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“Seductive Details”: When Do Cool Stories and Videos Interfere with Learning?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 25, 2020

“Seductive Details”: When Do Cool Stories and Videos Interfere with Learning?

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As an English teacher, I really do enjoy (almost) everything I teach. I love discussing Macbeth, and coaching strong writing, and parsing English grammar. (No, really!)

My students? Not so much with the enjoying.

They’re a good-natured lot, and so — for the most part — amiably play along with my enthusiasm. But, at times I feel I should enliven a topic with a story or a picture or a video.

If our Macbeth conversation slips into neutral, I might talk about an actor’s a funny mistake during a recent production of The Crucible.

If they just can’t focus on the difference between a predicate nominative and a predicate adjective, I might start using my Godfather voice and ask them to show respect for the family. (They LOVE it when I do that…)

But here’s the question: do those funny/gross/intriguing side treks ultimately benefit or harm learning?

Seductive Details

In research world, we call these additions “seductive details.”

For instance, my lesson plan might focus on the geological forces that cause volcanoes to erupt. Past experience tells me that the lesson itself can be a bit of a slog, so I start it off with the story of Krakatoa’s eruption — which killed more than 35,000 people.

Maybe I break out some pictures of Vesuvius — an eruption that buried and preserved an entire Roman city.

In these cases, my stories enliven the general topic: “volcanoes are super deadly!” But they don’t add to the specific learning goal: geological forces that cause eruptions.

Such stories are “seductive,” but not — shall we say — “substantive” in their contribution to the lesson.

This topic gets lots of scholarly interest, and has led to many publications. Quite recently, Dr. NarayanKripa Sundararajan (Kripa Sundar) and Dr. Olusola Adesope published a meta-analysis that crunched the data of 68 different experiments.

What did they learn?

Many Questions, Helpful Answers

Given so many studies to examine, these researchers had lots of ways to parse the data:

Does it matter if the “seductive detail” is a photo or a video or an audio recording?

Does it matter how researchers measure ultimate learning?

Perhaps it matters if the “seductive details” is at the beginning, middle, or end of the lesson?

Does it matter if the students had some prior knowledge of the materiel?

With so many variables (and lots more), Sundararajan and Adesope have LOTS of conclusions to report. Rather than list them all, I’ll highlight a few that struck me as most important.

First: seductive details matter. They do, in fact, interfere with learning. Depending on which variable they studied, the researchers found different effect sizes. But, quite consistently, additional “seductive” information ended up lowering final measurements of learning.

For video and audio. If the details were at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end. For novices and experienced students. Etc…

Second: the length of the lesson matters. Specifically, seductive details have a considerable effect in short lessons (less than 5 minutes), but no statistically significant effect on longer ones (more than 10 minutes).

Practically speaking, I think this means that typical classroom lessons (which very rarely last less than 5 minutes) won’t suffer terribly from the inclusion of seductive details.

But — and this is an important exception — our current climate of online teaching might well prompt us to create brief lessons. In such lessons, seductive details will be much more distracting.

Third: the meta-analysis suggests that suggestive details create bigger problems for novices than for experts — or even for students who have some baseline knowledge of the topic. So, as Dr. Sundararajan wrote to me, “perhaps it’s not a good idea to use [seductive details] when introducing new content but perhaps not too bad in a review.”

What Should Teachers Do Now?

To start off, in the researchers’ words: “educators should minimize the use of seductive details in their instruction.”

That advice holds true especially if those details might…

… distract students from the essential ideas under discussion,

… remind students of prior misconceptions that you want to override,

… take up lots of space (say — a diagram on a page),

… take place in a relatively short (online?) lesson.

Another strategy: rework those seductive details so that the DO connect DIRECTLY to the learning goal. So, rather than simply focus the Vesuvius story on the destruction it wrought, instead talk about Roman conceptions of the causes of volcanoes. Those mythical explanations aren’t literally true, but they point the way toward — and might even align with — the scientific content you want to cover.

Yet another strategy: don’t sweat too much. Seductive details don’t permanently destroy all possibility of understanding. If used the wrong way, yes, they can get in the way. But — as all teachers know — sometimes students need a lively distraction to perk them up. As long as we use those details sparingly and thoughtfully, we don’t have to panic about occasional side-tracks.

By the way: I’m not the only one who thinks this. When I emailed Dr. Sundararajan with questions about the meta-analysis, part of her answer was:

“I think it is also important for teachers to remember that the effect is fairly small and not to feel more guilt than they need to – avoid seductive details when possible.

If your kids need a laugh, bring [seductive details] in and be aware that you might want to revisit that content with other learning strategies to help reinforce the learning (e.g. retrieval practice, or note-taking).

