Thanksgiving 2020 - The Forgettable Conversation

As I thought about what to write for Thanksgiving this year, I looked back through some prior years and realized that I have written about the same five teachers pretty frequently.  One day, I was telling a story about my chemistry teacher and realized that I have never written about her on this blog.  

There’s a good reason that I haven’t.  She wasn’t one of “those teachers.”  I didn’t have particularly strong emotional attachments to her.  She didn’t open my eyes to the wonderful world of chemistry.  There are only about three things that I can specifically remember learning from her.  Nevertheless, the story I was telling my colleague made me realize that she is responsible for changing the trajectory of my life, and I am thankful.  Let me explain.

The high school I went to had a well thought out plan for registration in classes for the following year.  You were required to have a conversation with your current teacher about the next level course you wanted to take in their discipline, and they were required to sign off on your choice.  A student in 10th grade English could not simply decide they wanted to take AP Lang the next year or go to the office and enroll in honors.  The teacher had to sign your registration card (This was before there was an internet - I mean, there was one, but it wasn’t yet used by normal people).  If you or your parents wanted to override the teacher’s advice, there was a procedure for that, but it meant that you were not allowed to drop the class once having overridden the judgement of the professional.  This process made everyone take their choices and their decision to override advice very seriously.

Having finished Chemistry, I had several options about which science to take next.  I had decided not to take AP courses, saying I would wait until I was in college to be in college, thank you.  Back then, no one would have pressured anyone into an AP course, and colleges were not yet using them for admissions.  I wasn’t particularly interested in life sciences or earth science, which left me with two options, regular and honors physics.  Not knowing much about physics, it sounded a little scary (and the regular level teacher was incredibly attractive - I was a high school girl; cut me some slack), so I chose regular physics.  When I sat down with Mrs. Demby, she said, “No. You should take honors physics.”  I attempted to argue for a minute, but she said, “I will not sign your card unless you sign up for honors.”  I was an extremely cooperative teenager and believed strongly in the judgment of teachers (Yes, I was annoying to my classmates), so I complied and would never have dreamed of going through the override process.

When I got my schedule during the summer, my honors physics teacher was listed as Jim Barbara.  My brother had been in his class two years earlier.  He said, “You’ll like him.  He’s kind of crazy.”  

If you don’t know my brother, it would be hard for you to fathom what a ringing endorsement those two sentences were.  My brother did not like teachers.  They loved him, but it was rarely mutual.  In the dividing up of our genetic material, I got all of the enthusiasm for school, love for authority figures, and faith in the judgement of experts.  He had none of that, so teachers were mostly necessary annoyances to him.  If he said a teacher was good, that meant most students would find them amazing.  In fact, I’ve only ever heard him say that about one other teacher.

So, I started my senior year in honors physics with my brother’s endorsement of Mr. Barbara and Mrs Demby’s belief that I would do well.  About four days into the school year, I realized that I not only liked physics; I adored it.  I found out that math wasn’t just math.  It expressed relationships between aspects of the world.  Mr. Barbara was, in fact, a little crazy - in the best possible way.  I believe he would have stood on his head if he thought it would help us to learn better.  

I’ve written about Mr. Barbara many times before, so I don’t want to focus on his role in my life.  You can read previous posts for that.  What I realized recently was that I would not have been in Mr. Barbara’s class if Mrs. Demby had not been willing to say, “I won’t sign your registration form if you put regular.”  She didn’t want me to take the easy way out.  She may have even known that part of any girl’s motivation was having the good looking teacher.  Whatever she knew, her willingness to insist that her judgment was better than mine put me on a path I might not have otherwise been on.

I haven’t seen Mrs. Demby since I graduated.  I’m not even sure I saw her during my senior year because I didn’t have any classes on her floor.  I don’t even know if she is still alive, so I cannot ask if she remembers this.  If I had to guess, I would imagine that she has no memory of this conversation.  She had similar conversations with every student every year.  As a teacher, I don’t have specific memories of these conversations for more than a few days (except for the times when they override my advice and it goes poorly).  The conversation that changed the direction of my life was likely the most mundane conversation she had that week.

The other physics teacher at my school said that one of her inspirations for majoring in physics in college was a video her high school physics teacher showed.  While it is possible that teacher had chosen that video very carefully because he believed it to be powerful, it is also likely that he was just tired that day and chose to show a video rather than teach (come on, now, we’ve all done it).  Either way, it sparked her interest in the world of physics.  These stories make me think about the power we have as teachers.  What conversation do I not remember having with a student that has stuck with them for years?  What did I do or say in class that changed a student?  Was it a good change or a bad change?  I speak hundreds of thousands of words each day.  Each one of them has some degree of impact on my students.  Some are minimally impactful, carrying influence for only a few minutes.  Others may change the path of a students’ life in a way I will never know.  This is why the Bible gives a strong warning In James 3:1 that “not many should presume to be teachers because they will be judged more harshly.”  While it is referring to those who teach the Scripture, I believe the principle applies to all teaching because of the potential we have to build up or tear down.

While I thank God for Mrs. Demby’s insistence that I take a higher level class, I also pause to pray that God gives me wisdom as I have similar discussions with my own students. As far as I know, Mrs. Demby did not believe in God. It's possible that my friend's teacher didn't either. That'd didn't stop God from using them. Surely as people whose mission is to spiritually equip, challenge, and inspire students, he can use us in similar ways.


-

Learning and Brain Conference Fall 2019 - Sunday Notes

Keynote: The Secret Life of the Teen Brain
Sarah-Jayne Blackmore PhD

(British accents always make people sound smarter and more credible.)  

(She looks like Jaime Hartley.)

