Adult Students as Learners: Creating Effective Learning Environments
Artifact: I attended another workshop pertaining to adult students as learners, about evidence-based pedagogy at Michigan State University sponsored by the Center for academic and future faculty excellence (CAFFE). The following are some notes I took pertaining to what I found helpful and interesting.
How People Learn: A cognitive science perspective
Drs. Susan Ravizza, Zack Hambrick, Erik Altmann, Kimberly Fenn, Kelly Mix
April 27, 2012
Susan Ravizza
Dr. Ravizza talked about attention and social media. How does attention improve or worsen recall? With voluntary attention, it is effortful- you decide to pay attention. With involuntary attention, it is automatic- your attention is captured by novel and salient info. When you decide to pay attention it is more deeply encoded. However, involuntary attention can overwrite voluntary information, and important info may not make it to memory encoding, because the irrelevant information has taken your attention away. However, you can use tricks to catch your attention when your voluntary attention starts to tire. This is what Dr. Ravizza's research looks at. For example, recall for items at the end of the list can be improved if they are in a different color.
This idea that involuntary attention is important is especially pertinent for instructors today because there are lots of things competing for the students' attention these days. They are multi-tasking on their laptops or phones, with Facebook, Twitter, texting. So can we use social media for good? Can we use it to pull our students' attention back to the class? A possible technique for using social media in the classroom- are there shy students who don't want to voice their questions during lecture? Maybe they could tweet their questions. Or the instructor can tweet important class notes- change in schedule, an important reading for next class. An important concern in using this technique is to not lose control of the classroom. Students should still be engaged with the class material, not busy tweeting.
This idea that involuntary attention is important is especially pertinent for instructors today because there are lots of things competing for the students' attention these days. They are multi-tasking on their laptops or phones, with Facebook, Twitter, texting. So can we use social media for good? Can we use it to pull our students' attention back to the class? A possible technique for using social media in the classroom- are there shy students who don't want to voice their questions during lecture? Maybe they could tweet their questions. Or the instructor can tweet important class notes- change in schedule, an important reading for next class. An important concern in using this technique is to not lose control of the classroom. Students should still be engaged with the class material, not busy tweeting.
Zack Hambrick
Dr. Hambrick talked about individual differences in student learning. There are meaningful differences even in the college classroom (which is already somewhat
self-selected).
SAT only explains 20% of GPA correlations.
Meshing hypothesis is the idea that to be the most effective, learning style should match the format. Learning style refers to the idea that someone is a visual learner, or auditory, or what have you. So the meshing hypothesis basically says that a visual learner will learn best when the task uses a lot of visual cues. People do express that they have a preference in learning style, i.e. they self-characterize as an auditory learner. However, there has been little evidence to support this method actually being beneficial to learning outcomes or improving cognition.
Meshing hypothesis is the idea that to be the most effective, learning style should match the format. Learning style refers to the idea that someone is a visual learner, or auditory, or what have you. So the meshing hypothesis basically says that a visual learner will learn best when the task uses a lot of visual cues. People do express that they have a preference in learning style, i.e. they self-characterize as an auditory learner. However, there has been little evidence to support this method actually being beneficial to learning outcomes or improving cognition.
Erik Altmann
Dr. Altmann began his talk with a discussion of the different types of memory, the two major branches being declarative and non-declarative.
"People get better at the stupidest things". Dr. Altmann described a study in which 8 undergraduate students read 160 pages of inverted text. 13-15 mos later, they repeated this task, this time 98 pages, half old, half new. A figure from the paper is to the left. The top line is the original training in the inverted text. The next line down is for the retraining text. The two lines at the bottom are from the students reading normal text, one in the original session and the other on the retest session. The students retained a lot of the skill, even though there was no practice in between (because this is not a skill you would normally use). The lesson that Dr. Altmann emphasized is that no one is born an expert; there is nothing we can't get better at.
A given skill has many components- cognitive, perceptual, motor. Components can be practiced separately, but integration is also a component, so whole practice is necessary in mastering skill.
Figure: Kolers, P. A. (1976). Reading a year later. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2, 554-565.
"People get better at the stupidest things". Dr. Altmann described a study in which 8 undergraduate students read 160 pages of inverted text. 13-15 mos later, they repeated this task, this time 98 pages, half old, half new. A figure from the paper is to the left. The top line is the original training in the inverted text. The next line down is for the retraining text. The two lines at the bottom are from the students reading normal text, one in the original session and the other on the retest session. The students retained a lot of the skill, even though there was no practice in between (because this is not a skill you would normally use). The lesson that Dr. Altmann emphasized is that no one is born an expert; there is nothing we can't get better at.
