{"id":4444,"date":"2019-04-04T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=4444"},"modified":"2019-03-29T14:56:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T19:56:15","slug":"is-failure-productive-hint-we-should-ask-a-better-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/is-failure-productive-hint-we-should-ask-a-better-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Failure Productive? (Hint: We Should Ask a Better Question)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do students learn better after they experience failure? Two recent studies over at The Science of Learning<\/a> help us answer that question.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the first study, professors in a Canadian college wanted to help their Intro Bio students learn difficult concepts<\/a> more effectively. (Difficult concepts include, for example, the \u201cstructural directionality of genetic material.\u201d)<\/p>\n

They had one Intro Biology section follow a \u201cProductive Failure\u201d model of pedagogy. It went like this.<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, students wrestled with conceptual problems on these difficult topics.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, they got in-class feedback on their solutions.<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>, they heard the professor explain how an expert would think through those topics.<\/p>\n

Another Intro Bio section followed these same steps but in a different order<\/em>:<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, they heard the professor explain how an expert would think .<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, students wrestled with conceptual problems.<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>, they got in-class feedback on their solutions.<\/p>\n

So, all students did the same steps. And, they all followed an \u201cactive pedagogy\u201d model. But, one group struggled first, whereas the other group didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Who Learned More?<\/h2>\n

This answer proves to be unusually complicated to determine. The researchers had to juggle more variables than usual to come up with a valid answer. (If you want the details, click the link above.)<\/p>\n

The headlines are:<\/p>\n

On the next major test<\/em>, students who experienced productive failure learned more.<\/p>\n

On the final exam<\/em>, however, only the \u201clow performing\u201d students did better after productive failure. For the middle- and upper- tier students, both strategies worked equally well.<\/p>\n

Conclusion #1:<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, we can\u2019t really conclude that productive failure helps students learn.<\/p>\n

Instead, we\u2019re on safer ground to say that \u2013 over the longer term \u2013 productive failure helps \u201clow performing\u201d students learn (compared to other kinds of active learning).<\/p>\n

But Wait, There\u2019s (Much) More<\/h2>\n

Two weeks after they published the study about Canadian college students in Biology classes, Science of Learning then published a study about German fifth graders learning fractions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(As we discussed in this post<\/a>, watching students learn fractions helps researchers measure conceptual updating.)<\/p>\n

In particular, these researchers wanted to know if students learned better after they struggle for a while. (Again, for details click the link.)<\/p>\n

In this case, the answer was: nope<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So, we arrive at Conclusion #2<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Some<\/em> college<\/em> students, but not most, learned more from productive failure in a biology class<\/em> \u2013 compared to those who learned via other active learning strategies<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, fifth graders<\/em> did not learn more about fractions<\/em> \u2013 compared to those who learned via direct instruction<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Got that?<\/p>\n

The Biggie: Conclusion #3<\/h2>\n

When teachers come to research-world, we can be tempted to look for grand, once-and-for-all findings.<\/p>\n

A particular study shows that \u2013 say \u2013 students learn better when they use an iPad to study astronomical distances<\/a>. Therefore, we should equip all our students with iPads<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But, that\u2019s NOT what the study showed. Instead, it showed that a particular group of students studying a particular topic with a particular technology got some benefit \u2013 compared to a particular alternate approach.<\/p>\n

So, Conclusion #3<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Teachers can often find helpful research on teaching strategies.<\/p>\n

We should assume that results vary depending on lots of highly specific conditions. And therefore, we should seek out research that includes students (and classroom subjects) as much like our own as possible.<\/p>\n

And so: if you teach biology to college students, you might give the first study a close look to see if its methods fit your students well. (Given that it worked particularly well with struggling students, that variable probably matters to you.)<\/p>\n

If, however, you teach fractions to fifth graders, you should probably hold off on productive failure \u2013 unless you find several other studies that contradict this one.<\/p>\n

In other words: teachers can learn the most from psychology and education research when we investigate narrow and specific questions.<\/p>\n

\n

A final thought. I\u2019ve only recently come across the website that published these studies<\/a>. Congratulations to them for emphasizing the complexity of these research questions by publishing these studies almost simultaneously.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure it\u2019s tempting to make research look like the last word on a particular topic. Here, they\u2019ve emphasized that boundary conditions matter. Bravo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two research groups studied (more or less) the same technique with two different student populations — and got very different answer. These contradictory findings give teachers important lessons about using psychology and education research most wisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,15,66],"class_list":["post-4444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-boundary-conditions","tag-classroom-advice","tag-desirable-difficulty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4444","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=4444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4449,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4444\/revisions\/4449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}