• Studied schizophrenia for seven years before changing her field of study to the adolescent brain because symptoms of schizophrenia start between 18-26.  
• As little as 20 years ago, we believed the brain stopped developing in childhood.
• Almost 75% of mental illnesses and disorders start in adolescence.  
• The onset of adolescence is well defined by hormonal changes in the body, but the end is a more social definition - when an individual establishes an independent life.
• Adolescence is the time when you figure out how you define yourself and the way you want the world to view you.  It’s why they become so self-focused during this time.
• It is when their brains are the most social.
• Societal expectations of adolescents vary wildly from culture to culture.
• One thing they have in common in all cultures is that “sensation seeking” and risk-taking peaks in the late teens. (The leading cause of death in people 10-24 years old is preventable accidents caused by risk-taking.)
• We can’t learn without taking some risks.
• The social component is strong.  They are much more likely to take risks when they are with their friends.  The risk of fatal car accidents increases exponentially with the number of passengers for drivers under 21.  The opposite is true for drivers over the age of 26.
• Young adolescents’ perception of risk is influenced more by the opinions of other teenagers.  For every other age group, their perception influenced more by the opinions of adults.
• For 10-14-year-old students (5th-9th grade), peer-led interventions are more effective than adult-led interventions.  (Study led by Pauck teal. PNAS 2015)
• Being excluded has an outsized impact on adolescents as compared to children and adults.  This impacts their decision making to avoid taking social risks by taking the real risks that their friends are taking.
• MRI studies have changed much of our understanding of how the brain works and develops.  Myelination happens into your 40s, not stopping at puberty as we once believed.
• There is a part of the brain (or four interacting parts) that activate when you think about what other people are thinking.  Even toddlers are able to understand other people’s minds and what they want to do.
• Grey matter volume decreases in adolescents, but it is not a mental decline.  It has to do with the development that increases efficiency is processing.
• Social deprivation has more damaging effects on behavior and brain development for adolescents than it does with children or adults.  They need social interaction to learn.  Time out is a terrible idea after the age of 9. 

Personal note:  Almost every study she cites was done by one her of Ph.D. or post-doc students.  She tells the sample size and summary of the methodology each time.  This is credibility.

Keynote Address: The Science of How We Learn 

John Gabrieli, PhD

(Studies the neural basis of memory, thought, and emotion.  I’m sorry the original speaker has the flu, but I am very interested in this topic, so I’m happy to hear him.  It’s a very technical speech.  It’s more about MRI research than practical application.)

• All babies born are participants in a large neurobiological study.  They are born with different genetics, environments, and brain structures.
• What happens in a child’s brain and mind (both cognitively and socio-emotionally) while learning? His studies were with 4-6 year-olds.
• Socio-economic status influences the thickness of the gray matter.  High cortical thickness of gray matter correlates with higher test scores.  Those who qualify for free/reduced lunch have a lower thickness of gray matter.  This has to do with nutrition as well as access to developmental materials and people you spend time with.
• More advantaged families tend to be the first to volunteer to participate in studies, so much of what we know is based on studies of high socio-economic students. We are now working harder to include those in less educationally supportive environments.
• Brain differences do NOT indicate fixed biological or cognitive differences.
• Early exposure to adult language (parents speaking to their children) correlates to higher IQ and higher academic success in school.  This is likely because hearing more words gives more advantages in language development.  Parents should talk to their children a lot when they are very young.  Back and forth talking (even when the child is babbling) increases development in the language and social parts of the brain in addition to increasing their vocabulary.
• Forward and backward speech was played for 4-6 year-olds in an F-MRI.  Kids who had had more conversational speech at home had more language areas activated by both kids of speech, no matter what their socio-economic status.  Kids of the same age who experience 1200 conversation turns per day have MUCH more activations than those who experienced 600 conversational turns, no matter what the socio-economic status.  This is because conversation grows white matter between the two parts of the brain that are most involved in language development.  
• They increased conversational turns in 4-6-year-olds and measured them 9 weeks apart.  In that short time, it increased their vocabulary.  Imagine if this were happening over months or years.  It also increased the activity in Broca’s area of the brain.
• It’s not just about the number of words.  It’s about the conversational turns.
• (Personal thought: It seems to me that the best way to have conversational turns is to ask a lot of open-ended questions.  That will ensure turns.)
• This is something ANYONE can do.

• Mindfulness:  Are more mindful students better learners?  The answer seems to be yes based on self-reported mindfulness surveys correlated with grades, test scores, attendance, and suspension rates.  It has about the same amount of impact as growth-mindset and grit.  
• (There are so many programs for mindfulness that it is hard to know which ones are good, so be careful.)
• The Amygdala (the part of the brain that determines what you fear) responds to fearful facial expressions with high activity in children who are at risk for depression (have at least one parent with a history of depression).
• Mindfulness training (Calmer Choice) and coding training (Scratch) were done every day for a class period fo 8 weeks.  Students filled out perceived stress scales before and after study.  The more stress they self-reported, the more response the amygdala had to fearful faces.  Mindfulness training resulted in less self-reported stress and made the amygdala less active in response to fearful faces.
• Helping kids to put the past and future in perspective and focus on the present moment will have an impact on their stress and their performance.

It seems like I didn't write much of his talk down.  It wasn't because he had less to say.  It was because he had so many pictures and brain scans that it would be harder to communicate as text.

Session 7 –  The Learning Brain, Lessons for Education - Sarah-Jayne Blackmore 

• An increase in awareness and a decrease in stigma is part of the reason for the increase in reporting of adolescent mental health issues, but it is also a reflection of a real problem.  We don’t know what the proportion is, but it involves both.
• The entire cortex changes in massive ways during adolescence.
• Gray matter decreases y about 1.5% each year (but not uniformly, back develops first, the frontal brain is last) between 10 and 25 and increases after 25 but not quite back to the level they had at age 10.
• Losing this grey matter happens at the same time that white matter increases (about 1% each year).  The loss of grey matter doesn’t mean loss of function.  It has to do with functional development.
• The prefrontal cortex is bigger in humans than other species.  It is also the latest to develop.  It involves judgment, short and long term planning, inhibitions of inappropriate actions, self-control and problem-solving.  It doesn’t become fully matured until the early to mid-twenties.  

My question:  Does asking kids to solve problems help develop the prefrontal cortex or are we unfairly asking them to do something they are neurologically unable to do?

