Here on the blog, we write a lot about desirable difficulties: that elusive middle ground where cognitive work is hard enough but not too hard.
Over at The Learning Scientists, they’ve got a handy list of resources to guide you through this idea more fully.
For an added benefit, the article begins with a brief criticism of the theory.
Enjoy!
The school year is beginning, and so you’re certainly seeing many (MANY) articles about the debate over laptop notes vs. handwritten notes.
If your research stream is anything like mine, most of the articles you see assert that handwriting is superior to laptops for note-taking.
And, most of those articles cite Mueller and Oppenheimer’s blockbuster study, arguing–as its witty title avers–“the pen is mightier than the keyboard.”
Here’s my advice: don’t believe it.
More substantively: it’s possible that the pen is mightier than the keyboard. However, Mueller and Oppenheimer’s study supports that conclusion only if you believe that students can’t learn new things.
(Of course, that would be a very odd belief for a teacher to have.)
If you believe that students can learn new things, then this widely cited study suggests that laptop notes ought to lead to more learning than handwritten notes.
After all, a student who has practiced correct laptop note-taking can a) write more words than a student who takes notes by hand, and b) take notes in her own words just as well as a student who takes notes by hand.
Mueller and Oppenheimer’s research clearly suggests that a) + b) ought to lead to more learning.
The details of this argument get tricky; I lay them out in this post.
TWO CAVEATS
FIRST: I am not saying that I know laptop notes to be superior to handwritten notes.
I am saying that the study most often used to champion handwritten notes simply does not support its own conclusion. If you believe students can learn new things, then Mueller and Oppenheimer’s research suggests that laptop notes ought to lead to more learning.
A study testing my hypothesis has not–as far as I know–been done.
SECOND: you might reasonably say that students taking notes on laptops will be distracted by the interwebs. For that reason, handwritten notes will be superior.
I very much share this concern. (In fact, Faria Sana’s research shows that laptop multitasking distracts not only the multitasker, but also the person sitting behind the multitasker–a serious problem in lecture halls.)
However, multitasking is a separate question–not one addressed by Mueller and Oppenheimer.
The narrow question is: do non-multitasking laptop note-takers learn more than non-multitasking handwritten note-takers?
If the answer to that question is “yes,” then we should train laptop note-takers a) to reword the teacher’s lecture–not simply to write it down verbatim, and b) to unplug from the interwebs.
This combination will certainly be difficult to achieve. But, it might be the very best combination for learning.
A FINAL POINT
The laptops-vs.-handwriting debate stirs up a remarkable degree of fervor–more than I would expect from a fairly narrow and technical question.
I suspect that this debate is in fact a proxy war between those who think we should use more technology in schools (who favor laptop notes) and those who think we already use too much technology in schools (who favor handwriting). That is: we’re not so much concerned with note-taking specifically as we are with technology in general.
That’s an important conversation to have. In fact, it’s central to the November Learning and the Brain Conference.
At the same time, let’s be sure that our general views on technology don’t obscure the answer to a precise, researchable question. If students learn more by taking notes on laptops, let’s find that out with well-designed research studies and then guide them well.
Quick! Where’s your cell phone?
Now that I’ve got your attention: what effect does the location of your cell phone have on your attention?
Researchers have recently found some predictable answers to that question–as well as some rather surprising ones. And, their answers may help us think about cell phones in classrooms.
Adrian Ward and Co. wanted to learn more about the “mere presence” of students’ cellphones.
That is: they weren’t asking if talking on the phone distracts drivers (it does), or if a ringing phone distracts that phone’s owner (it does), or even if a text-message buzz distracts the textee (it does).
Instead, they were asking if your phone lying silently on the desk in front of you distracts you–even if its not ringing or buzzing.
Even if you’re NOT CONSCIOUSLY THINKING ABOUT IT.
So they gathered several hundred college students and had them complete tests that measure various cognitive functions.
The first group of students left all their stuff–including phones–in another room. (That’s standard procedure during such research.)
