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The Best Way to Take Notes: More Feisty Debate
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 10, 2018

The Best Way to Take Notes: More Feisty Debate

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Over at The Learning Scientists, Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel asks: is it better to take longhand notes? Or to annotate slides provided by the speaker? Or, perhaps, simply to listen attentively?

longhand notes

(Notice, by the way, that she’s not exploring the vexed question of longhand notes vs. laptop notes.)

Before we get to her answer, it’s helpful to ask a framing question: how do brain scientists approach that topic in the first place? What lenses might they use to examine it?

Lens #1: The Right Level of Difficulty

Cognitive scientists often focus on desirable difficulties.

Students might want their learning to be as easy as possible. But, we’ve got lots of research to show that easy learning doesn’t stick.

For instance: reviewing notes makes students feel good about their learning, because they recognize a great deal of what they wrote down. “I remember that! I must have learned it!”

However, that easy recognition doesn’t improve learning. Instead, self-testing is MUCH more helpful. (Check out retrievalpractice.org for a survey of this research, and lots of helpful strategies.)

Of course, we need to find the right level of difficulty. Like Goldilocks, we seek out a teaching strategy that’s neither too tough nor too easy.

In the world of note-taking, the desirable-difficulty lens offers some hypotheses.

On the one hand, taking longhand notes might require just the right level of difficulty. Students struggle — a bit, but not too much — to distinguish the key ideas from the supporting examples. They worry — but not a lot — about defining all the key terms just right.

In this case, handwritten notes will benefit learning.

On the other hand, taking longhand notes might tax students’ cognitive capacities too much.  They might not be able to sort ideas from examples, or to recall definitions long enough to write them down.

In this case, handing out the slides to annotate will reduce undesirable levels of difficulty.

Lens #2: Working Memory Overload

Academic learning requires students to

focus on particular bits of information,

hold them in mind,

reorganize and combine them into some new mental pattern.

We’ve got a particular cognitive capacity that allows us to do that. It’s called working memory. (Here’s a recent post about WM, if you’d like a refresher.)

Alas, people need WM to learn in schools, but we don’t have very much of it. All too frequently, working memory overload prevents students from learning.

Here’s a key problem with taking longhand notes: to do so, I use my working memory to

focus on the speaker

understand her ideas

decide which ones merit writing down

reword those ideas into simpler form (because I can’t write as fast as she speaks)

write

(at the same time that I’m deciding, rewording, and writing) continue understanding the ideas in the lecture

(at the same time that I’m rewording, writing, and continuing) continue deciding what’s worth writing down.

That’s a HUGE working memory load.

Clearly, longhand notes keep a high WM load. Providing slides to annotate reduces that load.

Drum Roll, Please…

What does recent research tell us about longhand notes vs. slide annotation? Kuepper-Tetzel, summarizing a recent conference presentation, writes:

participants performed best … when they took longhand notes during the lecture compared to [annotating slides or passively listening].

More intriguing, the group who just passively viewed the lecture performed as well as the group who were given the slides and made annotations.

Whether the lecture was slow- or fast-paced did not change this result.

Longhand notetaking was always more beneficial for long-term retention of knowledge than both annotated slides and passive viewing.

By the way: in the second half of the study, researchers tested students eight weeks later. They found that longhand note-takers did as well as annotators even though they studied less.

It seems that the desirable difficulty of handwriting notes yielded stronger neural networks. Those networks required less reactivation — that is, less study time — to produce equally good test results.

Keep In Mind…

Note that Kuepper-Tetzel is summarizing as-of-yet unpublished research. The peer-review process certainly has its flaws, but it also can provide some degree of confidence. So far, this research hasn’t cleared that bar.

Also note: this research used lectures with a particular level of working memory demand. Some of our students, however, fall below the average in our particular teaching context. They might need more WM support.

We might also be covering especially complicated material on a particular day. That is: the WM challenges in our classes vary from day to day. On the more challenging days, all students might need more WM support.

In these cases, slides to annotate — not longhand notes — might provide the best level of desirable difficulty.

As is always the case, use your best professional judgment as you apply psychology research in your classroom.

The Great Homework Debate: Working Memory Disadvantage?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 07, 2018

The Great Homework Debate: Working Memory Disadvantage?

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Here at Learning and the Brain, we think a lot about the great homework debate.

homework debate

Some scholars rail against homework. Some schools are doing away with it. However, other researchers champion its benefits.

What can brain researchers contribute to this discussion? Knowing what we know about brains and minds, how can we reconsider this argument?

