classroom advice – Page 13 – Education & Teacher Conferences Skip to main content

Tag: classroom advice

Older posts
Newer posts
Do Collaborative Projects Reduce or Increase Working Memory Stress?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 02, 2019

Do Collaborative Projects Reduce or Increase Working Memory Stress?

Read More

Should teachers ask students to work on projects in teams?

This question generates a great deal of heat.

Many education thinkers advocate for the benefits of teamwork. Others insist that learning happens one brain at a time, and so should not be cluttered with interference from other brains.

Working Memory: Blesses and Curses

Working memory allows humans to hold and reorganize facts and ideas in temporary mental storage.

When you do a word problem, you must decide which parts should be translated into an equation. (Those decisions take WM.) You have to recall the appropriate equation to use. (Ditto.) And, you must plug the correct data into the correct formula before you can arrive at an answer. (Re-ditto.)

Composing a new sentence in a foreign language? Lots of working memory demands.

Comparing Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poetry with that of Countee Cullen? Yup.

Learning how to tell time? Once again – lots of working memory involved.

In other words, WM allows students to do practically everything that we want them to do in school.

And yet, this working memory blessing co-exists with a powerful curse: we just don’t have very much of it.

You probably can alphabetize five days of the work week. You probably can’t alphabetize 10 months of the year. The first task lies within WM limits; alas, the second goes way beyond them.

Collaboration’s WM Dangers

In a recent article, Paul Kirschner and others consider the WM benefits and perils of group work.

(These scholars, especially John Sweller, have elaborated “cognitive load theory” to explain the relationship between long-term memory, WM, and the external world of perception and experience. See here for a review.)

One important peril: the working memory demands created by collaboration. When students work together, they have to negotiate roles. They must create joint mental models. They have to schedule and prioritize and debate.

All these “musts” take up precious working memory space. The result might be that students get better at negotiating, modeling, and prioritizing. But, the WM devoted to those task might make it harder for them to learn the content at the heart of the project.

Of course: you might reasonably want your students to focus on the social-emotional skills. But, if you wanted them to focus on Shakespeare or Boyle’s law, then the project might not produce the results you hoped for.

Collaboration’s WM Benefits

At the same time, Kirschner & Co. also see working memory upsides to collaboration.

A particular cognitive task might include quite stiff WM demands. If the group includes members with the right kinds of background knowledge, then the WM chores can be divided up and managed more effectively.

Student A carries this part of the WM load.

Student B carries that part.

Student C takes care of the tricky last bit.

In this way, the WM whole can be greater than the sum of the parts.

In other words: if teachers can organize group projects so that a) the WM difficulties of collaboration remain low, and b) the benefits of sharing WM burdens remain high, then such collaboration truly help students learn.

Putting It Together

Kirschner’s article concludes with a list of key variables for teachers to track: task complexity, domain expertise, team size, and so forth.

Be aware that cognitive load theory gets a little jargony, and you’ll need some time to learn the lingo before the article makes sense.

However, if you can devote that time, I think you’ll benefit from its practical suggestions, and helpful frameworks for planning students’ collaborative learning.

There’s No Polite Way to Say “I Told You So”
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 12, 2019

There’s No Polite Way to Say “I Told You So”

Read More

Back in 2014, Pam Mueller and Dan Oppenheimer made headlines with their wittily titled study “The Pen Is Mightier Than The Keyboard.”

In that study, they found that students learn more from taking handwritten notes during a lecture than from laptop notes. Their conclusions spawned a thousand gloating posts. And (I don’t doubt) a multitude of well-intentioned anti-laptop policies.

Since I first read the study, I’ve been shouting that its conclusions simply don’t hold up.

Why?

Because M&O’s conclusions hold water only if you believe students can’t learn new things.

(That’s a very strange belief for teachers to have.)

If you believe that students can learn new things, then you believe that they can learn to take laptop notes correctly.

(“Correctly” = “rewriting the lecture’s main points in your own words; don’t just transcribe verbatim”)

If they do that, then this famous study actually suggests laptop notes will enhance learning, not detract from it.

You can find a summary of my argument — and its limitations — here.

Today’s News

Scholars have recently published an attempt at replication of Mueller & Oppenheimer’s study.

The results? Not much.

In the quiet language of research, they conclude:

“Based on the present outcomes and other available evidence, concluding which method [handwriting or laptops] is superior for improving the functions of note-taking seems premature.”

Not so much with the mighty pen.

By the way: a study from 2018 also concluded that — except in special circumstances — it just didn’t make much difference which method students use.