The second group brought their phones with them “for use later in the study.” After silencing the phones (no ringing, no buzzing), they were told to put them wherever they usually keep them. Roughly half kept them in a pocket; the other half kept them in a nearby bag.
The third group brought phones along, and were instructed to put them in a marked place on the desk in front of them. (These phones were also silenced.)
Did the proximity of the phone matter?
As is so often true, the answer to that question depends on the measurement we use.
When the researchers measured the students’ working memory capacity, they found that a cell phone on the desk reduced this essential cognitive function.
Specifically, students who left phones in their bags in another room averaged about a 33 on an OSpan test. (It measures working memory–the specifics aren’t important here.) Those who had cell phones on their desks scored roughly 28.5. (For the stats pros here, the p value was .007.)
If you attend Learning and the Brain conferences, or read this blog regularly, you know that working memory is ESSENTIAL for academic learning. It allows us to hold on to bits of information and recombine them into new patterns; of course, that’s what learning is.
So, if the “mere presence” of a cell phone is reducing working memory, it’s doing real harm to our students.
By the way, the students who had their phones on their desks said that they weren’t thinking about them (any more than the other students), and didn’t predict that their phones would distract them (any more than the other students).
So, our students might TELL US that their phones don’t interfere with their cognition. They might not even be conscious of this effect. But, that interference is happening all the same.
Few teachers, I imagine, are surprised to learn that a nearby cell phone makes it hard to think.
What effect does that phone have on the ability to pay attention?
To answer this question, researchers used a “go/no-go” test. Students watched a computer screen that flashed numbers on it. Whenever they saw a 6, they pressed the letter J on the keyboard. They ignored all the other numbers.
(The researchers didn’t go into specifics here, so I’ve described a typical kind of “go/no-go” task. Their version might have been a bit different.)
To do well on this task, you have to focus carefully: that is, you have to pay attention. Researchers can tell how good you are at paying attention by measuring the number of mistakes you make, and your reaction time. Presumably, the slower you are to react, the less attention you’re paying.
So, how much difference did the cell phone on the desk make? How much slower were the students who had the phone on the desk, compared to those whose phones were in the other room?
Nope. Sorry. No difference.
Or, to be precise, the students who had the phone on the desk reacted in 0.366 seconds, whereas those whose phones were elsewhere reacted in 0.363 seconds. As you can imagine, a difference of 0.003 seconds just isn’t enough to worry about. (Stats team: the p value was >.35.)
Ward’s results here are, I think, quite counter-intuitive. We would expect that the mere presence of the phone would interfere with working memory because it distracted the students: that is, because it interfered with their attention.
These results paint a more complicated picture.
The explanation can get technical quickly. Two key insights help understand these results.
Key Insight #1: Attention isn’t just one thing. It has different parts to it.
One part of my attentional system brings information into my brain. I am, at this moment, focusing on my computer screen, Ward’s article, my keyboard, and my own thoughts. Sensory information from these parts of my world are entering my conscious mind.
Another part of my attentional system screens information out of my brain. I am, at this moment, trying not to notice the bubble-and-hum of my cats’ water gizmo, or my cat’s adorable grooming (why is his leg stuck up in the air like that?)–or, really, anything about my cats. Sensory information from those parts of my world are not (I hope) entering my conscious thought.
The attention test that Ward & Co. used measured the first part of attention. That is, the go/no-go task checks to see if the right information is getting in. And, in this case, the right information was getting in, even when a cell phone was nearby.
Key Insight #2: Working Memory INCLUDES the second kind of attention.
In other words, we use working memory to keep out adorable cat behavior–and other things we don’t want to distract our conscious minds. Other things such as–for example–cell phones.
The nearby phone doesn’t interfere with the first part of attention, and so the correct information gets into student brains. For this reason, students do just fine on Ward’s “attention” test.
However, the nearby phone does make it hard to filter information out. It’s bothering the second part of attention–which is a part of working memory. For this reason, students do badly on Ward’s “working memory” test.
