Marie Norman How Does the Way Students Organize Knowledge Affect Their Learning? Teaching Consultant...

Marie Norman

How Does the Way Students Organize Knowledge Affect Their Learning?

Teaching Consultant and Research AssociateEberly Center for Teaching Excellencewww.cmu.edu/teaching/eberly

Introductions

Please tell us your name and department.

Agenda

implications for teaching and learning

teaching strategies

applications to your own course(s)

expert/novice differences

knowledge organization: an

example

learning principle & basic concepts #1

#2

#3

#4

implications for teaching and learning

teaching strategies

applications to your own course(s)

expert/novice differences

knowledge organization: an

example

learning principle & basic concepts #1

#2

#3

#4

You are here

Welcome to Intro to Anthropology…

people

kinship relationships

How do different cultures organize knowledge about people and the relationships between them?

woman

man

What do you call this guy?

Imagine you are this guy...

How about this guy?This guy?

How does terminology reflect that organization?

Not all cultures apply the same organizational logic.

The organization of kinship knowledge in the U.S. differentiates the nuclear from the extended family.

Ex. 1

Doesn’t distinguish the nuclear family but does differentiate paternal and maternal sides of the extended family.

Ex. 2

Is organized primarily around generation and does not distinguish paternal and maternal sides or the nuclear family.

Each culture’s knowledge organization...

• Supports specific functions.• Is learned unconsciously, through immersion.• Is reinforced through practice and feedback.• Feels simple and obvious to insiders.

It’s only when you step into a culture that organizes knowledge very differently that things get confusing...

Crow kinship

???

How does this relate to teaching?

• You belong to a disciplinary culture.• Your students are newcomers to that culture.• They don’t share your ways of organizing

knowledge.

• This can create disorientation and frustration...

...kind of like culture shock

Familiar student complaints?

“Lectures are disorganized.”

“I don’t see the point of these readings.”

“We never learned this.”

“I don’t know what you want.”

knowledge organizations:

an example

learning principle & basic concepts

expert/novice differences

#1

#2

#3

#4

implications for teaching and learning

ideas/strategies

applications to your own course(s)

LEARNING PRINCIPLE: How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.

Knowledge organization = mental map

How people arrange and connect information in their heads.

Connections are like roads that allow you to get from place to place.

Many roads = easy access. Few roads = limited access.

Differences in knowledge organizations

Typical of novices

Typical of experts

implications for teaching and learning

teaching strategies

applications to your own course(s)

expert/novice differences

knowledge organization: an

example

learning principle & basic concepts #1

#2

#3

#4

Study this chess board for 5 seconds.

How many positions can you remember?

Chess masters can glance at a board for 5 seconds and remember the exact positions of 15+ pieces (Chase and Simon, 1973).

How do they do it?

Chess masters...

• instantly recognize meaningful board configurations.

• see the relationship between pieces.• chunk them together.• remember a single entity, e.g.: Queen’s

gambit declined.

Meanwhile, novices struggle to remember the positions of individual pieces.

Expert/novice difference #1

Experts see the elements (facts, concepts, theories, methods) of their discipline within an overarching structure.

Novices see the pieces but not necessarily the larger structure.

Implications for teaching?

Because instructors have an internal sense of the Big Picture, they may erroneously assume students do too.

If they don’t provide students with a framework for situating new information, students can easily get confused and disoriented.

“This course is all over the place.” “I can’t follow lectures.”

Giving students an organizing structure

helps them see the big picturehelps them situate new knowledgeaids comprehensionfacilitates memory and retrieval

Illustration 1

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange items into different groups. Of course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step; otherwise, you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better not to do too many things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first, the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then, one can never tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.

(Bradshaw & Anderson, 1982)

Washing Clothes

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange items into different groups. Of course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step; otherwise, you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better not to do too many things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first, the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then, one can never tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.

(Bradshaw & Anderson, 1982)

Illustration 2 Bower et al (1969): When students were asked to remember a long list of items (112 different minerals), the task was daunting and student performance was poor.

goldleadironmarblebronzesteel

brasssaphireemeralddiamondgranitesilver

rubylimestonealuminumcopperplatinumslate ...112 items total

But when they were given a structure to organize the information, they performed 2-3 times better.

minerals

metals stones

alloycommonrare precious masonry

platinumsilvergold

saphireemeralddiamondruby

aluminumcopperLeadiron

bronzesteelbrass

limestonegranitemarbleslate

This isn’t about memorizing facts

If students can devote less cognitive energy to remembering discrete pieces of information, they can focus on analysis and application.