Along the same lines, keep in mind that kids are kids and sometimes you just have to let them process the distraction and restart.”

In other words: seductive details matter, but other things matter too. As long as we keep this research in mind as we make our teaching decisions, we’re welcome to talk about Super Deadly Volcanoes from time to time.

By the way: Dr. Sundararajan has expressed an interest in working with teachers on questions and materials. You can reach her at her website, and find her on twitter: @kripasundar.

Beyond “Tricks-n-Tips”: What does Cog Sci Tell Us About Online Learning?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 22, 2020

Beyond “Tricks-n-Tips”: What does Cog Sci Tell Us About Online Learning?

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In our early scramble to get teaching online, it’s easy to focus on the immediately practical: how to auto-mute on Zoom, how to use Dropbox links, how to find the best online resources.

This emphasis on tricks and tips makes good sense in the short term.

Once we’ve  gotten a few days’ experience in this new teaching world, we can take a mental step back and ask about the bigger learning picture.

What can cognitive science tell us about teaching and learning online?

As is so often the case, the answer to that question boils down to these words: “don’t just do this thing. Instead, think this way.”

In other words: research can give lots of very specific advice. But it’s probably most useful when it suggests broad, flexible principles that teachers can adapt to our own specific circumstances.

One Place to Start

Regular readers know that working memory is essential for learning. It allows us to hold and combine ideas, bits of information, mental processes, and so forth.

When we successfully hold and combine — and practice doing so the right way — that’s when learning happens.

Alas, we don’t have much working memory.

This CRUCIAL bottleneck dooms many worthy teaching endeavors. But, if we manage it well, we show real expertise in our craft.

So, if the question is:

“what can cognitive science tell us about online learning?”

one answer is:

“As much as we can, we should recognize and mitigate the working memory demands of this new learning world.”

In other words: students are using working memory not only to learn our content, but also to manage the novel physical and mental space in which this learning should happen. As much as feasible, we should help.

A Simple Example

Over on Twitter, I’ve been learning from David Weston (@informed_edu) to get practical information about online teaching. (Some of those “tricks and tips.”)

For instance, he recently posted a video showing how teachers can show a PowerPoint presentation over Zoom.

For some of us, that’s immensely helpful information.

At the same time — depending on your prior knowledge — this video might require lots of heavy lifting in working memory.

You’ve got to use ALT+TAB (if you’re using a PC) or COMMAND+TAB (if you’re using a MAC). You’ve got to navigate one arrangement of buttons for PowerPoint, and a quite different arrangement for Zoom. You’ve got to determine whether or not you have to switch back-n-forth during the presentation to advance the PowerPoint slides.

If you know from PowerPoint and Zoom, then this combination of steps is probably quite easy to manage.

If, however, you’re a newbie to either, then you might struggle to process all those steps effectively. You’ll probably have to rewatch parts of the video. You’ll probably make several mistakes. You’ll probably get frustrated before you finally figure it out.

And — here’s my key point — our students are probably experiencing similar frustrations. They’re figuring out new systems. They’re adapting old learning models to new (bizarre) circumstances.

All that working memory stress comes on top of the working memory stress that learning always requires.

And so my advice is not “do this thing” (“Here’s how you can solve this problem…”) Instead, cognitive science encourages us to “think this way.”

We should develop the new mental habit of asking: how does this particular learning arrangement increase working memory load for me and my students? And, what can I do to fix the problem?

Two Important Points

First: almost certainly the solutions to the working memory problems will be…

… choose to slow down and practice the new/unfamiliar steps,

… use your teacherly instincts,

… be patient with your students and yourself.

That advice isn’t super specific. But: it’s really flexible. And, given what we know about working memory, it really will help.

Second: I’ve used Weston’s video as an example of potential working memory overload NOT because it’s badly done. Instead, Weston has created a video that will help most people; and, it will help even more if we pause to recognize its working memory demands.

That is: if technology just isn’t your thing, if you’ve never Zoomed before, if you’re not sure whether you have a PC or a Mac, assume that you’ll need to reduce working memory demands in one part of your teaching world to create some working memory headroom to deal with the technology.

That’s hard to do. But: it’s MUCH easier to do if we proactively think this way than if we try to solve working memory problems as they occur.

Cognitive science tells us that our brains work that way. We can use that knowledge to make online teaching and learning the best it can be.

Beyond the Mouse: Pointing in Online Learning [Repost]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 19, 2020

Beyond the Mouse: Pointing in Online Learning [Repost]

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As teachers across the country prepare to move our work online, I’ve been looking over previous posts that might offer practical guidance.

This post — from July of last year — asks a simple question: in online teaching, does pointing matter?

Happily, research by Richard Mayer points us in a useful direction.

