Notes from Research Ed Denver

I am at the Rocky Mountain Mind, Brain and Education conference put on by Research Ed in Denver.  These are my raw notes.  They may be mixed with my own thoughts, but they will not be in a coherent form until I have a chance to process them later.  Also, the 3:30 session will be missing because I am speaking during that session!  If you want notes for that, you can got my website, thelearninghawk.com and find them under the Presentation Resources tab. 

Keynote:  Dr. Jim Heal - Mental Models: Cognitive Keys to Effective Teaching

Book coming out in the spring of next year on this topic.

What do we mean by mental models? 

• A cognitive blueprint for how to do something 
• What does success at this thing look like
• What you draw upon when making decisions in the moment

Mental models are developed in real time and over time.  When a soccer player scans the field (average 150 per game - Messi 680 per game), he is putting together a picture of what the game looks like at that moment.

Teaching is complex - "The only time medicine ever approaches the complexity of an average day for a classroom teacher is an an emergency room during a natural disaster." - Lee Shulman

All techniques can be done at on a spectrum of fidelity.  Are you doing retrieval practice in a low resolution way or a high resolution way?  Low resolution is just carrying it out.  High resolution is knowing what you are doing, but also how and why you are doing it on a deep level.

Schema Theory - a network of interrelated concepts of ideas that we make more robust and useful over time.  Example: A four legged creature that is furry and goes woof approaches.  Your mind accesses your schema of things that fit into those categories and determine it has more dogginess than other things. Your schema then informs your response.  If your schema of dogs includes fear, you will run away.  If it includes love, you will pet the dog.  

Don't skip from the simple to the complex too quickly.

Students can't build a schema for something if they have no point of reference or background knowledge or if it is presented in a distracting way.  There is a difference between understanding the words and understanding what the words mean in a specific context.  You have to know enough to access what you need to access.  For example: if you didn't grow up watching baseball, it may feel like this.  With missing items in your schema, you are reading a redacted document, but because our minds are wired to make meaning, we fill in with guesses about what we think we are seeing.  This corrupts the schema for the future.  

The less a student knows, the harder it is to acquire more knowledge.  The new knowledge MUST fit meaningfully in what you already know.  

Chess board study - Three groups of people (Chess masters, quite good chess players, and chess novices) were shown a collection of chess boards in mid game and asked to remember the placement of the pieces.  The chess masters were able to remember significantly more than the other two groups.  Then, the boards were changed to a random arrangement, not like something that would happen in actual game play.  Then, all of the groups remembered the same low amount.  In the first scenario, people with more knowledge remembered because they weren't seeing pieces, they were seeing something with meaning.  Once it had no meaning, prior knowledge didn't help.

Even the stories we grow up with influence our schema.  A scenario was presented about a treasure hunter going into a cave with many branched tunnels who had nothing with him but a flashlight and a bag.  Students were asked to predict what was the best way for him to make sure he didn't get lost on the way out.  American students correctly answered 75% of the time (vs. 25% of Chinese students) because they had grown up with the story of Hansel and Gretel.  When a scenario was presented with a corresponding Chinese fairy tale, the numbers reversed.  

How do we expect students to think?    Do we expect them to have the parts of the knowledge they need to make meaningful and robust connections?  What do we do if they don't?  We can change the way a question is asked to reduce the cognitive load required to make meaningful connections (or have them memorize the fundamentals ahead of time).

If you want them to move from their current state to the desired state, you must given them the information so they can guess and check along the way.  Otherwise, you aren't teaching; you are giving them a riddle without hope of an answer.

How do we ensure they activate the right kinds of prior knowledge for the content we are teaching?  It's not guaranteed in your classroom, which is why you need a sophisticated mental model for teaching.

Rock Climber Model - Prior knowledge is the foot hold.  New knowledge is the handhold.  Teachers bridge that gap.  When climbing, the handhold becomes the new foothold.  This is also true in learning.

1. Where do I want my students to end up?
1. Do this with precision by doing the activities you want them to do and see what is important about it.
2. Where are they starting from?
1. What can I reliably assume my students already know that is relevant?
3. How do I bridge the gap?
1. Make analogies or connections from what they already know to your objective.  What is the underlying structure you can reveal even if the surface features are different?  (Division vs. dealing cards equally). You aren't "meeting them where they are at" by making it cool or fun but by making an actual deep connection between something they know.  One is the outward illusion of relevance and the other is connecting new knowledge to prior knowledge.
4. How can I avoid pitfalls and slips along the way?
1. Make sure your connections are accurate and relevant.

