These are raw notes as I take them during presentations. They have not been edited, but they will be in the next few weeks as I turn them into blog posts. They will not only be notes on the presentations, but they will be mixed with my own thoughts and reflections. I will try to note that so as not to misrepresent any speaker.
Keynote I: The Science of Learning: Building Memories and Effective Learners - Barbara A. Oakley, PhD, PE
Full disclosure: I LOVE BARBARA OAKLEY! She was a keynote speaker at my second Learning and the Brain conference, and she is one of the reasons I fell in love with the science of learning.
What is learning? Creating a set of neuron links through the growth of dendritic spines.
You need to have foundational connections in your brain in order to think. To do that, you must have practiced skills and memorized information in your long-term memory. The reason metaphor is a powerful teaching technique is because it uses the underlying neuron structure of what we already know to make the learning sticky.
Retrieval strengthens the dendrites. Without it, the links are broken.
Working memory pulls things from long-term memory and helps us manipulate conscious information so we can work with it. It manipulates a mental model.
When a student is puzzled and trying to figure something out, they are creating a mental model. This makes it easier to pull from long-term memory. Teaching means getting a student's schema synchronized with your schema. Activating their schema might mean they pull a different metaphor from long-term memory. They can also synchronize their schema with that of the person next to them.
A student with high working memory can pull a lot from long-term memory and make more connections between them.
Having a smaller working memory doesn't have to be limiting. It may take longer to relate the "chunks," but the chunks can be handled by each arm of the working memory. The schema will still build.
A good schema can serve as the equivalent of a bigger working memory capacity. (Prior knowledge is critical to learning.)
The size of working memory capacity doesn't matter if there are already links in long-term memory. Learning becomes easier as the schema expands. (My thought: Weights become easier to lift with the arms as you strengthen the core. Kickboxing moves become easier to combine in different ways after you have learned them in multiple routines.)
The people who have struggled know how to study and how to overcome challenges when they meet them. Those who have had high working memory sometimes don't know how to get around obstacles when they inevitably meet them.
When learning art styles, you create an art schema from learning about the individual styles. Each new one you learn adds to the schema, allowing comparison and contrast. You cannot get to the complex and interesting and creative schema without building it from the individual parts. You cannot answer the high levels of Bloom's taxonomy until the schema is built. Don't jump straight to it.
People who cannot frown (because of Botox) were found to be happier. What you do with your face influences your emotional state as much as your emotional state influences your face. You also pick up on the facial expressions of others, so the teacher's facial expression can affect the motivation and emotional states of the students. Then, everyone's mirror neurons get in sync. Gesturing also activates mirror neurons. The more they see your face, the more trusted you will be.
Sometimes, reducing stress too much is bad for learning. There is a sweet spot of stress that helps you remember better.
Mice with dopamine systems de-activated cannot learn anything new. Hook students with a challenging problem they will want to solve. Getting to the solution after a few failed attempts distributes dopamine around the successful pathway. Tell them a story at the beginning that makes them a little curious to have dopamine hanging around to help with memory.
We used to think you had all the neurons you were ever going to have. We now know that new ones grow throughout our lives. The newer ones help you learn better, and they also make you feel better about the new learning.
Keynote II: What Makes a Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Study on Happiness and Wellbeing - Robert J. Waldinger, MD
The study of happiness was not considered a legitimate field of scientific inquiry when he started tracking this study. The assumption was that successful people who were making money were happy. Then, they started seeing happiness flatlining in developed countries.
The World Happiness Report shows that economic security is important to happiness (in that your basic needs for food and housing must be met). This levels out when you achieve the level that pays your bills. (A person making 75 million a year is not substantially happier than one making 75 thousand.) Other needs are:
- social support
- freedom to make life choices
- the opportunity to be generous with time, money, effort, or expertise
- high trust level in those around them.
Yet, surveys of people's goals remain getting rich, famous, and/or attaining career achievement.
What is the disconnect?
- Mixed messaging from advertising defines "the good life" for us rather than by ourselves.
- We compare our insides (knowledge of ourselves) to other people's outsides (what they post on social media)
- We are told what we are "supposed to" look like.