Ward’s research, I think, gives us some clear pointers about cell phones in classrooms: the farther away the better.
Specifically, it contradicts some teaching advice I’d gotten a few years ago. Some have advised me that students should silence their phones and put them on the desk in front of them. The goal of this strategy: teachers can be sure that students aren’t subtly checking their phones under their desks.
While, clearly, it’s beneficial to silence phones, we now know that their “mere presence” on the desk interferes with working memory.
In brief, we need another solution.
(Sadly, Ward doesn’t tell us what that solution is. But she warns us away from this phone-on-the-desk strategy.)
Teachers LOVE learning about psychology and neuroscience research because it can offer such helpful and clarifying guidance for good teaching.
(I should know: I’ve spent the last ten years using such research to be a better teacher.)
At the same time, we teachers occasionally stumble into studies like this one where psychology gives us results that seem strange–even impossible.
After all: how can you tell me that cell phones don’t interfere with our students’ attention? And, if they don’t interfere with attention, how can they possibly interfere with something like working memory?
The answer–as described above–is that psychologists think of attention as having multiple parts, and one of those parts overlaps with working memory. Because psychologists define the word “attention” one way and we teachers use it a different way, research like this is potentially very puzzling.
(You can imagine our students reading this study and crowing: “See! Cell phones have NO EFFECT on attention! “)
For this reason, we need to be especially careful when we enter into the world of brain science. Definitions of basic words (“attention,” “transfer,” “significant”) might trip us up.
And so, you’re wise to be attending Learning and the Brain conferences, and to be consulting with experts who know how to read such studies and make sense of them.
In brief: teachers should be modest when we try to interpret primary research in neuroscience and psychology. These fields are so complicated that we just might misunderstand even basic terms.
By the way, the same point holds in reverse. Neuroscientists and psychologists should be modest when telling us how to teach. Our work is so complicated that they just might misunderstand even basic classroom work.
This mutual modesty is–I believe–the basis of our field. We all come together to learn from and collaborate with each other. Our students will benefit from this complex and essential collaboration.
Ok: you’ve taught your students a particular topic, and you’ve provided them with lots of ways to review and practice for the upcoming test. But, will they do so?
How can you ensure that they prepare most effectively?
Patricia Chen’s research team studied a surprisingly simple answer to this question. You might help your students study by asking them to think about the approaches that they will use–and, to make specific plans.
Chen & Co. asked students to follow a four step process:
Step 1: students wrote about the kind of questions they expected on the test.
Step 2: they then chose the resources they wanted to use to prepare for those questions. The checklist from which they chose included 15 options, such as “go over practice exam questions,” “go to professor’s office hours,” and “work with a peer study group.”
Step 3: they wrote why and how they thought each of the resources they selected might be helpful.
Step 4: they made specific and realistic plans about where and when they would use those resources.
Compared to a control group–who were simply reminded that they should study for the upcoming exam–students in this group averaged 1/3 of a letter grade higher.
For example, students in the control group had an average class grade of 79.23. Those who went through these 4 steps had an average grade of 83.44.
That’s a lot of extra learning from asking four basic questions.
What Should We Do?
Chen’s research team worked with college students studying statistics. Do their conclusions apply to–say–5th graders studying history? Or, 10th graders learning chemistry?
As is so often the case, individual teachers will make this judgment call on their own. Now that you’ve got a good study suggesting that this method might work, you can think over your own teaching world–your students, your curriculum, your approach to teaching–and see if this technique fits.
In case you decide to do so, I will offer three additional suggestions.
First: check out Gollwizer’s work on “implementation intentions.” His idea overlaps with Chen’s work, and would pair with it nicely.
Second: I’m a little concerned that Chen’s list of proposed study strategies included two options we know don’t help–reviewing notes and rereading the text. (If my skepticism about those two methods surprises you, check out Ian Kelleher’s post here.) Your list of study strategies should NOT include those suggestions.