• When you think, learn, or do anything, the axon grows in diameter and the myelin becomes thicker.  Both of those things make signals travel faster.  (This starts in the second trimester of pregnancy and continues through your late 30s.)  This process shows up in MRI scans as increases in white matter and decreases in grey matter.
• We also undergo synaptic pruning, a process in which energy and resources are conserved by taking away unassigned connections in the brain to reallocate the energy and resources to the connections that are actually used.  This is why the environment is so critical to brain development.
• A lot of these studies are done on animals because it requires depriving them of certain factors and studying the effect on the brain.  This would be unethical to do with humans.
• Using the Matrix Reasoning Task (non-verbal pattern games) shows that daily training for 20 days works better in older adolescents and adults.  This means learning reasoning improves with age.  We should not be accelerating kids in complex math classes.  The 14-15-year-old brain is not ready for it.
• Since there is no average person, it is important to look at individual differences.  
• ABCD study (NIH study on adolescent brain cognitive development)

Wrap Up Session – Putting it All Together - John T. Almarode

(I have no idea how these notes turned green, but I can't get them back to black.)

I actually got to talk to him before the session started.  

- We talked about Southern stuff.  

- He high fived me when I said I taught physics.  - He was even patient enough to take a picture with me and Talon.  

- He's the best.  I follow him on Twitter now.

Every technique must be adapted, depending on local context and timing.

1. We remember what we encode.

• Rote encoding (just knowledge)
• Elaborate encoding (explanations of meaning)
• Individuals need multiple ways of representing information
• Encourage students to FIND patterns, not repeat patterns.
• Emotional engagement (can be achieved with something as little as providing choice)

2. We remember what we retrieve,

• The place for a worksheet is retrieval practice.
• Spaced retrieval practice (Use professional judgment to decide when)
• Right when they are about to forget it is the best time to do retrieval practice.  A forgetting curve becomes a remembering curve if we space out retrieval practice.
• Make thinking visible:
• Ask students to observe and describe what they see.  
• Have them build examples.  
• Don’t let them just give an answer without a reason. 
• Have them make connections.  
• Promote asking questions.
• Note-taking should short and followed up with a question that requires them to retrieve from their notes.  Turn to a neighbor and make adjustments to your notes based on the answer to your question.

3. Learning takes time.

• Play $100000 Pyramid - Students have to describe what something is and get someone else to guess.
• Interleaving (distributed practice) is more effective than blocked practice, but it is also more uncomfortable.  This is a desirable difficulty.  The struggle is real and valuable, and helping them get through it is part of the instruction.  It causes them to discriminate between characteristics, which helps them understand it better and have it stick around a lot longer.

4. Give and receive feedback.

• None of this works without feedback.
• If a person slips and falls, you will help them up and then go around wherever they just walked.  You live every day on feedback.
• Where am I going?  Prompting is feedback for students.  “Remember, today we are doing . . .”
• How am I going?  Can you give me an example?  Can you show me how you . . .?”
• Where do I go next?  Give some guidance about what they can do to make it right and then bring it back to you.  Sometimes it means giving them the answer, but usually, it means pointing them in the direction where they can find the answer.

Learning and the Brain Conference Fall 2019 - Saturday

Keynote: Deeper Learning for EVERY Student: Neuroscience, Technology, and Universal Design for Learning - David H. Rose, EdD

(The introduction for this man included a couple of dozen awards and honors.  He’s a delightful speaker in a way that notes cannot reflect.  He was genuine and vulnerable.)

• Flunked the first five assessments he took at Harvard (which, according to him, is hard to do because they'll usually "give you a gentleman's C").  The Dean told him he belonged and that he was important to him and chose his admission.  He called the professor and investigated why he was flunking and helped him work with the professors to be successful. (This Dean was John U. Monroe, and I want to look him up.  He left his dean position at Harvard to teach freshman English in a low performing HBCU in the South.  Then he left there to do the same at an even lower-performing college.)
• Worked with BF Skinner in 1966. They underfed the pigeons (to 85% of their body weight) so they would care about the reward for the task.  The Skinner studies weren’t about learning; they were about control.  (Personal note:  We should stop basing educational practices on his findings.)  This was where he learned about motivation.  
• Research on people with perfect pitch has given us a roadmap for how to study the relationship between anatomy and ability.
• Context determines whether something is a “disability.”  If it is interfering with a goal, we call it a disability.  If it helps get you to a goal faster than others, we call it a gift.  If the goal was different, we might reverse them.
• Neuroanatomy matters
• Phylogeny matters
•  Genes matter
• Culture, language, instruction, timing, technology, and context also matter. (It’s not just the biology)

• These same issues can be applied to the autism spectrum.  The goals they are trying to achieve determine whether autism is an advantage or a disadvantage.  Autistic people have hyper-connected brains (Newton, Mozart, Einstein). It can even make them hyperlexic.  At the other end of the spectrum, people with hypo-connected brains (like Tim Berners Lee, creator of the World Wide Web) have trouble paying attention, perhaps even in the middle of their own sentences.
• Most of what we call symptoms (motor and verbal tics, etc.) are ways of managing the anxiety that comes from frustrated goals.
• Neural networks: There are three parts to the simplest ones.  Motor, sensory, and interneurons.  They determine reflexes.  In more complex systems, there are still three parts, recognition, strategic, and affective (setting the priorities)
• Provide multiple means of representation, multiple means of action (expression), and multiple means engagement to get the most out of the different kinds of brains.
• The old way is to teach from the bottom up (e.g. phonics, words, reading sentences for meaning).  We now know that there is a lot of reciprocal connecting going on, so the levels can be interleaved.
• Kids with reading disabilities are operating in a threat state when asked to read.  That keeps them from comprehending what they read.  ALL parts of the brain are involved in effective reading.  
• It is easy to present digital text in multiple formats so different brains can decode it better.  Different colors on different backgrounds appeal to some brains better than others.  Having them give the same answers in different ways.
• StayFocused - an app that allows you to shut down things for a predetermined amount of focus time.
• He has a mild cognitive impairment, which is causing him to move a bit on the spectrum.  His hearing is declining.  He has a hearing aid app that allows him to control his hearing aids (as granular as “only listen to the person I’m looking at”).  He has to take a number of medications, and there are digital pill dispensers that track what meds he has taken when.  It's not all downside.  He has more anxiety, but it allows him to enjoy music more because he’s more emotionally open.  He has a heart rate monitor that will tell him to sit down if it reads he is getting anxious because his heart rate is too high.