Most research is done by asking people about the past, but our memories are too malleable for that method to give us accurate data. Taking snapshots of people of different ages can lead to false conclusions about the progression of life.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest-running study of humans. The subjects were separately studied. One group was young mean recommended by their deans from Harvard. The other was a group of juvenile delinquents with multiple police interactions. Because it started in Boston in 1938, every subject is white and male. Spouses and children were added later, so there is slightly more diversity now.
The Harvard men almost all served in WWII. The other group was too young. They were interviewed and followed for the rest of their lives. The 30 that are still alive are in their late 90s, so now they are studying their children. They studied mental and physical health, work life, family life, etc. Methods have changed as science has progressed (they can study DNA now and put them in MRIs, and they couldn't in 1938).
Conclusions:
- Eating well, sleeping well, and getting health care (essentially taking care of yourself) are predictive of happiness.
- People who were more connected to others stayed healthier and lived longer. They were not just happier. They had better blood pressure, better cholesterol levels, less diabetes, lower rates of obesity, etc. It wasn't about the number of people they were connected to but how they rated the warmth of those connections that proved to be predictive.
The loneliest groups are ages 16-24 and people with incomes below $24 thousand per year.
How does social connection get into your body and affect your health? Stress and loneliness hormones cause
- heightened cardiovascular reactivity.
- decreased immune function.
- chronic inflammation.
Does what we spend discretionary income on influence our happiness? People who spend money on experiences are happier (and have more durable happiness) than those who spend money on things. So spend money on a concert rather than a TV, a basketball game rather than a new outfit.
In the last 25 years, people's social interactions have dropped significantly (58% drop in clubs, 43% drop in family dinners, 35% drop in having friends over). As many as 25% of people say they have no one to confide in.
Because of screens, we have continual partial attention to our surroundings. Our closest relationships are easy to neglect. It takes our attention away from the natural world.
Loneliness at work is a huge problem. Only 30% of people said they have a best friend at work (someone they can talk to about their personal lives). People with a work friend are better employees. Half of CEOs report feeling lonely.
Leaning into relationships requires giving undivided attention. Have face-to-face meetings; eat meals with people; volunteer time; engage in the community.
"Attention is the most basic form of love." - John Tarrant
Small repeated actions of connection will do more than infrequent big ones. Just text someone and tell them you are thinking of them.
Social and emotional skills can be taught (to kids in SEL programs but also to adults). We can structure our lives to combat isolation.
Session: Teaching Students to Teach Themselves: Empowering Children to Get the Most From Schooling - Daniel T. Willingham, PhD
Full disclosure: I LOVE DANIEL WILLINGHAM! This was the person I was most excited to see added to the schedule, and I am hoping to meet him today. I read Why Don't Students Like School? a little over a year ago, and it has turned my world upside down. I used it and his book Outsmart Your Brain and Barbara Oakley's Learning How to Learn to create my study skills class.
We don't expect pre-schoolers to bring any skills to the table about how to learn. By high school, we have high expectations about a student's ability to regulate their own learning.
We expect them to learn from reading, take notes, avoid distractions, set priorities, study efficiently, take assessments, know whether they actually know something, etc.
Avoiding Distraction
Situation -> Attention -> Appraisal -> Response
It is easier to intervene early in the cycle.
People overestimate the effect of their own willpower.
Tip: Select your place. If you can't, arrange your space. Turn off phone notifications. Where noise-canceling headphones or wear earplugs, face a wall.
Tip: Don't choose distraction. Turn off attention-draining options (TV, music, phone).
Tip: Plan breaks. You can stay on task better after a break.
Reading to Learn
Learning to read involves choice and pleasure, and the writer is trying to entertain you with a narrative structure.
Reading to learn involves no choice. The purpose isn't pleasure but understanding. Authors are concerned about getting the school to adopt their book and whether it aligns with standards, not whether the student likes the book. The structure is hierarchical rather than narrative.
The structure makes it difficult to make connections. Children evaluate their own understanding one sentence at a time. They won't notice conflicts between sentences. The linear experience of reading makes it difficult for them to know what to look for.
Tip: Be explicit about the structure.