You know, of course, that the right kind of movement can help students learn. The nascent field of “embodied cognition” works to explore the strategies that work most effectively.

Here’s a collection of resources.

And, here’s a recent blog post about kindergarteners moving to learn the number line.

You also know that online learners easily get distracted, often because they multitask. (I say “they” because you and I would never do such things.)

This recent post shows that even folding laundry — a harmless-seeming activity — reduces online learning.

What happens when we put these two research pools together?

Specifically: can movement reduce distraction, and increase learning, for online learners?

Benefits of Online Pointing?

Several researchers — including the estimable Richard Mayer — wanted to answer that question.

Specifically, they wanted to know: do pointing gestures made by the teacher help online students learn?

They had students watch an online lecture (about “neural transmission,” naturally).

For the first group of students, the teacher pointed at specific places on relevant diagrams.

For the second group, the teacher pointed generally toward the diagrams (but not at specific parts of them).

For the third, the teacher moved his hands about, without pointing specifically.

For the fourth, the teacher didn’t move his hands.

Do different pointing strategies help or hurt?

Benefits Indeed

Sure enough, pointing matters.

Students in the first group spent more time looking at the relevant parts of the diagrams.

They did better on a test that day.

And — most important — they did better than the other groups on a test a week later.

Now: a week isn’t exactly learning. We want our students to remember facts and concepts for months. (Preferably, forever.)

But, the fact that the memories had lasted a week suggests it’s MUCH likelier they’ll last longer still.

Practical Implications

If your classroom life includes online teaching, or teaching with videos, try to include specific pointing gestures to focus students on relevant information. At least with this student population, such gestures really helped.

By the way, this study doesn’t answer an interesting and important question: “does student movement as they watch online lectures help or hurt their learning?”

We know from the study cited above that irrelevant movement (like folding laundry) doesn’t help. But: should students mirror your gestures as they watch videos? Should you give them particular gestures to emulate?

We don’t know yet…but I hope future research helps us find an answer.

Overcoming Potential Perils of Online Learning [Repost]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 13, 2020

Overcoming Potential Perils of Online Learning [Repost]

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In June of 2019, I wrote about Dr. Rachael Blasiman’s research into the effect of typical distractions on online learning.

Given the current health climate, I thought her work might be especially helpful right now.

The key take-aways here:

First: (unsurprisingly) distractions interfere with online learning, and

Second: (crucially) we can do something about that.

In brief, we should start our online classes by teaching students how to learn online…

Here’s the post from June.

Online learning offers many tempting — almost irresistible — possibilities. Almost anyone can study almost anything from almost anywhere.

What’s not to love?

A tough-minded response to that optimistic question might be:

“Yes, anyone can study anything, but will they learn it?”

More precisely: “will they learn it roughly as well as they do in person?”

If the answer to that question is “no,” then it doesn’t really matter that they undertook all that study.

Rachael Blasiman and her team wanted to know if common at-home distractions interfere with online learning.

So: can I learn online while…

…watching a nature documentary?

…texting a friend?

…folding laundry?

…playing a video game?

…watching The Princess Bride?

Helpful Study, Helpful Answers

To answer this important and practical question, Blasiman’s team first had students watch an online lecture undistracted. They took a test on that lecture, to see how much they typically learn online with undivided attention.

Team Blasiman then had students watch 2 more online lectures, each one with a distractor present.

Some students had a casual conversation while watching. Others played a simple video game. And, yes, others watched a fencing scene from Princess Bride.

Did these distractions influence their ability to learn?

On average, these distractions lowered test scores by 25%.

That is: undistracted students averaged an 87% on post-video quizzes. Distracted students averaged a 62%.

Conversation and The Princess Bride were most distracting (they lowered scores by ~30%). The nature video was least distracting — but still lowered scores by 15%.

In case you’re wondering: men and women were equally muddled by these distractions.

Teaching Implications

In this case, knowledge may well help us win the battle.

Blasiman & Co. sensibly recommend that teachers share this study with their students, to emphasize the importance of working in a distraction-free environment.

And, they encourage students to make concrete plans to create — and to work in — those environments.

(This post, on “implementation intentions,” offers highly effective ways to encourage students to do so.)

I also think it’s helpful to think about this study in reverse. The BAD news is that distractions clearly hinder learning.

The GOOD news: in a distraction-free environment, students can indeed start to learn a good deal of information.

(Researchers didn’t measure how much they remembered a week or a month later, so we don’t know for sure. But: we’ve got confidence they had some initial success in encoding information.)

In other words: online classes might not be a panacea. But, under the right conditions, they might indeed benefit students who would not otherwise have an opportunity to learn.