Keynote: The State of the Onion: Peeling Back 20 Years of the Science of Learning and Instruction - David B. Daniel, PhD

(This guy reminds me so much of Ben Inman.  He looks a little like him, but his mannerism and speech patterns are exactly like him, even the way he is dressed in jeans and sport coat.)

• He gives a history of the development of the Learning and the Brain Conferences, of which he was skeptical.  He said, “I can’t write a book because I don’t even believe myself.”
• Brain research was originally designed to only be available and useful to researchers.
• There were scientists.  There were communicators.  These were not the same people, so people left conferences with bad science because they had only been impacted by the great communicators, who didn’t know what they were talking about.
• Learning and the Brain was developed to get the researcher information to classroom practitioners in a way that could be used in the real world.
• How do we take all of these threads and start weaving them together to knit the sweater and then give feedback to make better yarn?
• Medicine had a problem with researchers continuing to research, which made it chemistry rather than medicine.  They finally figured out how to get it into the hands of doctors and patients.  The same was happening with education, so Mind, Brain, and Education (Now Learning and the Brain) started putting them together.  
• Don’t be evidence-based.  Be evidence-generating.
• Most research had nothing to do with the classroom in the research phase.  Now, some will go to a classroom to find problems and base their research on solving those problems.
• Classroom teachers would get a summarized headline of research findings and run with it rather than realizing it required adaptation and contextualization  We are getting better at this, but we still have to be careful.  Research is narrowed and limited.  Teachers must understand and communicate the nuances of the research to their situation.

Eras in Education:  

• Learning Styles - 20,000 books about it even though the science shows they DO NOT exist.  There are individual learning differences that vary at different times of day and how hydrated you are in the same person, but an individual does not have A learning style that they are born with.  They all benefit from rich teaching in multiple modalities based on the content you are teaching.
• Multiple Intelligences - 2,000 books available even though it is being misinterpreted and terribly misapplied.  Even the author hated the way it was being applied.
• Brain-Based Learning - 4,000 books, most of which take an old idea and lay a brain diagram on it to make it relevant again.  Learning is more complex than the “brain-based” manipulators made it out to be.
• Evidence-Based - 7,000 books, which got people talking about evidence but never addressed what was good evidence.  It came from the No Child Left Behind days and was based on things people said “should work,” not things that had been tried and did work.  
• Everything works, even if I have to talk about it in terms of mice, goats, rabbits, and starved pigeons.  
• (Our skin to skin contact practice in hospitals came from research on goats.  It was “evidence-based” but led to a lot of damage for adoptive mothers or those who needed to be put in the NICU.)  
• You can be informed without becoming a zealot about it.  
• Figure out what is proof.  Is it credible or just persuasive?
• Current Era - Science of Learning - Bring together experts from different fields that impact learning.  Be careful because most research assumes a motivated learner.  When good science is used incorrectly, it doesn't work. That’s not the fault of the science.  

• It’s easy to get proof of concept (plants in a greenhouse), but it’s hard to design it to be used by other people (apply that to everyone’s yard).  You are getting the parts, but putting them together is harder.  As we learn from Frankenstein, putting good parts together in the wrong ways can lead to a whole we were not anticipating.
• We have a Science of Learning, but we do not yet have a Science of Teaching.  This is where we need to go next

• We are translators - translating research into practice. 
• Don’t run away from complexity.  Honor it.
• Best practices don’t exist because there is no such thing as a practice that works for everyone all the time.  Again, don’t run away from the complexity of learning, students, and teaching.  It’s Moneyball (putting what we need where we need it), not a silver bullet.
• Like weather prediction, it is complex and changes as it is applied.  Weather changes the weather as it passes over.  Teaching will change your students which will change your teaching.  
• All of the sciences provide ingredients.  The teacher is the person who puts it together to make something nutritional and tasty for their students.

Session 3 - Educator’s Guide to Teaching Students How to Maximize Memory - Nina Dibner, MEd and Tricia Taylor, MEd

• Strategies for talking to students about memory are important.  If they do the techniques without understanding why they do them, they will be less effective.

• What is thinking?  Gave a list of numbers (remembered in short term).  Asked to add one to each digit (takes place in working memory).  It won’t become part of long term memory unless it is revisited, retrieved, and/or practiced.  
• Cognitive Load:  If you put too much into working memory at once, you cannot process it.  You cannot learn any more.
• What is memory?  It’s a little like trying to find something in a messy closet.  If you take the time to organize it, things are easier to find.  Every time you find something in the closet, you organize it a little.  Reviewing 3 times (spaced over some time), is ideal for less forgetting.

The Bad News:  Your thinking space is limited.  We remember things that we work hard at, NOT things we learn easily.  We remember things we have recalled spaced out over time.

How effective are the strategies we use?

Re-writing notes - LOW                       Re-writing without looking - HIGH

Highlighting - LOW                              Highlighting to make flashcards - MEDIUM

Re-reading notes - LOW                     Checking after getting an answer wrong - HIGH

Retrieval Practice - HIGHEST             Spaced practice - HIGHEST

A few things need to be right at the forefront of the mind (drilling basic facts matters) so that you aren’t taking up cognitive processing space while doing higher-level skills.

The Good News:  Pictures have power.  Pair your definitions or concepts with images.  Words give you information sequentially.  Pictures give it to you all at once.  Dual coding brings in input through the ear and the eye simultaneously.  (Be Careful:  Words on a page are processed by the same part of the brain as spoken words, so it does not count as visual input.)