The book will have multiple mental models.  The rock climber is just one of them.  

Session 1:  Andrew Watson - Thinking Creates Learning, The Essentials of Working Memory

Learning happens inside the human mind, so educators have a lot ot learn from those who study mental functions.

"Memory is the residue of thought." - Dan Willingham 

You cannot say, "Research says this, and therefore you must . . ."  What you can say is "Research found these principles. Use them to inform your decision making about your practice."

Working memory - A temporary system that selects, holds, reorganizes, and combines information from many sources.

Pulling from multiple streams of informations (alphabetizing the days of the week means pulling up the days, the order of the alphabet, and English spellings) requires a lot of working memory just to select and hold before you even get to reorganizing.

Students using working memory ALL of the time.  Very few things (only things that are firmly in long term memory with no other demand) don't require it.

Working memory is obvious crucial, but it is also limited and cannot be increased with training (the only thing that makes it bigger is aging from 4 to early 20s).  Play Lumosity games for enjoyment, but don't think it will increase your working memory; they were fine for false claims.  Teachers must be relentless about managing working memory demands.

Ask questions:

1. Can I predict working memory overload before it happens?  If so, I can prevent some.
2. Can I recognize working memory overload while it happens?  If so, I can address it in real time.

Session 2: Helen Reynolds - Three Research-informed Strategies that have been Game-changers in My Classroom

The Big Picture - The Brain and the Landscape

• Talking to students about their brains.  Help them to understand learning in a way they can apply.
• Advance organizers - Help students know where they are going.  Map out the terrain so the student can see it the way you see it.  Hang the "objectives" in the room, but not in the curriculum language - in language that helps them understand why they are doing what they are doing.

Breaking it Down - Explicit Instruction

• Explicit instruction is not lecturing because you are interacting with students and pausing to check for understanding all of the time.  Rosenshine and Sweller provide good research on why these work.
• Explicit instruction creates fewer working memory demands than other forms of instruction.
• Whiteboards for brain dumping, turn and talk, teacher organizes what they are producing on the board and asked them to consider why she organized it the way she did.
• Chunking into small steps
• I do/we do/you do guided practice
• Novices are NOT little experts
• Stop to ask questions

Building it Up - Spaced Retrieval Practice

• Retrieval practice - Pulling it out of your brain helps you to "cement it" in your brain.
• Shed Loads of Practice (SLOP)
• Weekly retrieval quizzes - low stakes (either don't grade it all or let them correct it for 100%) with questions that are spaced over time.

Be explicit about what you are doing, why you are doing it that way, what you are thinking while you are doing it.

Panel Discussion - Using the Science of Learning for Equity

First, we have to want to reach every single student.  We must design for the students at the margins.

The way you were taught is not necessarily the best way to teach.  Find out about the science of learning so you aren't perpetuating errors from the past.  (Personal note:  That doesn't mean you have to throw out things just because they are traditional.  It means do the work to find out why things work so you can choose from old and new thoughtfully.)

Start your lesson plans from the standpoint of those who need the most support rather than adding them on after your "normal" plan.

You have to show up and learn what works.  It's a moral imperative.  

If you are sharing research, you have to find digestible books and articles.  Not every researcher is a writer, and most people aren't trained in interpreting scientific studies.  Find authors that people will be wiling to read.  (I suggest Daniel Willingham, Andrew Watson, Barbara Oakley, John Almarode, Bradley Busch, and Peps McCrea.)

This should not be an initiative.  It should be the heart of what we do.

Invite policy makers into your schools and classrooms.  They need to see what works and what doesn't.  Amplify the stories of your students.  Advocate for what works publicly.  

Session 3: Mary Fran Park - Transforming Student Learning - Strategies from the book Making It Stick

You have to be careful what you assume they know.  Teach the essential basics at the beginning of the year.

Make It Stick:  The Science of Successful Learning by Brown, Roediger, and McDanil

Illusion of Knowing

• Memorizing, Rereading, highlighting the book, and rewriting notes are ineffective strategies.  They lead to the illusion of mastery, but it is a poor example of metacognition.
• Retrieval practice allows them to check their own knowledge and reinforces, moving things from short term to long term memory.
• Turn think, pair, share into write, pair, share.  If they start talking right away, they haven't taken time to think.
• Low or no stakes quizzes.  Call it something else if it helps, but you must have them retrieve.
• Shuffle your flashcards for spacing and interleaving
• Distribute practice to give time for myelenation.
• IF you don't allow for some forgetting, they won't move it into long term memory.
• One page summaries - Having them translate it into a picture form makes them have to analyze and summarize

Session 4:  Paige Jennings - Cognitive Load Theory: What Every Educator Should Know

Dylan William says Cognitive Load Theory is the single most important thing any classroom teacher can understand.