I’ve just learned that both of Dr. Blasiman’s co-authors on this study were undergraduates at the time they did the work. That’s quite unusual in research world, and very admirable! [6-11-19]

Does Teaching HANDWRITING Help Students READ?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 11, 2020

Does Teaching HANDWRITING Help Students READ?

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I recently saw a newspaper headline suggesting that teaching students HANDWRITING ultimately improves their READING ability.

As an English teacher, I was intrigued by that claim.

As a skeptic, I was … well … skeptical.

In this case, we have two good reasons to be skeptical. First, we should always be skeptical. Second, claims of transfer rarely hold up.

What is “transfer”?

Well, if you teach me calculus, then it’s likely I’ll get better at calculus. If you teach me to play the violin, it’s likely I’ll get better at playing the violin. But: if you teach me to play the violin, it’s NOT likely that this skill will transfer to another skill — like calculus. (And, no: music training in youth doesn’t reliably improve math ability later in life.)

In fact, most claims of transfer — “teaching you X makes you better at distantly-related-thing A” — end up being untrue.

So, is it true — as this newspaper headline implied — that handwriting skills transfer to reading skills?

The Research

This newspaper article pointed to research by Dr. Anabela Malpique, working in Western Australia.

Her research team worked with 154 6-7 year-olds around Perth. They measured all sorts of variables, including…

…the students’ handwriting automaticity (how well can they write individual letters),

…their reading skills (how accurately they read individual words),

…the amount of time the teachers reported spending in reading/writing instruction.

And, they measured handwriting automaticity and reading skills at the beginning and end of the year. For that reason, they could look for relationships among their variables over time. (As you can see, Malpique’s research focuses on many topics — not just the writing/reading question that I’m discussing in this post.)

Tentative Conclusions

To their surprise, Malpique’s team found that more fluent letter formation at the beginning of the year predicted more fluent word reading at the end of the year. In their words, this finding

suggest[s] that being able to write letters quickly and effortlessly in kindergarten facilitates pre-reading and decoding skills one year later.

In other words: this research allows the possibility that teaching writing does ultimately help students read single words.

However — and this is a big however — the researchers’ methodology does NOT allow for causal conclusions. They see a mathematical “relationship” between two things, but don’t say that the writing ability led to later reading ability.

They warn:

Experimental research is needed to confirm these findings[,] and systematically evaluate potential explanatory mechanism[s] of writing-to-reading effects over time in the early years.

They specifically note that they did NOT measure reading comprehension; they measured single word reading.

To put this in other words: we would like to know if

a) teaching letter writing leads to

b) improved letter writing fluency, which leads to

c) improved single word reading, which leads to

d) improved reading comprehension.

These findings make the b) to c) connection more plausible, but the certainly do not “prove” that a) leads to d).

Classroom Implications

This research doesn’t claim we should make big changes right away.

I do think it leads to this conclusion:

Some schools are replacing books with computers and tablets. I can imagine (although I haven’t heard this) that advocates might make this claim:

“In the future, no one will need to write by hand. Everything will be keyboarding, and so we need to get children typing as soon as possible. Let’s replace handwriting instruction with keyboarding instruction, to prepare our kids for the future!”

If we hear that argument, we can say:

“I have LOTS of objections to that logical chain. In particular, we have tentative reasons to believe that handwriting instruction improves reading. If that’s true — and we don’t yet know — we should be VERY wary of doing anything that slows our students’ ability to read. We might not be handwriting so much in the future, but we’ll be reading forever.”

In sum: I don’t think that newspaper article captured essential nuances. However, this research raises the intriguing possibility that transfer just might take place from writing instruction to single-word reading. We need more research to know with greater certainty.

But, given the importance of reading for school and life, we should be excited to find anything that can help students do better.

The Big Six: A Grand Summary
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 08, 2020

The Big Six: A Grand Summary

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Much of the time, this blog digs into a specific example of a specific teaching practice.

Within the last two weeks, I’ve written about spacing and interleaving in math instruction, a “big challenging book” strategy for struggling readers, and the potential benefits of cold calling.

At times, however, it’s helpful to zoom the camera back and look at THE BIG PICTURE.

What does cognitive science tell us about learning?

Today’s Grand Summary

Regular readers know that The Learning Scientists do a GREAT job explaining…well…the science of learning.

In particular, they focus on “six strategies of effective learning”:

Spacing

Interleaving

Retrieval Practice

Concrete Examples

Elaboration

Dual Coding

In a recent post, Dr. Megan Sumeracki does a typically helpful job giving a thoughtful overview of those strategies. Rather than summarize her summary, I’m encouraging you to give her post a quick read. It will help put the pieces together for you.

