{"id":3205412,"date":"2025-02-09T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/?p=8052"},"modified":"2025-02-09T08:00:52","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T13:00:52","slug":"learning-from-mistakes-vs-learning-from-explanations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/learning-from-mistakes-vs-learning-from-explanations\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Learning from Mistakes&#8221; vs. &#8220;Learning from Explanations&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/all-people-learn-the-same-way-exploring-a-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\">wrote last week<\/a>, thinkers in edu-world often make strong claims at the expense of nuanced ones.<\/p>\n<p>For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;A growth mindset undergirds all learning&#8221; vs. &#8220;growth mindset is an obvious boondoggle.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;AI will transform education for the better&#8221; vs. &#8220;AI will make people dumber and schools worse.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Be the sage on that stage!&#8221; vs &#8220;get off the stage to guide from the side!&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The list goes on (and gets angrier).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/AdobeStock_141698247_Credit.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-5318\" src=\"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/AdobeStock_141698247_Credit-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"A closeup of a young student leaning his face up against a chalkboard, his eyes closed in frustration.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/AdobeStock_141698247_Credit-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/AdobeStock_141698247_Credit-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/AdobeStock_141698247_Credit-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When researchers start digging into specifics, however, the daily experience of teaching and learning gets mightily complicated, and mighty fast.<\/p>\n<p>All those strong claims start to look&#8230;well&#8230;too strong for their own good.<\/p>\n<p>One extraordinary example of &#8220;digging into the specifics&#8221; can be found in Graham Nuthall&#8217;s <em>The Hidden Lives of Learners<\/em>. Nuthall put cameras and mics on students in New Zealand classrooms, and arrived at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/the-hidden-lives-of-learners\/\" target=\"_blank\">all sorts of astonishing conclusions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Another recent study looks quite specifically &#8212; no, <em>really\u00a0<\/em>specifically &#8212;\u00a0at\u00a04 teachers. The goal: to understand what part of their work helped students learn.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the story.<\/p>\n<h2>Time to Review<\/h2>\n<p>A group of scholars, led by Dr. Janet Metcalfe, wondered if students learned more from teachers&#8217; responses to their\u00a0<em>mistakes<\/em> than from teachers&#8217;\u00a0<em>direct instruction.\u00a0<\/em>(You can learn more about the study <a href=\"https:\/\/bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1111\/bjep.12651\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>A few important points merit attention right away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">First: the classroom sessions I&#8217;m about to describe are REVIEW sessions. The students have ALREADY learned the math covered in these lessons; the teachers are helping them review in preparation for a high stakes exam.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In other words: this study does not focus on\u00a0<em>initial instruction<\/em>. It focuses on <em>subsequent review<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Second: the students involved VOLUNTEERED to take part. They are, presumably, atypically motivated to learn math.<\/p>\n<p>Keep these points in mind as you think about applying the ideas described below.<\/p>\n<p>In this study, 4 teachers helped 175 8th grade students prepare for upcoming state math exams.<\/p>\n<p>For half of the students, the teachers taught 8 lessons (&#8220;explicit instruction&#8221;) reviewing core math concepts that would be on that exam.<\/p>\n<p>For the other half, the teachers responded to the misakes that students made on practice tests. That is: during 4 sessions, students took 45 minute math tests. And after each of those sessions, the teachers<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;were instructed [&#8230;] to focus on\u00a0the students\u2019 errors and to do whatever they deemed appropriate to ensure that the issues underlying\u00a0the errors would not reoccur and that the students would learn from their errors.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, which review approach proved more helpful &#8212; the <strong>explicit<\/strong> instruction, or the <strong>learn-from-mistakes<\/strong> instruction? And, why?<\/p>\n<h2>An Envelope, and LOTS of Questions&#8230;<\/h2>\n<p>The answer to that first question &#8212; which kind of review proved most helpful? &#8212; is easy to answer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Students in both groups learned math; they did better on the post-test than the pre-test.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The students in the &#8220;learn-from-mistakes&#8221; group learned\u00a0<em>more.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This straightforward finding leads to obvious questions. And &#8212; alas &#8212; those obvious questions are VERY tricky to answer.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, &#8220;how much more did the students in the learn-from-mistakes group learn?&#8221; That&#8217;s a reasonable question. The answer takes some careful parsing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Roughly speaking, students in the explicit instruction group\u00a0increased their scores about 2% per hour of instruction.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">For those in the learn-from-mistakes group, the <em>answer depended on the teacher<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The <em>least<\/em> successful teacher helped students in this group improve 2% per hour of instruction. The <em>most<\/em> successful teacher helped students improve 5% per hour of instruction.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, that last paragraph prompts another reasonable question: what was <strong>different<\/strong> about those two teachers? Why did one teacher benefit his\/her students <em>more than twice as much<\/em> as their colleague?<\/p>\n<h2>Let the Sleuthing Commence&#8230;<\/h2>\n<p>The study&#8217;s authors spend a great deal of time &#8212; and crunch a great many equations &#8212; to answer that question.