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An Amazingly Simple Way to Help Struggling Students (with Potential Controversy)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-03-2022

An Amazingly Simple Way to Help Struggling Students (with Potential Controversy)

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Imagine that you work at a school where these students consistently struggle compared to those students.

As teachers and school leaders, you’d like to help these students do better than they currently do; maybe do as well as those students. (Lower down in the post, I’ll say more about the two groups of students.)

What can you do?

Values Affirmation

One simple strategy has gotten a fair amount of research in recent years.

The idea goes something like this. If I am, say, a 12-year-old student, I might not really see how my school life fits with the rest of my life. They seem like two different world.

If teachers could connect those “two different worlds” — even a little bit — students would feel more comfortable, less stressed, better invested. Heck, they might even learn more.

To accomplish this mission, researchers provide students a list of values: loyalty, faith, friendship, hard work, justice, happiness, family, and so forth.

They then have students undertake a brief writing assignment. The instructions go something like this:

Choose one or more of these values that are most important for you personally. Write about why they are important. You won’t be graded on spelling or grammar; focus on explaining your ideas, values, and beliefs clearly.

The control group gets the same instructions, except that students choose values “that are the least important for you personally, but might be important to someone else.”

This strategy gets the somewhat lumpy name “values affirmation” — because it gives students a chance to affirm the values they hold.

This approach has been used in the United States in several studies, and has had some success. (See, for instance, here).

Across the Atlantic

But: would this strategy work elsewhere? What about, say, England?

Back in 2019, a group of researchers tried this approach with different groups of underperforming students. (Again, more on this topic below.)

They had two groups of 11-14-year-old students (the underperformers, the typical performers) do three “values affirmation” writing sessions: one in September, one in January, and one in April.

Of course, one half of both groups did the “values affirmation” version of the writing exercises; the other half did the control writing assignment.

What results did they find?

As was true in the US, the values affirmation writings had no effect on the typical performers.

However, it had a dramatic effect on the underperformers. Their math grades were higher at the end of the year (compared to the group that did the control writing). And their stress levels were considerably lower.

Because of the statistical method that the researchers used, I can’t say that values affirmation translated a B average into an A average. I can say that it had an effect size of 0.35 standard deviations — which is certainly noteworthy, especially to people who read research studies in this field.

In brief: this strategy costs literally zero dollars. It takes one hour over the course of a school year. And it helps underperforming students.

SO MUCH TO LOVE.

The Story Behind the Story

Up to this point, I’ve described what the researchers did. But I haven’t explained the psychological theory behind their strategy — because the theory prompts some controversy.

Now that we’ve looked at the strategy, let’s get to that theory.

Back in 1995, Claude Steele proposed a theory that has come to be called “Stereotype Threat.” It proposes a complex and counter-intuitive hypothesis.

To describe the theory, let me make up a non-existent stereotype: “blue-eyed people are bad at grammar.” (For the record, I’m regularly complimented on my blue eyes, and I teach a lot of grammar.)

Why might a blue-eyed student struggle on a grammar test?

Steele’s research suggests a surprising internal process. When my blue eyes and I sit down to take the grammar test, I know the material well. However, I also know that stereotypes suggest I’ll do badly.

What happens? I do NOT (as many suspect) give in and let the stereotype become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, I decide to fight back. And, in a terrible paradox, my determination to disprove the stereotype leads to all sorts of counter-productive academic behaviors.

For instance: I might spend lots of time working on a very easy problem to prove that I know this grammar. Alas, I took so long on the easy problems that I don’t have time for the harder ones.

In this unexpected way, Steele argues, stereotypes harm students’ learning.

Enter the Controversy

Over the years, many researchers explored Stereotype Threat. They found that stereotypes about almost anything (race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, academic major) can affect performance on almost anything (math tests, sports performance, leadership aspirations).

Steele’s book Whistling Vivaldi is, in fact, an unusually easy-to-read book about a complex psychological phenomenon. Many Learning and the Brain speakers (Joshua Aronson, Sian Beilock) have studied and written about ST.

At the same time, other scholars have doubted this entire research field. They point to various statistical and procedural concerns to suggest that, well, there’s no real there there. (If you’re interested in the push back, you can read more here and here.)

Putting It All Together

In the English study I’ve been describing, the relevant stereotype is “people from relatively lower socio-economic status just aren’t as smart as others.” According to the study’s authors, this stereotype is the predominant academic stereotype in England, whereas US stereotypes focus more on race, ethnicity, and gender.

So, in their study, the authors explored the effect of Values Affirmation on students who did (and did not) receive free school lunches: a common proxy for socio-economic status.

Sure enough, Values Affirmation had no effect one way or the other on students who did not receive free lunches. Because they faced fewer stereotypes about their academic performance, they didn’t suffer the harm that ST might cause.

But, for the students who DID receive free lunches, that same writing exercise helped a lot. This strategy made them feel more like they belonged, so they presumably didn’t need to work as hard to disprove stereotypes.

For that reason, as described above, one hour’s worth of writing reduced stressed and increased grades.

TL;DR

This research suggests that a Values Affirmation writing assignment (it’s free!) can help some underperforming students learn more and feel less stress.

And, it also strengthens the case that Stereotype Threat might — despite the concerns about methodology — really be a thing.

Even if that second statement turns out not to be true, the first one is worth highlighting.

Want a simple, low-cost way to help struggling students? We’ve got one…

Hadden, I. R., Easterbrook, M. J., Nieuwenhuis, M., Fox, K. J., & Dolan, P. (2020). Self‐affirmation reduces the socioeconomic attainment gap in schools in England. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 517-536.

Sherman, D. K., Hartson, K. A., Binning, K. R., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Taborsky-Barba, S., … & Cohen, G. L. (2013). Deflecting the trajectory and changing the narrative: how self-affirmation affects academic performance and motivation under identity threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 591.

Does a Teacher’s Enthusiasm Improve Learning?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-29-2022

Does a Teacher’s Enthusiasm Improve Learning?

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Sometimes research confirms our prior beliefs.

Sometimes it contradicts those beliefs.

And sometimes, research adds nuance and insight to overly-broad generalizations.

Here’s the story:

Benefits of Enthusiasm

It seems too obvious to say that a teacher’s enthusiasm benefits learning. OF COURSE it would do that.

After all, what student wants a boring, unenthusiastic teacher?