Why I Care

Perhaps surprisingly, I’m not an ardent advocate of laptop notes. Or, for that matter, of handwritten notes.

I advocate for teachers making classroom decisions informed by good research.

In this case, the Mueller and Oppenheimer study contains a perfectly obvious flaw. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t think a) that students can learn good note-taking skills, and b) that if they do, the study’s conclusions make no sense.

And yet, very few people have time to dig into research methodology. As a result, this one study had confirmed many teachers in their beliefs that technology harms learning during note-taking.

That statement might be true. It might be false. But this one study doesn’t give us good data to answer the question.

As a result, teachers might be taking laptops away from students who would learn more if they got to use them.

In brief: bad research harms learning.

I hope that this most recent study encourages teachers to rethink our classroom practices.

Two Helpful Strategies to Lessen Exam Stresses
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January 25, 2019

Two Helpful Strategies to Lessen Exam Stresses

Read More

Exam stress bothers many of our students. Sadly, it hinders students from lower socio-economic status (SES) families even more.

As a result, these students struggle — especially in STEM classes. And, exam stressthis struggle makes it harder for them to enter these important (and lucrative!) fields.

Can we break this cycle somehow?

Reducing Exam Stress: Two Approaches

Christopher Rozek tried a combination of strategies to help lower-SES science students manage exam stress.

This research stands out for a number of reasons: in particular, it included a large sample (almost 1200 students). And, it took place in a school, not a psychology lab. That is, his results apply to the “real world,” not just a hermetically sealed research space.

Rozek worked with students taking a 9th grade biology class. Before they took the two exams in the course, Rozek had students write for ten minutes.

One group spent their ten minutes writing about their current thoughts and feelings. This approach lets students “dump” their anxiety, and has been effective in earlier studies. (By the way: this earlier research is controversial. I’ve written about that controversy here.)

Another group read a brief article showing that the right amount of stress can enhance performance. This reading, and the writing they did about it, helps students “reappraise” the stress they feel.

A third group did shortened versions of both “dumping” and “reappraising” exercises.

And the control group read and wrote about the importance of ignoring and suppressing negative/stressful emotions.

So, did the “dump” strategy or the “reappraise” strategy help?

Dramatic Results

Indeed, they both did.

For example, Rozek and Co. measured the effect these strategies (alone or together) had on the exam-score gap between high- and low-SES students.

The result? They cut the gap by 29%.

Rozek also tracked course failure. Among low-SES students, these strategies cut the failure rate by 50%.

(In the control group, 36% of the low SES students failed the class; in the other three groups, that rate fell to 18%. Of course, 18% is high — but it’s dramatically lower than 36%.)

In his final measure, Rozek found that — after these interventions — low SES-students evaluated their stress much more like the high SES-students. The gap between these ratings fell…by 81%.

All this progress from a 10 minute writing exercise.

Classroom Guidance to Reduce Exam Stress

If you’ve got students who are likely to feel higher levels of anxiety before a test, you might adapt either (or both) of these strategies for your students.

The best way to make these strategies work will vary depending on your students’ age and academic experience.

You might start by reviewing Rozek’s research — click the link above, and look for the “Procedure” section on page 5. From there, use your teacherly wisdom to make those procedures fit your students, your classroom, and you.

Does Drawing a Simple Picture Benefit Memory?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January 22, 2019

Does Drawing a Simple Picture Benefit Memory?

Read More

If a picture is worth 1000 words, how many words is drawing a picture worth?

drawing benefits memory

More specifically, Jeffrey Wammes & Co. have been exploring this question: is it true that drawing benefits memory? If I draw a picture of a word, will I remember it better than if I simply wrote that word down several times?

To explore this question, Wammes and his team have run a series of studies over the last several years. Basically, they’re trying to disprove their own hypothesis. If they can’t disprove it…well, it’s increasingly likely to be true.

The basic studies took a fairly simple form. Students saw a word and then spent 40 seconds drawing a picture of it. Or, they saw a word and spent 40 seconds writing it down several times.

Which words did they remember better? Yup: the words that they had drawn.

This effect held up not only in a psychology lab, but also in a college lecture hall.

Drawing Benefits Memory: More Advanced Studies

This hypothesis makes a kind of rough-and ready sense, for a number of reasons.

For instance, it just seems plausible that drawing benefits memory because visuals aide memory. Or, because drawing requires a greater degree of cognitive processing than simply writing.

So: perhaps drawing is but one example of these other effects.

