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We review some of the latest developments in the science of learning, including working on memory, learning styles, best ways to study, etc.
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THE SCIENCE OF LEARNING
Professional Development Meeting
April 26, 2014
“Learning is an acquired
skill, and the most effective
strategies are often
counterintuitive.”*
“Learning is deeper and
more durable when it
effortful. Learning that’s
easy is like writing in sand,
here today and gone
tomorrow.”*
*From: Make it Stick , by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III,
Mark A. McDaniel; Belknap Press (2014)
Photo by Fylkesarkivet i Sogn og Fjordane
PURPOSE OF TODAY’S PRESENTATION
Tutors need information about how to best help
students achieve in school
Goals for today’s meeting:
Review key areas of learning theory
Use science and evidence-based techniques to
improve teaching and tutoring
Provide tutors with practical suggestions and skills
PRE-EXERCISE
Make Some Predictions
Please take a minute to write down five things you expect me to teach you during today’s presentation.
Hand them in.
We’ll see how you do!
1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Hope/Well-being/Engagement with School
Declines from elem. thru MS and HS
% Engaged in elem is 76%, but in HS it’s 44%
Elemenary instruction is more hands-on, tactile, visually-
oriented
High School instruction
is mostly lecture-based
Source: The Gallup Student Poll
1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Executive Function/ADHD
Executive Function Skills Scale:
<---------Good--------Poor--------ADHD---->
Students with ADHD lag 2 to 3 years behind
other students in executive function skills.
80% of feedback that ADHD
students receive in school
is negative.
1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Executive Function/ADHD
However, one charismatic adult with a positive
relationship with the student can make the
difference (Psychology: An Introduction, Julius
Segal, 1988).
Strategies don’t work
without the emotional connection. Emotion is the key to engagement.
Key point -- Empathize, reflect their feelings back to them instead of negating their feelings.
1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Executive Function/ADHD
Note: kids do not listen to more
than 11 to 15 words when they feel
judged.
Be careful not to tell the student
what to do, but instead, help him
come to the correct conclusions
about what to do. Lead him in the
right direction, but let him “figure it
out.”
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metacognition
Definition: awareness and
understanding of one's own
thought processes
It is one of the keys to learning;
Passive Learning/Listening is
only the beginning of the
learning process
Source: Educational Psychology: A Practical
Approach, by Edward Vockell, Ph.D.
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
What doesn’t work?
We are poor judges of when we are learning well. Sometimes the strategies we think work well, are actually very unproductive.
Examples:
1. Rereading text
2. Massed practice – repetition of something ; “practice, practice, practice.”
These two strategies make us feel like we are learning but in reality neither has been shown to improve mastery or durability of knowledge.
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metacognition
Self-evaluation
Weak students are often astonished when
they perform inadequately on a test.
When they fail, extremely weak students
often have no idea what their problem is.
Good students know where their strengths
and weaknesses are.
Good students are able to use failure as a
foundation for a plan to do better.
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metacognition
Self-testing
Use of practice tests to determine whether the information
has been learned
Makes learning a more active process
“Testing is a powerful means of improving learning, not
just assessing it.”*
*Source: Test-Enhanced Learning, Henry L. Roediger, III, and Jeffrey
D. Karpicke, Psychological Science 17 (2006)
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metacognition
Self-Regulation of Learning
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metacognition
Self-Regulation of Learning
It would be nice if your students could…………. (but they probably need your help)
Analyze and interpret task requirements
Set goals
Implementing strategies
Monitor progress toward goals
Adjust strategies based on perceived progress towards goals
Use motivational strategies to stay on task
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metamemory
Definition: a student’s awareness of and knowledge
about his own memory systems and strategies for
using their memories effectively
awareness of different memory strategies
knowledge of which strategy to use for a particular memory
task
knowledge of how to use a given memory strategy most
effectively
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metamemory
Retrieval practice – recalling facts, concepts, or
events from memory
e.g. Flashcards or practice tests
More effective than rereading
Strengthens memory and interrupts forgetting
A single, simple quiz after reading a text or hearing
a lecture is more effective than rereading or
reviewing lecture notes.
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metamemory
Application/Examples
Use of Mnemonics
Songs
Webbing/Mapping
Flash Cards
Study Groups
Teach someone else
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metamemory
Math
Trying to solve a problem before being taught the
solution leads to better learning, even when errors are
made in the attempt.
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metamemory
Improve retrieval by:
Spacing out practice sessions
Interleaving study of two or more subjects
Seems more difficult, but the extra effort gives more
durable results and more flexible application of memory
in the future.
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metamemory
Interleaving study of topics
within a discipline
Allow student to develop an
understanding of a
underlying principles or
rules, rather than just
learning by rote.
Examples:
• Compute volumes and surface areas of a variety of
geometric solids to look for similarities.
• Study bone structures of different mammalian species
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Learning Styles
It turns out that the notion of individual
learning styles is a myth (not supported by
research).
However it is true that multi-sensory and
multi-modal instruction are most effective.
In other words, people learn better when a
variety of learning style approaches are
used.
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metacomprehension
Definition: a student’s ability to monitor the degree
to which she understands information.
recognize failures to comprehend
employ repair strategies when failures are identified
2. LEARNING-TO-LEARN
Metacomprehension
Application/Examples
Make Predictions
Middle-school math students asked to anticipate how linear and exponential factors work—before this information was taught—became more curious about the content of the lessons they then proceeded to learn.