But psychology is a science. We don’t just announce that our beliefs — even really obvious beliefs — are true.

Instead, we convert those beliefs into testable hypotheses. We run some experiments. We look at data.

IF the data from the experiment support the hypothesis, then we can start making (tentative) claims.

Once we start thinking scientifically about the effects of a teacher’s enthusiasm, we quickly run into difficult questions.

How, exactly, do we define “enthusiasm”?

One we’ve got a definition, how do we measure it?

What results are we looking for? Do we want enthusiasm to promote students’ attention? Their motivation? Their learning?

If we don’t have clear answers to those questions, we can’t proceed with a scientific answer. (We can, of course, have an answer based on personal experience. Those answers are important, but not the same thing as a scientific answer.)

Getting Specific

In a study published in 2020 — “Displayed enthusiasm attracts attention and improves recall” — several scholars took on those challenges directly.

They started by training teachers in behaviors that demonstrate high levels of enthusiasm (exuberant gestures, varied facial expression, excited & rapid speech, etc.) and low levels of enthusiasm (a few quiet gestures, fixed facial expression, vocal monotone).

Teachers then read two short passages to 4th and 5th grade public-school students. One passage was a story about a farmer; the other was a description of the habits and characteristics of dragonflies. (By the way: this distinction between the story and the description will turn out to be important.)

These passages together took about 3 minutes to read.

To measure the effect of high enthusiasm vs. low enthusiasm, researchers counted several variables, including…

… the number of seconds that students looked at the reader;

… the number of times that students smiled;

… and, the number of facts about the farmer story and dragonfly description that students recalled.

In other words: these researchers found ways to answer those scientific questions listed above. So far, so good.

Asking Tough Questions

At this point, we can ask some reasonable questions:

First, counting “number of seconds” seems like a basically plausible way of measuring attention. (We can quibble, and ask for other measures, and explain why that measure isn’t perfect, but it’s plausible on its face.)

However, I myself think that “counting smiles” seems unusually squishy for a research-based conclusion. Perhaps I’m being overly picky here, but “smiles” strike me as a highly amorphous unit of counting.

Second, the duration of the “enthusiasm” — all of 3 minutes — might not be a helpfully representative amount of time.

For instance: a teacher might delight students by telling jokes for a minute or two at the beginning of class. All that humor might get high ratings from students.

But: if that teacher keeps telling jokes, all that forced humor might get irritating after a while. So too, “high enthusiasm” might have one effect for 3 minutes and a very different effect after 30.

Third, the study measures how many facts students remember immediately after they heard the reading.

Of course, teachers don’t want students to remember just right away; we want them to remember for a long time. And the relationship between short-term and long-term memory gets really complicated.

Strategies that help immediate recall might not enhance long-term learning; Nick Soderstrom has the goods here.

Results?

So, what did the researchers find?

Any study that measures so many variables will produce LOTS of findings. Those findings will be difficult to summarize easily.

The study summarizes their findings in this sentence:

Our results confirm that displayed enthusiasm captures attention and that attention partially explains the positive effect of displayed enthusiasm on recall.

For the reasons listed above, I’m hesitant to accept that conclusion without several caveats. At a minimum, I wish it said “short-term recall.”

Even more important, I think this summary overlooks a crucial finding. Researchers found that “enthusiasm” enhanced short-term recall for the farmer story, but NOT for the dragonfly description.

This distinction leads to an important question: do you spend more time in your classroom telling (farmer-like) stories or providing (dragonfly-like) information and descriptions?

The answer to that question certainly varies from teacher to teacher, from grade to grade, from discipline to discipline, from culture to culture.

Even the most optimistic reading of this study suggests that high enthusiasm will help students remember the story, but not the information.

That’s an important distinction; one we should make clearly when offering advice to teachers.

The Bigger Picture

I myself have a hypothesis.

I suspect that a teacher’s consistent and genuine enthusiasm — not 3 minutes, not 3 weeks, but maybe 3 months or more — gradually creates a particular kind of classroom atmosphere.

That atmosphere — quietly, subtly, probably immeasurably — helps students appreciate the class work, the discipline, and the camaraderie/community.

For instance: a student recently described one of my colleagues this way: “Oh, Ms. So-and-So! She’s the ONLY reason I like English…” Knowing Ms. So-and-So’s enthusiasm for her subject,  I can certainly understand why she would inspire a doubting high-school student.

And I suspect her enthusiasm ultimately means that this student learns more English.

As you can see, my hypothesis doesn’t stem from research. Heck: it’s so nebulous that I don’t think it could be researched.

In other words: do I think that a teacher’s enthusiasm ultimately enhances learning? I do. And: my belief springs not from research, but from experience and common sense. *

Moe, A., Frenzel, A. C., Au, L., & Taxer, J. L. (2021). Displayed enthusiasm attracts attention and improves recall. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 911-927.

* To be clear: I haven’t done a comprehensive search for research on teacher enthusiasm. I did plug this study into ConnectedPapers.com, and quickly scanned the results. As far as I could tell from this very brief look, research in this field is pursuing lots of helpful and optimistic leads, but doesn’t yet have confident conclusions. If you know of persuasive research looking at this topic, I hope you’ll let me know!

Handwritten Notes or Laptop Notes: A Skeptic Converted?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-16-2022

Handwritten Notes or Laptop Notes: A Skeptic Converted?

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Here’s a practical question: should our students take notes by hand, or on laptops?

If we were confident that one strategy or the other produced more learning – factual learning, conceptual learning, ENDURING learning – then we could give our students straightforwardly useful advice.

Sadly, the research in this field has – in my opinion – produced unhelpful advice because it rests on an obviously flawed assumption.

Happily, Dr. Paul Penn (Twitter handle @Dr_Paul_Penn) recently pointed me to a study with several pertinent benefits.

First, the researchers worked with 10-year-olds, not with adults. Research with college students can be useful, but it might not always help K-12 teachers.

Second, the research took place in the students’ regular classroom, not in a psychology lab. This more realistic setting gives us greater confidence in the research’s applicability.

Third, students took notes in both a science class and in a history class. The disciplinary breadth makes its guidance more useful.

Finally, this study – for reasons that I’ll explain – makes the “obviously flawed assumption” go away.

In this post,

I’ll start by explaining the new study.

Then I’ll explain the initial study (with the “obvious flaw”).

