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Solving the Nap Research Problem (BTW: Naps Help!)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 09, 2018

Solving the Nap Research Problem (BTW: Naps Help!)

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Do naps improve learning?nap research

If you teach teenagers, you almost certainly want to know the answer to that question. Whenever I talk with adolescents about brains, it’s one of the first questions I get.

Alas: an important muddle makes that question noticeably hard to answer.

The Nap Research Problem Explained

On the one hand, we’ve got plenty of research showing that naps boost learning.

If I give you a list of words to study, you’ll remember more of them after a nap than you would if you hadn’t taken that nap.

In one study, for example, Olaf Lahl found that

“An ultra short period of only 6 min of napping is already sufficient to significantly boost declarative memory performance beyond waking control levels.”

You read that right. Even a SIX MINUTE nap helped participants recall more words.

But wait: there’s a problem.

We know that good night-time sleep is essential for consolidation of long-term memories. (Here’s a great article on the subject.)

It seems plausible to me that an afternoon nap might feel good at the time, but might make it harder to sleep at night.

If that’s true, then the short-term benefit of the nap will be more than offset by the long-term detriment of a bad night’s sleep.

In other words: I might remember that list of words better after the nap, but I might be likelier to forget everything else.

This uncertainty has always held me back from recommending naps.

The Nap Research Problem, Solved

Researches in Jintan, China looked at the cognitive results of napping — and their method fixes this research problem.

They gathered nap and night-time sleep data from 363 6th graders. And, they tested them on a variety of cognitive functions: executive control, spatial memory, and complex cognition among them.

What did they find?

First: frequent nappers get better nighttime sleep than infrequent nappers.

Yup: naps didn’t make it harder for these 6th graders to sleep. In fact, they slept better.

Second: frequent nappers did better on a variety of the cognitive tests. For instance, they did better on tests of sustained attention. (In schools, we require A LOT of sustained attention).

They also did better on tests of non-verbal reasoning.

In brief: frequent naps don’t make it harder to sleep at night, and they do improve some cognitive functions. Win win!

Nap Research in Context

This study’s authors wisely note two key limitations.

First, the data on sleep come from self-reports. This method, alas, allows for participants’ faulty memory to skew the results.

Second, the study took place within a particular cultural context. Naps are a cultural norm in China. That norm just might have an influence on the relationship between napping and cognition.

We just don’t know.

(To think more about the important of context, consider the perils of WEIRD neuroscience.)

For me, this study’s specific findings about cognitive capabilities are interesting. However, its general finding that naps don’t interfere with nighttime sleep means that the other studies about naps’ benefits can be taken at face value.

So: you’d like to take a 6 minute nap? GO FOR IT!

Look Here Not There: The Limits of Psychology
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 06, 2018

Look Here Not There: The Limits of Psychology

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Limits of PsychologyHow much psychology should teachers learn? And, what kind?

We might be tempted to learn as much as possible.

After all, psychologists study minds in action. It’s hard to think of a topic that might interest teachers more.

Teachers spend all day shaping active minds. Why would we leave any of the discipline out?

Look Here Not There

The invaluable Daniel Willingham has typically thoughtful and practical answers to that question.

He starts by dividing the field into 3 chunks:

Empirical Observations

Theories

Epistemic Assumptions

He argues, in effect, that 2 of those 3 chunks don’t really help teachers do our jobs.

We need to know what empirical observations tell us about learning — especially those well-established empirical observations that are consistently applicable to learners and learning. For example: the limitations of working memory, or the difficulties of transfer.

This information can offer teachers essential guidance on the best ways to help our students learn.

If we overwhelm our students’ working memory capacity, for example, learning simply comes to a halt.

The Limits of Psychology

Although these well-established observations — Willingham calls them “Empirical Generalizations” — help teachers, the other two categories really don’t.

In fact, they might distract and mislead us.

At best, they’re likely to overwhelm our own working memory resources.

For instance: psychological theories not only organize lots of empirical observations. They also make as-of-yet untested predictions about what might happen in other circumstances.

That is, in fact, part of the job of a theory.

However, those untested predictions don’t help teachers. Either we’re aware they’re untested, in which case they don’t tell us what to do (or not to do).

