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

Do Collaborative Projects Reduce or Increase Working Memory Stress?

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Should teachers ask students to work on projects in teams?

This question generates a great deal of heat.

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

Working Memory: Blesses and Curses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Collaboration’s WM Dangers

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

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

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

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

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

Collaboration’s WM Benefits

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

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

Student A carries this part of the WM load.

Student B carries that part.

Student C takes care of the tricky last bit.

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

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

Putting It Together

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

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

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

Brain Research in Translation
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
December 04, 2018

Brain Research in Translation

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Science relies on skepticism, so let’s ask a skeptical question:

“Does it really benefit teachers to understand brain research? Isn’t good teaching good teaching?”

If you’re reading this blog, you doubtless already see the value that brain research offers teachers.

The more we know about — say — motivation, or “the spacing effect,” or the benefits of interleaving, or the perils of “catastrophic failure,” the better our work can be.

But, I think there’s more.

The more time I spend in this field, the more I see benefits for school communities and even international collaboration.

Uniting Schools with Common Language

I once spent the day working at a K-12 school in Texas. At the lunch break, a teacher approached me and said:

“I’m so impressed you know all our names! I’ve worked here for years, and I don’t know the names of the high-school teachers. After all, I teach in the lower school.”

This confession speaks a larger truth: we can all-too-easily fall in the habit of talking only with our nearest peers.

3rd grade teachers confer with other 3rd grade teachers. High-school English teachers huddle up with high-school English teachers. (I should know; I’m a high-school English teacher.)

This habit makes some sense. I don’t really know how my lesson-plan for Their Eyes Were Watching God would translate to, say, a first grade classroom. What teaching topics might cross so wide a curricular gulf?

The answer: brain research.

A strategy I use to manage working memory overload for 10th graders might transfer quite easily to a 3rd grade classroom. At a minimum, the benefits of that strategy will be immediately clear to anyone who understands the importance of working memory.

When all teachers in a school know the languages of neuroscience and psychology, we can talk about our work more deeply, meaningfully, and effectively with colleagues in other grades and other disciplines.

Uniting Countries with Common Language

I spent the last two weeks in Japan, working with Fukuoka International School and the American School in Japan. In Fukuoka, I worked with teachers from about a dozen countries: the US, Canada, and Japan — and also China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia … even Myanmar.

As you can imagine, these countries have dramatically different educational systems, philosophies, cultural expectations, and curricula. What shared language might these teachers find?

Here again, these teachers were amazed to see how quickly they could share teaching strategies — once they could describe them in this new way.

A game for retrieval practice, for instance, might be used with different topics in different countries. Heck, it might take place in various languages with incompatible alphabets.

But the core psychological practice remains the same, no matter the curricular or linguistic translations.

In two sentences…

I joined the Mind, Brain, & Education movement because I thought it would help make me a better teacher. Every day I see more clearly: it can make all of us — schools, districts, even international communities — a better education system.

Update on “Collaborative Learning”
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
September 12, 2018

Update on “Collaborative Learning”

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Last week, I wrote about a potential strategy for making group-work more effective. A Boston-based research team has found reason to think that “intermittent” collaboration might yield better results than constant (or absent) collaboration.collaborative learning

Although I’m excited to see these results, my article concluded with two concerns:

First: the research was done with college students. It might not apply to younger learners.

Second: the participants weren’t exactly collaborating. They were (or were not) looking at each others’ answers after they solved problems.

They did not do what typically happens in schools, where students work on problems and projects together all at the same time.

So, again: this research might not (or, might) apply in our classrooms.

(I should be clear: the researchers don’t claim to be studying collaboration. Their research field is “collective intelligence.” The most obvious place to apply their research is in what teachers call “collaboration.”)

Thoughtful Update for Concern #1…

When I have questions about a study, I try to ask the researchers for their thoughts. In this case, I reached out to Dr. Jesse Shore with my two concerns.

His answers struck me as particularly helpful, and so I’m sharing them with you. (I’m rewording passages from his email, but with his permission drawing substantially on them.)

First, Dr. Shore explains why intermittent “collaboration” helps:

The results depend on (1) people trying more diverse solutions when they are not seeing others’ solutions [ACW: that’s how working alone helps]

and (2) learning from the solutions of others when they do see them [ACW: that’s how “collaborating” helps].

Intermittent collaboration makes time for both benefits.

For this reason, Dr. Shore suspects that this strategy would work well with younger students. There’s no obvious reason why 3rd graders (for example) wouldn’t “try more diverse solutions when not seeing others’ solutions,” nor why they wouldn’t “learn from others’ solutions when they see them.”

Such hypotheses need testing, but that’s a plausible set of presumptions with which to start.

…and Concern #2

Dr. Shore shares my concern about applying “collective intelligence” research directly to “collaboration.” After all, collaboration includes at least two other key variables.

