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)