Wammes and Co. wanted to see if that’s true. (Remember: they’re trying to disprove their hypothesis.)

So, they repeated the study several more times. In some cases, students drew pictures for some words and looked at pictures of other words.

Or, in another study, they drew pictures of some words and wrote down key features of other words. (Writing down key features requires higher levels of processing.)

In every case, they found that drawing produces even greater benefits than each sub-strategy. Students remembered more words that they had drawn than words they had processed in all those other ways.

Classroom Implications

What should classroom teachers do with this information?

In the first place, keep in mind that we’re still in early days of testing this technique. Much of this research has focused on nouns that are relatively easy to draw: say, “apple.”

At the same time, Wammes ran one study where students either drew or copied verbatim definitions of words. For instance, “stratoscopes” are “airborne telescopes that are mounted on high altitude balloons.” Once again, drawing led to better memory than simple copying.

Wammes’s team is currently exploring drawings of more abstract words: I hope to see those results published soon.

With these caveats in mind, I think we can plausibly use this approach in our classrooms. If you think a word, definition, concept, or process can plausibly be drawn, give your students a change to “review by drawing.”

Or, if you’ve built in a moment for retrieval practice, encourage students to include a drawing as part of their retrieval.

You might conclude that a particular topic doesn’t lend itself to drawing. An an English teacher, I’m not immediately sure how to draw “ode” or “concatenation” or “litotes.”

But, if a word or concept seems drawable to you, you might give students a chance to try out this mnemonic aide.

A Final Note

I emailed Dr. Wammes with a few questions about his research. In his reply, he included this quite wonderful sentence:

“There certainly will be situations where it [drawing] doesn’t work, I just unfortunately haven’t found them yet.”

Too often, teachers can take research findings as absolute injunctions. When we learn about the 10 minute rule, we think: “okay, I have to change it up every ten minutes!”

But, that’s just not true.

Psychology findings will benefits some of our classroom situations, some of our students, some of our lesson plans, some of our schools.

But, almost no research finding always applies. We have to translate and adapt and tinker.

The field of Mind, Brain, Education is a partnership: teachers learn from researchers, and researchers learn from teachers.

So, when you try this technique in your classroom, keep track of your results. If you pass them on to me, I’ll let the researchers know.

 

 

Research Summary: The Best and Worst Highlighting Strategies
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January 13, 2019

Research Summary: The Best and Worst Highlighting Strategies

Read More

Does highlighting help students learn?

As is so often the case, the answer is: it depends.

highlighting

The right kind of highlighting can help. But, the wrong kind doesn’t help. (And, might hurt.)

And, most students do the wrong kind.

Today’s Research Summary

Over at Three Star Learning Experiences, Tim Surma & Co. offer a helpful overview of highlighting research.

The headlines: highlighting helps students if the highlight the right amount of the right information.

Right amount: students tend to highlight too much. This habit reduces the benefit of highlighting, for several reasons.

Highlighting can help if the result is that information “pops out.” If students highlight too much, then nothing pops out. After all, it’s all highlighted.

Highlighting can help when it prompts students to think more about the reading. When they say “this part is more important than that part,” this extra level of processing promotes learning. Too much highlighting means not enough selective processing.

Sometimes students think that highlighting itself is studying. Instead, the review of highlighted material produces the benefits. (Along with the decision making before-hand.)

Right information.

Unsurprisingly, students often don’t know what to highlight. This problem shows up most often for a) younger students, and b) novices to a topic.

Suggestions and Solutions

Surma & Co. include several suggestions to help students highlight more effectively.

For instance, they suggest that students not highlight anything until they’ve read everything. This strategy helps them know what’s important.

(I myself use this technique, although I tend to highlight once I’ve read a substantive section. I don’t wait for a full chapter.)

And, of course, teachers who teach highlighting strategies explicitly, and who model those strategies, will likely see better results.

Surma’s post does a great job summarizing and organizing all this research; I encourage you to read the whole thing.

You might also check out John Dunlosky’s awesome review of study strategies. He and his co-authors devote lots of attention to highlighting, starting on page 18. They’re quite skeptical about its benefits, and have lots to contribute to the debate.

For other suggestions about highlighting, especially as a form of retrieval practice, click here.

 

New Research: Personal Best Goals (Might) Boost Learning
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 31, 2018

New Research: Personal Best Goals (Might) Boost Learning

Read More

Some research-based suggestions for teaching require a lot of complex changes. (If you want to develop an interleaved syllabus, you’re going to need some time.)

personal best goals

Others couldn’t be simpler to adopt.