Then I’ll explain how the new study – by accident – makes that flaw go away.

I’ll wrap up with the big picture.

The Black Death, and Beyond

Researchers Simon Horbury and Caroline Edmonds had ten-year-olds watch videos in their history and science classes.

The history videos focused on the Black Death. The science video explored cells.

Students took laptop notes in one class, and handwritten notes in the other.

Immediately after the videos, and then again a week later, students took a multiple choice quiz. Questions covered both factual recall (“Where did the Black Death originate?”) and conceptual understanding (“Why were the wealthy less likely to be afflicted by the plague?”).

To be thorough, researchers even counted the number of words students wrote in their notes. (Believe it or not, this detail will turn out to be important at the end of this post.)

So, did it matter how students took notes?

Yup.

The study measures several variables, but the headline is: in both science and history, taking notes by hand improved learning – especially a week later.

The study includes lots of specifics — conceptual vs. factual, immediate test vs. week-later test — but that summary gets the job done.

Yes, this is a very small study (26 people at its biggest), so we shouldn’t think it’s the final word on the matter. But it offers good reason to believe that handwritten notes help.

Back to the Beginning

Like all research in this field, Horbury & Edmonds’s work rests atop a well-known study by Mueller and Oppenheimer, cleverly entitled “The Pen Is Mightier than the Laptop.”

I’ve written about this study several times before, so I’ll be brief here.

Mueller and Oppenheimer had one group of college students take notes by hand, and another group take notes on a laptop. They found that two variables mattered for learning:

Variable #1: the number of words students wrote. Crudely put: more words in notes resulted in more learning.

This finding isn’t terribly surprising. More writing suggests more thinking; more thinking suggests more learning.

Variable #2: the degree to which students reworded the lecture. Student who put the lecture’s ideas into their own words learned more than those who simply took notes verbatim.

Again, this finding makes sense. If I simply copy down the lecturer’s ideas, I’m not thinking much. If I put them in my own words, well, now I’m thinking more.

So far, so good. No obvious flaws.

Now the study gets tricky.

The students who took handwritten notes wrote FEWER words (that’s bad), so they had to REWORD the lecture (that’s good).

The students who took laptop notes could write MORE words (that’s good), so they ended up copying the lecture VERBATIM (that’s bad).

Which pairing of good+bad is better?

In Mueller and Oppenheimer’s conclusion, handwritten notes resulted in more learning.

It’s okay to write fewer words, as long as you’re rewording as you go. Remember: more rewording = more thinking.

Obvious Flaw

I promised several paragraphs ago to point out the obvious flaw in the study. Here goes:

Mueller and Oppenheimer saw an obvious possibility: if we TRAIN laptop note takers to reword, then they’ll get BOTH benefits.

That is, students who take laptop notes correctly get the advantages of more words and more rewording.

So much thinking! So much learning!

So, the researchers ran the study again. This time they included a third group: laptop note takers who got instructions not to reword.

What happened?

Nothing. Even though they got those instructions, laptop note takers continued to copy verbatim. They still remembered less than their handwriting peers.

The Mueller and Oppenheimer study draws this conclusion: since students can’t be trained to take laptop notes correctly – and they tried! – then handwritten notes are best.

WAIT JUST A SECOND. [Please mentally insert the sound of a record scratch here.]

The researchers told students – ONCE – to change a long-held habit (verbatim copying of notes). When students failed to do so, they concluded that students can’t ever change.

In my own experience, telling my students to do something once practically NEVER has much of an effect.

Students need practice. LOTS of practice. Practice and FEEDBACK. Lots of feedback.

Obviously.

In other words, I think the Mueller and Oppenheimer study contains a conspicuous failure in logic. We shouldn’t conclude that handwritten notes are better. We SHOULD conclude that we should teach students to take laptop notes and reword as they do so.

If they can learn to do so (of course they can!), then laptop notes will be better — because they allow more words AND rewording.

Muller and Oppenheimer’s own data make that the most plausible conclusion.

Conflicting Messages

To review:

The Horbury & Edmonds study suggests that handwritten notes are better.

The Mueller and Oppenheimer study suggests (to me, at least) that laptop notes will be better – as long as students are correctly trained to reword notes as they go.

Which advice should we follow?

My answer comes back to that obscure detail I noted in parentheses.

Horbury and Edmonds, you may remember, counted the number of words students wrote. Unlike the college students, who can type faster than they write, 10-year-olds don’t.

They wrote basically the same number of words by hand as they did on the laptop.

Here’s the key point: as long as students write as fast as they type, the hypothetical advantage that I predict for college laptop note-takers simply won’t apply to younger students.

After all, laptop notes provide additional benefit only if students write more words. These younger typists don’t write more words.

Since handwritten notes produce more learning, let’s go with those!

Final Thoughts

In this post, I’ve considered two studies about note taking and laptops.

In truth, several studies explore this field. And, unsurprisingly, the results are a bit of a hodge-podge.

If you want a broader review of research in this field, check out this video from Dr. Paul Penn, who first pointed me to the Horbury and Edmonds study:

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

Given the research we have, I DON’T think we can make emphatic, confident claims.

But, based on this study with 10-year-olds, I’m much more open to the possibility that handwritten notes are — at least in younger grades — the way to go.

Horbury, S. R., & Edmonds, C. J. (2021). Taking class notes by hand compared to typing: Effects on children’s recall and understanding. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 35(1), 55-67.

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological science, 25(6), 1159-1168.

Too Good to Be True? “Even Short Nature Walks Improve Cognition”?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-08-2022

Too Good to Be True? “Even Short Nature Walks Improve Cognition”?

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Good news makes me nervous.

More precisely: if I want to believe a research finding, I become very suspicious of it. After all: it’s easy to fool me when I want to be fooled.

Specifically: I’m an outdoors guy. I’ve worked at summer camps for ages, and love a good walk in the forests around Walden Pond.

So, when I read research showing that even a brief nature walk produces cognitive benefits, I’m both VERY EXCITED and EXTRA SKEPTICAL.

Let’s start with the assumption that it’s just not true.

Persuade Me

The research I’m speaking of is in fact a review article; it summarizes and compares the results of 14 studies. (The review article was flagged by Professor Dan Willingham, one of the leaders in translating science research for the classroom.)

