me. And, I’m feeling lucky today. So let’s assume it’s a touch of nerves and get you some nice chamomile tea.”

We would be horrified!

Pilots and doctors work within well-established constraints, and have a strict ethical obligation to follow them.

For this reason, society rightly condemns instances where these professionals go outside those constraints.

Another example: when engineers get sloppy and bridges fall down mid-construction, we feel both horror and surprise to learn that they didn’t follow professional codes that govern their work.

These examples — the speaker said — show that teachers’ demands for professional freedom are misplaced.

Tight constraints do not violate our professional standing; they embody our professional standing.

Pushing Back: Reason #1

Although I understand these arguments as far as they go, I disagree with the speaker’s conclusion. Let me see if I can persuade you.

I think that doctors, pilots, and engineers are not good analogues for teachers, because the systems on which doctors, pilots, and engineers operate are unified, coherent, and designed to function as a whole.

Here’s what I mean:

• An airplane’s ailerons and flaps have been scrupulously designed to act upon the wings in a specific way. So too the engines and the rudders. And, frankly, almost everything else about the airplane.

Because airplane parts have been structured to function together, we can have specific, precise, and absolute rules the operation of planes. When the flaps do this, the airflow over the wing changes in entirely predictable ways. The plane will, in these circumstances, always turn, or ascend, or land, or whatever.

Yes, special circumstances exist: turbulence, wind shear, or thunderstorms. But even these special circumstances call for predictable and consistent responses: responses that can be trained, and should be executed precisely.

• A bridge has been designed to balance the forces that act upon it and the materials used to build it. Steel does not wake up one day and decide to have the strength of aluminum. Gravity does not vary unpredictably from day to day or mood to mood.

Because bridges have been structured to function in a particular way, engineers can have specific, precise, and absolute rules about their construction. Engineers don’t insist on moment-by-moment freedom because the bridges they build have entirely predictable constraints.

If, however, you have worked in a classroom, you know that such absolute predictability – based on the unity of the system being operated – has almost nothing to do with a teacher’s daily function.

• Gravity doesn’t work differently before and after lunch, but students do.
• An airplane’s rudder doesn’t have a different response to the pilot’s input, but this student might have a very different response than that student to a teacher’s input.
• An EKG (I assume) shows a particular kind of result for a healthy heart and a distinct one for an unhealthy heart. A student’s test results might mean all sorts of things depending on all sorts of variables.
• By the way: all of these examples so far focus on one student at a time. They don’t begin to explore the infinite, often-unpredictable interactions among students…
• …or the differences among the topics that students learn…
• …or the cultures within which the students learn.

We shouldn’t treat a classroom system as a straightforwardly stimulus-response system (like an airplane, like a bridge) because classrooms include an unpredictable vortex of possibilities between stimulus and response.

The best way – in many cases, the ONLY way – to manage that vortex: give teachers professional leeway to act, decide, change, and improvise.

The Continuum of Professionalism

Let’s pause for a moment to consider other kinds of professionls — say, ARCHITECTS, or THERAPISTS.

We allow — in fact we expect — subsantial freedom and creativity and variety as they do their work.

Of course, these professionals work within some constraints, and follow a well-defined code of ethics.

But those modest contraints allow for great freedom because…

… this client wants her house to look like a Tudor castle, while that client wants his to look like Falling Water, or

… this client struggles with PTSD and doesn’t want to take meds, while that client is managing bipolar disorder.

In other words: some professions do permit — in fact, require — strict limitations. But not all professions do. And, in my view, ours doesn’t. We’re more like architects than engineers.

Pushing Back: Reason #2

I promised two reasons that I resist the call for doctor-like-narrow-constraints. Here’s the second.

The analogies provided in this case all focus on people dying. The plane crashed. The heart-attack patient perished in agony. The bridge crushed workers and passers by.

In these professions, constraints literally save lives.

Now, I (like all teachers) think that education is important, and can transform lives and societies for the better. Bad educational practices do have damaging results for individuals and communities.

But: no one ever died from a bad English class. (I know; I’ve taught bad English classes. My students didn’t learn much, but they survived.)

If, in fact, teachers should work within tight constraints — checklists, scripts, step-by-step codes — the argument in favor of that position should be persuasive without the threat of death to energize it.

I’m Right, but I Might be Wrong

I promised up top that I’d include the weaknesses in my argument. I see at least four.

One:

Obviously, novice teachers require lots of support, and should work within tighter constraints than experienced teachers.

And, some teachers aren’t very good at their jobs. We might reasonably decline to trust their professional judgments.

Also: some people LIKE scripted curricula. I don’t think we should take them away from people who want them.

Two:

Teachers shouldn’t be scripted or managed detail by detail, but we should operate within well-established cognitive science principles. For instance:

• Retrieval practice is, in almost all cases, better than simple review
• Working memory overload is, in ALL cases, a detriment to learning
• Myths like “learning styles” or “right/left brain learning” should not be a guide for instruction.

In other words: my call for independence isn’t absolute. We should know our subject and our craft — and then work flexibly and appropriately with those knowledge bases.

Three:

I suspect that a few specific disciplines might allow for precise scripting.

The teaching of reading or early math, for instance, might really benefit from doing EXACTLY step A and then EXACTLY step B, and so forth.

However:

Even in this case, I suspect we would need LOTS of different scripts:

… “typical” readers,

… students with dyslexia, or diagnosably low working memory,

… students with unusually low background knowledge,

… students whose home language isn’t the instructional language,

and so forth.

