{"id":6928,"date":"2023-01-23T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=6928"},"modified":"2023-01-23T16:00:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T21:00:23","slug":"the-hidden-lives-of-learners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/the-hidden-lives-of-learners\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Lives of Learners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many times over the last several years, I’ve heard enthusiastic reviews of a seemingly-magical book called\u00a0The Hidden Lives of Learners,<\/em> by Graham Nuthall.<\/p>\n

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

Here’s the magic: Nuthall’s frankly astonishing research method.<\/p>\n

Working in New Zealand classrooms in the 1980s, he put mics on all students and teachers<\/strong>. And, he had cameras<\/strong> in the classroom.<\/p>\n

He and his team also broke down the teachers’ unit plans into granular learning goals<\/strong>. For instance, a unit on Antarctica might have 80 specific facts or concepts that the students should learn.<\/p>\n

Finally, Nuthall’s team tested students both before and after<\/strong> these units.<\/p>\n

Given this quite extraordinary data set, Team Nuthall could look at remarkably specific questions:<\/p>\n

How much information about each topic did students already know<\/em> before the unit began?<\/p>\n

How much did they learn<\/em>?<\/p>\n

What, very specifically, did each student do and say<\/em> to learn each specific new concept?<\/p>\n

You can see why readers have responded so strongly to Nuthall’s method.<\/p>\n

So, based on all his data, what did Nuthall conclude?<\/p>\n

The Magic Number<\/h2>\n

Regular blog readers already know about the Spacing Effect<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That is: students learn more when they spread practice out <\/em>than when they do the same amount of practice all at once<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In my experience, this research finding started getting broader notice in … say … 2015 or so. (I completed my grad program in 2012, and I don’t remember the spacing effect getting much — or any — attention at that time.)<\/p>\n

Well, Nuthall’s research led him to a very similar conclusion more than a decade before.<\/p>\n

That is: in\u00a0Hidden Lives<\/em>, Nuthall writes…<\/p>\n

We discovered that a student needed to encounter, on at least three different occasions<\/em>, the complete set of the information she or he neede to understand a concept.<\/p>\n

If the information was incomplete, or not experienced on three different occasions, the student did not learn the concept. (63)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Similar to research into the spacing effect, Nuthall’s research shows that students must devote brain space to an idea several times — spread out over more than one class meeting — to consolidate that idea in long-term memory.<\/p>\n

Later in\u00a0Hidden Lives<\/em> (p. 126), Nuthall suggests that students should “encounter the complete set of information” on four occassions — not three.<\/p>\n

For me, the precise number (is it 4? is it 3?) is less important than the broader concept: teachers should build curricula that ensure students delve into an idea\u00a0several times<\/em>. One or two encounters can’t create enough momentum to change memory systems.<\/p>\n

I think that Nuthall’s method provides substantial support for translating the spacing effect research into classroom practice. Both psychology research AND Nuthall’s deep classroom investigation arrive independently at substantially similar ideas.<\/p>\n

Changing the Focus<\/h2>\n

Most research in this field focuses on\u00a0what teachers do<\/em>. Nuthall — wisely — insists that we focus on\u00a0what students do<\/em>.<\/p>\n

His methodology — all those microphones, all those transcripts — helps him recognize all those “encounters” with ideas. And, crucially, students often “encounter” ideas in their conversations and projects with other students.<\/p>\n

This observation leads to several important insights.<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, students often have prior knowledge about a topic.<\/p>\n

When that prior knowledge is incorrect, it BOTH hinders their understanding of new ideas AND hampers their classmates’ efforts to learn correct ideas.<\/p>\n

For this reason — I’m extrapolating from Nuthall here — teachers really should focus on students’ prior misconceptions<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unless we know what our students (wrongly) think they know, their misinformation will substantially muddle the learning process.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, building classroom culture matters.<\/p>\n

This seemingly obvious statement comes from one of Nuthall’s most alarming findings (well: alarming to me).<\/p>\n

The students in these classes were AMAZINGLY unkind to one another. Casual insults — even racial epithets — made up a regular part of classroom dialogue.<\/p>\n