These 14 studies shared important commonalities:

First: they looked at “one-time” exposure to nature. They didn’t look at — say — outdoor education programs. Instead, they looked at — say — a brisk walk in a park near the school.

Second: these “one-time exposures” were all relatively brief — somewhere between 10 and 90 minutes.

Third: these “brief, one-time exposures” did NOT deliberately focus the participants on nature. That is: students didn’t walk in the park to learn about trees and birds. They walked in the park to have the experience of walking in the park.

I might be skeptical about one study. I might be skeptical of two studies. But if 14 studies (or a substantial percentage of them) all reach the same conclusion … well, maybe I’ll be persuaded.

Equally interesting: these studies ran the K-16 gamut. We’re not looking at a narrow age-range here: more like two decades.

Conclusions (and Questions)

So, what did this potentially-persuasive bunch of studies show?

YES: in 12 of the 14 studies, brief, one-time, passive exposure to nature does benefit cognition.

More specifically, researchers found benefits in measures of directed attention and working memory.

They looked for, but did not find, benefits in measures of inhibition (another important executive function).

And, crucially, they did not measure academic performance. If a walk in nature enhances attention and working memory, we can reasonably predict that it will also improve learning. But: these studies did not measure that prediction.

Because this review covers so many studies, it’s easy to get lost in the details.

One point I do want to emphasize: the impressive variety of “exposures.”

Some students walked or played in a park, woods, or nature trail.

Some simply sat and read outdoors.

Amazingly, some walked on a treadmill watching a simulated nature trail on the monitor.

In fact, some simply sat in a classroom “with windows open on to green space.”

In other words: it doesn’t take much nature to get the benefits of nature.

Inevitable Caveats

First: in these studies, exposure to nature helped restore attention and working memory capacity that had been strained.

It did not somehow increase overall attention and WM capacity in an enduring way. Students recovered faster. But they didn’t end up with more of these capacities than they started with.

Second: most of these “exposures” included some modest physical activity.

How much (if any) of the benefit came from that physical exertion, instead of the greenery?

We don’t yet know.

A Skeptic Converted?

I have to say, I’m strongly swayed by this review.

In the past, I’ve seen studies that might contradict this set of conclusions.

But the number of studies, the variety of conditions, the variety of cognitive measures, and the range of ages all seem very encouraging.

Perhaps we can’t (yet) say that “research tells us” brief exposures to nature benefit students. But I feel much more comfortable speculating that this belief just might be true.

Working Memory: Make it Bigger, or Use it Better?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
May-02-2022

Working Memory: Make it Bigger, or Use it Better?

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Cognitive science has LOTS of good news for teachers.

Can we help students remember ideas and skills better?

Yes, we can! (Check out retrieval practice and other desirable difficulties).

Can we promote students’ attention?

Yes, we can! (Posner and Rothbart’s “tripartite” theory gives us lots of guidance.)

Can we foster motivation?

Yes, we can! (As long as we’re modest about expectations and honest about the research, growth mindset can help.)

At the same time, we’ve occasionally got bad news as well.

Do cell phones distract students from their work?

Yes, they do! (Even when they’re turned off.)

Do students have “learning styles”?

Not in any meaningful way, no. (As Daniel Willingham says: when it comes to learning, people are more alike than different.)

The WORST News

I regularly talk with teachers and school leaders about working memory.

After a definition and some fun exercises, I emphasize three key points:

First: working memory is ESSENTIAL for learning. No academic information gets into long-term memory except through working memory. (Really.)

Second: it’s sadly LIMITED. (You probably can alphabetize 5 random words. You probably can’t alphabetize 10. You’ve run out of WM.)

Third: we know of no artificial way of making it bigger … except for letting children grow up. (WM capacity increases as we age, until our early twenties. No, you don’t want to know what happens next.)

This third point consistently creates genuine consternation.

Because: we REALLY want to make working memory bigger. After all: it’s essential, and it’s limited.

And because: almost every other cognitive function CAN get bigger.

If you want to learn more Spanish, practice Spanish. You’ll learn more.

If you want to get better at meditation, practice meditation; you’ll get better.

If you want to increase your working memory – and, trust me, you do – common sense suggests that practice should help.

That is: if you keep doing working memory exercises, your working memory should improve.

And yet, weirdly, it just doesn’t. People have tried and tried. Some companies make big claims.

Alas, we just don’t have consistent, robust research suggesting that any of these strategies work.

So, as I say, that’s really bad news.

Don’t Panic: There’s REALLY Good News

After all that bad news, it’s time for some good news. Let me start with an analogy.

I’m 5’10”.

I’m never the first pick for anyone’s basketball team. And: no matter how much I try, I’ll never get any taller.

However – and this is the key point – I can use the height I have more effectively. If I learn how to play basketball well (at my height), I can be a better player.

I’m not taller; my “height capacity” hasn’t changed. But my use of that height can improve.

So too, teachers can help students use the working memory they have more effectively.

In fact, we have LOTS of strategies for helping teachers do so. We have so many strategies that someone should write a book about them. (It’s possible I already did.)

For instance: “dual coding” doesn’t increase students’ WM capacity. It does, however, allow them to use more of the WM that they already have.

For that reason, dual coding – used correctly – can help students learn.

Don’t Stop Now

The good news keeps going.

Like dual coding, relevant knowledge in long-term memory reduces WM demands. The precise reasons get complicated, but the message is clear: students who know more can – on average – think more effectively.*

For that reason, a well-structured curriculum can help students learn. The knowledge they acquire along the way transforms WM-threatening tasks into WM-friendly tasks.

In many cases, simple common sense can manage WM load.

Once teachers understand why instructions take up WM space, we know how to dole out instructions more effectively.

Once we see why choices both motivate students’ interest and stress students’ WM, we can seek out the right number of choices.

So too, once we focus on “the curse of knowledge,” we start to recognize all the ways our own expertise can result in WM overload. This perspective powerfully reshapes lesson plans.

In other words: when teachers understand WM, we begin – naturally and intuitively – to adjust classroom demands to fit within cognitive limits.

That process takes time, with stumbles and muddles along the way. But the more we practice, the more skillful and successful we become.

And, notice this key point: none of these strategies make WM bigger. Instead, they help students use it better.

TL; DR

Although working memory is VITAL for learning, students (and adults) don’t have very much.

We therefore WANT to make it bigger.

The good news is: although we really can’t make it bigger, we really can help students use it more effectively.