<\/p>\n<p>For instance:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Maybe\u00a0the teacher whose students learned more (let&#8217;s call her Teacher M) is just <em>a better teacher<\/em> than the one whose students learned less (Teacher L).<\/p>\n<p>As the researchers point out, that explanation doesn&#8217;t make much sense. After all, in their\u00a0<em>explicit instruction sessions<\/em>, both Teacher M and Teacher L helped their students equally.<\/p>\n<p>(By the way: to simplify this blog post, I&#8217;m leaving out the two other teachers for now.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Okay, maybe Teacher M did a better job of focusing on students&#8217; mistakes, whereas Teacher L spent too much time focusing on questions that students got right.<\/p>\n<p>Nope. This study includes quite an eye-watering graph to show that they both focused about the same on students&#8217; mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>As the\u00a0researchers write: &#8220;all of the teachers taught to the errors of their students, and &#8230; the\u00a0extent to which they did so did not predict student learning.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, what was the secret sauce?<\/p>\n<h2>The Perfect Combination<\/h2>\n<p>After a few more false leads, the study focuses on two moment-by-moment variables: the teachers&#8217;\u00a0<em>focus<\/em>, and the\u00a0<em>kind of interaction with the student<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Focus<\/strong>: did the teachers<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">&#8220;[dwell] upon <em>how to solve the problem correctly<\/em>,&#8221; or<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">&#8220;[delve] into the <em>nature of the errors<\/em> \u2013 why the students had made them, what the\u00a0difficulty in the logic was, and\/or how to recognize and circumvent such mistakes in the future&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Kind of interaction<\/strong>: did the teachers <em>explain\/lecture<\/em>, or did they <em>discuss\/interact<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>With this pair of questions, at last, the study struck gold.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Teacher L &#8212; whose students learned relatively little &#8212; focused <strong>almost<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>all her time<\/strong> on &#8220;how to solve the problem correctly.&#8221; While pursuing that goal, she divided her time equally between lecture and discussion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Teacher M &#8212; whose students improved more quickly &#8212; spent <strong>almost all her time<\/strong> in discussion, with almost no time in lecture. While in this interactive mode, she divided her time more-or-less equally between solving problems and understanding the nature of the mistake.<\/p>\n<p>This final insight allows us to make this claim:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Highly <em>motivated<\/em> 8th grade math students,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>reviewing<\/em> in preparation for a high-stakes exam,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">learn <em>less<\/em> from explicit instruction and <em>more<\/em> from making and reviewing their mistakes,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">as long as the teacher keeps those review sessions <em>interactive,<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">and <em>equally focused<\/em> on &#8220;getting the answer right&#8221; and &#8220;understanding the nature of the mistake.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Notice, by the way, all the nuance in this statement.<\/p>\n<p>To emphasize just one point here: this study does NOT argue that &#8220;learning from mistakes&#8221; is better than &#8220;direct instruction&#8221; <em>in all circumstances<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It argues that students learn more from mistakes when <em>reviewing,<\/em> as long as the teacher follows a <em>very particular formula<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2>A Final Note<\/h2>\n<p>Heated battles in this field often get hung up on specific labels.<\/p>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/which-is-better-desirable-difficulty-or-productive-struggle\/\" target=\"_blank\">written before<\/a>, we do a LOT of arguing about benefits of &#8220;desirable difficulty&#8221; vs. &#8220;productive struggle&#8221; &#8212; an odd set of arguments, given that both phrases seem to mean the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>This study was co-authored by (among other scholars) Robert Bjork &#8212; who helped coin the phrase &#8220;desirable difficulty.&#8221; For that reason, you might be surprised to learn that this study touts the benefits of &#8220;productive struggle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That is: the students took a test, they made mistakes, they <em>wrestled with those mistakes<\/em>, and they learned more. Their struggle (trying to understand what they did wrong) was productive (they improved on their test scores &#8212; and probably their understanding of math).<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I could just as easily describe that process as &#8220;desirable difficulty.&#8221; The\u00a0difficulties these students faced here &#8212; the test, the mistakes, the analysis &#8212; turned out to be beneficial &#8212; that is, &#8220;desirable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My own view is:\u00a0<em>don&#8217;t get hung up on the label<\/em>. The question is: are the students both <strong>thinking harder<\/strong> and <strong>ultimately succeeding<\/strong>? If &#8220;yes&#8221; and &#8220;yes,&#8221; then this teaching approach will benefit students.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Metcalfe, J., Xu, J., Vuorre, M., Siegler, R., Wiliam, D., &amp; Bjork, R. A. (2024). Learning from errors versus explicit instruction in preparation for a test that counts.\u00a0<i>British Journal of Educational Psychology<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I wrote last week, thinkers in edu-world often make strong claims at the expense of nuanced ones. For example: &#8220;A growth mindset undergirds all learning&#8221; vs. &#8220;growth mindset is an obvious boondoggle.&#8221; &#8220;AI will transform education for the better&#8221; vs. &#8220;AI will make people dumber and schools worse.&#8221; &#8220;Be the sage on that stage!&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3205412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3205412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3205412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3205412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3205412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}