Wise Caveats

Sumeracki introduces her summary with this helpful note:

Before digging into the specifics of each strategy, it is important to note that they are very flexible. This is a good thing, in that it means they can be used in a lot of different situations.

However, this also means that there really isn’t a specific prescription we can provide that will “always work.”

Instead, understanding the strategies and how they work can help instructors and students. [Emphasis added.]

In other words — as you often read on this blog — “don’t just do this thing; instead, think this way.”

Cognitive science really cannot provide a script for teachers to read verbatim. Instead, it offers principles that we must adapt to our own specific classrooms and students.

So, if you increase spacing and retrieval practice, your students will — almost certainly — remember more over the long term. But: exactly how to do that will differ from classroom to classroom, grade to grade, culture to culture.

In other words: teachers should draw on scientific understanding of minds and brains to shape our work. But: teaching itself isn’t a science. It’s a craft, a passion, a profession.

Cold Calling and Bad Pizza
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
March 05, 2020

Cold Calling and Bad Pizza

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When I was in grad school, a well-known professor announced that — given everything we know about the effects of stress — it is professional malpractice to “cold call” on students. (To “cold call” means to call on a student who hasn’t raised her hand.)

Imagine the cascade of bad results.

When cold-called, the student feels stress. Cortisol levels go up. Excess cortisol interferes with learning. In fact, long-term excess cortisol damages the hippocampus. (You can check out this video here.)

My professor’s claim struck me as shocking, because Doug Lemov argues so strongly for cold calling in his much admired Teach Like a Champion:

“If I was working with a group of teachers and had to help them make the greatest possible improvements in the rigor, ratio, and level of expectations in their classroom with one technique, the technique I’d choose might well be cold call.”

That is: if we want students themselves to be doing cognitive work — a.k.a. “active learning” — Lemov thinks cold calling is the way to go. It serves four key functions:

First, it lets the teacher check students’ understanding,

Second, it creates a culture of “engaged accountability,”

Third, it helps the teacher speed up or slow down the pace, and

Fourth, it supplements other teaching strategies, like “turn and talk.”

Little wonder Lemov champions it so heartily.

Breaking the Tie?

We’ve got an expert in the neurobiology of stress saying cold calling is professional malpractice. We’ve got an expert in classroom teaching saying that cold calling is profession best practice.

How to we decide?

On this blog, we try always to find relevant research. In this case, the best study I can find was undertaken by Dallimore, Hertenstein, and Platt.

Team Dallimore — aware of both sides of this debate — looked at 16 sections of a college accounting course, including well over 600 students.

They kept track of the professors’ discussion techniques: in particular, did they cold call or not?

And, they followed a number of variables: in particular, how much did students voluntarily participate? And, how comfortable were the students in class discussion? (In other words: what happened to those cortisol levels my professor worried about?)

If the answers to those questions show a clear pattern, that might help us decide to follow my prof’s guidance, or Lemov’s.

The Envelope Please

In brief: cold calling produced good thinking results, and lowered (apparent) stress levels.

That is: in classes with infrequent cold calling, students’ voluntary participation remained the same throughout the term. In classes with high cold calling, their voluntary participation rose from 68% to 86%.

Dallimore’s team saw the same results with the number of questions students volunteered to answer. That number remained flat in the low cold calling classes, and rose in the high cold calling classes.

And, how about stress?

When asked to report their comfort level with class discussion, that level remained constant in low cold calling sections. Comfort levels rose in high cold calling sections.

So: when teachers cold called, their students voluntarily participated more, and they felt more comfortable in class.

Always with the Limitations

Dallimore’s study — combined with Lemov’s insight, guidance, and wisdom — suggests that cold calling really can benefit students.

However, any good teaching technique can be used badly. If it’s possible to make a bad pizza, it’s possible to make a bad version of any great thing.

So, if we’ve got students who have experienced ongoing trauma, we should make reasonable accommodations. If a student has an IEP that warns against cold calling, we should — of course! — heed that warning.

Also, I should acknowledge the limitations of this research. The study I’ve described was published in 2012, and it’s the most recent one I have located. Simply put: we don’t have much research on the topic.

And: research done with accounting students — most of whom are college sophomores — might not apply to your students.

Of course, Lemov works mostly with K-12 students, especially those who attend schools that have relatively high poverty rates. In other words: Dallimore’s research + Lemov’s research shows a wide range of effectiveness for this technique.

In sum: I’m sure teachers can use cold calling techniques badly — resulting in raised stress and reduced learning. But, done well, this technique offers real benefits.

If we create a respectful, supportive, and challenging classroom climate — including cold call — students can learn splendidly. This video shows the technique in action.