Or we’re NOT aware they’re untested, in which case they might prompt us to try unsupported teaching experiments.

And, epistemic assumptions are typically too broad to be useful.

As Willingham argues, the assertion that “learning is social” leads to differing specific recommendations if you’re a behaviorist or a constructivist.

Beyond the Limits of Psychology: Mental Models

Willingham suggests that teachers need fewer theories and more models: representations of the connections between and among all the empirical findings.

For instance: the image accompanying this article is my own model to represent the relationships among working memory, long-term memory, emotion, motivation, and attention.

That image doesn’t attempt to make predictions, as theories do. Instead, it shows that each of these five topics interacts with all of the others. It suggests that working memory stands “between” the experiential world and long-term memory. It emphasizes the overlap between emotion and motivation as concepts.

Its strives, in other words, to help teachers remember key points about these topics, and to understand the connections among them.

(To be clear, this image draws on the work of many previous scholars — including Willingham.)

A Final Note

Although I agree with Willingham’s broad argument, I do think there’s an important exception. As schools increasingly rely on neuroscience and psychology research to inform our practice, we should have an on-site expert in these disciplines.

Although most teachers should indeed focus on empirical findings, we’ll all benefit if at least one of our colleagues has a rich knowledge of the theories and epistemological assumptions that inform and shape those findings.

As you’ve read here so many times before, our reliance on research brings with it a need for informed and curious skepticism.

 

Brains in the Classroom: Research-based Advice for Students
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 04, 2018

Brains in the Classroom: Research-based Advice for Students

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When brain researchers answer our questions, that feels like helpful advice.

However, when they give us unsolicited advice, that can feel like nagging. After all, teachers and students already have plenty of people telling us what to do.

research-based advice for students

This truth puts researchers in a bind. If we are doing something foolish, and they know we’re doing something foolish, they (helpfully) want to give us a warning.

But, if we haven’t asked for that warning, then we’re likely to ignore it. In fact, we might even get angry that we got it.

Research-based Advice for Students: The Problem

This paradox has particular power for researchers who want to advise students.

We’ve got lots of research showing that students use highly inefficient study strategies.

Better said: students use strategies that give them the feeling that they’re making progress right now. Sadly, however, those strategies don’t often result in long-lasting learning.

(This review article by Nick Soderstrom does an excellent job sorting through difference between short-term performance and long-term learning.)

Research-based Advice for Students: A Solution

Three scholars — Miyatsu, Nguyen, and McDaniel — have hit upon a strategy to offer advice without seeming to nag.

Rather than tell students to stop doing what they really want to do, they’ve written an article on using the study strategies students already prefer more effectively.

Other such articles might say: “Stop rereading the text! You’re wasting your time!”

This article prefers an alternate approach: “If you’re going to reread the text, here’s the best way to do it.”

For example: long-time readers of this blog know that rereading the text yields much less learning than retrieval practice.

But: college students LOVE rereading the text. 78% of them use it as a core study strategy.

So, Miyatsu & Co. offer some advice:

Rereading works best for factual material.

Rereading works best when there’s a big gap between the first and second read, AND when there’s a big gap between the second read and the test.

Finally, rereading works best when you use particular strategies to be sure you’re learning from that second read.

See? No nagging!

They also have advice for other key study strategies, including highlighting, outlining, and using flash cards.

Research-based Advice for Students: A Hopeful Prediction

Miyatsu, Nguyen, and McDaniel note that college students rely on study habits formed over years. That is: they …

…appear to hold strong preferences for study techniques that they have used throughout their educational careers; consequently, attempts to sell them on new strategies may be met with resistance.

This note implies that those of us who teach younger students can have a powerful effect by shaping study strategies earlier on.

That is: if we can

inculcate the habit of using retrieval practice;

guide students to choose their study locations well;

help them spread practice out over time;

we can create the (good) study habits that will be hard to break.

In other words: Miyatsu’s article might be immensely helpful right now. However, if we can shape our students’ study habits well, they might not need it when they get to college.

How Would You Like Inventing a New Math?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 01, 2018

How Would You Like Inventing a New Math?

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expanding mathematical mindsets

Five years ago, I had lunch with a 13-year-old who was thinking about attending my school.