When we shift our focus from making it bigger to using it better, we adopt teaching strategies that help students learn.

* For this reason, cognitive scientists get very antsy when they hear the claim that “students don’t need to know facts because they can look them up on the interwebs.” Because of working memory limits, students must have knowledge in long-term memory to use large amounts of it effectively.

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts…
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March-26-2022

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts…

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Teacher training programs often encourage us to brighten our classrooms with lively, colorful, personal, and uplifting stuff:

Inspirational posters.

Students’ art work.

Anchor charts.

Word walls.

You know the look.

We certainly hope that these decorations invite our students in and invigorate their learning. (We might even have heard that “enriched environments promote learning.”)

At the same time, we might worry that all those decorations could distract our students from important cognitive work.

So, which is it? Do decorations distract or inspire? Do they promote learning or inhibit learning? If only we had research on this question…

Part I: Early Research

But wait: we DO have research on this objection.

Back in 2014, a team led by Dr. Anna Fisher asked if classroom decorations might be “Too Much of a Good Thing.”

They worked with Kindergarten students, and found that — sure enough — students who learned in highly-decorated rooms paid less attention and learned less than others in “sparsely” decorated classroom.

Since then, other researchers have measured students’ performance on specific mental tasks in busy environments, or in plain environments.

The results: the same. A busy visual field reduced working memory and attention scores, compared to plain visual environments.

It seems that we have a “brain-based” answer to our question:

Classroom decorations can indeed be “too much of a good thing.”

Taken too far, they distract students from learning.

Part II: Important Doubts

But wait just one minute…

When I present this research in schools, I find that teachers have a very plausible question.

Sure: those decorations might distract students at first. But, surely the students get used to them.

Decorations might make learning a bit harder at first. But ultimately students WON’T be so distracted, and they WILL feel welcomed, delighted, and inspired.

In this theory, a small short-term problem might well turn into a substantial long-term benefit.

And I have to be honest: that’s a plausible hypothesis.

Given Fisher’s research (and that of other scholars), I think the burden of proof is on people who say that decorations are not distracting. But I don’t have specific research to contradict those objections.

Part III: The Researchers Return

So now maybe you’re thinking: “why don’t researchers study this specific question”?

I’ve got good news: they just did.

In a recently-published study, another research team (including Fisher, and led by Dr. Karrie Godwin, who helped in the 2014 study) wondered if students would get used to the highly decorated classrooms.

Research isn’t research if we don’t use fancy terminology, so they studied “habituation.” As in: did students habituate to the highly decorated classrooms?

In the first half of their study, researchers again worked with Kindergarteners. Students spent five classes studying science topics in plainly decorated classrooms. (The visual material focused only on the topic being presented.)

Then they spent ten classes studying science topics in highly decorated classrooms. (These decorations resembled typical classroom decorations: posters, charts, artwork, etc.)

Unsurprisingly (based on the 2014 study), students were more distractable in the decorated classroom.

But: did they get used to the decorations? Did they become less distractable over time? Did they habituate?

The answer: a little bit.

In other words: students were less distractible than they initially were in the decorated classroom. But they were still more distractible than in the sparsely decorated room.

Even after ten classes, students hadn’t fully habituated.

Part IV: Going Big

This 2-week study with kindergarteners, I think, gives us valuable information.

We might have hoped that students will get used to decorations, and so benefit from their welcoming uplift (but not be harmed by their cognitive cost). So far, this study deflates that hope.

However, we might still hold out a possibility:

If students partially habituate over two weeks, won’t they fully habituate eventually? Won’t the habituation trend continue?

Team Godwin wanted to answer that question too. They ran yet another study in primary school classrooms.

This study had somewhat different parameters (the research nitty-gritty gets quite detailed). But the headline is: this study lasted 15 weeks.

Depending on the school system you’re in, that’s between one-third and one-half of a school year.

How much did the students habituate to the visual distractions?

The answer: not at all.

The distraction rate was the same after fifteen weeks as it was at the beginning of the year.

To my mind, that’s an AMAZING research finding.

Putting It Together

At this point, I think we have a compelling research story.

Despite our training — and, perhaps, despite our love of decoration — we have a substantial body of research suggesting that over-decorated classrooms interfere with learning.

The precise definition of “over-decorated” might take some time to sort out. And, the practical problems of putting up/taking down relevant learning supports deserves thought and sympathetic exploration.

However: we shouldn’t simply hope away the concern that young students can be distracted by the environment.

And we shouldn’t trust that they’ll get used to the busy environment.

Instead, we should deliberately create environments that welcome students, inspire students, and help students concentrate and learn.

Fisher, A. V., Godwin, K. E., & Seltman, H. (2014). Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children: When too much of a good thing may be bad. Psychological science, 25(7), 1362-1370.

Godwin, K. E., Leroux, A. J., Seltman, H., Scupelli, P., & Fisher, A. V. (2022). Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children’s Attention. Cognitive Science, 46(2), e13093.

Why Time is a Teacher’s Greatest Commodity…and What to Do When You Don’t Have Enough of It
Guest Post
Guest Post
March-23-2022

Why Time is a Teacher’s Greatest Commodity…and What to Do When You Don’t Have Enough of It

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Today’s guest post is by Jim Heal, Director of New Initiatives, and Rebekah Berlin, Senior Program Director at Deans for Impact.

Long-time readers know how much I respect the work that Deans for Impact does. Their Resources — clear, brief, research informed, bracingly practical — offer insight and guidance in this ever-evolving field.

Ask any teacher to name a rare commodity in their profession and there’s a good chance they will reply with the word: “Time.” Whether it’s time to plan, grade, or even catch one’s breath in the midst of a busy school day, time matters.

Time is perhaps most important when it comes to time spent focusing on the material you want students to learn. So, how do you ensure that you’re making the most of the time you have with students and that they’re making the most of the way you structure their time?

Water Is Life

To answer this, let’s consider the following scenario. You’re a 7th Grade ELA teacher teaching a lesson on ‘Water is Life’ – a nonfiction text by Barbara Kingsolver. One of the objectives for this lesson is: Analyze the development of ideas over the course of a text.

You know from reading the teacher’s guide that student success will require them to compare two parts of the reading: a section describing a lush setting with an abundance of water and another describing an arid setting where rain hardly ever falls. Comparing the two will allow students to explore one of the main ideas of the text: The environmental role played by water and water sustainability.

