Last week I got to read through feedback teachers sent me about a professional development discussion based on the 3 box model/working memory theory. One of the teachers said “In the end, I guess learning boils down to encoding and retrieval, and that’s what I’m going to focus on as I plan lessons for next year.”
I liked this concise summary, so I decided to ask my friends on Twitter whether or not this “equation” for learning makes sense:
I don’t really think this “equation” summarizes everything about learning. Teaching and learning are incredibly complex, involve emotion, motivation, passion, relationships, and dozens of other factors. I love this article Stephen Chew wrote about this complexity: “Learning science and the teachable moment.”
But I’m interested in “simplifications” about learning like this one (even if it is an over-simplification) as ways to start useful discussions. I posted the “equation” on twitter and got this response:
Paul Kirschner’s additions make sense to me: if we think about learning as the sum of encoding and retrieval, it makes more sense to include the idea that learning is the sum of repeated episodes of encoding and retrieval. I may use this version of the “learning equation” to start more conversations with teachers.
But I will also remember to admit that this is all an oversimplification. I also received this reply on twitter.
I appreciate Erica Kleinknecht’s willingness to post several clarifications about limitations she sees in the 3 box/working memory theory (see this twitter thread: https://twitter.com/eko_cogedu/status/1291498005594439680). I’m interested in the ideas she shares about neural processing and learning, and I’m excited to learn more. I find cognitive load theory theory incredibly useful in my thinking about teaching and learning (see “Cognitive load theory: Research that teachers really need to understand”), but I don’t want to fall into the trap of falling in love with a theory and letting that infatuation limit my ability to think about teaching and learning in other ways.
UPDATE:
My buddy Pete sent me this video of Emmanuel Acho talking about rules, relationships, and rebellion. This video got me thinking about another possible “learning equation.”
To all my parents and the Greenbay #Packers, remember: “rules without relationship equals rebellion”…
Many teachers are trying to figure out how to help students think through equity and bias issues highlighted this summer by the Black Lives Matter (and other group) demonstrations. In 2017, Chelsea Crittle and Keith Maddox (Tufts University) wrote a fascinating article with social psychology-based advice that might be useful to teachers planing these discussions. The article is behind a paywall and may not be available to some teachers (especially high school teachers) so I thought I’d try to summarize some of the suggestions from the article here. (UPDATE: Dr. Maddox kindly provided a copy of the article – thanks Dr. Maddox!! – Confronting Bias Through Teaching: Insights From Social Psychology)
Crittle and Maddox open the article with a powerful statement: “There are continuing disparities among racial, ethnic, gender, and other groups in the United States, and these disparities can be attributed to past and ongoing bias and discrimination faced by members of stigmatized and typically underrepresented groups.” I appreciate this clear, factual statement at the beginning of the article. The rest of the first part of the article is a useful literature review of past studies about addressing bias in classrooms.
Maddox and Crittle spend most of the rest of the article describing different techniques teachers can use to confront bias in classrooms based on social psychology research. Here are some highlights (along with my thoughts about how I might use this idea if I were still teaching high school psychology):
Teachers as messengers: Research indicates that teachers from under-represented demographic groups may have a MORE difficult time getting students to honestly address their own bias. Students may perceive teachers from some demographic groups as “defensive” or less professional when discussing issues about bias. Because of students’ implicit biases, teachers from non-stigmatized groups may have a greater opportunity to help students discuss bias. All teachers can help increase the chance that students will honestly address issues of bias by establishing a common “in-group” with students: focus on group membership that the teacher shares with the students (e.g. common team affiliation, hobbies, age, etc.) Activating this “we are in the same group” connection with students can help students overcome bias and resistance to the discussion. As with most teaching/learning, strong teacher-student relationships are important for discussions about tough issues like bias.
How I might use this idea: I am white and I taught in a mostly white school. I might discuss some of these “teachers as messengers” research findings with my students and talk about the implications of this research. The famous philosopher Stan Lee wrote “With great power comes great responsibility.” As a white teacher, this research leads me to conclude that it is my responsibility to use my privilege to help students confront racial and other biases, and I may be a unique position to do that. Acknowledging this research and this responsibility may help set the stage for some difficult bias-confronting conversations later.