Steps to use Dual Coding for new vocabulary

1. Question whether you have heard the word before or if it sounds like other words.
2. Show (or tell) the definition
3. Use the word in a student-created sentence.
4. Draw something that will help you remember
5. Explain to a neighbor
6. Label the image

• A tutor should not explain things to students.  More input isn’t helpful.  Students should explain to the tutor and the tutor stops and explains where they have misconceptions.  
• Keep pictures simple.  Keep words and images together.  Be selective about which and how many images you include.  
• Having a hard time focusing may just be a sign of a smaller working memory, so their cognitive load gets met more quickly. 
• Grouping information by similarities allows more of them to go into working memory because a chunk counts as one item.  (Mind maps and graphic organizers can help with this.  So can having them categorize.)

Oliver Caviglioli - Dual Coding

Session 4 - Engaging Brains:  Increased Student Engagement in the Classroom - John T. Almarode, PhD

(Can this man be my spirit animal?  Oh, wait! I don’t believe in that.  I just love him so much. He's hysterical, but it is just to make all of his deep thinking charming.)

How do we get them to engage them in what we want them to engage in and give them permission to check out when they need to? He said about 40% of what he says can be tuned out.  He tells students they just have to listen to figure out which 40% it is.

The progression of ALL learning goes through the following steps.  It will be at different paces for different students, but all people will go through all the steps for all learning.

• SOLO (Surface Learning)
• Prestructural Thinking
• Unistructural Thinking - Yes and No, Up and Down
• Multistructural Thinking
• Deep Learning
• Relational Thinking - How the pieces fit together.  If we try to do this before we have done the first three, there will be nothing but frustration.
• Abstract Thinking - Applying learning to similar situations.
• Transfer
• Extended Abstract Thinking - Application of learning to things unrelated to the classroom.

Surface learning doesn't mean easy or simple things.  It means the introduction, the foundational pieces that they will then put together.

• To engage them, we have to first figure out where they are at the moment.  Then, we can teach where they are plus one.
• You can’t think until you have a conceptual understanding of the parts of the problems.
• Depending on your students, you will likely spend some time in surface learning (strategic, purposeful, introductory information) and the bulk of your time in deep learning (connecting analyzing).  Transfer will happen quickly once deep learning has occurred.  

Task design - 8 Characteristics of an Engaging Task

1. Clear and Modeled Expectations - What does the target looks like?
2. Emotional Safety - Can they recover if they take a risk and make a mistake?
3. Personal Response - Can they bring their own perspective into it?
4. Sense of Audience - Is it valuable to someone other than the teacher?
5. Social Interaction - Can they tell someone else what they know?
6. Choice - Perception of choice (Choose from a menu that the teacher has designed)
7. Novelty - Just because something is good doesn’t mean you want to do it 180 days in a row.
8. Authentic - It doesn’t mean real world.  It means it COULD happen.  (Don’t build an imaginary creature and design an imaginary habitat.  Instead, have them be zookeepers that have to choose and exotic animal design a habitat at the zoo where you live that will let them live in your climate.)

You don’t have to have all 8 all the time.  If they had 3 or more, there was 87% sustained engagement (in a sample of 20000 classroom walkthroughs).  If there was only 2, there was only 17% sustained engagement.  If there was only 1 of these, you have 0% engagement.

How can I make tasks related to the periodic table involve at least three of these?

• Rigor is the interaction of complexity and difficulty.  
• We differentiate by altering difficulty, not complexity.

Example of differentiation:  

• Make a brochure for the school’s nature center which will be sent to schools who want to visit on field trips.  It should tell what they will learn, what they will see and do, and give examples about what they will learn about adaptations.  Individual writing prompt:  Create a list of 5-7 questions that people might ask to be added to the brochure.
• For some students (English language learners), we will give examples of brochures, a graphic organizer, video resources, and a template.
• For some (students with processing difficulty), I will give guiding research questions, a selection of reading materials, and examples of FAQ for something unrelated.
• For some, I will provide only the library and the internet.
• If you are concerned about the perception of fairness, mix the groups and assign the tasks based on your knowledge of student needs.  We can differentiate based on the materials they give them as resources.  
• Keep the goal the same for everyone.  Adapt the support.
• (Personal thought - You probably know who will need the extra support.  Instead of giving it them right away, hover near them and listen for when they get stuck.  Then, provide the support materials.  That would also make it less likely for others to think it wasn't fair.  They won't see you planning to treat people differently.  They will see you giving people what they need when they are already past that point, so they don't need it.)

None of this works without feedback from the student and our response.  

• Remind them of goals.  
• Give a couple of steps to reach it.  
• Show me where you are stuck, so we can talk about ways to get around it.  
• Feedback should not be “Gotcha.”  It should be “I’ve got you.”

Session 5 - Science of Motivation in Learning - Christopher S. Hulleman, PhD

• Learning is hard work.  It requires energy.  How do we get energized to do the work?
• Motivate Lab Mission - To improve people’s lives through rigorous motivation research.
• We want to help you do what you already do but do it better (not change it with new curriculum).
• Teachers are the best resource for each other to get ideas.
• Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation drop as kids get older.  
• Can you make your class something you don’t want to miss?
• If you can see your phone, you learn less.

Motivation = (Expectancy x Value) - Cost

• Value is estimated by their connection of the material to things they are interested in.
• Values tell us what is meaningful and worthwhile and what is not.
• People have different values, based on the culture of their home.
• Values are something we eventually must define internally.
• Top 4 Motives for Attending College (based on survey of 12571 Georgia college students)
• Prepare for career (#1, with all the rest tied for number 2 - in white students)
• Learn about interests
• Make family proud (#1 in minority groups and students in poverty)
• Provide a better life for family

Finding or Developing Passions

• The passion isn’t out there somewhere, waiting for you to discover it.  It is something you develop by getting better and diving into something.  
• You are pretty bad at most things when you first try it.  You can’t “find the passion” by deciding after only doing things once.