Here’s a suggestion from researchers Down Under: encourage your students to adopt “personal best goals.”

The Research

In a straightforward study, Andrew Martin and Australian colleagues asked 10- to 12-year-olds to solve a set of math problems. After each student worked for one minute, she learned how well she had done on that group of problems.

Students then worked that same set of problems again. Martin measured their improvement from the first to the second attempt.

Here’s the key point: after half of the students heard their score, they got these additional instructions:

“That is your Personal Best score. Now we’re going to do these question again, and I would like you to set a goal where you aim to do better on these questions than you did before.”

The other half of the students simply heard their score and were told to try the problems again.

Sure enough, this simple “personal best” prompt led to greater improvement than in the control group.

To be clear: the difference was statistically significant, but relatively small. The Cohen’s d was 0.08 — lower than typically gets my attention.

However, as the researchers point out, perhaps the structure of the study kept that value low. Given the process — students worked the same problem sets twice — the obvious thing for students to do is strive to improve performance on the second iteration.

In other words: some students might have been striving for “personal bests” even when they weren’t explicitly instructed to do so.

In my own view, a small Cohen’s d matters a lot if the research advice is difficult to accomplish. So, if interleaving leads to only a small bump in learning, it might not be worth it. As noted above, interleaving takes a lot of planning time.

In this case, the additional instruction to “strive for your personal best” has essentially no cost at all.

Classroom Implications

Martin’s study is the first I know of that directly studies this technique.

(Earlier work, well summarized by Martin, looks at self-reports by students who set personal best goals. That research is encouraging — but self-reports aren’t as persuasive as Martin’s design.)

For that reason, we should be careful and use our best judgement as we try out this idea.

For example:

I suspect this technique works when used occasionally, not constantly.

In this study, the technique was used for the very short term: the personal best goals applied to the very next minute.

One intriguing suggestion that Martin makes: teachers could encourage personal best goals for the process not the result. That is: the goal could be “ask for help before giving up” rather than “score higher than last time.”

One final point stands out in this research. If you’re up to date on your Mindset research, you know the crucial difference between “performance goals” and “learning goals.”

Students with “performance goals” strive, among other things, to beat their peers. Of course, “personal best goals” focus not on beating peers but on beating oneself. They are, in other words, “learning goals.”

And, we’ve got LOTS of research showing that learning goals result in lots more learning.

Bit by Bit, Putting It Together
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 30, 2018

Bit by Bit, Putting It Together

Read More

Over at Teacherhead, Tom Sherrington has posted a form that teachers can use for lesson plans.

He has put together different versions: one filled-in with explanations, another left blank for teachers to use, yet another for adapting and editing.

The Bigger Picture

In the world of Learning and the Brain, researchers explore precise, narrow questions about learning. The result: lots of precise, narrow answers.

For instance: Technique X helped this group of bilingual 5th graders in Texas learn more about their state constitution.

How might Technique X help you? With your students? And your curriculum?

And, crucially, how does Technique X fit together with Technique Y, Technique 7, and Technique Gamma — which you also heard about at the conference?

As you’ve heard me say: only the teacher can figure out the best way to put the research pieces together. Once you’ve gathered all the essential information, you’re in the best position to conjure the optimal mix for your specific circumstances.

All Together Now

And, that’s why I like Sherrington’s lesson planning form so much.

You’ve seen research into the importance of “activating prior knowledge.” You’ve also seen research into the importance of “retrieval practice.” You know about “prior misconceptions.” And so forth…

But, how do those distinct pieces all fit together?

This lesson planning form provides one thoughtful answer.

To be clear: this answer doesn’t have to be your answer. For this reason (I assume), Sherrington included a form that you can edit and make your own.

The key message as you start gearing up for January: research does indeed offer exciting examples and helpful new ways to think about teaching and learning.

Teachers should draw on that research. And: we’ll each put the pieces together in our own ways.

New Year, New Habits: More Learning!
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 29, 2018

New Year, New Habits: More Learning!

Read More

When the school year starts back up in January, teachers would LOVE to use this fresh start for good.

new learning habits

In particular, our students might have developed some counter-productive habits during the first half of the year. Wouldn’t it be great if we could help them develop new learning habits?

Maybe homework would be a good place to start. Better homework habits should indeed lead to more learning.

The Problem: Old Habits

When I sit down to do my homework, the same problems always crop up.

My cell phone buzzes with texts.

I’m really tired. SO tired.