Are “Retrieval Practice” and “Spacing” Equally Important? [Updated]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 28, 2020

Are “Retrieval Practice” and “Spacing” Equally Important? [Updated]

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If you follow research in the world of long-term memory, you know you’ve got SO MANY GOOD STRATEGIES.

Agarwal and Bain’s Powerful Teaching, for instance, offers a delicious menu: spacing, interleaving, retrieval practice, metacognition.

Inquiring minds want to know: how do we best choose among those options? Should we do them all? Should we rely mostly on one, and then add in dashes of the other three? What’s the idea combination?

One Important Answer

Dr. Keith Lyle and his research team wanted to know: which strategy has greater long-term impact in teaching college math: retrieval practice or spacing?

That is: in the long term, do students benefit from more retrieval? From greater spacing? From both?

To answer this really important question, they carefully designed weekly quizzes in a college precalculus class. Some topics, at “baseline,” were tested with three questions at the end of the week. That’s a little retrieval practice, and a few days of spacing.

Some topics were tested with six quiz questions at the end of the week. That’s MORE retrieval practice, but the same baseline amount of spacing.

Some topics were tested with three quiz questions spread out over the semester. That’s baseline retrieval practice, but MUCH GREATER spacing.

And, some topics were tested with six quiz questions spread out over the semester. That’s extra retrieval AND extra spacing.

They then measured: how did these precalculus students do when tested on those topics on the final exam? And — hold on you hats — how did they do when tested a month later, when they started taking the follow-up class on calculus?

Intriguing Answers…

Lyle and Co. found that — on the precalculus final exam…

…extra retrieval practice helped (about 4% points), and

…extra spacing helped (about 4% points), and

…combining extra retrieval with extra spacing helped more (about 8% points).

So, in the relatively short term, both strategies enhance learning. And, they complement each other.

What about the relatively longer term? That is, what happened a month later, on the pre-test for the calculus class? In that case…

…extra retrieval practice didn’t matter

…extra spacing helped (about 4% points).

…combining extra retrieval with extra spacing produced no extra benefit (still about 4% points).**

For enduring learning, then, extra spacing helped, but extra retrieval practice didn’t.

…Important Considerations

First: as the researchers note, it’s important to stress that this research comes from the field of math instruction. Math — more than most disciplines — already has retrieval practice built into in.

That is: when I do math homework, every problem I solve requires me (to some degree) to recall the math task at hand. (And, probably, lots of other relevant math info as well.)

But, when I do my English homework, the paper I’m writing about Macbeth might not remind me about Grapes of Wrath. Or, when I do my History homework, the time I spend studying Aztec civilization doesn’t necessarily require me to recall facts or concepts from the Silk Road unit. (It might, but might not.)

So, this study shows that extra retrieval practice didn’t help over and above the considerable retrieval practice the math students were already doing.

Second: notice that the “spacing” in this case was a special kind of spacing. It was, in fact, spacing of retrieval practice. Of course, that counts as spacing.

But, we have lots of other ways to space as well. For instance, Dr. Rachael Blasiman testing spacing by taking time in lectures to revisit earlier concepts. That strategy did create spacing, but didn’t include retrieval practice.

So, this research doesn’t necessarily apply to other kinds of spacing. It might, but we don’t yet know.

Practical Classroom Applications

Lyle & Co.’s study gives us three helpful classroom reminders.

First: as long as we’ve done enough retrieval practice to establish ideas (as math homework does almost automatically), we can redouble our energies to focus on spacing.

Second: Lyle mentions in passing that students do (very slightly) worse on quizzes that include spacing — because spacing is harder. (Regular readers know, we call this “desirable difficulty.”)

This reminder gives us an extra reason to be sure that quizzes with spacing are low-stakes or no-stakes. We don’t want to penalize students for participating in learning strategies that benefit them.

Third: In my own view, we can ask/expect our students to join us in retrieval practice strategies. Once they reach a certain age or grade, they should be able to make flashcards, or use quizlet, or test one another.

However, I think spacing requires a different perspective on the full scope of a course. That is: it requires a teacher’s perspective. We have the long view, and see how all the pieces best fit together.

For those reasons, I think we can (and should) ask students to do retrieval practice (in addition to the retrieval practice we create). But, we ourselves should take responsibility for spacing. We — much more than they they — have the big picture in mind. We should take that task off their to do list, and keep it squarely on ours.

** This post has been revised on 3/7/30. The initial version did not include the total improvement created by retrieval practice and spacing one month after the final exam.

Where Should Students Study?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
February 01, 2020

Where Should Students Study?

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We’ve got lots of advice for the students in our lives:

How to study: retrieval practice

When to study: spacing effect

Why study: so many answers

Where to study: …um, hold please, your call is very important to us…

As can happen, research provides a counter-intuitive — and sometimes contradictory — answers to that last question.