MessageStyle: Fortunately, messages accompanied by strong evidence are more persuasive to students than evidence-free arguments. Studies indicate that teachers should use a combination of personal stories/anecdotes (peripheral route to persuasion) and empirical evidence (central route to persuasion) to help students engage with tough questions. Teachers may be able to use this combination to reinforce scientific thinking habits: anecdotes and stories are a potentially useful starting place, but we always want to look beyond personal experiences and figure out how to find/use group data from carefully controlled research studies. When conflicts arise during a discussion, teachers can usefully confront (and/or help other students confront) biased comments by using solid, evidence based arguments (rather than weaker arguments based on emotional appeals or personal attacks).
How I might use this idea: In my psychology class, I would seize the opportunity to talk about different kinds of evidence during the research methods unit. Psychology students need to understand what kinds of data psychological researchers need to examine before concluding about hypotheses. This discussion may help students think differently about their personal experiences within the context of findings based on with research data, which may in turn help them re-think biases resulting from their personal experiences.
Discrepancy factors: Teachers can help students overcome biases by helping them realize that these biases conflict with important values they already ascribe to. Having students talk/write about their personal values and pointing out how their biases might conflict with these values can help students confront their bias.
How I might use this idea: Class activities like the “It’s a Just World, Isn’t It?” activity might help students confront discrepancies between their beliefs/values and judgments they make about others due to bias. In this activity, students get to encounter the “just world phenomenon” and see differences in judgments based on irrelevant personal characteristics.
Perspective-taking strategies: encouraging students to “walk in the shoes” of disadvantaged groups (out-groups) can help lessen students’ denial about discrimination against those groups. These reflection strategies should be respectful and focus on taking the perspective of the out-group (rather than using superficial or even offensive simulations.)
How I might use this idea: Reading/hearing authentic voices from groups other than their own can help students challenge their pre-existing beliefs. I would find written or oral/video accounts from individuals representing different perspectives (especially from groups might students might consider “out-groups”). When I taught the psychological disorders and treatment unit in psychology class, I found personal accounts of people suffering from schizophrenia – listening to these actual experiences helped personalize the symptoms students read about in their textbooks, and humanized our discussions about psychological disorders.
Consciousness-raising strategies: teachers can use specific experiences designed to provide students with information about their own bias (such as the implicit association tests or related classroom demonstrations). Results from these experiences can help make bias more “real” for students.
How I might use this idea: I never had much luck using the online implicit association tests with my students. After receiving their score, students spent more time arguing about the nature of the test than discussing implicit bias. After seeing Dr. Maddox use a similar demonstration at a conference, I adapted this activity (originally written by Nancy Fenton): Knee-Slapping Implicit Bias.
Reference: Crittle, C., & Maddox, K. B. (2017). Confronting Bias Through Teaching: Insights From Social Psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 44(2), 174–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628317692648
I made this set of google slides to share the good news about some of my favorite cognitive psychology and teaching resources. I decided to take a swing at using google slides with “buttons” that might help people identify a resource that they find useful.
Here’s how it works: each slide describes the resource, and users can pick whether that resource seems like a good match for their interest or not. The button at the bottom of the page takes you to the resource or on to the next question. Clicking on the image or URL below should take you to the set of slides:
In my original blog post (“Wishful Thinking about Far Transfer” ), I looked at the article “If You Learn A, Will You Be Better Able to Learn B?” and thought about how Bruyckere, Kirschner, and Hulshof’s conclusions related to my experience as a teacher and learner. At the end of my blog post, I concluded “Maybe we should just admit that far transfer isn’t likely to happen, and focus on helping students get the specific, contextual training they need to get the skills they want and need.” A few friends (new and old!) shared their thoughts and some references with me, and this feedback is helping me add to my original thinking about the likelihood of far transfer.
