Final Reflection from Learning and the Brain - Putting it All Together with John T. Almarode

There were more sessions than those I have developed in these posts, but some were so involved, you would need to have heard the entire speech because notes (even ones that have been reflected on) wouldn't have done them justice.  If you are interested in the development of the adolescent brain, you should definitely read Sarah-Jayne Blakemore's book Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, but her talks were too intricate to be explored on this blog.  The same goes for two incredible keynote speeches by Dr. John Gabrieli and Dr. David Rose.  Linda Darling-Hammond presented three day worth of information in just over an hour.  Sorting through their speeches here would not give a good representation of their speeches.  

This is the last of the posts on the Learning and the Brain conference, which is fitting because this was the final keynote speech during the actual conference.  And, if your brain is tired from three days of learning, you want the final presenter to be John T. Almarode.  He's delightful, charming, thoughtful, and practical.  

One of the first things he said was one of the most important things that got said at the conference.  There is no one technique that is universally effective all of the time.  It must be adapted to the local context and timing of your students in your classroom and it must generate evidence of its effectiveness.  The reason education is so fad-driven is that everyone is looking for the magic bullet.  It's hard to realize that there isn't one. 

We Remember What We Encode

There are two types of encoding, rote and elaborate.  Rote encoding involves just knowledge.  Elaborate encoding explains why something is true, allows students to find patterns and relationships, involves emotional engagement, and includes multiple ways of representing the learning.

When people hear this, they want that silver bullet to be elaborate encoding and decide that all rote encoding is old-school garbage.  Life is more interesting than that.  Elaborate encoding should be first, but it can be strengthened by using rote encoding for retrieval practice.   

We Remember What We Retrieve

I did a whole post on spaced retrieval practice, so I won't go into it here.  The interesting part of this session was when he asked us what we thought this image had to do with retrieval practice.  There were so many interesting ideas, including:

• The brain has a capacity, so you can't keep adding to it.
• If you guzzle the entire glass, it won't do much for your body's hydration.  You need to drink it in sips.  Retrieval practice can't be over every single thing you learned all at once.  It must be done in smaller doses.
• A good waiter doesn't refill a glass every time you take a sip from it.  They also don't wait for the glass to get totally empty.  They refill it just before it is empty.  The time for retrieval practice is just before students are about to forget.

When you ask smart people to tell you their thoughts in a free-form way, you may get answers you didn't expect but that reflects excellent thinking.  This reminded me of a story Kevin Washburn tells about a math teacher who put radishes on her students' desks.  She didn't know how it related, so she asked them what they thought.  They gave answers that she didn't expect, but it made their thinking visible.

Some ways to make thinking visible:

• Ask students to observe and describe
• Have them construct examples
• Insist that they give a reason why an answer is right or wrong.
• Ask them to write how things connect to authentic situations.

Learning Takes Time

Interleaving and distributed practice is more difficult for the brain, but that is what makes the learning more permanent.

Teach students that learning takes time and is often uncomfortable.  It's what we call desirable difficulty.  It's desirable because it works.  The struggle is not only real; it is valuable.  Telling students why it is helpful makes it even more helpful.

Give and Receive Feedback

As John Almarode said in both his previous session and his keynote address, "None of this works without feedback."  None of what we learned at the conference means anything without giving feedback to the students and receiving feedback from them.  This is why relationships and classroom climate matter.  

We live our lives with feedback from others, whether they intend it or not.  If someone slips and falls, after you help them up,  you make sure not to walk in the place they just walked.  How can we expect students to operate without feedback in our classes?

For a long time, feedback has been used to say "I gotcha."  In a loving classroom, it should be used to say, "I've got you."  In order to make it supportive, we should ask the following questions.