Here is the section of the lesson[1] designed to address these aims. Take a moment to read it and consider when students are being asked to think deeply about comparing the two settings:

You arrive at school on the morning you’re due to teach this content, and there’s an unexpected announcement for students to attend club photo sessions for the yearbook during your lesson.

Big Changes, Little Time

At this point you realize that, by the time your class gets back together, you’ll need to cut ten minutes from this part of the lesson and now you have a choice to make:

If you only had twenty minutes to teach the thirty minutes of content you had planned for, how would you adapt your plan so that the most important parts of the lesson remained intact?

Let’s begin addressing this challenge with a couple of simple truths:

First: The harder and deeper we think about something, the more durable the memory will be. This means that we need students to think effortfully about the most important content in any lesson if we want it to stick.

Second: If you treat everything in the lesson as equally valuable and try to squeeze it all into less time, students are unlikely to engage in the deep thinking they need to remember the important content later.

Therefore, something’s got to give.

To help determine what goes and stays, you’re going to need to differentiate between three types of instructional tasks that can feature in any given lesson plan.

Effortful Tasks

Tasks and prompts that invite students to think hard and deep about the core content for that lesson.

In the case of ‘Water is Life’ a quick review of the plan tells us the effortful question (i.e. the part that directs students to the core knowledge they will need to think deeply about) doesn’t come until the end of the allotted thirty minute period.

This question is this lesson’s equivalent of the ‘Aha!’ moment in which students are expected to “analyze the development of ideas over the course of the text” (the lesson objective) by exploring the way the author uses juxtaposition across the two settings.

If you reacted to the shortened lesson time by simply sticking to the first twenty minutes’ worth of content, the opportunity for students to engage in the most meaningful part of the lesson would be lost. It’s therefore crucial to ask what is most essential for student learning in each case and ensure that those parts are prioritized.

Essential Tasks

Foundational tasks and prompts that scaffold students to be able to engage with the effortful questions that follow.

Just because effortful thinking about core content is the goal, that doesn’t mean you should make a beeline for the richest part of the lesson without helping students build the essential understanding they will need in order to engage with it effortfully.

In the case of ‘Water is Life’ – even though some of the tasks aren’t necessarily effortful, they are an essential stair step for students to be able to access effortful thinking opportunities.

For example, consider the moment in the lesson immediately prior to the effortful thinking prompt we just identified:

As you can see, even though we want students to go on and address the effortful task of juxtaposing the language in each of the two settings, that step won’t be possible unless they have a good understanding of the settings themselves. This part might not be effortful, but it is essential.

In this example, it isn’t essential that students share their understanding of each setting as stated in the plan, but it is essential that they do this thinking before taking on a complex question about juxtaposed settings. In other words, the instructional strategy used isn’t essential, but the thinking students do is.

Armed with this understanding, you can now shave some time off the edges of the lesson, while keeping its core intentions intact. For instance, in a time crunch, instead of having groups work on both questions the teacher could model the first paragraph and have students complete the second independently.

Strategies like these would ensure students engage more efficiently in the essential tasks – all of which means more time and attention can be paid to the effortful task that comes later on.

Non-Effortful, Non-Essential Tasks

Lower-priority tasks and prompts that focus on tangential aspects of the core content.

Lastly, there are those parts that would be nice to have if time and student attention weren’t at a premium – but they’re not effortful or essential in realizing the goals of the lesson.

If your lesson plan is an example of high-quality instructional materials (as is the case with ‘Water is Life’) you’ll be less likely to encounter these kinds of non-essential lesson components. Nevertheless, even when the lesson plan tells you that a certain section should take 30 minutes, it won’t tell you how to allocate and prioritize that time.

This is why it’s so important to identify any distractions from the ‘main event’ of the lesson. Because effortful questions are just that: they are hard and students will need more time to grapple with their answers and to revise and refine their thinking – all of which can be undermined by non-essential prompts.

For instance, it might be tempting to ask…

…“What was your favorite part of the two passages?”

…“What does water sustainability mean to you?”

…“Has anyone ever been to a particularly wet or dry place? What was it like?

These might seem engaging – and in one definition of the term, they are – it’s just that they don’t engage students with the material you want them to learn. For that reason alone, it’s important to steer clear of adding questions not directly related to your learning target in a lesson where you’re already having to make difficult choices about what to prioritize and why.

Three Key Steps

It’s worth noting that, even though our example scenario started with a surprise announcement, this phenomenon doesn’t only play out when lesson time gets unexpectedly cut. These kinds of decisions can happen when you know your students will need more time to take on an effortful question than the curriculum calls for, or even when lesson time is simply slipping away faster than you had anticipated. In either case, you would need to adjust the pacing of the lesson to accommodate the change, and bound up within that would be the prioritization of its most important parts.

There are steps one can take to ensure the time you have becomes all the time you need. Here are three such strategies informed by Deans For Impact’s work supporting novice and early-career teachers:

Identify the effortful tasks – aka the opportunities for effortful thinking about core content within the lesson. These effortful ‘Aha!’ moments can appear towards the end of the lesson, so don’t assume that you can trim content ‘from the bottom up’ since that could result in doing away with the most important parts for student learning.

Determine which are the essential tasks – aka the foundational scaffolds students will need in order to engage with those effortful thinking opportunities. These stepping stone tasks will often deal with the knowledge and materials students need to engage in the effortful part of the lesson. Even though they can’t be removed, they can be amended. If in doubt, concentrate on the thinking students need to do rather than the surface features of the instructional strategy.

Trim those parts of the lesson that don’t prompt effortful thinking or the foundational knowledge required to engage in it. This means that anything NOT mentioned in the previous two strategies is fair game for shrinking, trimming or doing away with altogether. Ask yourself whether this part of the lesson is instrumental in getting students to engage deeply with the content you want them to take away.

So, even if lesson time always feels like it’s running away (which it often is!) there are steps we can take to ensure teachers (and subsequently students) make the most of it.

Jim Heal is Director of New Initiatives at Deans for Impact and author of ‘How Teaching Happens’. He received his master’s in School Leadership and doctorate in Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Rebekah Berlin is Senior Director of Program at Deans for Impact. She received her Ph.D. in teaching quality and teacher education from the University of Virginia.