These friends shared that they experience (and aim for) transfer with their students in music and arts classes. I got a chance to read the literature music and art educators share in their circles. Some highlights:
Transfer of Learning and Music Understanding: A Review of Literature: this literature review of studies over the past 40 years attempts to provide an overview of what music education researchers know about what skills transfer to other contexts. The contexts studied are often “within” the general area of music, e.g. “transferring knowledge and skills from one type of ensemble to another; performing a new music genre or style; to composing in a variety of styles and for different ensembles” This quote from the conclusion section stuck with me: “Achieving transfer in music is largely dependent on the nature of instruction and the emphasis on schemata, reflection, motivation, and practice.”
Learning in and through the Arts: The Question of Transfer, Studies in Art Education: this ambitious mixed methods study looked at correlations and connections between “high art” (students who experienced a high level of arts exposure and education) and “low art” students. The authors found several significant positive correlations between arts exposure and cognitive measures of creativity and other thinking skills. These findings are aligned with other studies about the correlations between arts exposure and positive academic outcomes (Catterall, 1998). They point out that they can’t make causal inferences based on these quantitative data and used qualitative analysis to investigate these correlations. One of their more interesting conclusions is: “In tasks which share common cognitive or symbolic elements, or underlying abstract structures, transfer is more likely to occur “
Cognitive Transfer from Arts Education to Non-arts Outcomes: Research Evidence and Policy Implications. Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education: a summary of 10 meta-analyses of the effects of arts instruction on non-arts thinking skills. Conclusion: “Three analyses demonstrate generalizable, causal relationships: achievement, music listening and spatial reasoning, and music learning and spatial reasoning. Five do not allow causal conclusions: multi-arts and academic achievement, arts rich instruction and creativity, visual arts and reading, dance and reading, music and reading. Findings for two analyses are equivocal: dance and spatial reasoning, music and mathematics.”
I’m grateful for this feedback because I didn’t know about these large-scale efforts to investigate far transfer in the context of arts and music education. These findings make me wonder about the terminology I used in my blog post and in the original Bruyckere, Kirschner, and Hulshof article. I concluded that the article matched my experience as a teacher and learner and “we should just admit that far transfer isn’t likely to happen.” Now I wonder if maybe there is a more productive way of thinking about this topic: instead of focusing on the term “far transfer” and concluding that it “does” or “doesn’t” happen, maybe it would be more productive to ask a question like “What skills DO transfer, and what teaching/learning conditions encourage that transfer?” Would it be useful to set aside the concern about whether transfer is “near” or “far,” and talk about educational contexts that seem to encourage specific kinds of transfer, and learn from those contexts and examples?
This concern about terminology – how “far” does transfer have to be before it’s “far” transfer, and is that distinction important? – reminds me of a similar (maybe) issue in memory research: Craik and Lockhart’s levels of processing theory was criticized because it became difficult to operationalize differences between “deep” and “shallow” processing in their model. For years, I dutifully taught about the levels of processing theory in my introductory psychology class and this critique of the theory. But my students found the concept of deep processing useful, and our in-class activities and labs generated evidence that deep processing was useful. Some students reported using deep processing theory to modify their studying habits. Now I work with teachers and deep processing is turning into a useful way to think about tasks teachers ask students to do. Maybe defining the line between deep and shallow processing is less important in practice than talking about what kinds of processing lead to better encoding. In a similar way, maybe arguing about what constitutes the difference between near and far transfer is less important than looking at contextualized examples of transfer and establishing what teaching and learning elements encourage productive transfer of skills?
References
Catterall, J.S. (1998). Involvement in the arts and success in secondary school. Americans for the Arts Monographs, 1(9), 1-10.
Craik, F. I. M., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal behavior, 11, 671-684.
Forrester, S.H. (2018) Transfer of Learning and Music Understanding: A Review of Literature, Applications of Research in Music Education, 37:1, 30-35
Judith M. Burton, J.M, Horowitz, R., & Abeles, H. (2000) Learning in and through the Arts: The Question of Transfer, Studies in Art Education, 41:3, 228-257
Stephen Chew is one of my favorite education writers and researchers (and he’s a darn fine fellow as well). His “How to get the most out of studying” YouTube series is incredibly useful and I’m lucky to be his friend. When I get perplexed about a teaching/learning issue related to cognitive psychology, I email Steve.