The abominable noise from my brother’s room (heavy metal horror) drives me crazy.

I try to solve all these problems when they appear, but they get me so distracted and addled that I just can’t recover quickly. Result: I’m just not very efficient.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could develop new habits to solve these problems? What would these new learning habits be?

New Learning Habits: “Implementation Intentions”

We actually have a highly effective habit strategy to deal with this problem. Sadly, the solution has a lumpish name: “implementation intentions.”

Here’s what that means.

Step 1: I make a list of the problems that most often vex me. (In fact, I’ve already made that list — see above.)

Important note about step 1: everyone’s list will be different. The problems that interfere with my homework might not bother other people. (Apparently, some folks like my brother’s dreadful music.)

Step 2: decide, IN ADVANCE, how I will solve each problem.

For example, when my cell phone buzzes, I won’t look at the message. Instead, I will turn the phone to airplane mode.

When I feel tired, I’ll do 20 jumping jacks. If that doesn’t work, I’ll take a quick shower. That always wakes me right up.

When my brother cranks his stereo, I’ll move to my backup study location in the basement.

Just as everyone faces different problems, everyone will come up with different solutions.

Step 3: let the environment do the work.

Here’s the genius of “implementation intentions”: the environment does the work for us.

Now, when my phone buzzes, I already know what to do. I’ve already made the decision. I don’t have to make a new decision. I simply execute the plan.

Phone buzzes, I switch it to airplane mode. Done.

New Learning Habits: the Research

Now, I have to be honest with you. When I first read about this strategy, I was REALLY SKEPTICAL.

I mean, it’s so simple. How can this possibly work?

The theory — “the environment does the work, activating a decision chain that’s already been planned” — sort of makes sense, but: really?

In fact, we do have lots of good research showing that this strategy works.

For instance, Angela Duckworth (yes, that Angela Duckworth) found that students who went through this process completed 60% more practice problems for the PSAT than those who simply wrote about their goals for the test.

You read that right: 60% more practice problems.

How’s that for new learning habits?

Classroom Applications

What does this technique look like in your classroom?

Of course: everyone reading this blog teaches different content to different students at different schools. And, we are all different people.

So, your precise way of helping your students will differ from my way.

I’m including a link to Ollie Lovell’s post on this topic. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that you follow his example precisely. After all, you and Ollie are two different people.

However, I am suggesting that his example helpfully illustrates the concept. And, it will give you ideas on how best to apply it in your world.

Escaping the “Inquiry vs. Direct Instruction” Debate
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 22, 2018

Escaping the “Inquiry vs. Direct Instruction” Debate

Read More

If you’d like to stir up a feisty argument at your next faculty meeting, lob out a casual observation about direct instruction.

Almost certainly, you’ll hear impassioned champions (“only direct instruction leads to comprehension”) and detractors (“students must construct their own understandings”) launch into battle.

For Example…

Back in September, I reviewed two studies contrasting these approaches.

One study, looking at science instruction with 4th graders, found that direct instruction led to more learning. The second study argued for a constructivist approach — yet lacked a remotely plausible control group.

So, in that post at least, it made sense to tell students what experts had already concluded.

One Study, Two Perspectives

I’ve found another study that helpfully reopens this debate.

Daniel Schwartz and colleagues helped 8th grade science students understand concepts like density, speed, and surface pressure.

Crucially, all these concepts share an underlying “deep structure”: ratio.

That is: “speed” is distance divided by time. “Density” is mass divided by volume.

Schwartz wanted to see if students learned each concept (density, spring constant) AND the underlying deep structure (ratio).

Half of the 8th graders in this study heard a brief lecture about each concept — and about the underlying structure they shared. They had a chance to practice the formulas they learn.

That is: this “tell and practice” paradigm is one kind of direct instruction.

The rest of the 8th graders were given several related problems to solve, and asked to figure out how best to do so.

This “invent with contrasting cases” paradigm enacts constructivist principles.

Findings, and Conclusions

Schwartz and Co. found that both groups learned to solve word problems equally well.

However — crucially — the contrasting cases method led to deeper conceptual understanding.

When this group of students were given a new kind of ratio to figure out, they recognized the pattern more quickly and solved problems more accurately.

So, the obvious conclusion: constructivist teaching is better. Right?

Not so fast. Schwartz’s study includes this remarkable pair of sentences:

“There are different types of learning that range from skill acquisition to identity formation, and it seems unlikely that a single pedagogy or psychological mechanism will prove optimal for all types of learning.