I grew up hearing the confident proclamation that we should create a perfect study environment in one place, and always study there. (The word “library” was spoken in reverent tones.)

As I think about the research I’ve seen in the last ten years, my own recommendations to students have been evolving.

Classic Beginnings

In a deservedly famous study, Smith, Glenberg and Bjork (1978) tried to measure the effect on environment on memory.

They found that, in the short run, I associate the words that I learn in this room with the room itself. That is: if I learn words in room 27, I’ll do better on a test of those words in room 27 than in room 52.

One way to interpret those findings is that we should teach in the place where students will be tested.

If the final exam, inevitably, is in the gym, I should teach my students in the gym. And they should study in the gym. This approach ensures that they’ll associate their new knowledge with the place they have to demonstrate that knowledge.

In this theory, students should learn and study in the place they’ll ultimately be tested.

Priority Fix #1

This interpretation of Smith’s work makes sense if — and only if — the goal of learning is to do well on tests.

Of course, that’s not my goal. I don’t want my students to think carefully about literature for the test; I want them to think carefully about literature for life.

I want them to have excellent writing skills now, and whenever in the future they need to write effectively and clearly.

We might reasonably worry that a strong association between the room and the content would limit transfer. That is: if I connect the material I’ve learned so strongly with room 27, or the gym, I might struggle to remember or use it anywhere else.

Smith worried about that too. And, sure enough, when he tested that hypothesis, his research supported it.

In other words, he found that students who study material in different locations can use it more flexibly elsewhere. Students who study material in only one location can’t transfer their learning so easily. (By the way: Smith’s research has been replicated. You can read about this in Benedict Carey’s How We Learn. Check out chapter 3.)

This finding leads to a wholly different piece of advice. Don’t do what my teachers told me to do when I was a student. Instead, study material in as many different places as reasonably possible. That breadth of study will spread learning associations as widely as possible, and benefit transfer.

That’s what I’ve been telling students for the last several years.

Voila. Generations of teaching advice overturned by research!

Priority Fix #2

Frequent readers have heard me say: “Researchers work by isolating variables. Schools work by combining variables.”

The longer I do this work, the longer I think that this “where to study” advice makes sense only if I focus exclusively on that one variable.

If I start adding in other variables, well, maybe not so much.

True enough, research shows that I’ll remember a topic better if I study it in different places … as long as all other variables being held constant. But, in life, other variables aren’t constant.

Specifically, some study locations are noisier than others. Starbucks is louder than the library: it just is. And, some locations are visually busier than others.

And, as you would expect, noise — such as music — distracts from learning. So, too, do visually busy environments.

So, a more honest set of guidelines for students goes like this:

You should review material in different places. But, you want each of those places to be quiet. And, you don’t want them to have much by way of visual distraction.

You know what that sounds like to me? The library.

I suppose it’s possible for students to come up with several different study locations that are equally quiet and visually bland. Speaking as a high school teacher, I think it’s unlikely they’ll actually do that.

So, unless they’ve got the bandwidth to manage all those demands even before they sit down to study, then I think the traditional advice (“library!”) is as good as anything.

Final Thoughts

People occasionally ask me where I am in the “traditional vs. progressive” education debate.

The honest answer is: I’m indifferent to it. I (try to) focus on practical interpretations of pertinent psychology and neuroscience research.

If that research leads to a seemingly innovative suggestion (“study in many locations!”), that’s fine. If it leads to a traditional position (“library”), that’s equally fine.

I think that, for the most part, having teams in education (prog vs. trad) doesn’t help. If we measure results as best we can, and think humbly and open-mindedly about the teaching implications, we’ll serve our students best.

“How We Learn”: Wise Teaching Guidance from a Really Brainy Guy
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
January 26, 2020

“How We Learn”: Wise Teaching Guidance from a Really Brainy Guy

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Imagine that you ask a neuro-expert: “What’s the most important brain information for teachers to know?”

The answer you get will depend on the expertise of the person you ask.

If you ask Stanislas Dehaene, well, you’ll get LOTS of answers — because he has so many areas of brain expertise.

He is, for example,  a professor of experimental cognitive psychology at the Collège de France; and Director of the NeuroSpin Center, where they’re building the largest MRI gizmo in the world. (Yup, you read that right. IN THE WORLD.)

He has in fact written several books on neuroscience: neuroscience and reading, neuroscience and math, even neuroscience and human consciousness.

He’s also President of a newly established council to ensure that teacher education in all of France has scientific backing: the Scientific Council for Education. (If the United States had such a committee, we could expunge Learning Styles myths from teacher training overnight.)

If that’s not enough, Dehaene is interested in artificial intelligence. And statistics. And evolution.