That happened recently. I’ve been talking with teachers lately about how cognitive load theory can help us think about classroom processes. Teachers say these discussions are useful, but sometimes the discussions end up raising “non-cognitive” issues: teachers often want to talk about students who are reluctant learners. Students who don’t want to learn, who don’t want to try, or who are enter learning experiences convinced that they can’t succeed no matter how hard they try. I’ve written about some similar discussions before, but I decided to ask Steve for resources specific to motivation.
This makes a lot of sense. I expect we are a long way away from a complete model of how all 9 of these factors interact in learning situations, but the list and commentary in Steve’s article will help my discussions with teachers be more inclusive of more experiences teachers encounter with students. I love the explosion of resources about cognitive psychology and teaching/learning, but in this article Steve acknowledges that there’s more to teaching and learning. The APA top 20 document covers similar ground. I’m excited to figure out how to use this list of 9 factors as I talk with teachers about how to make teaching decisions in classrooms.
One of the best parts of my job is presenting with my friend Pete Ferguson. We get to talk with teachers and administrators about how “relationships matter” in teaching and learning. I made a short-ish (36 minute) screencast of my part of the presentation. In this video, I discuss some potentially important (I think) connections between teacher/student relationships and classroom assessment.
Short summary: teachers and students both need feedback about learning, and they need to use that feedback to improve learning. Students who may feel the least capable/confident probably need this kind of feedback the most, but they may not be too thrilled about doing these assessments. So how can teachers try to make sure that students will participate in classroom assessments authentically, and increase the chances that students will USE feedback from those assessments? Relationships!
I wrote this to help my AP Psychology teacher buddies. I hope it’s useful!
Background: I stumbled across this article – “Social scientists scramble to study pandemic, in real time” from Science (Cornwall, April 8, 2020) – about ongoing psychological research related to the Covid-19 pandemic. This current events article might be a useful opportunity for psychology students to practice their research methods skills/knowledge about a current event that is impacting their lives. Purpose: Students will be able to practice applying research methods terminology to some of the studies summarized in the article.
This is a concise article (about four and a half pages), and it’s about 10 years old, but it might be one of the most important articles I’ve read in a while.
Quick summary: the authors take a careful look at the idea of “far transfer,” which is defined as using knowledge or skills that you learned in one situation in a dissimilar situation. In some ways, the goal of every teacher in every classroom is always some form of transfer: we want to help students learn knowledge and skills that they can USE outside our classes. But wouldn’t it be great if we could teach knowledge and skills in one curriculum area, and students could/would transfer that those skills when tackling a problem in a very different context?
That would be great. And learning doesn’t seem to work that way.
These authors reluctantly conclude that research indicates that this kind of far transfer is unlikely to happen. They take a careful look at research in five well researched contexts: creativity training, chess, computer programming, music, and Latin language learning. After looking at all the research, they conclude that “… in each case the results were disappointing. This is not to say that there is no evidence whatsoever for far transfer, but it’s very clear that the level of reliable evidence decreases in relation to the quality of the research: the better the research, the scanter the evidence.”
So it doesn’t look like we can teach students knowledge and skills in one context and expect them to be able to use them in a very different context. This is inconvenient: it would be great if we could teach “general critical thinking skills” or “problem solving steps” or a “creative thinking framework” to students and they would use these general multi-purpose skills in a different context.
But, is this really a surprise? Do we experience this in our lives as learners? Most of what I think I know and can do resulted from much more specific training and experience. I’m not a good carpenter, but I can cut boards and put them together (sometimes clumsily, but I can usually get it done). I learned how to do this by working on a lot of projects (and wasting wood, and making may trips to the hardware store). My wife is a book binder, and she makes beautiful custom books. Carpentry and book binding seem to share a lot of knowledge and skills: measuring, cutting, and joining. Someone might expect that learning how to measure, cut, and join wood might enable me to do those same skills and put a book together, and my wife might be able to use her skills on a carpentry project. But I can’t bind books, and she lets me put the bookshelves together.