Inventing with contrasting cases is one among many possible ways to support students in learning deep structure.”

That is: in this very particular set of circumstances, a constructivist approach helped these students learn this concept — at least, in the way it was tested.

What Next?

If the purists have it wrong — if both direct instruction and constructivist pedagogies might have appropriate uses — what’s a teacher to do?

Schwartz himself suggests that different approaches make sense for different kinds of learning.

For instance, he wonders if direct instruction helps learn complex procedures, whereas constructivist methods help with deep structures (like ratio).

Perhaps, instead, the essential question is the level of difficulty. We have lots of research that says the appropriate level of cognitive challenge enhances learning.

So: perhaps the “tell and practice” method of this study was just too easy; only a more open-ended investigation required enough mental effort.

However, perhaps the study with the 4th graders (mentioned above) included a higher base level of conceptual difficulty. In that case, hypothetically, direct instruction allowed for enough mental work, whereas the inquiry method demanded too much.

Two Conclusions

First: the right pedagogical approach depends on many variables — including the content to be learned. We teachers should learn about the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, but only we can decide what will work best for these students and this material on this day.

Second: purists who insist that we must always follow one (and ONLY one) pedagogy are almost certainly wrong.

When Multitasking Helps (And Why Teachers Should Discourage It Anyway)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 07, 2018

When Multitasking Helps (And Why Teachers Should Discourage It Anyway)

Read More

We all know that multitasking is baaaaad.

In fact, we all know that multitasking doesn’t happen. Instead, when we think we’re multitasking, we’re actually switching rapidly back and forth between two tasks. (Or, heaven help us, more than two tasks.)

multitasking

If either of those two tasks is cognitively complex, this rapid task switching imperils performance.

So, to repeat: multitasking is baaaaad.

Surprising New Research…

But what if, under unusual circumstances, it were beneficial?

More precisely, what if the perception that I’m multitasking improves my performance.

Here’s how you might test such a question (especially if your name were Shalena Srna):

Ask two groups of students to transcribe a Shark Week video.

Tell half of them that they’re doing two things: learning by watching, and also transcribing.

Tell the other half that they’re doing one thing: learning by watching and transcribing.

In other words, both groups of students do the same thing. But: one group thinks they’re multitasking, and the other doesn’t.

Sure enough, in this study, students who thought they were multitasking did better. They wrote more words, and they remembered more of the video.

Wow.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Srna and company didn’t stop there. They kept testing their hypothesis.

In another study, they asked students take a virtual art-museum tour. They told half of them that this required distinct tasks (listening and looking); the other half didn’t get that instruction.

Same results.

In another version, they had participants solve two kinds of puzzles simultaneously: word searches and anagrams. Rather than tell half that the puzzles required dual-tasking (or not), they asked participants what they thought.

Here again, those who spontaneously thought they were multitasking did better on the puzzles than those who didn’t – even though they were all doing the same task.

In Search of an Explanation

This result, to put it mildly, seems bizarre. If multitasking makes me worse at something, why would believing that I’m multitasking make me better?

Srna & Co. suggest one plausible explanation. If I think I’m multitasking, then I might concentrate harder on the task.

To test their hypothesis, they measured participants’ pupil dilation when they did (or didn’t) think they were multitasking. (We’ve got good research showing that people who are more engaged in material have greater dilation.)

Sure enough, people who believed they were multitasking had bigger pupils than those who did not.

In fact, they rated themselves as less bored by the work they were doing.

Teaching Implications

This research strikes me as a) fascinating, b) thorough and thoughtful, and c) a smidge dangerous.

Here’s what I mean.

Given these (highly persuasive) studies, we might be tempted to tell our students that they’re multitasking when they’re not – because their extra level of concentration will improve their learning.

Alas, such a response would mistake research benefits for school benefits.

In this case, if we tell our students that they’re multitasking, good things might happen in the short term. However, in the long-term, they get the message that we think it’s okay.

But, it isn’t. Rapid task switching reduces learning. It really does.

In fact, students get counter-productive, pro-switching messages all the time. We need to work against this cultural programming.

(One key strategy: they should see us conspicuously refusing to multitask. Hard-core monotasking adults are great role models.)

Reality Check

Srna and Co. begin their article with some amazing statistics. According to their survey, 84% of people think they’re better-than-average multitaskers. In fact, almost 50% say they’re tops in the field.

Rather than use students’ false beliefs to help them today, we should correct their beliefs to help them for a lifetime.

Older posts
Newer posts