Working Memory in Schools

All academic learning depends on a crucial cognitive capacity: working memory — often abbreviated as WM.

WM allows students to hold pieces of information in mind, while simultaneously reorganizing or combining them.

Clearly, students use WM all the time. For example:

Performing mathematical operations.

Following instructions.

Applying literary terminology.

Combining letters into new words.

Comparing famous figures.

Using scientific principles in new situations.

All these mental operations — and many, many more — require students to hold and process information simultaneously. Whenever students hold and process, they use WM.

Unfortunately, we just don’t have very much of this essential cognitive capacity. As a simple test: you can probably alphabetize the five days of the work week in your head. (Go ahead — try it!)

But, you probably can’t alphabetize the twelve months of the year. Why? You just don’t have enough WM. (Don’t worry: almost nobody does.)

Working Memory and the Homework Debate

A just-published study by Ashley Miller and Nash Unsworth points to a possible connection between WM and our views on homework.

Imagine, for instance, I give my students a list of random words to learn. Later, I ask them to recall words from that list. As you can imagine, the longer the list, the harder that task will be.

As it turns out, a student’s WM influences her performance on that task. The lower her WM, the more she will struggle to recall all those words.

The Miller and Unsworth study adds a crucial twist. As students see the same word list more and more often, the difference between high-WM students and low-WM students gets smaller.

In some ways of measuring, in fact, it simply goes away.

Put simply: repetitive practice can eliminate this functional difference between high-WM and low-WM students.

What’s another name for “repetitive practice”? Homework.

In other words, homework designed in a particular way might help students who traditionally struggle in school. Although a relatively low WM typically makes learning very difficult, a well-structured assignment might ease some of those difficulties.

If teachers could make cognitive life easier for low-WM students, we’d be going a long way to making school more fair and beneficial.

Caveats (Of Course)

First: this argument says that the right kind of homework can help some students. Of course, the wrong kind of homework won’t. In fact, it might be a detriment to most students.

Second: Miller and Unsworth’s study suggests that repetitive practice can reduce the effect of WM differences. However, teachers might struggle to make “repetitive practice” anything other than really, really dull. We’ll need to be insightful and imaginative to ensure that the solution to one problem doesn’t create a new problem.

Third: To be clear: Miller & Unsworth don’t say that their research has implications for assigning homework. However, as I thought over their findings, it seemed the most direct application of this study in a school setting.

Finally: Teachers might object: we rarely ask students to recall random words. This research paradigm simply doesn’t apply to our work.

And yet, we face an awkward truth.

The words that our students learn might not seem random to us, but they nonetheless often seem random to our students.

We know why the words “chlorophyll,” “stomata,” and “Calvin Cycle” are related to each other. However, until our students understand photosynthesis, even that brief list might feel quite random to them.

Words and ideas that live comfortably in teachers’ long-term memory systems must be processed in our students’ WM systems. The right kind of homework just might make that processing easier.

Pro Tips: How To Think Like A Cognitive Scientist
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
June 04, 2018

Pro Tips: How To Think Like A Cognitive Scientist

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Here’s an enthusiastic article from down under.

cognitive science principles

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Victoria University has introduced an “intensive” course model. Students don’t take multiple courses over many weeks. Instead, they take one course for four weeks. Students absorb a full term of learning in one zealous month.

The students interviewed by the paper were enthusiastic. 19-year-old Alice Growden says:

I am learning a lot more; I feel like the information is easier to understand this way. It’s easier to do better. You are not slammed by four different assignments at once. It is much more balanced.

The Morning Herald’s tone (and my Twitter feed) insist on the benefits of these intensive courses. Seemingly only grouchy professors — who fret that they won’t have enough time for research — object.

Cognitive Science Principles, Take 1: The Spacing Effect

Despite this article’s enthusiastic tone, cognitive scientists will quickly doubt the benefits of this “intensive” course schedule.

After all, we have lots of research showing that spreading practice out over time creates more learning than bunching that practice all together.

For instance, Doug Rohrer looks at shorter and longer lengths of time that courses cover topics. His conclusion — in the modest language of research:

Long-term learning is best achieved when the exposures to a concept are distributed over time periods that are longer rather than shorter.

He finds this conclusion to hold even for intensive language courses, where teachers most often champion the strategy.

Many other scholars have reached this same conclusion. Nicholas Cepeda (along with Doug Rohrer, Hal Pasher, and others) worked with more than 1300 students, and retested them up to a year later.