He spent much of the lunch telling me about string theory. As one does, when one is 13, and obsessed with string theory.

I don’t remember much about string theory, but I do remember this part of the conversation: (more…)

Understanding Scanning Technology: When and Where in the Brain
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 27, 2018

Understanding Scanning Technology: When and Where in the Brain

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The good folks over at TedEd have produced another helpful brain video — this one exploring different brain-scanning techniques.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B10pc0Kizsc

This video does a particularly good job exploring both the strengths and the weaknesses of each technology.

Location, Location…oh, and Timing

In particular, EEG is very good at measuring timing precisely. Sadly, it can’t pinpoint location very accurately.

brain scanning technology

On the other hand, fMRI can zoom in on location within a few millimeters. However, its timing measurements are only rough-n-ready: within a few seconds or so.

Surprisingly, the video doesn’t discuss magnetoencephalography (MEG) — which does with magnetic waves what EEG does with electrical waves.

For fun: this video shows the MEG image when the brain reads the single word “dog.”

Chronotype Influences Grades. Owls Are Sad…
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 25, 2018

Chronotype Influences Grades. Owls Are Sad…

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You’re up before the sun rises, eager for the day’s adventures? Sleep researchers call you a “lark.”

Chronotype Influences GradesYou’re perkiest after midnight, happily contemplating the world while your friends sleep? They call you an “owl.”

If you’re comfortably in the middle, think of yourself as a “finch.”

Sleep researchers know a lot about these three sleep species.

And their insights help teachers and administrators think more carefully about helping our students learn.

Point #1: Where do chronotypes come from?

Simply put: genes.

Or, to quote a recent article:

Chronotype appears to be largely determined by the genetic composition of an individual’s circadian clock. An individual may be able to choose to change their sleep/meal/activity time due to day-to-day schedule impositions, but they may not be able to shift their internal clocks in the same way, due to its genetic basis.

I want to emphasize the rarity of this explanation. In the worlds of psychology and neuroscience, almost everything results from a combination of nature and nurture.

IQ? Nature and nurture.

Grit? Nature and nurture.

Processing speed? Nature and nurture.

So: don’t let this one instance fool you into thinking that genes routinely determine our fates.

Of course, age has an influence on chronotype as well. Puberty magically transforms more of us into owls. As we age, we might well revert to our initial larkiness — or at least to finchitude.

Note well: students have no control whatsoever over either of these influences. They can’t control their genes, and they can’t control their developmental stage.

In other words: adolescent owls aren’t simply being stubborn when they go to bed late. They’re often simply not tired enough to sleep.

Point #2: Chronotype Influences Grades

Researchers Smarr and Schirmer looked at the relationship between chronotype and grades in college.

Their finding? In brief: we do best when class time matches our chronotype.

Larks do best in morning classes. Owls catch up in evening classes.

However … and this is a BIG however … owls consistently have lower GPAs than larks and finches.

Even in evening classes, larks and finches have higher GPAs than do owls — although the difference is smaller than in morning classes.

One explanation  — favored by morning people everywhere — is that larks are simply smarter than owls.

A better explanation: school schedules benefits larks and make life difficult for owls. After all: when classes begin early in the morning, owls just don’t get enough sleep before class.

And — as you remember — these sleep-deprived owls aren’t being stubborn. They’re just not tired enough to fall asleep in time to get the 8 or 9 hours they need.

In other words: we teach owls, larks, and finches. Our school schedules should work well for all of them. When we favor one sleep species over another, we needlessly disadvantage real students who want to learn.

Can You Resist the Seductive Allure of Neuroscience?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 23, 2018

Can You Resist the Seductive Allure of Neuroscience?

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The seductive allure of neuroscience often blinds us.

seductive allure of neuroscience

In fact, the image on the right shows the part of the brain — the focal geniculative nucleus — that lights up when we’re taken in by false neuroscience information.

Ok, no it doesn’t.

I’ve just grabbed a random picture of a brain with some color highlights.

And: as far as I know, the “focal geniculative nucleus” doesn’t exist. I just made that up.

(By the way: brain regions don’t really “light up.” That’s a way of describing what happens in an fMRI image. You’re really looking at changes in blood flow, indicated by different colors. Brains aren’t Christmas trees or smokers; they don’t light up.)