Utility Value Intervention 

(This works best with students who enter the class with low confidence or expectations.  It has little effect on those who already have high confidence or expectations.)

• Select a topic that is being covered in class.
• Write one paragraph that applies the topic to your life (or the life of someone you know)
• Repeat 3-5 times during the semester.
• Sending a briefing to parents about the relevance of the topics covered in your class had an even bigger impact on the students grades. (Probably because it was being supported at home in addition to school)
• Motivation is increased if it is:
• Personalized
• Specific
• Meaningful

Google "Build Connections Character Lab" for a template that allows students to connect their interests to their learning.

Session 6 - Instructional Strategies for Deeper, Unforgettable Teaching and Learning - Marcia L Tate

(I almost went to a different session.  I’m so glad I stayed at this one.  She is awesome!)

• Greet your students when they come in - no matter what age.
• Music sets the tone as they enter
• Start every class with something positive.

• The brain learns best when it is not in high stress. Low to moderate stress is good for the brain.
• Laughter has more impact on your health than nutrition or exercise.  It releases T-cells, which build your immunity.  Fake laughter has a similar impact, so if you don’t feel tickled, fake it.

• Teach once and review twice because the brain must hear something 3 times at minimum to remember it.
• People had brains before there were schools.  Its job was to keep you alive.

Warren Phillips - Sing Along Science

20 Strategies to create deep and unforgettable learning

1. Writing - The brain remembers what it writes, but you cannot take copious notes while listening to a lecture.  Give time to write before moving on.
2. Storytelling - The brain remembers stories, especially ones that contain emotion.
3. Mnemonic devices and hooks
4. Visuals - Dual coding
5. Movement - The human body was designed to move
6. Roleplaying
7. Visualization 
8. Metaphor, analogy, simile
9. Reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning
10. Music - Changes mood, content related music helps memory
11. Graphic Organizers
12. Drawing - Causes brains to engage in analogy
13. Humor - allows the brain to go from focused attention to diffuse attention
14. Discussion / Brainstorming - One student’s idea triggers another student’s idea
15. Games - Like humor, it let’s the brain go into diffuse mode
16. Project-based or Problem-based Learning
17. Field Trips
18. Manipulatives - There’s a strong connection between the hands and the brain
19. Technology - appropriately timed
20. Work-study - apprenticeships and internships

• Don’t try to work as many as possible into a lesson.  Choose the right strategy to match the lesson.  
• Use your professional judgment.
• Everyone needs purpose (a reason to get up in the morning) and laughter.

www.developingmindsinc.com

www.drmarciatate.com

Learning and The Brain Conference Fall 2019 - Friday

These are my personal notes, so be warned that they are written in a way that makes sense to me and not necessarily in a way that makes sense to you.  They will also include personal reactions, so there will be no effort to be unbiased.  As long as you are cool with all of that, enjoy reading.

Keynote: Learning How to Learn: Helping Students Succeed in School 
Barbara A. Oakley, PhD

• People are starved for fresh, solidly sourced information about how we learn. 
• I was never good math, and I didn't see much use for it, so I gave up on it.  I am now a full professor of engineering.  A student asked how did you change your brain after you gave up on it.
• She wanted to learn another language, so she joined the army.  She learned Russian and went to the South Pole, where she met her husband.  She literally went to the end of the earth to meet him.
• When we tell students to follow their passions, we are teaching them to be selfish.  Only do what feels good to you.  We should be telling them to broaden their passions to see what they can contribute to the world. 
• She decided to make math a "new adventure," so she took a remedial algebra course.
• Using metaphor is something all the great professors do because it works.  When a metaphor breaks down, throw it away and find a new one.  It doesn't have to be the same metaphor all the way through to work.  It gets students on board so much faster than not using one.
• The brain works in Focused mode and Diffuse mode.

The focused mode involves well-established patterns.  It's what we use when we are doing something we are good at, something we already know how to do.

When you are trying to solve a problem, you have trouble breaking out of those patterns.  You keep returning to the same patterns until you give up and go do something else.  Then, your brain switches to diffuse mode.

This is why you often have the "click" when you are falling asleep or taking a shower.  It allows your brain to leave the patterns behind and get new perspective.

When you return to it, the thing is easier because the new knowledge has made a new pattern, so you are now in focused mode with the new skill.

Classroom note:  Little active breaks will allow students to switch from Focused to Diffuse mode.  (Think Pair Share and the like will allow this to happen.)

Procrastination:  We procrastinate because thinking about something we don't like activates the part of the brain that processes pain.  When we do something else, we feel better.  When we do this too many times, we train the brain to keep doing it and de-rail our potential for success.

Use the Pomodoro Technique for studying. - Turn off all distractions.  Set a timer for 25 minutes.  Focus.  When your brain starts telling you that it can't do 25 minutes, let that thought go by and return to focus.  Anyone CAN do 25 minutes.  Rest for 5 minutes (but not with your phone because the new input will override what you have just learned).  The rest a critical time for your brain to deal with what you took in.  The ideal is 3 rounds of focus and rest.

• You have 86 billion neurons in your brain.  They each have dendrites (like legs) covered with little spines (like toes), and they like to reach out and tickle the toes of other neurons.

• Everything you learn creates a new set of links.  Practicing makes the links stronger.  Practicing in different contexts connects those connected neurons with other sets of connected neurons.
• Techniques to help with these connections
• Re-read
• Highlight
• Retrieval Practice
• Concept mapping
• Of the four, retrieval practice is the MOST effective, and not by a little.  It is far more effective.  Input creates very weak links.  Retrieval practice is what allows the neurons to strengthen their connections.  Each time, the connection becomes even stronger.  
• Using metaphor is so powerful because it connects one set of connections (which are already established) to the neurons that are now connecting because of what you are trying to teach.
• When you sleep, your brain will strengthen some connections and clear out others.  If the connection is weak, it will get rid of it.  If it is already strong, sleep will grow dendrites.
• Spacing out the learning also matters.