Their conclusion? Spread learning out over time.

This idea holds even for flashcard study strategies.

Pro Tip #1: If you want to think like a cognitive scientist, beware teaching strategies that promote lots of learning in a relatively short time.

Cognitive Science Principles, Take 2: The Illusion of Knowing

As quoted above, student Alice Growden emphasizes the ease with which she learns:

“I am learning a lot more; I feel like the information is easier to understand this way. It’s easier to do better.”

Yet here again, cognitive scientists will be skeptical.

Remember this principle: easy learning doesn’t stick. Instead, teachers should foster a desirable level of difficulty.

In fact, this principle helps explain the principle above. Spreading practice out over time helps students learn better because it creates additional cognitive challenges.

The extra mental work that students do, in turn, creates more enduring neural networks to encode new memories.

Another example: rereading the textbook.

Students LOVE rereading the book, because it’s relatively easy. This study strategy gives them the illusion of knowing. They say to themselves: “I recognize that passage! I must know this!”

Alas, this illusion comforts students, but isn’t helping them learn more.

I frequently cite Nick Soderstrom’s comprehensive article distinguishing between two results of study: performance vs. learning.

Students often believe that if they “perform” well — say, they recognized everything in their notes — then they have studied effectively. Alas, higher early performance often results in less learning.

Pro Tip #2: If you want to think like a cognitive scientist, beware teaching strategies that emphasize how easy new learning will be. Easy learning doesn’t stick.

 

Default Image
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 26, 2018

No Grades? Doug Lemov Just Isn’t Having It…

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If you’ve read Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion, you know he focuses not on the theoretical but on the practical.

no grades

When Lemov sees teachers doing something that works (he’s got a rigorous definition of “works”), then he thinks you should do that. When they do something that doesn’t work (ditto), he thinks you should stop.

No Grades, No Meritocracy?

Although lots of people champion doing away with grades, Lemov strongly dissents. In his view, the end of grades would inevitably result in the end of meritocracy.

As you can imagine, his post has prompted a heated debate — much of it articulate and thoughtful. Check it out at the link above.

Let’s Get Practical: More Flashcards Are Better
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May 19, 2018

Let’s Get Practical: More Flashcards Are Better

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Teachers certainly can benefit from background brain knowledge. It’s fascinating, for instance, to learn about the intricacies of neural network formation.

flashcard strategies

At the same time, we and our students often want practical classroom guidance. What exactly should we DO — and, in particular, what should we DO DIFFERENTLY?

For example: given the enthusiasm with which our students turn to flashcards, we should welcome any guidance on their best use.

Here’s a helpfully specific question: should our students use relatively small or relatively large stacks of cards?

Theory Meets Practice: Flashcard Strategies

Psychologists have a theory that should answer that question.

The “spacing effect” says that the same amount of practice spread out over time (“spaced“), rather than done all at once (“massed“), yields more learning.

If a student has — for example — only 5 flashcards in a pile, then she’ll encounter those words more frequently. On the other hand, if she has 20 flashcards in that  pile, then more time passes between each repetition.

5 flashcards = massing; 20 flashcards = spacing. Therefore, 20 flashcards ought to be better.

Nate Kornell, a practical researcher who writes with welcome clarity, tried just this experiment.

Students learned some word pairs with 4 piles of 5 flashcards each. They learned other word pairs with 1 pile of 20 flashcards.

Which flashcard strategy led to better recall the following day?

As the theory predicted, the larger pile of flashcards lead to better memory. In one trial, massed practice resulted in score of 38%. Spaced practice led to a score of 65%.

Crucially: students had the same amount of time to study the same number of words. Simply organizing those words one way (the big pile) rather than the other way (little pile) resulted in more learning.

A Paradox, and a Resolution

In Kornell’s study, larger stacks of flashcards yielded more learning for 90% of the students. And yet, even after they themselves had tried both approaches, 72% preferred the (ineffective) small stacks.

What gives? Why do they prefer ineffective flashcard strategies?

Kornell suspect that students prefer the study approach where they feel they’re making faster progress. Sadly, as happens quite often, the strategy that feels good in fact creates less learning.

Another example of this phenomenon: students typically prefer to reread passages rather than quiz themselves. Rereading doesn’t help them learn much, but it does make them feel more confident. (“I recognize that part! I must have learned it…”)

Flashcard Strategies: The Perfect Number

Given Kornell’s research, it’s tempting to think that students should always sort their flashcards into stacks of 20.