And yet, for some reason, a picture of a brain with some bits highlighted in color just makes us go wild with credulity.

The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience: Today’s Research

We’ve known for a while that people believe general psychology research more readily when it includes a picture of a brain.

Is that also true for research in educational psychology? That is, does this problem include research in teaching?

Soo-hyun Im investigated this question with quite a straightforward method. He explained educational research findings to several hundred people.

Some of those findings included extraneous neuroscience information. (“This process takes place in the focal geniculative nucleus.”)

Some also included a meaningless graph.

And some also included an irrelevant brain image (like the one above).

Sure enough: people believed the claims with the irrelevant brain image more than they did the same claim without that image.

In fact, as discussed in this earlier post, even teachers with neuroscience training can be taken in by misleading science claims.

Teaching Implications

If you’re reading this blog, if you’re attending Learning and the Brain conferences, you are almost certainly really interested in brains.

You want to know more about synapses and neurotransmitters and the occipital cortex. You probably wish that the focal geniculative nucleus really did exist. (Sorry, it doesn’t.)

On the one hand, this fascination offers teachers real benefits. For a number of reasons, I think it helps (some) teachers to know more about the process of synapse formation, or to recognize parts of the brain that participate in error detection.

At the same time, this interest confers upon us special responsibilities.

If we’re going to rely on brain explanations to support our teaching methods, then we should get in the habit of asking tough-minded questions.

Why are you showing me this brain image? Is the claim credible without the image?

What does that highlighted brain region have to do with learning?

Who says so? Can you cite some articles?

If the person presenting the information can’t — or won’t — answer these questions, then put down the fMRI image and step away from the research.

The teaching method itself might be sound, but the brain claims behind it are simply relying on the seductive allure of neuroscience.

Like Odysseus, you might be tempted — but do not give in to these neuro-Sirens.

Daring to Flip the Public Health Classroom
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 19, 2018

Daring to Flip the Public Health Classroom

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“Flipping the classroom” has been around long enough now to have its own Wikipedia page.

flipped classroom for adult learners

Proponents suggest that this strategy allows teachers to focus less on direct instruction and more on collaboration, problem solving, and application.

Critics respond that direct instruction offers many benefits. They also wonder if we are fooling ourselves by claiming that students learn deeply by watching videos at home.

Most discussion of flipped classrooms focuses on younger grades: its potential for teaching mitosis or long-division or the basics of circuitry.

What about adult learners? Can flipped classrooms help them learn?

Flipped Classroom for Adult Learners

A just-published study looks at a Principles of  Epidemiology course for grad students at Columbia University.

In 2015, instructors taught in the “traditional” way: 90 minutes of lecture, followed by 90 minutes of discussion.

In 2016, they flipped the classroom: “pre-recorded lectures [were] viewed outside the classroom setting (at home), and in-person classroom time [was] devoted to interactive exercises, discussion, or group projects.”

So: who learned more?

By practically every measure, it just didn’t make much difference.

For instance: at the midterm, the median grade in the traditional class was 94.0. In the flipped class, it was … 94.4.

On the final exam, the median traditional grade was — again — 94.0. The flipped class median was 92.5.

(If you look at mean grades instead of median, there is a slight — and statistically trivial — advantage for the flipped classroom.)

Whose Benefit?

Although these grad students didn’t learn any more epidemiology, they did prefer the flipped-classroom format. Why? Because it gave them greater flexibility in their otherwise over-scheduled and hectic lives.

If schools can promote the same amount of learning more conveniently, then that strategy feels like a real win.

At the same time, it’s not clear that this benefit transfers to younger learners.

  • Would they be as conscientious as these graduate students in watching the videos?
  • Are flipped-classroom self-tests typically as in-depth as the ones in this study? (That is: this study included excellent study questions — you can check them out on page 4.)
  • Are most students juggling work-life balance difficulties the way that these graduate students are?

In other words: flipped classrooms simplified schedules for these graduate students — even though they didn’t improve learning.

Whether or not that benefit transfers to K-12 students, however, depends a great deal on the specific circumstances that those students face.

Can You Rely on Meta-analysis? Can You Doubt It?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 16, 2018

Can You Rely on Meta-analysis? Can You Doubt It?