A given skill has many components- cognitive, perceptual, motor. Components can be practiced separately, but integration is also a component, so whole practice is necessary in mastering skill.
Figure: Kolers, P. A. (1976). Reading a year later. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2, 554-565.
Kimberly Fenn
Memory consolidation- off-line memory processing during sleep strengthens and stabilizes memory, inoculates memory against loss, and increases generalization (i.e. transfer skills, learning). Performance benefits are seen in the absence of practice- learning doesn't stop when students leave the classroom. So when and how should you test? If you were to give a lecture, then test on the lecture, the students would do worse than if you were to give them the test the next day, even without their having actively practiced the material. You have to give them time to consolidate.
Embodied Cognition in the classroom- motor processing is involved with basic cognitive processing. someone who actually plays hockey has different activation when reading about hockey than in someone who does not play hockey. Memory is stronger when tasks are performed rather than when the same information is 'studied'. Learning can even be improved via observation of gesturing. So- are there ways instructors can involve more motor activity in their lessons?
Test-enhanced learning and retrieval practice- practicing the skill of retrieval leads to greater stability in memory.
Swahili vocab study: 4 groups, ST- students studied and took a test four times. SNT- students study vocab and take test as normal in the first round, and continue taking the other tests, but stop studying material that they get correct on the test, STN- these students continually study the material, but need not be tested on the term once they get it correct, SNTN- study and test first round, then no need to study or test on the ones they get correct. Results (see figure): The testing makes the difference, not the studying- i.e. the act of retrieving the information frequently.
Thus, more frequent classroom assessments can increase overall memory performance- and these don't need to be graded (for ex., use iClickers for students to log in their answers).
References: The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Karpicke et al., Science 319, 966 (2008)
Embodied Cognition in the classroom- motor processing is involved with basic cognitive processing. someone who actually plays hockey has different activation when reading about hockey than in someone who does not play hockey. Memory is stronger when tasks are performed rather than when the same information is 'studied'. Learning can even be improved via observation of gesturing. So- are there ways instructors can involve more motor activity in their lessons?
Test-enhanced learning and retrieval practice- practicing the skill of retrieval leads to greater stability in memory.
Swahili vocab study: 4 groups, ST- students studied and took a test four times. SNT- students study vocab and take test as normal in the first round, and continue taking the other tests, but stop studying material that they get correct on the test, STN- these students continually study the material, but need not be tested on the term once they get it correct, SNTN- study and test first round, then no need to study or test on the ones they get correct. Results (see figure): The testing makes the difference, not the studying- i.e. the act of retrieving the information frequently.
Thus, more frequent classroom assessments can increase overall memory performance- and these don't need to be graded (for ex., use iClickers for students to log in their answers).
References: The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Karpicke et al., Science 319, 966 (2008)
Kelly Mix
Teachers generate examples frequently- in doing so, we hope students will discover underlying structure that is the same.
Seeing relatedness: Instructor gave students a problem: you want to destroy a tumor using radiation, but how do you avoid killing all of the healthy tissue? Solved: You aim the radiation at tissue from various directions. Then the students were given various other tasks before they were given the next problem- the best way to attack a fort. The point was hat they should have solved it the same way, attack from all directions. But the students didn't see the interrelatedness of the task.
Structure Mapping Theory
How is a robin like a chicken? Students do okay with this because there are surface features of commonality. So you give them this sort of hint to help them find things in common, to help with more abstract ideas, like, how is a time like a river?
In the classroom, it is best to choose examples with clear relational structure. Use multiple examples and comparisons to make sure students are following.
Seeing relatedness: Instructor gave students a problem: you want to destroy a tumor using radiation, but how do you avoid killing all of the healthy tissue? Solved: You aim the radiation at tissue from various directions. Then the students were given various other tasks before they were given the next problem- the best way to attack a fort. The point was hat they should have solved it the same way, attack from all directions. But the students didn't see the interrelatedness of the task.
Structure Mapping Theory
How is a robin like a chicken? Students do okay with this because there are surface features of commonality. So you give them this sort of hint to help them find things in common, to help with more abstract ideas, like, how is a time like a river?
In the classroom, it is best to choose examples with clear relational structure. Use multiple examples and comparisons to make sure students are following.