When students lack a structure to situate discrete pieces of knowledge, everything becomes a memory task.

Quick strategies brainstorm

How can we provide students with organizational structures that help them understand, remember, and use new knowledge?

Some ideas...

Make the organization of your course clear

Outline it in your syllabus and explain it in class. Return to it frequently to situate new material.

What develops when? (milestones)

How? (mechanisms)

Says who? (perspectives)

So what? (applications)

E.g., In her course, Principles of Child Development, Sharon Carver spends a day teaching this cognitive framework, and then uses it all semester long.

Represent the structure of the course graphically

Ex. from Intro Stats

Use advance organizers

Provide students with questions, objectives or a topical outline before lectures, discussions, or readings (Ausubel, 1960).QUESTIONS What is a sufficient condition?

What is a necessary condition?What are the parts of an argument? How do these parts connect?

OBJECTIVES When you leave class today, you should be able to:Distinguish necessary from sufficient conditionsIdentify the parts of an argument Explain their relationship to one another.

TOPICS Sufficient conditionsNecessary conditionsParts of an argumentConnections

Use pictorial advance organizers

Students who were shown a picture like this before reading a passage on erosion and the formations of “meanders” remembered far more than students who (a) were not shown the picture, or (b) were shown the picture after reading (Dean & Enemoh, 1983).

Which advance organizer do you think would be more effective

before a lecture?

Introduction

Lecture

Discussion

Recap

3 rules to guide ethnographic fieldwork

Why we have these rules

A discussion of their limitations

ActivityThink of a course you’ve taught or are teaching, and do one or the other (or both) of the following.

Create a VERY simple diagram that represents the course’s organizational structure (the Intro to Stats graphic is one model).

(or)

Create an advance organizer for one class day using whatever form you like (e.g., questions, objectives, topical outline, a visual).

implications for teaching and learning

teaching strategies

applications to your own course(s)

expert/novice differences

knowledge organization: an

example

learning principle & basic concepts #1

#2

#3

#4

Expert/novice difference #2

Experts’ knowledge is connected in a richly linked web.

Novices’ knowledge is far more sparsely connected.

When an historian thinks about the 1960s…Events are linked together and connections are apparent.

Watts Riots

Bloody Sunday

LBJ initiates

Great Society

Vietnam

Malcolm X shot

March from

Selma

Social Security

Act

Dylan goes

electric

Voting Rights

Act

Women’s Movement

When a student thinks about the 1960s...Information is fragmented: connections are not apparent, especially across contexts.

MLK

Vietnam

Woodstock

LBJ

Malcolm X

Great Society

Social Security

Implications for teaching?

Sparser knowledge organizations make it hard for students to see connections that are apparent to you.

They may fail to see how one lecture relates to the next, how parts of a lecture connect, how assignments articulate with other aspects of the course, etc.

“I don’t see the point of these readings.”“I don’t know what X has to do with Y.”

Quick strategies brainstorm

What methods do you already use to help students develop more connected knowledge organizations?

What new things could you try?

Briefly review previous lecture

Start the class with a brief review of ideas and terminology from the previous lecture and link it to the current day’s material.

Ask questions that require students to draw connections…

between the material they’re learning and previous assignments, lectures, discussions, courses.

•How is X relevant to this problem?•Where have we seen this before?•What methods have we discussed that might be

helpful here?

Highlight connections within lectures

Use “signposts” to emphasize transitions and indicate how ideas are connected:• We’ve talked about ____. Now here are 2 examples.• That was one approach to solving the problem; here’s

another.• We’ve looked at the evidence to support this hypothesis;

now let’s look at the counter-evidence.

implications for teaching and learning

teaching strategies

applications to your own course(s)

expert/novice differences

knowledge organization: an

example

learning principle & basic concepts #1

#2

#3

#4

Expert/novice difference #3

Experts organize their knowledge around the structural features of problems and cases.

Novices tend to focus on surface features.

Example 1

Two management case studies: one about a motorcycle company and one about a non-profit. Both involve the same negotiation principle.

A novice sees them as different types of cases because they have different surface features (i.e., they involve different types of companies).

An expert sees them as similar because they have the same structural features (i.e., the same principle applies).

Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser, 1989: Advanced PhD students (experts) and undergraduates (novices) were presented with physics problems and asked to sort them by solution strategy.

Example 2

Novices categorized the problems according to their superficial features.Pulley problems

Inclined plane problems

Problems involving rotation

Experts categorized them according to their structural features. Problems involving conservation of energy

Problems that utilize Newton’s Second Law...

