Misc Flashcards
Pershan’s Pyramid of Teaching Greatness
Start with specifics, then make a generalization, then apply that to specifics again. (See: Koch Snowflake)
CTML Redundancy Principle
People learn better from graphics and narration when there isn’t printed text
Conceptual understanding is good for
Course correction, flexibility, why it works, which strategy, connect to prior knowledge
Three stages of learning
Encoding, consolidation, retrieval
Rosenshine’s principles
Review, small chunks, lots of questions, check responses, provide models, guide practice, check for understanding, high success rate, scaffolds, independent practice, review
Motivational handover is
Transitioning from temporary extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation
Three times to check for understanding
Check for understanding, check for retrieval, check for remembering
Hypothesis Model for observation
Make a prediction about engagement, learning, etc, then test it by asking a kid or looking for specific markers
Working memory vs attention
Lots of overlap, some places where they’re distinct. Attention is a gateway to working memory, working memory directs attention
Classic Cognitive Load Theory results
Times 3/minus 69, goal-free problems, worked examples
Principles to Actions practices
Goals, tasks, representations, discourse, questions, fluency from understanding, struggle, elicit evidence
Expertise reversal effect
Experts benefit from open-ended exploration and projects; novices benefit from more structured and goal-oriented learning activities
Pershan on multiplication
Memorization is important, strategies aren’t, rehearse before practicing, not too many at once, short-circuit strategies with time limits
Pershan on homework
More benefits for older students, frequency helps, length doesn’t, avoid stress, families want to know what’s happening
Pershan on addition
Memorization matters, strategies matter, being good at addition matters
Embedding Formative Assessment
Learning intentions, activities that elicit evidence, providing feedback, resources for one another, owning learning
Variation Theory
We notice things that change, not things that stay the same
Before a worked example
Notice and remember
Incremental rehearsal
Mix in to-be-learned facts with known facts at increasing intervals
Three types of load in CLT
Intrinsic load, extraneous load, germane load
Anxious kids
Don’t ask them what’s making them anxious
Conceptual or procedural first?
Depends on conceptual difficulty vs procedural difficulty
FLMOP
Front-load the means of participation
4 Ps
Positive, patient, private corrections, no power struggles
MTR components of management
Presence, proactive management, reactive management
Split Attention Effect
Students learn less when they have to pay attention to and integrate concepts from different places. Integrate text into visuals, etc.
Google Effect
A tendency to forget information that we know can be easily looked up in the future. There is some debate about the robustness of the result.
Knowing-doing gap
Knowing how to do something and putting it into regular practice are not the same thing
Forgetting vs acquisition (Rivera-Lares)
Forgetting is independent of strength of initial acquisition
David Ausubel on educational psychology
The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly
Project Follow Through
Largest educational RCT ever, over 300,000 students, clear winner was Direct Instruction
Barton’s sequence
Atoms, worked example, fluency practice, intelligent practice, method selection, mixed practice
Major explicit instruction paper
Hughes et al - five pillars, seven common attributes
Three benefits of SSDD questions
Retrieval practice, attention attenuation, discriminative constant
Ideas are
Lindy
Geary’s distinction
Biologically primary vs biologically secondary knowledge. Primary - folk psychology, folk physics, social cues, survival, etc, we learn from the environment. Secondary - need instruction or apprenticeship. We are more motivated to learn biologically primary knowledge.
Productive failure
Manu Kapur, swapping PS-I or I-PS, only effective above 5th grade, larger effect for older students, questions about methodology, effect seems to be about prerequisite knowledge
Two types of memory strength
Retrieval strength, storage strength
Tacit knowledge
Knowledge that we have, but we don’t know we have. Often physical but not always. Inflexible knowledge is not tacit, flexible knowledge is.