The inconvenient truth seems to be that knowledge and skills are mostly context dependent. If I want to learn how to play the ukulele, my background as a bass player may help me a little at the beginning, but not much. I’ll just have to practice. A lot. It’s wishful thinking to pretend that teaching a “creative thinking skills” unit will have lasting impact on students’ ability to be creative “across the board” in their lives. Learning to play chess well or learning Latin may have intrinsic value, but they won’t magically increase our “logical reasoning” skills. Learning to play an instrument or sing well is an inherently valuable activity, and some research indicates that music training has specific impacts on some aspects of executive functioning, but researchers are trying to figure out if these changes are long term and dependent on some specific kinds of direct instruction and modeling how to transfer what students learning in music classes to other contexts. Maybe we should just admit that far transfer isn’t likely to happen, and focus on helping students get the specific, contextual training they need to get the skills they want and need.
Well, that was an interesting experience 🙂 Yesterday afternoon I challenged myself to try to make a video of the 3 box memory model presentation (an hour-ish long discussion that a colleague and I have been presenting to elementary schools).
It was quite an experience. So very, very weird to talk at my computer for about an hour with no feedback from anyone. I tried to embed a “reflection slide” technique into the video (I hope it works!) This link should get you a copy of the slides: https://tinyurl.com/3boxcopy
I’m sharing the video here in case it’s useful for anyone. If you use it for something, please let me know because I would love to talk about it!
Many of my classroom teacher friends are moving to online instruction right now, and they are working REALLY hard to try to figure out how to make teaching and learning online work well for students. I’ve seen dozens of articles about what online systems might work well, overall guides about online teaching and learning, and I’m grateful that many organizations are producing these guides for teachers trying to make these changes quickly and effectively.
There is one “bottom line” generalization that I think might be useful during discussions of online teaching: thinking matters. There are many different ways to express this idea (I think Willingham’s quote in the image above is my favorite). Cognitive psychology research consistently shows that deep processing (effortful encoding, elaborative encoding, desirable difficulty, semantic encoding, etc.) is necessary for the kinds of long term, transferable learning we are all after. We need to set up learning situations that increase the chances that students will do the kinds of thinking in working memory that they need to do to help move information and skills into long term memory, and be able to recall those information and skills when they need to.
So how do we do this in the context of online instruction? Daisy Christodoulou offers interesting advice in this blog post, but it’s very easy to get lost in the blizzard of suggested websites and apps. If I was a classroom teacher right now, I think I would try to pick a few online tools and try to use them to increase the chances that students are doing the cognitive work they need to do to learn. Here are the tools and steps I think I would think about using (note: the context I’m most familiar with is google classroom, and that’s the tool I would use to “push out” these kinds of learning experiences):
I think my first step would be to take any existing presentation slides I have for upcoming lessons and put blank “reflection slides” in the presentation. I wrote about that idea here.
I would create hyperdocs as a way for students to follow a series of “learning content” “explore” and “try it on your own” steps. I like this Cult of Pedagogy blog post about hyperdocs. I think well designed hyperdocs can help increase the chances that students will do the thinking we need them to do, even when we can’t “be” there.
I would consider changing some of my presentation slides to the Peardeck (or Nearpod) format. These tools allow teachers to embed “check for understanding” slides into existing presentation slides and quickly/easily see student thinking (and use that information to modify future teaching). Both Peardeck and Nearpod are probably more effective ways to accomplish the “reflection thinking” idea I described in step 1 (but it will take more work).
Many other teachers are developing different and possibly better plans than these 3 steps. But I think every effective plan will all share one underlying characteristic: effective online teaching plans will all emphasize student thinking (rather than compliance, amount of work completed, amount of time spent online, effective graphics/videos, effort, etc.) Humans learn what we think deeply about. Memory (and learning) are the residue of thought, whether we are learning face to face or online.