So, when he writes a book called How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better than Any Machine…for Now, you know you’re going to get all sorts of wise advice.

Practical Teaching Advice

Dehaene wants teachers to think about “four pillars” central to the learning process.

Pillar 1: Attention

Pillar 2: Active engagement

Pillar 3: Error feedback

Pillar 4: Consolidation

As you can see, this blueprint offers practical and flexible guidance for our work. If we know how to help students pay attention (#1), how to help them engage substantively with the ideas under discussion (#2), how to offer the right kind of feedback at the right time (#3), and how to shape practice that fosters consolidation (#4), we’ll have masterful classrooms indeed.

Learning, of course, begins with Attention: we can’t learn about things we don’t pay attention to. Following Michael Posner’s framework, Dehaene sees attention not as one cognitive process, but as a combination of three distinct cognitive processes.

Helpfully, he simplifies these processes into three intuitive steps. Students have to know:

when to pay attention

what to pay attention to, and

how to pay attention.

Once teachers start thinking about attention this way, we can see all sorts of new possibilities for our craft. Happily, he has suggestions.

Like other writers, Dehaene wants teachers to focus on active engagement (pillar #2). More than other writers, he emphasizes that “active” doesn’t necessarily mean moving. In other words, active engagement requires not physical engagement but cognitive engagement.

This misunderstanding has led to many needlessly chaotic classroom strategies, all in the name of “active learning.” So, Dehaene’s emphasis here is particularly helpful and important.

What’s the best way to create cognitive (not physical) engagement?

“There is no single miraculous method, but rather a whole range of approaches that force students to think for themselves, such as: practical activities, discussions in which everyone takes part, small group work, or teachers who interrupt their class to ask a difficult questions.”

Error Feedback (pillar #3) and Consolidation (#4) both get equally measured and helpful chapters. As with the first two, Dehaene works to dispel myths that have muddled our approaches to teaching, and to offer practical suggestions to guide our classroom practice.

Underneath the “Four Pillars”

These four groups of suggestions all rest on a sophisticated understanding of what used to be called the “nature/nurture” debate.

Dehaene digs deeply into both sides of the question to help teachers understand both brain’s adaptability (“nurture”) and the limits of that adaptability (“nature”).

To take but one example: research with babies makes it quite clear that brains are not “blank slates.” We come with pre-wired modules for processing language, numbers, faces, and all sorts of other things.

One example in particular surprised me: probability. Imagine that you put ten red marbles and ten green marbles in a bag. As you start drawing marbles back out of that bag, a 6-month-old will be surprised — and increasingly surprised — if you draw out green marble after green marble after green marble.

That is: the baby understands probability. They know it’s increasingly likely you’ll draw a red marble, and increasingly surprising that you don’t. Don’t believe me? Check out chapter 3: “Babies’ Invisible Knowledge.”

Of course, Dehaene has fascinating stories to tell about the brain’s plasticity as well. He describes several experiments — unknown to me — where traumatized rats were reconditioned to prefer the room where the traumatizing shock initially took place.

He also tells the amazing story of “neuronal recycling.” That is: the neural real-estate we train to read initially housed other (evolutionarily essential) cognitive functions.

Human Brains and Machine Learning

Dehaene opens his book by contemplating definitions of learning — and by contrasting humans and machines in their ability to do so.

By one set of measures, computers have us beat.

For instance, one computer was programmed with the rules of the game Go, and then trained to play against itself. In three hours, it became better at the game than the human Go champion. And, it got better from there.

However, Dehaene still thinks humans are the better learners. Unlike humans, machines can’t generalize their learning. In other words: that Go computer can’t play any other games. In fact, if you changed the size of the Go board even slightly, it would be utterly stumped.

And, unlike humans, it can’t explain its learning to anyone else.

And, humans need relatively little data to start learning. Machines do better than us when they can crank millions of calculations. But, when they calculate as slowly as we do, they don’t learn nearly as much as we do.

As his subtitle reassures us, brains learn better than any machine. (And, based on my conversation with him, it’s clear that “…for now” means “for the long foreseeable future.”)

Final Thoughts

At this point, you see what I mean when I wrote that Dehaene has an impressive list of brain interests, and therefore offers an impressive catalog of brain guidance.

You might, however, wonder if this much technical information ends up being a little dry.

The answer is: absolutely not.

Dehaene’s fascination with all things brain is indeed palpable in this book. And, his library of amazing studies and compelling anecdotes keeps the book fresh and easy-to-read. I simply lost track of the number of times I wrote “WOW” in the margin.

This has been a great year for brain books. Whether you’re new to the field, or looking to deepen your understanding, I recommend How We Learn enthusiastically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=23KWKoD8xW8&feature=emb_logo

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