• Not spacing out learning is like not allowing mortar to dry before adding another layer of bricks.  If you did that, you would not have a strong wall.
• The difference between Working Memory and Long Term Memory
• Working memory is what you can hold in your mind while you are doing something. (You can hold about four pieces of information in it.)
• Long term memory includes things you remember for a long time, like your friends' names and where things are in your house and, hopefully, stuff you learn in school.  It's like a locker room, where each locker is filled with sets of linked neurons.

• Too much cognitive load keeps you from making links.  New information should be taken in during a time of light cognitive load.  Then, studying will allow those links to be connected together, so when they get to a test, the links are already made.
• An expert is someone with lots of sets of interconnected links.

• People with poor memories are often very creative because when some information falls out, it leaves space for other things to come in.
• Slow learners are often making more connections in the neurons than those who have the answer quickly because they are experiencing more during the time of learning.  They can achieve more if they are
• Persistent
• Flexible (Those who have been smart and successful from an early age don't know how to change their minds when proven wrong.)

Keynote Address: Teaching for Deeper Learning: Implications of Science of Learning and Development  - Linda Darling-Hammond, EdD

• Journal of Applied Developmental Science has put out three works on the implications of brain research on education.
• Teachers have been figuring it out through trial and error.  Understanding brain research will allow us to design schools and curricula with more confidence.
• Only about 10% of genetic material ever gets expressed.  It's about what gets nurtured.
• At the neurological level, there are dozens of environmental factors and experiences that influence our brain's malleability, and interactivity.  Emotions can have physical consequences that can trigger or block learning, meaning emotion and learning CANNOT be separated.
• Experiences and relationships activate neural pathways.
• Learning is social.
• Authentic tasks motivate effort.
• Feedback shapes learning.
• Language generates thinking as well as representing it.
• Adult to child relationships matter in learning.  Creating positive attachment, having positive regard, and stress-buffering supports sense-making.
• Brain development is fostered by experiences.  Brains need social interaction, rich environments, green space, physical activity (you have better ideas when you are moving), cognitive rest, and emotional and cultural well-being.
• Brain development is impaired by toxic stress (some stress is good, too much or the wrong kind is fatal), anxiety, loneliness, sleep disruption, dietary deficiencies, toxins, and social identity threats.
• School can be the place where these are reduced.  Our response matters.  We can counteract the negative environmental impacts if we are intentional about it.
• We can affirm their value, commit to equal access to curriculum and tools for all students (eliminate tracking), build relationships, and implement social-emotional learning.
• Cortisol vs. Oxytocin
• Cortisol is released during stress and interferes with dendrite connections.
• Oxytocin is released by physical touch (appropriate hugging is vital) and wipes away cortisol.
• Cognitive flexibility is enhanced by the teaching of music, art, and world languages.
• In Alzheimers' research, those who are multilingual average a 5-year delay in symptoms.
• Finland is now considered the model for education because they dumped their previous system which was inherited from their Soviet connections.  It had involved testing, diagnosis of ability, and tracking.  They changed teacher training to emphasize teaching all types of learners with performance-based assessments.  They have no standardized tests, and all test questions are open-ended.  They have music every day, go outside every hour, create cultural clubs, and create procedures based on brain research.
• The dilemma:  The skills that are easiest to teach and test are the easiest to digitize and automate.  We must teach how to connections between skills and knowledge.
• Google found that test scores and transcripts had no correlation to the success or performance of their employees.  Learning ability was the predictor of success.  
• Can we transfer and apply knowledge, evaluate our own learning, plan and implement, take initiative, find and use resources?

No Child Left Behind was well-intentioned, but it implemented the exact opposite of what the research shows is good for brain development.  We lost ground for that generation.

• Kids do better the fewer times they transfer from one school to another.  This means K-12 schools are ahead and kids having the same teacher for more than one year have an advantage.  (It also means Wake County's constant reassignment is toxic to the brain development of our students.)
• We need to give them the right amount of challenge.  We can achieve the standards without overwhelming them with HOW we do it.
• Integrate both inquiry and direct instruction.  Support metacognition and growth mindset with reflection and feedback.
• Inquiry has to be framed well.  It can't be random exploration.
• Anchor charts reduce cognitive load, so there is space for higher-level thinking.
• Assessment for Learning:  Welcomes errors and allows for revision, supports growth mindset, incorporates peer feedback by having students use the rubric to grade themselves or each other, and are not used for ranking.
• Performance assessment (Labs, STEM, problem-based projects, Manor Faire) - Students have real audiences for their work, get feedback when they are most ready to receive it, and remember what they learned because it is connected to an experience.  It makes assessment a motivator for learning instead of a demotivator.
• What you think about what you can learn and what you are able to do has a massive impact on motivation.
• Explicitly teach behavior skills.  Encourage students to take responsibility.  Provide opportunities to make amends and contribute to their community.
• Provide opportunities to work away at something with independence and perseverance.

(Note:  The above set of notes is not close to complete.  She gave what I am certain is 3 days of information is just over an hour, so I could not keep up with the note-taking.)

Session 1 –  Digging Deeper Into the Science of Learning Barbara A. Oakley, PhD

(I chose this session before I heard Barbara Oakley earlier today, but after seeing her this morning, I would have changed to this session if I hadn't already chosen it.  She is spectacular.)

• Gave two examples of meta-analysis that came to opposite conclusions about direct instruction v. inquiry learning.  How did that happen?
• Direct instruction is not the same thing as lecturing.
• Do some lecturing.  Do some activities.  What's the right ratio?  NOBODY KNOWS
• The hippocampus is pretty useful because a lot of the information we try to put into long term memory goes through the hippocampus into the neocortex.  The hippocampus can't hold much at once, but it thinks quickly.  The neocortex can hold a lot, but it processes slowly.  When it gets a break, the hippocampus repeats information, so the neocortex can pick up on it.
• While you are talking, you are filling up the hippocampus and very little is getting to the neocortex.  

• When you pause, the hippocampus starts communicating to the neocortex.  Give short breaks during instruction.  As little as 30s can be effective.