Third: as always, keep working memory limitations in mind. The kind of meta-cognition that Chen outlines can clearly benefit students, but it also might overwhelm their ability to keep many ideas in mind at the same time.
However, if we can prevent working memory overload, this strategy just might help bridge the gap between “I taught it” and “they learned it.” As is so often the case, a key plank in that bridge is: asking students to think just a little bit more..
If you attend Learning and the Brain conferences, or read this blog regularly, you know all about the well-researched benefits of retrieval practice. (You can read earlier articles on this subject here and here.)
The short version of the story: if we ask students to recall ideas or processes that they have learned, they are likelier to learn those ideas/processes deeply than if we simply go over them again.
But, does retrieval practice always work?
The question answers itself: almost nothing always works. (The exception: in my experience, donuts always work.)
Over at The Learning Scientists, Cindy Wooldridge writes about her attempt to use retrieval practice in her class–and the dismaying results.
From her attempt, Wooldridge reaches several wise conclusions. Here are two of them:
Another very important take-away is that learning science is not one size fits all. Just because we say retrieval practice works, doesn’t mean it works in all scenarios and under all circumstances.
This is why it’s so important to be skeptical. Use objective measures to assess whether and how a teaching strategy is working for your students and take time to do some reflection on how and why it worked (or didn’t). This is another great example of a time when my intuition said that this absolutely should work, but we should follow the evidence and not just intuition.
To learn more about her effort and her conclusions, click here.
Here’s a sentence that won’t surprise you: practice typically makes us more skilled at the activity we’re practicing.
Here’s a sentence that might surprise you: practice makes us more vulnerable to mistakes after an interruption.
So, for example, if my students have just learned how to solve for three variables with three equations, then an interruption will have some effect on them when they get back to work.
If, however, they have spent some time getting familiar with the process of solving for three variables with three equations, then an interruption will distract them even more.
Said a different way: an interruption may distract your relatively advanced students more than your less advanced students.
Counter-intuitive?
My first response to this research finding was straightforward puzzlement. Why are experienced students more distractible than neophytes?
As I’ve thought more about this study, I’ve had an idea. If I’m experienced at a step-by-step activity, then I’m probably not paying full attention to each step as I go through the process. After all, my experience lets me work almost by rote. In this case, an interruption is quite a problem, because I wasn’t really focused on my place in the list of steps.
However, if I’m a newbie, I’m likely to be focusing quite keenly on each step, and so–after a distraction–am likelier to remember where I left off.
Teaching Implications
In the first place, this study by Altmann and Hambrick is the only one I know of that reaches this conclusion. Until their results are replicated, we ought to be interested in, but not obsessed by, their findings.
Second, we should note that relative expertise does have occasional disadvantages. We shouldn’t assume that our accomplished students won’t be fuddled by a classroom interruption–in fact, they might be more so than their still-struggling peers.
Third, I for one will be on the lookout for this pattern in my own work. In theory at least, I’m the expert in my classroom, and so I might be more discombobulated than my students by a distraction during a rote task.
Given this research, I now know to turn to my least confident students for a reminder of where were were.
Here’s an odd question: is it ever a bad idea for teachers to be authentic?
In a recent study, Johnson and LaBelle surveyed students to discover the teacher behaviors that struck them as “authentic.”
By closely analyzing the students’ descriptions of “authentic” teachers, they came up with four broad categories. According to their findings, authentic teachers are…
… Approachable (for example: they tell appropriate personal stories and jokes)
… Passionate (they’re excited about their subject matter)
… Attentive (they know their students’ names)
… Capable (they stay on top of assignments)
Unsurprisingly, “inauthentic” teachers do the opposite (and, are Disrespectful to boot).
Johnson and LaBelle acknowledge that this research includes some methodological quirks.
In particular, paradoxically, the fact that students describe these behaviors as “authentic” doesn’t mean that they are authentically “authentic” for all teachers.