The “free rider” problem. When groups work together, some people can just sit back and let others do all the work.

Interpersonal relationships. In groups, some people like each other and work well together; others just don’t. Or, a student might adopt another student’s strategy not because it works well, but because that student is popular.

Despite these other variables, Dr. Shore writes, “my guess is that intermittent interaction would still be best.”

After all–as I think about his summary–it seems clear that intermittent collaboration would interrupt the “free-rider” problem. I can’t let you do all the work if I have to work by myself at times.

The Big Picture

First: Dr. Shore offers us good reasons to think that “intermittent” interaction would indeed benefit typical kinds of school collaboration.

Its benefits, most likely, help students of all ages. And it might help with (and certainly wouldn’t exacerbate) the additional complexities of full-on collaboration.

Second: this strikes me as an excellent example of the philosophy that teachers shouldn’t just “do this thing,” but instead should “think this way.”

In this case: when we see research about “collaboration,” we should not simply enact its guidance. Instead, we should contemplate the specific ways it does, and does not, fit exactly with what we do.

What’s the Best Timing for Collaborative Learning?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
September 05, 2018

What’s the Best Timing for Collaborative Learning?

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Learning can be a lonely business.

Does collaborative learning help students? If yes, what guidelines should teachers follow?

Collaborative Learning: Benefits and Detriments

collaborative learning

Overall, we’ve got lots of research suggesting that collaboration helps students learn. And, happily, it doesn’t cost lots of extra dollars.

More specifically: the average score for students who learn in groups exceeds that of those who learn individually.

Unsurprisingly, students who struggle to learn benefit from practice with peers who understand better than they do.

At the same time, the highest scores tend to be lower in groups than among individual learners.

Working in groups, it seems, reduces the mental exploration necessary to find the best answers.

Given this background, we arrive at a really interesting question:

Can we get the benefits of group learning (higher average) AND the benefits of individual learning (highest scores).

It’s All in the Timing

Researchers at several Boston universities wondered if timing mattered. What would happen if students worked in groups at times and alone at other times?

The research team invited college students to work on a spatial puzzle. (It’s called the “Euclidean travelling salesperson problem.” I myself doubt that many of Euclid’s peers were travelling salespeople.)

Some of the students could always see their peers’ solutions. Some could never see those solutions. And some got to see every third solution.

Which groups progressed faster?

As they had hoped, the team found that the third group yielded both the highest average and the highest score.

In brief: teamwork helps most when team members also spend time working by themselves.

Classroom Implications for Collaborative Learning

This study offers a helpful suggestion. Teachers who use group work might ensure that group members work together at some times and solo at others.

At the same time, we should note some important caveats before we follow this guidance too strictly.

First: this study worked with college students. Its findings might apply to younger students. But, then again, they might not.

Second: this research is most easily described as “collaboration,” but that’s not exactly what the research team was studying. Notice: the participants never worked together on the travelling salesperson problem. Instead, they solved the problem on their own and then could (or could not) look at other students’ solutions.

That’s not typically how collaborative learning happens in schools.

More often, “collaborative learning” means that students work together on the project or problem. This study didn’t explore that approach.

(To be precise: the researchers focus on “collective intelligence,” not “collaborative learning.”)

Final Words

I myself think this research offers a helpful suggestion: occasional teamwork might lead to better results than constant (or absent) teamwork.

However, we should keep a sharp eye out for the actual results in our own classrooms. Unless you teach college students by having them look at each others’ correct answers, this study doesn’t explore your methodology precisely.

User mileage will vary.

If You’re Reading this Blog, You’re Part of the Solution
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
April 13, 2017

If You’re Reading this Blog, You’re Part of the Solution

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AdobeStock_122507354_Credit

Dr. Savo Heleta, a scholar at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, argues that scholars should devote more of their work to communicating with readers outside of the university.

Heleta explains that, to his dismay, professors have few incentives to write for a broader audience. As a result, scholars most often write for each other–and, in truth, not very many of each other. (According to one study, 82% of articles published in humanities journals are never cited by another scholar. As my grandmother wryly noted: never is a long time.)

So, how are you part of the solution?

In my experience, Learning and the Brain (along with the related scholarly discipline, Mind Brain Education) is one of the few places where such connections happen regularly and successfully.

  • You’re a 6th grade science teacher, and you want to learn about the latest research in synapse formation?
  • You’re an academic psychologist who studies adolescent motivation, and you want to know what high school teachers really struggle with day to day?
  • You work with special needs students, and you’d like to understand the research into executive function with greater sophistication?

In each of these cases, and dozens more, you’d like to join a dialogue between researchers and K-12 professionals.

You are–simply put–doing what Helata wants the world to do: helping highly specialized knowledge get out of the ivory tower and into the everyday world of education. In Helata’s hopeful phrase, you just might be changing the world.