Tapping into the already existing schema (accessing prior knowledge) decereases cognitive load.

Cognitive Load Theory is an information processing model in three parts

1. Sensory memory - what we take in
2. Working Memory - holding onto what we are paying attention to in the moment
3. Long Term Memory - Encode, retrieve to strengthen encoding

When you start to forget, you go through retrieval practice and "interrupt the forgetting."

Recommended Making It Stick

Reduce Extraneous Load - Consider how many other things may be in a student's working memory than just your content.  This is extraneous load.  It can come from room decorations, hunger, anger, the crush one of your students has on another, or instructions with two many steps.

Intrinsic Load - These are things we can manage, not eliminate.  Explicit (direct) instruction puts less demand on working memory.  Worked examples, chunking, and graphic organizers can help if used well.

Germane Load - This is the load you want.  It is one connects to your learning.  It's in your long term memory and giving your working memory a break.  Retrieval, spacing, interleaving, elaborative interrogation, and problem solving will help make the content stick.

Practical Advice for Your Student - Part 1 - Note Taking

After I began attending Learning and the Brain conferences in 2018, one of my favorite things to do was have individual conferences with students who were not performing as well on tests as they would like.  I knew that I had advice that could help them because of what I had learned about cognitive science and memory.

I started by asking them how they currently study.  Their number one answer was, "I look over my notes."  I asked them what that meant, and it was clear why their study habits were ineffective.  They were basically re-reading the words they had copied from the wall with no context or processing.  For a couple of years, I gave them better advice about studying for tests.  

Then, I realized I needed to start expanding these conversations.  We discussed, first, what they were doing in class while learning.  I then addressed more effective study techniques.  Then, finally, we talked about how to deal with questions during the test.  

So, that's what I will do with this blog as well.  We'll start with note taking.  Students tend to fall into one of two extremes.

1. Note taking is not only copying what is on the board.  Before I had a textbook, my students had to rely on their notes.  Parents would come to conferences and say, "We don't know how to help because we can interpret his notes."  I would look at them and find that they had copied the words from the slides and nothing else.  Literally nothing else.  No examples.  No practice problems.  No thoughts of their own.  It needs to be more than that.  What is projected on the wall or written on the board is an outline at best, not the only things that are important from the lesson.
2. Note taking is not a class transcript.  The other extreme is when students become court stenographers, attempting to write down every word that is said in class.  This is more likely to happen when they are taking notes by typing on a laptop because it allows them to gain speed.  But, it also shuts off any processing of the information through their brain.  By writing more, they think about it less.  This is what leads some to believe that taking notes by typing is ineffective.  It's not the typing that causes the problem; it's the lack of thinking.  When taking notes by hand, we usually summarize what we hear to save time.  It's that summarizing that is helpful.
3. Notes should be a collaboration of brains.  So what notes should be then?  Well, as I already mentioned, they should be a summary of what happened in the lesson, not just what was projected but also the important parts of what was said.  This takes practice because students have a hard time identifying what was important.  (By the way, for some good advice in this area, see Daniel Willingham's great book Outsmart Your Brain.). They should also involve thoughts from the student himself.  It's probable that he thought of something while the teacher was explaining that would be useful to his memory later on.  The purpose of note taking isn't to have notes.  The purpose of note taking is to jog ones memory later, so write down anything that will be likely to help with that.  
4. Notes are for the student.  The important thing to remember is to write down what will help YOU to remember.  Notes aren't for the teacher or for your parents.  They are for the student to have a memory aid for what happened in class.  This is frustrating for parents who want to help their student study.  They want to be able to pick up the notes and make sense of them.  But they weren't in class, so it won't help them remember what happened in class.  The best thing a parent can do with their child's notes in helping them study is point to something and say, "Tell me about this."  The child should be able to look at that note and retrieve an episodic memory from that day's lesson.  If they can, these are good notes, no matter what they look like.  Conversely, if they can't, these are not good notes.