If you’d like to learn more about the work of Deans for Impact, you can get involved here.

[1] “Grade 7: Module 4B: Unit 1: Lesson 1” by EngageNY. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

 

The Best Kind of Practice for Students Depends on the Learning Goal
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December-26-2021

The Best Kind of Practice for Students Depends on the Learning Goal

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In some ways, teaching ought to be straightforward. Teachers introduce new material (by some method or another), and we have our students practice (by some method or another).

Result: THEY (should) LEARN.

Alas, both classroom experience and psychology/neuroscience research suggest that the process is MUCH more complicated.

For instance:

When we “introduce new material,” should we use direct instruction or more of an inquiry/problem-based pedagogy? *

When we “have our students practice,” what’s the very BEST kind of practice?

Around here, we typically offer two answers to that 2nd question: retrieval practice and interleaving.

Retrieval practice has gotten lots of love on this blog — for instance, here. I have written less about interleaving, mostly because we have less research on the topic.

But I’ve found some ripping good — and very practical — research to share here at the end of 2021.

“What?,” “Why?,” and Other Important Questions

Let’s start with definitions.

Let’s say I teach a particular topic today: “adjectives.” And tomorrow I teach “adverbs.” Next day, “prepositions.” Next: “coordinating conjunctions.”

How should I structure students’ homework?

They could do 20 adjective practice problems tonight. Then 20 adverb problems the next night. Then 20 prepositions. And so forth.

Let’s call that homework schedule blocking.

Or, they could do 5 adjective problems a night for the next 4 nights. And 5 adverb problems a night starting tomorrow night. And so forth.

If I go with this system, students will practice multiple different topics (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions…) at the same time. So, let’s call that homework schedule interleaving.

For the most part, when we compare these two approaches, we find that interleaving results in more learning than blocking. (Lots of info here. Also in this book.)

That’s an interesting conclusion, but why is it true?

In the first place, probably, interleaving is a desirable difficulty. Students must THINK HARDER when they interleave practice, so they learn more.

In the second place, well, we don’t exactly know. Our confusion, in fact, stems in part from an arresting truth: interleaving usually helps students learn, but not always.

Of course, NOTHING ALWAYS WORKS, so we’re not fully surprised. But if the exceptions helped explain the rule, that could be mightily helpful…

An Intriguing Possibility…

Two scholars — Paulo F. Carvalho and Robert Goldstone — have been studying a potential explanation.

Perhaps blocking and interleaving enhance different kinds of memories. And so, research produces contradictory results because researchers use different kinds of memory tests.

Specifically, they propose that:

During blocked study, attention and encoding are progressively directed toward the similarities among successive items belonging to the same category,

whereas during interleaved study attention and encoding are progressively directed toward the differences between successive items belonging to different categories.

In other words: blocking focuses students on the properties of a particular category (“adjectives”). Interleaving focuses students on the distinctions among different categories (“adjectives, adverbs, prepositions”).

And so: if I want students to DEFINE ONE topic or idea or category (“adjectives”), blocking will help them do that well.

If I want students to COMPARE/CONTRAST MANY topics or ideas or categories, interleaving will help them do that well.

To repeat the title of this blog post: “the best kind of practice for students depends on the learning goal.”

In their most recent study, Carvalho and Goldstone test this possibility.

Sure enough, they find that students who block practice do better at defining terms, whereas those who interleave practice do better at multiple-choice questions.

The study gets splendidly intricate — they work hard to disprove their own hypothesis. But once they can’t do so, they admit they they just might be right.

Caveats and Classroom Implications

Caveat #1: “one study is just one study, folks.” (Dan Willingham.)

Although, to be fair, Carvalho and Goldstone have been building a series of studies looking at this question.

Caveat #2: The researchers worked with adults (average age in the 30s) studying psychology topics.

Does their conclusion hold true for K-12 students learning K-12 topics? Maybe…

Caveat #3: Practically speaking, this research might focus on a distinction that evaporates over time.

In truth, I always want my students to know specific definitions — like “tragedy” — well. And, I want them to compare those well-known definitions flexibly to other definitions — like, say, “comedy.”

An an English teacher, I — of course! — want my students to define adjective. AND I — of course!! — want them to compare that definition/concept to other related ideas (adverbs; participles; prepositional phrases acting as adjectives).

In other words, I suspect the ultimate teaching implication of this research goes like this:

We should have students BLOCK practice until they know definitions to some degree of confidence, and then have them INTERLEAVE practice to bring those definitions flexibly together.

To be clear: I’m extrapolating, based on my classroom experience and on my reading in this field.

Until my interpretation gets more research behind it, Carvahlo and Goldstone’s research suggests this general plan:

START BY DECIDING ON THE GOAL.

If you mostly want your students to know individual concepts, have them block their practice.

If you mostly want them to bring several topics together, have them interleave practice.

As your goal changes, their homework changes too.

As is so often the case, this research doesn’t tell teachers what to do. It helps us think more clearly about the work we’re doing.

In my view, that’s the most helpful research of all.

* I think that’s a false choice; both approaches make sense under different circumstances. More on that in another blog post.

Carvalho, P. F., & Goldstone, R. L. (2021). The most efficient sequence of study depends on the type of test. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35(1), 82-97.

The Best Way to Take Class Notes
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
November-16-2021

The Best Way to Take Class Notes

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Teachers often ask me: “how should my students take notes?”

That question typically springs from a heated debate. Despite all the enthusiasm for academic technology, many teachers insist on hand-written notes. (Long-time readers know: I have a provocative opinion on this topic.)

For the time being, let’s set that debate aside.

Instead, let’s ask a more important question: what kind of mental processing should my students do while they take notes?

If students get the mental processing right, then perhaps the handwriting/laptop debate won’t matter so much.

Possibilities and Predictions

To study complicated questions, we start by simplifying them. So, here’s one simplification: in class, I want my students to…

…learn specific facts, ideas, and procedures, and

…learn connections and relationships among those facts, ideas, and procedures.

Of course, class work includes MANY more complexities, but that distinction might be a helpful place to start.

So: should students’ note-taking emphasize the specific facts? OR, should it emphasize the connections and relationships?

The answer just might depend on my teaching.

Here’s the logic:

If my teaching emphasizes facts, then students’ notes should focus on relationships.

If my teaching emphasizes relationships, then their notes should focus on factual specifics.