Tip: Pose questions to yourself every few paragraphs.
Tip: Think about the structure after you have read. Rebuild the tree diagram.
Intent to learn something is not important. There is a lot of stuff in your memory that you did not intend to learn. And there are many things you wanted to remember that you do not.
We remember what we focus on in the way we focused on it. Pulling out the memory the same way it went in is very beneficial. If you want them to commit the sound to memory, focus on the sound (foreign language pronunciation). If you want them to think about meaning, focus on meaning.
"Memory is the residue of thought."
Not all repetition is created equal. Repetition of deep thinking about meaning works. Just parroting does not. Delay between repetitions if you want to remember it later. The amount of delay is hard to optimize, but don't worry about that. Just have some delay. You want kids to sleep between sessions.
- 90% of students study for what is next. If you are going to use spacing, you have to plan.
- 66% reread the chapter. This does not help them remember. "Blurting" isn't bad, but you can make it better by organizing it for meaning.
- Students should be taught to use a calendar with all of the claims on their time, but that involves teachers, students, and parents. Plan around the things you know you cannot change. "I won't be available to study on this date" means you can plan when you will be available.
How Do You Know Whether or Not You Know Something?
- Students are shocked to find that they might not know whether or not they know something.
- Familiarity is not the same as recollection. Familiarity happens immediately but has no depth. Recollection may take longer to construct, but it involves a story or context.
- Partial access is the belief that you know some part of it, so if you thought about it for a while, you could come up with the answer. That feeling is not reliable. This is the second reason why rereading the chapter or notes is a terrible way of studying.
- Self-testing is the only way to overcome these, but students believe they have self-tested when they have just looked up from the book and answered while it was still in working memory. Wait at least 30 minutes.
- What does "knowing" mean? It should mean being able to explain, not just understanding it when someone else explains it or when they read it.
Keynote III: The Psychology and Ingredients for Great Teaching - Pedro De Bruyckere, PhD
The problem with the psychology of teaching is that there is a replication crisis. Some results from fraudulent research, but it is also due to publication bias. They only publish studies where the hypothesis is confirmed.
My note: Much of teaching is so complex that it is difficult to replicate results even if everything were done well.
Growth Mindset is an example of a study that was difficult to replicate. Some studies showed a small effect; others showed no effect. But these are averages. There is nuance, and that matters because we shouldn't throw out something without analyzing why the results are what they are. (My note: Again, teaching is complex.)
Phonics is the most replicated practice in educational history, and we spent years going the other way, which shows that we do no show respect for highly replicated studies.
Babies know the difference between 5 and 10 at 5 months old. Piaget was wrong about many things (but to be fair, he didn't have the technology he would have needed).
He's giving a lot of good examples, but they won't translate to text.
By teaching kids to recognize cognitive biases, you can help them deal with fake news and misinformation.
Resilience does not mean never being sad or hurt. It means being self-managing. You can recognize your own feelings and deal with them in appropriate ways at appropriate times with social awareness. Teach them to recognize fallacies and to seek help.
Keynote IV: The Science of Teaching - David B. Daniel, PhD
I love David Daniel. He is a fixture of Learning and the Brain, and we have communicated through email a few times. Friday was the first time I got to talk to him in person. As I introduced myself, he said, "I know who you are." I'm not sure how that is, but I'll take it.
Teaching is under assault from politicians. Be careful not to swing back the other way and think teachers are all angels either.
What is evidence? How do we know if something is working?
Studies that are carried out in a lab may not generalize to the classroom. Be careful just swallowing advice wholesale. Studies are greenhouses with lots of control and isolated variables. Classrooms are gardens where the principles still apply, but there are a lot more variables.
Research needs to be carried out in classrooms. They are not the same as labs.
- The idea of needing skin to skin contact right after birth comes from observations of goats. It was assumed that, since we were mammals, it worked the same. It is dangerous to believe it and damaging to adoptive parents and those whose children are rushed to the NICU immediately.
Just because research is true doesn't mean it will work in the context in which you want to apply it. It may work in the classroom next door and not work in yours. You are being presented with hypotheses here, not guarantees.