In other words: even a scriptable subject matter requires teacherly expertise and inventiveness in moving from script to script.

Four:

My own biases no doubt shape my argument.

I myself am a VERY independent person, and I have a penchant for holding teachers in great esteem.

For these reasons, I probably react more strongly than others do to the suggestion that teachers should be tightly constrained to meet our professional obligations.

In other words: I do have a logical argument in support of my position.

a) Flying an airplane is an inappropriate analogue for teaching a class;

b) Tight constraints are almost certainly impossible in the work we do.

But: that logical argument almost certainly gets much of its passion from a realm beyond logic.

In Sum

Ideas about pedagogy often rest on assumptions about teacher independence. For that reason, I’m glad that the speaker raised this point specifically, and made a strong argument to support one point of view.

I hope I’ve persuaded you that teachers — like architects — need informed independence (within some constraints) to do our work.

Even if not, I’m hopeful that thinking through these questions has proven helpful to you.

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In this tweet threat, the invaluable Peps Mccrea gives an excellent example of a situation where teachers’ communal adherence to the same norms benefits students and schools.

Back in 2010, Professor Dan Willingham launched a movement with his now-classic book Why Don’t Students Like School?

In that book — one of the first to make cognitive science clear and practical for classroom teachers — Willingham wrote this immortal sentence: “Memory is the residue of thought.”

In other words: if we want students to learn something — and we do! — we need to make them think hard about it.

When I first read that sentence, it sounded almost too obvious to write down … until I recalled all the things that we (and I) do that DON’T require students to think about the topic we want them to learn.

Once we take this insight onboard, all sorts of other ideas start making more sense.

For instance: why is retrieval practice better at creating long-term memories than simple review?

Well, because students have to think harder when they retrieve than when they review. And because they think harder, they remember more. (“Memory is the residue of thought.”)

Simply put: we teachers strive to foster as much focused, hard thought as possible.

Voila — teaching made easy!

Not So Fast…

This core advice offers such practical insights: what could possibly be the problem?

Well, imagine this hypothetical:

If our students believe that fruits and vegetables are bad for their health, they face two compelling reasons not to eat ’em:

• vegetables taste bad (I’m sorry, I don’t get kale), and
• vegetable are bad for health.

That second belief might be wrong. But if the students believe it, it will influence their thinking and behavior.

Let’s translate this hypothetical to classrooms.

If our students believe that hard thinking is proof that they didn’t learn, they face two compelling reasons not to think hard:

• thinking hard is unpleasant, and
• thinking hard is proof that students don’t get the concept.

Now, you and I know that this second belief is false. Hard thinking is NOT proof that students don’t get the concept; it is — quite the contrary — an essential step on the way to getting the concept.

Hard thinking is — as the technology people say — not a bug; it’s a feature.

For these reasons, we really want to know: do our students hold this false belief? Do they think that hard thinking is both unpleasant and a sign of cognitive ineffectiveness?

In a word: yup.

Let’s Get Technical

A recent meta-analysis looks at precisely this question.

In the highly technical language of research, they conclude:

“The amount of mental effort experienced during a learning task is usually negatively correlated with learners’ perception of learning.”

In other words: just as we feared, students (on average) perceive mental effort to be unpleasant AND a sign that they’re not learning.

In other words:

“If a learner judges their perceived  mental effort to be high, they will judge their perceived learning…as low.”

In 1984, this situation would be described as “double-plus-un-good.”

As is usually the case, the methodology for this meta-analysis involves technical yada-yada that’s more complicated than is worth exploring. But those headlines should be clear enough to get our teacherly attention.

Translating Research for the Classroom

What should school people do with this information?

I’ve got three suggestions:

First:

“Just tell them.” *

That is:

• Specifically say to students that, although it seems PLAUSIBLE that hard thought is a sign of academic failure,
• Hard mental work actually helps them learn.

This truth feels obvious to adults, but is counter-intuitive to younger learners.

Of course, we will need to make this point over and over. I regularly say to my students: “That feeling in your head right now…that feeling ‘this is really complicated!’ … that feeling is you learning the concept.”

Second:

Explain to students — in an age appropriate way — that research supports this claim.

For instance:

You could ask your students: “which is more difficult: a) trying to remember information, or b) rereading it?”

You can then show them LOTS O’ RESEARCH showing that trying to remember — a.k.a. “retrieval practice” — is MUCH more beneficial for learning.

Third:

Depending on the student, an analogy might be helpful: specifically a sports or arts analogy.

In my experience, most students accept without question that sports and arts require repetitious hard work.

• If you want to get better at your dance steps, repeat your dance steps
• If you’re bad at hitting 3-point shots, practice 3 point shots
• If you hope to feel more natural with the blocking at the top of act II, you know what to do.

In every case, the need for all this hard work isn’t a sign that you can’t dance/score/act; instead, it’s a perfectly normal part of getting better at dancing, scoring, and acting.

By the way, I should probably include a fourth strategy:

“You will know what works best for you and your students.”

As is so often the case when translating research for the classroom, the teacher’s perspective often provides the best ideas.

Once you and your classroom colleagues know that students mis-interpret hard thought to be a bad thing, you will start coming up with the solutions likeliest to update this misconception.

Research can help us spot problems; we teachers are often even better at developing effective solutions.

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* Yes, I’m slyly quoting the title of my friend Zach Groshell’s book.

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David, L., Biwer, F., Baars, M., Wijnia, L., Paas, F., & De Bruin, A. (2024). The relation between perceived mental effort, monitoring judgments, and learning outcomes: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 36(3), 66.