• Cooperative exercises including retrieval practice and teaching others
• Humor gives the hippocampus a break.

• WE ARE DOING A DISSERVICE TO OUR STUDENTS IF WE DON'T GIVE THEM A SCAFFOLD OF FACTS IN THEIR BRAIN.  (Stop saying you can just look it up. You can't do higher-level thinking, like comparing the French and Russian Revolutions, if you don't have a base knowledge of the facts in your brain.)
• When you learn facts, each one goes through the trisynaptic pathway into the long term memory.  Each one also goes through the monosynaptic pathway, which helps you understand the relationship between the facts.  If you don't get facts, you don't get an understanding of the patterns and relationships.  You will cripple a child's ability to do higher-level thinking if you don't ask them to memorize!!!
• Focus ability in older adults can be enhanced with action-style video games.  If you aren't sure when someone will pop out from behind a tree and try to kill you, your brain will maintain its focus.  It improves it more than when they were young.
• Brain HQ actually is research-proven game-based brain training.  It is helpful but also tiring.  Action video games can do the same thing without exhaustion.
• Spending too much time in focus mode can suppress the diffuse mode.
• The average working memory is 4 items, but some students have less (they should not listen to music while studying) while others have more (and for them, music has a neutral impact).  This is why we turn the music off when we are driving in an unfamiliar environment.  The working memory may not be able to process the music while trying to focus.
• 97.5% of students should not multi-task, but 2.5% of the population are supertaskers (fighter pilots, world-class chefs, emergency room doctors).  Almost everyone believes they are the exception.
• We have made STEM so fun in middle and high school that kids drop out of math and science majors after their first calculus course (She calls it the math and science death march).
• Different types of knowledge, from that which is easy to pick up without explicit instruction to the hard stuff that the brain is not naturally designed to do (like reading, writing, and math).  
• The hard stuff can't always be fun because the brain has to repurpose some of those neural circuits.
• It is important to scaffold our methods as well as our instruction.  They can't go from all fun in science and math all the way through elementary, middle, and high school and then suddenly find out that it's hard in college.  
• John Hattie has ranked 252 factors that influence learning achievement.  Those with a .4 or more effect size are best.
• Growth mindset alone is not effective.  Its efficacy is at 0.08.  However, its efficacy can be much higher if it is coupled with practical suggestions for how to improve.  Don't use growth mindset wrong.
• Social psychology has a replicability crisis because the human mind is difficult to study in scientifically sound ways and has difficult to define results.  When a study is done, there is only a 1/3 chance that it is true.
• The harder the material is, the more direct instruction you need.  
• For those with a lower capacity of working memory,  student-centered inquiry is not helpful.  It's great for those with high working memory.  Use your judgment to know the right balance.  Don't assume one thing will always work.

When we neared the end, she asked if we wanted to ask questions or for her to give us a grab track of research supported practices.  We unanimously voted on grab bag.

Grab Bag of Practices

• Tell students to do the hardest questions first so you have not wasted your focus energy on the easy questions before you get to the hard questions.  When they get stuck, go to another easier problem.  This allows the brain to go into diffuse mode on the hard problem. (This may be the best piece of advice I've ever heard.)
• When a student gets scared, the response is fight, flight, or freeze.  Those in the "freeze" mode may have stopped breathing (or are breathing very shallowly).  During a test, students may not be getting enough oxygen.  Practice diaphragm deep breathing at the beginning of a test (or just before public speaking).
• Stress and excitement have the same physical symptoms.  Change your verbiage from "this test has me stressed" to "I'm excited to do my best."
• Sleep washes metabolic toxins out of your neurons.  They build up during the day and give you mental fatigue.  Tell your students why they need good sleep.
• Exercise make your dendrites grow.  Julius Yego (of Kenya) learned to be a javelin thrower from YouTube because there were no coaches in Kenya.  Onions, cabbages, nuts, and dark chocolate make dendrites grow as well. 
• Interleaving has exponential benefits.  Teach multiple concepts at once so the brain can figure out the difference between them.  Interleaved formative assessments are far more effective for the memory than any other tool.
• Practice must be deliberate.

Session 2 – How Knowledge of Learning Sciences Has Influenced Teacher Practice & Efficacy Beliefs Mariale M. Hardiman, EdD

(I was hoping to attend a session on Neuromyths, but that presenter was not able to get here.  This was my backup session.)

• Neuroeducation - Bridging learning sciences and education
• How research that comes from brain science impacts classroom practice. 
• In Search of Memory by Eric Kandel (how learning changes your brain)
• Stop pursuing the flavor of the month in education.  Focus on how the brain learns.
• Braintargetedteaching.org
• Emotional Climate
• Physical Environment
• Big Picture and Patterning, Part vs. Whole, Concept maps
• Knowledge Mastery
• Application
• Evaluation
• Arts Integration Improves Long Term Retention because it involves all of the memory effects.
• Rehearsal
• Elaboration
• Generation
• Enactment
• Production
• Effort
• Arousal
• Picture superiority
• The impact of arts integration is even more profound with traditionally low performing kids and kids in poverty.
• You can't be creative about something you don't know.  "Fresh solutions result from disassembling and reassembling the building blocks in an infinite number of ways, but that means you must really know the blocks."
• Divergent thinking can be encouraged using open-ended questions, unfinished stories, problems to solve that don't have one right answer.

• Anything above D=0.4 is considered effective.  The low performance of growth mindset may come from it being applied in poor ways.  It's all well and good to say, "You aren't good at math yet," but if you don't provide concrete steps for improvement, you are not helping them grow.  If you just congratulate them for trying, you are going back to the self-esteem nonsense that Carol Dweck was speaking against.
• Frequent quizzing (retrieval practice) is more effective than studying.
• Teacher Efficacy is the Most Effective Factor (D = 1.9).  Efficacy involves two things.
• I believe all children can learn from good teaching.
• I believe I have the skills to teach.
• "If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito." - African Proverb