It's tempting to ask the teacher to provide a crutch for students who aren't yet good at this.  Some teachers provide a fill in the blank sheet of notes.  Run away from these!  That means the teacher did the summarizing (so she'll remember, but you won't).  It also means students only stay engaged for long enough to fill in the word.  Then, they check out for the next word.  Students, I implore you to take your own notes.  Don't do group notes with your friends on a google doc.  Don't borrow someone else notes (unless you were absent or looking to see if your own notes are missing something).  I know it takes more work, but if you care about learning, it is the only way.

Retrieval Notes - An Experiment

Ever since the 2019 Learning and the Brain conference and reading Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain's book Powerful Teaching, I have been all in on the idea of retrieval practice.  I recognize the benefits that come from retrieving information from your mind rather than putting it in again, myelinating the neuron and making it more efficient.  As I tell my students, if you are in a play, you don't learn the lines by reading the script again.  You learn them by trying to remember them.

But there was one thing I was afraid to try until this year.  It's a concept known as Retrieval Taking.  Rather than taking notes during class, students summarize the class at the end.  The research on this is compelling.  Students who summarized after learning performed 12 % better on a post-lecture exam than those who took notes during class.  But I was hesitant.  What if it doesn't work?  How do I tell parents that I told their students not to take notes in class?

For the past two years, I have had a lot of individual meetings with students.  If they don't do well on a test, I send them a note to come see me during lunch or study hall.  We talk about their study methods, and I give them advice on how they might revise them to be more effective.  Then, I looked at their notes.  What I found was that the students who were the very best at note-taking were still really bad at note-taking.  They either had what I had projected on the wall and nothing else or they had attempted to take down every word verbatim.  Neither of those methods is helpful, so I thought I would teach them to take better notes.  That didn't work because change is uncomfortable, so, if I wasn't going to collect their notes and grade them (and I wasn't), they would just go back to what they were comfortable with after about a week.  Their computers were also an issue.  While I am totally supportive of our one-to-one program, students do an awful lot of shopping and game-playing that is difficult to manage as a teacher.  One of the purposes of note-taking is to maintain student engagement in class, and that was kind of a wash if they were taking them on their computers.

At last year's Learning and the Brain conference, I was in a session with John Almarode.  He gets you to stand up and walk away from your table and find a partner; as a result, I am nowhere near my computer for over 20 minutes.  He is intentionally trying to keep us from taking notes.  After the session, I was joking with him and said, "Well, I am going back to the hotel room and writing up these notes, and you can't stop me."  He laughed and said, "Yeah, that's what you should do.  That's what students should do; it's just that they won't."

So, I found myself at a tipping point where I thought it was time to attempt this method of note-taking.  Also, between the textbook that perfectly matches my class and the many videos I have made, the students have plenty to study if this doesn't work.  At parent orientation, I introduced this idea to parents, a little worried about what their response would be.  It was overwhelmingly positive and hopeful.  The only concern one parent had was "What if my daughter wants to take notes."  I replied that if she was taking them on paper, I would not take the pen from her hand, but she would not be allowed to do it on her computer, and I would not wait for her to write.  He seemed satisfied with that.  So, here is what I have been doing.

First, I needed something to keep student attention and engagement in class.  There are mini-whiteboards and markers on every desk (thank you Craig Barton for so much advice for their use on your podcast and Zane Smitley for spending two years doing this so well while I observed you).  I ask frequent questions in class anyway, so rather than calling on a student with their hand raised, I now get an answer from every student on their whiteboards (I may need to buy stock in the Expo company).  I am realizing that I need to ask a lot more questions because when there is a large gap between them, students are starting to drift; but I'm working on that.  Second, I stop whenever the part of the class that is primarily me speaking and say "Go back to GoFormative for the notes summary."  They begin almost every class on that platform for their bellwork, so it made sense to use it for the summaries as well.  When they go there, I have put in several questions that I would hope notes would have answered if they had been taking them.  I based that on the advice from this blog post by my friend Andrew Watson from the Learning and Brain website.

It's a little too soon to know how this going.  As far as classroom practices go, it seems to be going very well.  But, is it helping them learn?  It's too soon to tell.  They did perform exceptionally well on their first test, but the material on the first test isn't very hard.  I may not be able to make meaningful comparisons between this year and other years until tests two and three, when I traditionally see a drop in performance.  (Yes, I know performance and learning are not the same thing, but for the moment, it's the only metric I have.)  At this point, I can say for certain that it has not harmed their performance on the first test, but I'll keep you updated as the year goes on.