In these cases, the note-taking strategy complements my teaching to be sure students think both ways.

Of course, if both my teaching and students’ notes focus on facts, then mental processing of relationships and connections would remain under-developed.

In other words: we might want notes to be complementary, not redundant, when it comes to mental processing.

In fact, two researchers at the University of Louisville — Dr. David Bellinger and Dr. Marci DeCaro — tested such a prediction in recent research…

Understanding Circulation

Bellinger and DeCaro had college students listen to information-heavy lecture on blood and the circulatory system.

Some students used guided notes that emphasized factual processing. This note-taking system — called “cloze notes” — includes a transcript of the lecture, BUT leaves words out. Students filled in the words.

Bellinger, D. B., & DeCaro, M. S. (2019). Note-taking format and difficulty impact learning from instructor-provided lecture notes. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72(12), 2807-2819.

Others students used guided notes that emphasized conceptual/relational processing. These notes — “outline notes” — organized the lecture’s ideas into conceptual hierarchies, which the students filled out.

And, to be thorough, Bellinger and DeCaro used both “more challenging” and “less challenging” versions of these note systems. As you can see, examples A and B above leave much larger blanks than examples C and D.

So, which note-taking system helped students more?

Because the lecture was “information heavy,” a note-taking system that highlights facts (the “cloze notes”) would be “redundant,” while a system that highlights conceptual relationships (the “outline notes”) would be “complementary.”

That is: students would get facts from the lecture, and see relationships highlighted in the outline notes.

For this reason, Bellinger and DeCaro predicted that the outline notes would help more in this case.

And, sure enough, students remembered more information — and applied it more effectively — when they used the challenging form of the outline notes.

Classroom Implications

Based on this study, do I recommend that you use outline notes with your students?

NO, READER, I DO NOT.

Remember, the “outline notes” worked here because (presumably) they complemented the factual presentation of the lecture.

If, however, the lecture focused more on relationships and connections, then (presumably) “cloze notes” would help more. They would be “complementary.”

As is so often the case, I don’t think we teachers should DO what research says we should DO.

Instead, I think we should THINK the way researchers help us THINK.

In this case, I should ask myself: “will my classroom presentation focus more on facts, or more on relationships and connections?”

Honestly: that’s a difficult question.

In the first place, I lecture only rarely.

And in the second place, my presentations (I hope) focus on both facts and relationships.

But, if I can figure out an answer — “this presentations focuses on relationships among the characters” — then I should devise a complementary note system. In this case, “cloze notes” would probably help, because they highlight facts (and my presentation highlights connections).

In other words: this research — and the theory behind it — doesn’t offer a straightforward, simple answer to the question that launched this post: “how should my students take notes?”

Because learning is complicated, such a usefully intricate answer might be all the more persuasive.

Bellinger, D. B., & DeCaro, M. S. (2019). Note-taking format and difficulty impact learning from instructor-provided lecture notes. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72(12), 2807-2819.

Teachers’ Gestures Can Help Students Learn
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
October-05-2021

Teachers’ Gestures Can Help Students Learn

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Over the years, I’ve written about the importance of “embodied cognition.”

In other words: we know with our brains, and we know with and through our bodies.

Scholars such as Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow and Dr. Sian Beilock have done splendid and helpful work in this field.

Their research suggests that students might learn more when they make the right kind of gesture.

Other scholars have shown that — in online lectures — the right kind of pointing helps too.

What about the teachers‘ gestures? Can we help students learn in the way we use our hands?

Dr. Celeste Pilegard wanted to find out…

Steamboats, East and West

Pilegard invited college students to watch brief video lectures. The topic: the differences between Eastern and Western steamboats. (You think I’m joking. I’m not joking.)

These students watched one of four versions:

In the first version, the teacher’s gestures focused on the surface features of the steamboats themselves (how deep they sit in the water, for instance).

In the second version, the gestures focused on the structure of the lesson (“Now I’m talking about Eastern steamboats, and NOW I’m talking about Western steamboats.”).

Third version: gestures emphasized BOTH surface AND structural features.

Fourth version: a control group saw a video with neutral, content-free gestures.

Did those gestures make a difference for learning?

Pilegard, in fact, measured learning in two ways:

Did the students remember the facts?

Could the students apply those facts by drawing inferences?

So, what did she discover?

No, but Yes

Researchers typically make predictions about their findings.

In this case, Pilegard predicted that neither the surface gestures (about steamboats) nor the structural gestures (about the logic of the lesson) would help students remember facts.

But, she predicted that the structural gestures would help students draw inferences. (“If a steamboat operates on a shallow river, what does that tell you about the pressure of the steamboat’s engine?”) Surface gestures, she predicted, would not improve inferences.

Sure enough, Pilegard was 2 for 2.

Watching gestures didn’t help students remember facts any better. However, students who watched structural gestures (but not surface gestures) did better on inference questions. (Stats types: the Cohen’s d was 0.39; an impressive bonus for such a small intervention.)

When Pilegard repeated the experiment with a video on “innate vs. acquired immunity,” she got the same results.

Implications and Cautions

As teachers, we know that every little bit helps. When we use gestures to reinforce the underlying logical structure of our explanations, doing so might help students learn more.

As we plan, therefore, we should be consciously aware of our lesson’s logical structure, and think a bit about how gestures might reinforce that structure.

At the same time, regular readers know that all the usual cautions apply:

We should look at groups of studies, not just one study.

Pilegard’s research focused on college students. Will this strategy work with other students? We don’t know for sure.

These video lessons were quite short: under two minutes each. Will this strategy work over longer periods of time? We don’t know for sure.

In other words — this research offers a promising strategy. And, we need more research with students who resemble our own classrooms and lessons that last longer to have greater confidence.

I myself do plan to think about gestures for upcoming lessons. But I won’t ignore all the other teaching strategies (retrieval practice, cognitive load management, etc.). Here’s hoping that future research can point the way…

By the way:

Teachers often ask how they can get copies of research to study it for themselves.

Easy answer #1: Google Scholar.

If that doesn’t work, I recommend easy answer #2: email the researcher.

In this case, I emailed Dr. Pilegard asking for a copy of the study — and she emailed it to me 11 minutes later.

In honor of her doing so, I’m creating the Pilegard Award for Prompt Generosity in Sharing Research with People who Email You Out of the Blue.

No doubt it will be much coveted.

 

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