Instead of focusing on number, we should instead focus on relative challenge. The flashcard pile should be big enough so that

a) students feel stretched by the information they’re practicing, but

b) they don’t feel discouraged or overwhelmed.

That number will probably be higher than they would naturally choose. But it won’t be huge.

We might prefer to have more precise guidance than this. However, no one rule will apply equally well to all students.

The correct number of cards in a pile will be different in 2nd grade, 8th grade, and college. It will be different in subjects when students struggle and in subjects where they thrive. It will be different for flashcards that contain a lot of information and those with just a word or two.

Combining our teacherly experience with Kornell’s researcherly insight will lead to the best result we can hope for: flashcard strategies that promote optimum learning conditions.

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.

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.

Vital Resources in Psychology: the Best Research for Teachers
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 11, 2018

Vital Resources in Psychology: the Best Research for Teachers

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vital resources in psychologyOver the last ten years, I’ve found many articles and studies that I return to frequently.  Some summarize lots of research suggestions. Others explore particular questions with verve and clarity.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

Vital Resources in Psychology: Big Lists

Our students often confuse PERFORMANCE (a high score on a test) with LEARNING (enduring knowledge and skill). Nick Soderstrom sorts through all kinds of evidence to help teachers distinguish between the two. Helpfully, he includes evidence for both physical and cognitive learning.

Learning versus Performance: An Integrative Review, by Nick Soderstrom and Robert Bjork

This comprehensive (!) article examines research behind ten well-known teaching practices: from underlining to retrieval practice. In each case, it looks at the quality of evidence. It then helps you choose those that fit your subject and your students best. (Danger: several sacred oxen gored here.)

Improving Students’ Learning with Effective Learning Techniques, by John Dunlosky (and many others)

Deans for Impact have boiled their suggestions to a list of six. You’ve got everything here from motivation to transfer. It also offers a solid list of sources when you want to check out the primary research.

The Science of Learning, by Deans for Impact

Vital Resources: Enlightening Studies

Regular readers of this blog know that “retrieval practice” helps students learn MUCH more effectively than simple review does. In brief: don’t have students reread a chapter. Have them quiz each other on the chapter. This kind of active recall fosters new learning. In this splendid study, a researcher, a teacher, and a principal move this finding out of the psychology lab and into the classroom.

The Value of Applied Research: Retrieval Practice Improves Classroom Learning and Recommendations from a Teacher, a Principal, and a Scientist, by Agarwal, Bain, and Chamberlain

In this marvelous study, researchers wonder if testing students on material before they’ve even seen it might help them ultimately learn it better. Here’s the fun part: when their first study suggests the answer is “yes,” they then repeat the study four more times in an attempt to prove themselves wrong.  Only when they can’t come up with any other explanations for their findings do they finally persuade themselves.

The Pretesting Effect: Do Unsuccessful Retrieval Attempts Enhance Learning?, by Richland, Kornell, and Kau

 

 

Don’t “Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain”
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 09, 2018

Don’t “Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain”

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Today’s post is a bit more informal and personal than usual.

When I first started attending Learning and the Brain conferences in 2008, I looked at the presenters as Speakers of Truth from a Platform of Verity.

They KNEW THINGS. They had DONE RESEARCH.

I wasn’t there to ask questions. I was there to write down what they told me.

Evolving Perspective

Over the last ten years, I’ve learned to think differently about the relationship between research and understanding. Research always begins as a cheerfully contentious conversation among competing theories.

Can people pay attention for more than 10 minutes? Researchers argue about that.

Does retrieval practice have limits? Researchers argue about that.

Is Mindset a thing? Researchers argue about that A LOT.

I’m also gradually learning to think differently about researchers themselves.

In the past, they struck me as distant, awe-inspiring figures. They were busy, out questing for truth.

I would no sooner have interrupted a researcher to ask a question than I would have interrupted a surgeon mid-slice. They’ve got better things to do.

And yet, I’m learning how eager many researchers are to connect with teachers.

Today’s Uplifiting News

In the last two weeks, I have sent emails to six different researchers, asking them questions about the classroom implications of their work.

To be clear: I’ve never met any of these researchers. I’ve certainly never had the chance to do anything for them. I was, in other words, a total stranger asking a question out of the blue.

You know what? Five of those six have responded; three of them responded in about 2 hours. (I’m still hoping to hear from #6.)

In fact, they all responded substantively and enthusiastically. They liked my questions, had specific suggestions, and pointed me to other articles to check out.

