As the title suggests, these notes are raw, unedited, and blended with my thoughts in addition to what the speakers are saying. If you read something you don't like, it may be my interpretation and not their meaning, so don't hold anything against them.
Keynote 1: Using the Science of Learning to Rebuild Students' Learning Power: A Pathway to Equitable Academic Outcomes by Zaretta Hammond
What is the relationship between equity and cognitive science?
She was a writing teacher: "Math gets you into college. Writing keeps you there." So, if you are a sound reader and writer, you are going to struggle in college. She wanted students to recognize their own errors in their writing. That led her to learning science. That eventually led her to write Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain.
Equity is reduing the predictability of who succeeds and who fails and cultivates the unigifts and talents of every student, regardless of race, color, or zip code.
In the age of AI, it is more important than it has ever been for student to learn how to learn and think on their own. Without those skills, they are at the mercy of the tech. They will not be ready to evaluate information.
Her next book, Cognitive Redlining, discusses how kids in lower income schools are disadvantaged by the trends in instructional practices. Cognitive science can reduce inequity by working with student brains. Rosenshine's principles of instruction are valid and wonderful, but they have kept us focused on teaching rather than learning.
"How do we leverage the science of learning to help students master the craftsmanship of learning?"
Design principles for craftsmanship
- Only the learner learns - students' brains must be active (this is not the same as engagement or fun; it's about their thinking with cognitive flexibility)
- Content must be processed and remembered in order to be retrieved. Retrieval practice is at the end of the information processing cycle. (SHE JUST QUOTED KEVIN WASHBURN!!)
- Learning requires cognitive friction - Productive struggle is real, but it has to be productive. You have to get them to the place where the struggle can be productive, not just set them off to flounder. This leads to learning for understanding rather than assignment completion. We should not over-scaffold, or they won't become independent. (If you picked up a baby every time they stumbled or lost their balance, they would never learn to walk.) If scaffolds are never removed, they are not scaffolds; they are crutches that lead to dependence on the teacher.
- Give clear directions - clear, umambiguous, sequenced, posted visibly
- Be seen looking - swivel, tiptoes, hands cupped around ears - exaggerated body motions to show that you are looking and listening
- Narrate the positive - state what is going right - "Kate, that's what I'm talking about." Acknowledge and praise the things you want to see continue.
- Correct with the least invasive intervention - nonverbal first, "All means all" reminders to the group, anonymous individual corrections ("Back of the room is almost there" or "Waiting on 2, waiting on 1. Thank you." Then, private individual correction (This is not your go to; it's after other things don't work and after you have everyone else working on something). If nothing else has worked, quick public individual correction (whispered name).