How the data is presented depends on the observer's biases and theoretical models.
We have a science of learning, but we don't have a science of teaching. And we need one. What if we evaluated our own practice, generated our own data, and developed our profession around our own findings?
What is our system of proof?
Evidence Generating Teaching
- Question
- Thing to Try
- Operational Definitions (How do you define your variable)
- Design for Context
- Pre-test/Measure
- Try it
- Measure impact
- Look for side effects.
- Keep, Toss, Adjust
It doesn't matter where the idea comes from. What matters is how it is vetted.
Teaching and learning is messy, but that's okay when studying teaching because that's part of the design. We can all identify the side effects of curriculum to bend it around the parts that don't work. We can redesign.
This doesn't have to add substantially to the workload of the teacher. In fact, it might make them happier because they know what works or what they need to work on instead of it being nebulous feelings.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Does this address a problem I actually have?
Is it better than what I am already doing?
Is it worth the amount of workload?
Do I have the resources to implement it?
What is the likelihood that it will work in my specific context?
Does it work with who I am? If not, can I adapt it without losing the benefit?
What do I want them to do or learn?
What am I doing now? Is it working? How do I know?
What am I going to try?
How will I implement it?
How will I measure it?
Did it work?
Was it worth it?
It is a dynamic system, so there is going to be a lot of change that results from any change you make.
My thought: There is a butterfly effect to how what we do changes things.
If you are a reflective practitioner, you are always a work in progress.
Session: Mental Models: How Cognitive Science Can Transform the Way You Learn and Teach - Jim Heal, EdLD
I saw Him Heal last year, and I liked him very much. He is part of Deans for Impact, always a good source of evidence-based information. His lovely British accent doesn't hurt either.
Mental Models
- The picture you build in your mind of what it means to do something well (whether making a ham sandwich or playing the piano or teaching or doing math)
- It involves paying attention to what you are doing and what is happening around you.
- Mental models are built in real-time and over time.
- You move from understanding that is low resolution to high resolution.
Non-Examples
- Non-examples set the boundary terms. How do we know what something is not?
- (My thought: Craig Barton podcast "Show me a fraction that people might mistake for 1/4)
- They help stop incorrect assumptions
- They highlight critical features
- Is this a . . .? Why or why not?
Prior Knowledge is Critical
- New knowledge is a puzzle piece that doesn't have anything to connect to if there is no relevant prior knowledge.
- We cannot engage students in learning without connecting to their prior knowledge.
- The prior knowledge we activate must be accurate and relevant to the new information.
- Pitfall 1: Entirely irrelevant prior knowledge
- Pitfall 2: Partially relevant prior knowledge (knowing just enough to be dangerous)
- Pitfall 3: Relevant prior knowledge that remains iNactivated
- It's like rock climbing. Prior knowledge is a foothold. new knowledge is a handhold.
- Where do you want students to go? Be precise.
- Where are students starting from? What can I reliably determine my students already know that is relevant to this concept?
- How do you plan to get from the start point to the endpoint?
Move from "Are they picking up what I'm putting down?" to "What do they already know that will enable them to pick up what I'm putting down?"
Session: The Science of Learning - John T. Almarode, PhD
If you don't know that I love John Almarode, you just aren't paying attention. I consider John a friend, and am always thrilled to attend his sessions. However, there may not be a ton of notes because he always makes us get up and go across the room so we are nowhere near our notes.
- Select accurately what goes in
- Make it stick
- Store it in a way they can get it out
Attention, emotion, acquisition, retrieval, cognitive load are principles, but what matters most are the practices we use to implement the principles.
Lesson Design (effect size of 0.70) - Doing the right things at the right time. Doing something that works well at one stage can be detrimental at another stage.
- Procedural Information - the information we lay out for students that helps them lay out what they are supposed to do. It helps reduce cognitive load for learning.
- Essential Information - necessary background and prior knowledge needed to navigate the task. If prior knowledge isn't there, students can't make it stick.
- The Task - What are you asking them to do? Give it meaning to what you want them to learn.
- Practice - Getting it out after you have stored it makes it store more permanently.
The only way to make teaching sustainable is to integrate findings with what we do.
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