They didn’t see my question as an intrusion, but as an invitation to a teaching conversation they were glad to join.

I’m not naming these researchers here because I don’t want them to be swamped with email. But I do hope you feel as encouraged as I do. If you’ve got a question about the study you just read — for example, how best to make it work in your classroom — you just might reach out to the study’s author.

You might very well start a fascinating conversation.

Training Working Memory: Bad News, and Surprising Great News
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 06, 2018

Training Working Memory: Bad News, and Surprising Great News

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Regular readers of this blog know that I’m very skeptical about training working memory. Despite all the promises, most studies show that WM training just doesn’t do very much.

working memory training

Better said: working memory training helps people do better on other, similar working memory tests. But it doesn’t help students learn to read or calculate or analyze any better.

(Earlier posts on this topic here and here.)

But here’s a tantalizing possibility: what if we could find an even better shortcut to cognitive success?

Training Working Memory: News from Finland

Researchers at Abo Akademi University in Turku wondered why WM training works in psychology labs, but not in classrooms.

(One of the champions of WM training — Dr. Susanne Jaeggi — has spoken at Learning and the Brain conferences. If you’ve seen her, you know she’s an incredibly impressive researcher. You too might reasonably wonder why that research isn’t panning out.)

These Finnish researchers wondered if the WM training simply gave students the chance to figure out a particular WM strategy.

That is: they didn’t have more working memory. But, they were using the WM they already had more strategically.

This strategy applied to the specific working memory task (which is why their WM scores seemed to get better), but doesn’t apply to other cognitive work (like math and reading).

If that hypothesis is true, then we could simply tell our students that strategy. We would then see the same pattern of WM development that comes from the training — only much faster.

Specifically, we would expect to see improvement in similar WM tasks — where students could apply the same strategy — but not on unrelated tasks — where that strategy doesn’t help.

If their hypothesis is correct, then the results that take 6 WEEKS of training might be available in 30 MINUTES. Rather than have students figure out the strategy on their own (the slow, 6 week version), we can simply tell them the strategy and let them practice (the 30 minute version).

The Test, the Results

The Finnish researchers worked with three groups of adults.

Control group #1 did a WM test on Monday and a WM test on Friday. They got no practice; they got no training.

Control group #2 also did WM tests on Monday and Friday. In between, they got to practice a WM task for 30 minutes. This is a mini-version of the WM training model. (If they had gotten the full six weeks, they might have figured out the strategy on their own.)

The study group — lucky devils — were TOLD a strategy to use during their practice session. (More on this strategy below.)

What did the researchers find?

First: As they predicted, the group that was told the strategy made rapid progress, but the other two groups didn’t.

Control group #1 didn’t make progress because they didn’t even get to practice. Control group #2 did practice…but they didn’t have enough time to figure out the strategy.

Only the study group made progress because only they knew the strategy.

Second: As researchers predicted, the group that learned the strategy didn’t get better at WM tasks unrelated to the strategy they learned.

In other words: the group given a strategy behaved just like earlier groups who had discovered that strategy for themselves during 6 weeks of practice. They did better at related WM tasks, but not at unrelated tasks.

We don’t need 6 weeks to get those results. We can get them in 30 minutes.

What, exactly, is this magical strategy?

The precise strategy depends on the working memory exercise being tested.

In general, the answer is: visualize the data in patterns. If you’ve visualized the pattern correctly, you can more easily perform the assigned WM task.

You can check out page 10 of this PDF; you’ll see right away what the strategy is, and why it helps solve some WM problems. You’ll also see why it doesn’t particularly help with other WM tasks — like, for example, understanding similes or multiplying exponents.

Training Working Memory: Classroom Implications

This research suggests that we shouldn’t train students’ general WM capacity, because we can’t. Instead, we should find specific WM strategies that most resemble the cognitive activity we want our students to do.

Those strategies allow students to use the WM they have more effectively. With the same WM capacity, they can accomplish more WM work.

The key question is: what WM strategies are most like school tasks?

We don’t yet know the answer to that question. (I’ve reached out to the lead author to see if she has thoughts on the matter.)

I do have a suspicion, and here it is: perhaps the practice that we’re already doing is the best kind. That is: maybe the working memory exercise that’s most like subtraction is subtraction. The working memory exercise most like reading is reading.

If I’m right, then we don’t need to devise fancy new WM exercises. The great news just might be: the very best WM exercise already exists, and it’s called “school.”

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