Nuthall proposes two solutions to this problem.<\/p>\n

Option A: “Teachers therefore need to know who is in which friendship groups, who wants to be liked by whom, who has status, who is rejected.<\/p>\n

They also need to know the kinds of beliefs and culture — about music, clothes, curriculum, learning, co-operating, and the like — that hold students’ relationships together.” (p. 37)<\/p>\n

While I understand the logic behind this statement, it strikes me as frankly impossible. As I think over my various sophomore and senior English classes, it’s simply inconceivable to me that I would know — with any level of consistent detail — what the exact relationships are among all these people.<\/p>\n

I might have a dim idea that this<\/em> student is especially popular, or that those two<\/em> are dating, or that some song or another has everyone’s attention. But for that knowledge to be broad and current: no way.<\/p>\n

In fact, I think it would be inappropriate for me to know such things. Inquiring too closely into students’ personal and romantic lives does not strike me as healthy or appropriate.<\/p>\n

A Better Way?<\/h2>\n

Happily, Nuthall proposes Option B:<\/p>\n

“Some teachers have tried to deal with this problem [peer-to-peer unkindness] by creating an alternative culture within their classrooms — a culture of mutual respect and cooperation, a culture in which everyone is expected to succeed in some significant aspect of classroom activities.” (p. 37)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now,\u00a0this\u00a0<\/em>approach seems healthy, appropriate,\u00a0and necessary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Yes, I want my students to learn about\u00a0Macbeth<\/em> and topic sentences, but I also insist that they know how to treat one another well.<\/p>\n

Nuthall’s findings about casual peer cruelty has reminded me how much happens in my classroom that I can’t see (“hidden lives<\/em> of learners”), and how important it is that I solve those invisible problems.<\/p>\n

The Very Big Picture<\/h2>\n

One final point stood out for me in Nuthall’s book, although my interpretation of it might not persuade you. Here’s the story…<\/p>\n

Because Nuthall measured how much students\u00a0already knew<\/em>, and\u00a0what they did to learn new information<\/em>, he could track important patterns. One pattern went like this:<\/p>\n

Students who didn’t know much<\/em> about the topic learned most from the teacher<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Students who already knew a lot<\/em> learned most by working on their own<\/em>, or with peers. (pp. 86-7)<\/p>\n

I think this finding might help us see past a controvesial binary in the field of education.<\/p>\n

Current schooling debates have encouraged us to pick sides. Either we believe in direct instruction<\/em>, or we believe in project pedagogies<\/em>. (This sentence oversimplifies a very complex debate, but is a useful shorthand at this moment.)<\/p>\n

Nuthall’s findings (and my own reading of schema theory) suggest an alternative viewpoint. Perhaps<\/p>\n

Students who don’t know much<\/em> about a topic (a.k.a. “novices”) learn most from the teacher\u00a0<\/em>(a.k.a. “direct instruction”), whereas<\/p>\n

Students who already know a lot<\/em>\u00a0(a.k.a. “relative experts”) learn most by working on their own<\/em>, or with peers (a.k.a. “project pedagogies”).<\/p>\n

That is: before we say whether direct instruction or independent investigation is better for a student, we have to know where the student lies on the novice\/expert continuum.<\/p>\n

Novices need lots of guidance; relative experts benefit from more open-ended, self-driven exploration.<\/p>\n

To be clear: I’ve been quietly advocating for this view for a few years now. It seems to me — although I could be wrong — that Nuthall’s data roughly support it.<\/p>\n

Read This Book If…<\/h2>\n

…You’re intrigued by the possibility of extremely granular classroom research, focusing directly on the students’ experience,<\/p>\n

…you want to see how the spacing effect plays out in the classroom,<\/p>\n

…perhaps you want to know more about how students actually treat each other in day-to-day interactions.<\/p>\n

…you want to hear an inventive and thoughtful researcher think aloud about his findings.<\/p>\n

I don’t agree with everything that Nuthall has written. For instance, his account of working memory is not at all in line with current models<\/a> of this cognitive function.<\/p>\n

But, gosh: he and his book have given me lots to think about, and new ways to think about old ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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