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Over at his blog Filling the Pail, Greg Ashman likes challenging popular ideas. In a recent post, he takes issue with meta-analysis as a way of analyzing educational research.

In the first place, Ashman argues — in effect —  “garbage in, garbage out.” Combining badly-designed studies with well-designed studies still gives some weight to the badly-designed ones.

Of course, Ashman has some thoughtful suggestions as well.

Why Does It Matter?

Why should we care about such an obscure and complicated statistical technique?

Meta-analysis matters because we pay so much attention to it.

For instance: just a month ago, a pair of meta-analyses about Mindset Theory set off another round of anxiety. Edu-twitter lit right up with thoughtful scholars wondering if we should stop focusing so much on the right kind of praise.

Or: I frequently rebut claims about working memory training by citing this well-known meta-analysis by Melby-Lervag and Hulme.

If we’re going to rely so much on this technique, we should be clear-minded about its strengths and its weaknesses.

When Bad Technology Is Good Instead
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 14, 2018

When Bad Technology Is Good Instead

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Teachers have a love/hate relationship with technology.

technology good newsIn some cases, technology provides exciting opportunities to enhance teaching. (Here‘s a recent post about virtual reality technology, and another about classroom clickers.)

In other cases, however, it distracts our students, muddles their thinking, and interferes with their healthy relationships.

Action video games and cell phones take most of the heat in these discussions. Who’s got anything good to say about either?

Technology Good News: Video Games

We’ve got lots of evidence to suggest that action video games improve visual attention. All that virtual racing around, all that shooting at monsters and aliens seems to heighten our visual systems.

A recent study in China wondered how quickly video games might might produce this effect. They reached two conclusions.

First: expert video game players do better on tests of visual attention than beginners. Basically, their peripheral vision is more acute.

And, EEG data show that specific brain regions process visual information more efficiently for these experts. The details aren’t important — EEG data are very difficult to summarize — but the results are clear. Playing action video games trains up visual attention.

Second: the beginning video-game players improved their visual attention after only one hour of play.

Their peripheral vision improved from before to after. And, the EEG data showed more expert-like processing of visual information.

Yup. After JUST ONE HOUR.

Now, the study doesn’t show that this improvement will last. Presumably it takes more than an hour to create enduring changes in such sophisticated cognitive systems.

But, it’s impressive to see how quickly those changes start taking place.

Technology Good News: Video Games (Part 2)

Although “visual attention” sounds like a good thing to have, we might nonetheless worry that action video games have other bad effects.

For example, they might interfere with our students’ ability to make friends. We’ve all seen enough lonely nerdy gamers in movies to wonder about their real-life counterparts.

Well, according to two recent studies from Sweden, we needn’t worry. Gamers are just as likely to befriend their peers as non-gamers: “high-use did not make game users socially isolated or less popular in school.” In fact, gamers often make friends with other gamers in the real world.

Perhaps Swedish and American cultural contexts are so different that these results don’t apply to our students. However, that objection seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Of course, we might still be concerned about video games. One of my grad-school professors forbade his children from playing Grand Theft Auto because its messages struck him as so deeply anti-social. He nonetheless showed us lots of research suggesting that video games really don’t have all the bad effects that people worry about.

Technology Good News: Smart Phones

I got a question about “cell phone addiction” from a teacher just last week. As a society — and as teachers within that society — we’re deeply concerned about children’s relationships with this portable slice of technology.

A recently-published think piece offers a fresh perspective on the dangers of cell phones. Its authors don’t discount those dangers; the specifically note correlations of cell-phone use with anxiety and loneliness.

Instead, they reframe them within an evolutionary perspective. Humans have evolved to be highly social beings, and practically everything we do with cell phones — texts, chats, conversations, schedules, even games — is ultimately largely social.

In other words: we’re not addicted to cell phones. We’re addicted to the social possibilities they allow us.

If we rethink cell-phone use, and strategies to manage cell-phone use, within this perspective, we might be considerably more effective in helping curb addictive impulses.

We might also be quicker to see the healthy benefits of technology: when used best, it helps us develop cognitive function and connect with the broader social world.

These findings strike me as good news indeed.

 

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