Implications for teaching

If students organize their knowledge around superficial rather than structural features they may not recognize:• that a new problem has similar structural features

to problems they’ve encountered in the past. • that they have applicable knowledge.

Thus the complaint: “We never learned this.”

Quick strategies brainstorm

What could you do in your own class to help students recognize structural features of problems (or cases), so they can apply their knowledge effectively in new contexts?

Use multiple examples

Illustrate the same principle or concept using diverse examples to help students see their applicability across contexts.

E.g., Game Theory games, statistical tests, writing heuristics

Ask “what if” questions

Test students’ understanding of deep concepts by changing the parameters of a problem or scenario using “what if” question.

E.g., What if we added four columns? What if this were steel instead of aluminum? What if this were a monetary transaction?

Use structured comparisons

Have students compare cases or examples that have:

•similar surface features but different structural features.•different surface features but similar structural

features.

This requires students to identify structural features and think about their applicability across contexts.

Ex. Loewenstein, Thompson & Gentner (2003) found that when students compared case studies they learned dramatically more than when they analyzed cases individually.

implications for teaching and learning

teaching strategies

applications to your own course(s)

expert/novice differences

knowledge organization: an

example

learning principle & basic concepts #1

#2

#3

#4

Imagine this scenario

You have just moved into a new office, and the movers have dumped all your articles on the floor.

• What are some of the organizational schemes you could use to re-file them?

• What would be the benefits of organizing your files one way versus another?

Expert/novice difference #4

Experts organize their knowledge along multiple dimensions and can move between them flexibly.

Example

An anthropologist might organize knowledge of prominent scholars around geographical area...

Asia/Pacific Africa North America

South America

MalinowskiMeadBenedictLeach...

Evans-PritchardRadcliffe-Brown...

BoasKroeber...

Levi-Strauss...

...or theoretical orientation...

Historical Particularism

Functionalism Culture and Personality

Structuralism

BoasKroeber...

MalinowskiEvans-PritchardRadcliffe-Brown...

MeadBenedict...

Levi-StraussLeach...

...or topic...

Language Myth/ritual Kinship/gender

Politics

KroeberBenedict...

MalinowskiEvans-PritchardRadcliffe-Brown...

BoasMeadLevi-Strauss...

Leach...

Novices often only organize their knowledge along a few dimensions.

How do you think your students organize their articles?

Multiple knowledge organizations allow for flexible use.

Experts can choose a knowledge organization that facilitates a particular application.

Novices do not have the same flexibility. If the knowledge organizations they have don’t facilitate a particular task, they may flounder.

If students have organized their knowledge of anatomy and physiology around discrete bodily systems...

Example 1

...they may struggle to explain the functional relationships among systems.

Example 2

Students assigned a research project may organize sources into two categories:

scholarly / not scholarly.

They may not be able to distinguish sources at a finer grain, e.g., theoretical articles, research articles, review articles. As a result, they may wind up with sources you find inappropriate for reasons they don’t understand.

This can lead to the complaint: “I don’t know what you want.”

Activity

Think of an assignment students in your courses struggle with. Can you think of any ways to help them organize their knowledge to facilitate this task?

Workshop Summary

To help students develop richer, more connected, more useful knowledge organizations:

1. Give them a structure to frame new knowledge.

2. Highlight and reinforce connections.

3. Focus on the structural features of problems and cases.

4. Help them organize knowledge to facilitate tasks.

LEARNING PRINCIPLE: How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.

Thoughts? Questions?

ReferencesAusubel, D. P. (1960)). The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful verbal

material. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 267-272.

Bower, G.H., Clark, M.C., Lesgold, A.M., & Winzenz, D. (1969). Hierarchical retrieval schemes in recall of

categorical word lists. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 8, 323-343.

Bradshaw, G.L., & Anderson, J.R. (1982). Elaborative encoding as an explanation of levels of processing.

Journals of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 21, 165-174.

Chase, W.G., & Simon, H.A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, 1,31-81.

Chi, M.T.H., Feltovich, P.J., & Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems by

experts and novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121-152.

Dean, R.S., & Eemoh, P.A.C. (1983). Pictorial organization in prose learning. Contemporary Educational

Psychology, 8, 20-27.

Loewenstein, J., Thompson, L., & Gentner, D. (2003). Analogical learning in negotiation teams:

Comparing cases promotes learning and transfer. Academy of Management Learning and Education,

2(2),119-127.