Even more importantly, the act of venturing predictions prompted them to understand the material more deeply as they engaged in reasoning and sense-making about math instead of mere memorization.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
All new learning requires a foundation of prior
knowledge.
Examples:
To learn trigonometry, you must have a knowledge of
algebra and geometry
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Putting new knowledge into context helps learning.
The more of the unfolding story you know, the more
you can learn. The key is to (literally) make neural
connections to existing knowledge.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Every time you learn something new, you change the
brain. Therefore you can actually increase your
intellectual ability. But it requires hard work.
New mental models enable us to reason, solve, and
create.
Making mistakes and correcting them build bridges to
advanced learning
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Cognitive restructuring
The student uses cognitive (intellectual) processes to
restructure (state in a different manner) the information
that he or she is trying to process.
This is the key to getting information from short-term
memory to long-term memory
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Cognitive restructuring
Examples
Write an essay on the topic
Create an outline
Create a web or map with the information
Teach others
Act it out*
Other ideas?
*Activity and Imagined Activity Can Enhance Young Children's Reading Comprehension.
By Glenberg, Arthur M.; Gutierrez, Tiana; Levin, Joel R.; Japuntich, Sandra; Kaschak, Michael
P.; Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 96(3), Sep 2004, 424-436.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Purpose
If you see a way to gain something (either a natural
consequence or an artificial benefit) by learning something,
you are going to learn more from it than if you see no point.
Weak students often read academic materials simply
because they are told to do so; but good students see a
purpose in their reading.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Self-testing
Use of practice tests to
determine whether the
information has been
learned
Identify your weak areas so
you can correct them
Iterative process -- wash,
rinse, repeat
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Use of Metaphors
A great way to tie new information to existing knowledge.
People who learn to extract the key ideas from new material, and organize them into a mental model, and connect that model to prior knowledge, learn better.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Attention
The true test of attention is the ability
to sustain focus on something you don’t like. It is an issue of attention regulation rather than overall ability to pay attention.
This set of skills involves the student’s awareness of whether he is attending to a task. If learners develop conscious control of this process, learning improves.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Attention Control in Childhood
As the frontal lobes mature, children's capacity to
exercise attentional control increases, although
attentional control abilities remain much poorer
in children than they do in adults.*
*Gogtay, N.; Giedd, J. N.; Lusk, L.; Hayashi, K. M.; Greenstein, D.; Vaituzis, A. C.; Nugent Iii, T. F.;
Herman, D. H.; Clasen, L. S. et al. et al. (2004). "Dynamic mapping of human cortical development
during childhood through early adulthood". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America 101 (21): 8174–8179. doi:10.1073/pnas.0402680101. PMC 419576.
PMID 15148381.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Attention Control in Childhood
Some children show impaired development of
attentional control abilities, thought to arise from
the relatively slower development of frontal areas
of the brain, which sometimes results in a
diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD).*
*Shaw, P. Lerch, J., Greenstein, D., Sharp, W., Clasen,L., Evans,A., Giedd,J.,
Xavier Castellanos, F., Rapoport, J. Longitudinal Mapping of Cortical
Thickness and Clinical Outcome in Children and Adolescents With
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" Archives of General Psychiatry
2006;63:540-549.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Attention Control
Mindfulness
Even four days of mindfulness meditation
training can significantly improve visuo-spatial
processing, working memory and executive
functioning.*
*Zeidan, Fadel; Johnson, Susan K.; Diamond, Bruce J.; David, Zhanna;
Goolkasian, Paula (1 June 2010). "Mindfulness meditation improves
cognition: Evidence of brief mental training". Consciousness and Cognition
19 (2): 597–605. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.014. PMID 20363650.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Attention Control
Mindfulness is useful in treating a variety of psychological
problems – for example in helping to reduce anxiety,
depression, and stress; "central component" of the
therapies' effectiveness.*
Note: Given the low quality of the underlying data, it is
however possible that this conclusion was overstated.
*Khoury, B.; Lecomte, T.; Fortin, G., et al. (August 2013). "Mindfulness-
based therapy: a comprehensive meta-analysis". Clin Psychol Rev
(Meta-analysis) 33 (6): 763–71.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Metacognition
Goal setting
Short-term goals are more likely to be completed than long-
term goals. Students will learn more if they can set both
long-term and short-term goals and know the difference
between them.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Goal setting
Goals should be SMART
hrg.stanford.edu/documents/SMARTGOALSTemplate2012.doc
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Metacognition
Self-evaluation
This set of skills focuses on monitoring progress toward a goal. At this point we are verifying whether we are on track to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves.
3. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Goal setting
Communication with Parents
Clarify goals with parents up front.
Make sure to keep parents informed
about changes to goals. For academic
coaching students this is even more
important.
Goal-setting worksheet:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/go
alvaluation/popup/heacox.html
ADDITIONAL READING
Make it Stick , by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III,
Mark A. McDaniel; Belknap Press (2014)
Homework Made Simple: Tips, Tools, and Solutions to
Stress-Free Homework by Ann Dolin; Advantage Books
(2010)
Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary "Executive Skills"
Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential by Peg
Dawson and Richard Guare; Guilford Press (2009)