For example: “authentic” teachers are approachable, and approachable teachers tell jokes. But, what if you’re not a joker? Maybe your sense of humor is quieter than that. Or maybe, while you appreciate a good joke told by others, you’re just not comfortable telling them yourself.
Should you adopt “authentic” teacher behaviors even if they’re not authentic to you?
Zooming Out
This question–which Johnson and LaBelle raise but don’t answer–hovers over much of the research you’ll hear about at Learning and the Brain Conferences.
Let’s imagine that you come to the November LatB conference, which will focus on the intersection of teaching and technology. You might attend a session that warns about the distractions that technology creates, and the attentional benefits that movement can provide.
On the one hand, this argument might make good sense to you. You know of several computer programs that might help your students, and you’re happy to know that they’ll be less distracted by technology if they’ve had a chance to move about recently.
On the other hand, as you listen to the speaker’s list of movement strategies (Have them move into small groups! Require students to change their seats every 20 minutes! Ask 5 students to write their answers on the board!), you might feel a growing dread.
Those strategies might seem like a good fit for the speaker. And, based on the fact that everyone around you is nodding energetically, you conclude they’re eager to give them a go.
But here’s the thing: that’s just not you. You simply can’t imagine directing your students about in some elaborate traffic-control exercise. You’re feeling a little embarrassed just thinking about it.
We’ve got good research showing the benefits of this particular teaching behavior. And, alas, that beneficial teaching behavior just doesn’t mesh with the persona you bring to the classroom.
So, what should you do?
Hard Questions, Tentative Answers
For starters, I think you should be suspicious of anyone who thinks this is an easy question.
On the one had, research has powerful answers to lots of questions about good and bad teaching. On the other hand, research mostly looks at AVERAGES.
And here’s the thing: you are not average. Your students aren’t average either. Your school isn’t average.
You are an agglomeration of unique particulars, and some research-established average might not apply to you.
That hard truth goes double when the teaching practice under discussion runs counter to something deep in your personality.
Here’s the best answer I got. In my view, you can decline particular teaching practices, but you shouldn’t ignore the broader topic within which those practices reside.
To go back to my “attention and movement” example: you can decide that you won’t rely on movement to focus your students. After all, that’s just not you.
But, you can’t overlook the topic of attention itself. There are MANY other teaching strategies you can use to foster attention, and–especially if you’re going to set this one strategy aside-you’ll need to be even more attentive and thoughtful about the other strategies that you have at hand.
Imagine a Venn diagram. Once circle represents all the teaching practices that have research support. A second represents those that students find “authentic.” A third represents those that are, in fact, authentic to you.
Find the teaching practices that fit in all three of those circles–you’ve found the best place to be.
Over at Psychology Today, Nate Kornell speculates about the potential memory benefits of taking beautiful notes.
(Kornell is a thorough and thoughtful research, who studied with Robert Bjork, so I always look forward to his posts.)
Enjoy!
How should we manage working memory limitations in the classroom?
Furtheredogogy has a handy post about Cognitive Load Theory, which is basically a fancy way of saying “taking care of our students’ working memory capacity.”
Notice, btw, that the author suggests worked examples as a working-memory friendly alternative to project-based learning–which can all to often overwhelm students’ cognitive resources.
You think grades interfere with learning? You’d like to do away with them? And yet, you’d like some consistent way to measure students’ academic development? And to communicate that development to others?
You’re not alone.
The Mastery Transcript Consortium seeks to accomplish these very goals.
The plan itself is layered and intricate; if you’re interested, it’s worth your time to read this article from Inside Higher Ed.
At present, the plan is in its very early stages: no schools currently use it, because it doesn’t yet exist. But, having just gotten a $2 million dollar grant to develop it, the consortium is hopeful that they have launched a movement that can reshape the educational landscape.
[Full disclosure: this plan has been developed by Scott Looney, head of Hawken School outside Cleveland, OH. I myself was a lifer at Hawken, and have spoken with Mr. Looney about his plans. Although I have done some consulting work with Hawken faculty, parents, and students, I am not involved in the Mastery Transcript project.]