Curse of knowledge
Asymmetry: we think our explanations are better than we are. Example: tapping study, tappers thought 50% of listeners would get it right, actual only 3/120
Likely effect of AI via Wiliam
Novices get worse, experts get better
Three stages of learning
Cognitive, associative, automatic
Novice vs expert
Relies on long-term memory, has clear mental representations, automatic procedural knowledge, tacit knowledge, flexible knowledge
Fidgets (Graziano 2018)
Reduce activity in the short term but not long term, decrease attention
Dartmouth scar experiment
Participants thought they had a visible scar but they did not. Participants reported higher levels of discrimination.
Antifragile
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Bones, muscles, stress, etc.
Two major mathemantic effects
Minimally guided for novices, extended uni-directional lecturing
Nuthall on methods
Some teachers who think they use the same method teach very differently, some teachers who think they use different methods teach the same
Eight-Year Study
A study of progressive education in the 1930s, 29 model schools went very progressive. Students were about equal in college to control groups on average with some evidence of benefits. Study limited by the population of college-going students
Complex vs complicated
Complex is raising a kid, complicated is sending a man to the moon
Ark Soane questioning stages
Attention, rehearsal/retrieval, check for understanding
Is multi-tasking possible?
No. You’re task-switching.
The Mind is Flat
We tell ourselves stories to make sense of what’s happening. Suggestibility, precedents not principles, window of perception is narrow.
Kind vs wicked learning environments
Kind: stable rules, repetitive patterns, consistent feedback. Wicked: rules change, delayed or absent feedback
Hardest thing Dylan Wiliam ever did
Accept that the way he liked to teach math might be widening achievement gaps
Solow on lack of evidence
As if we were to discover that it is impossible to render an operating-room perfectly sterile and conclude that therefore one might as well do surgery in a sewer.
Adapting word problems to be about students’ interests
Some negative effects, some mixed effects. Links in Dan’s blog post. Don’t stress about it.
Examples of iatrogenesis in mental health
Bad Therapy loc 253 - police officers, burn victims, breast cancer patients
Radvansky et al re: Ebbinghaus
Ebbinghaus works for short time scales, linear is better for long time scales, less true for episodic memory
Whitehead on thinking
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them
Instrumental vs relational study
Pesek & Kirschner, finds relational only is better than instrumental + relational. Small sample, small effect, seems like instruction was just bad
Mechanism for memory of high-value associations (relevance)
Covet reactivation (Oudiette et al, 2013
Keys to trauma resilience
Confidence, optimism, challenge
Scottish education lesson
Went all in on skills over knowledge, failed miserably (Christodolou)
Finnish education lesson
Declining performance. One possibility: too much tech
How big is public ed?
13k districts, 90k schools, 3m teachers, 65m students
Authoritative vs authoritarian
Clear rules, expectations, and boundaries vs power and control
Large tutoring study in Australia (via Meyer)
Experimental group learned less
Levels of processing model
When we think in terms of meaning, memory is stronger. Hypothesized to be about linking with prior knowledge
Does wanting to remember something help to remember it?
No. Hyde and Jenkins, 1973
Two types of long-term memory
Explicit and implicit
Implicit memory is
Procedural memory (motor skills but also things like reading, other tacit-knowledge-based stuff), conditioning, maybe some other stuff
Explicit memory is
Semantic memory and episodic memory. Episodic seems stronger.
Examples of big technological hopes
As far back as radio, motion pictures, to Individually Prescribed Instruction in 1965 (sounds like contemporary personalization) to what we do today
Examples of motivation failures outside traditional education
MOOCs 15% completion, Duolingo 1%, online charter schools actively depress learning
Gall’s Law
All complex systems that work evolved from simpler systems that worked. If you want to build a complex system that works, build a simpler system first, and then improve it over time.
Learning in context
Learning is bound to contexts – performance is highest in the context where learning happened, and learning in multiple contexts improves performance – but the effects are small
Emotions and learning
Emotions improve memory, especially curiosity, but beware - mild emotions are helpful, but intense emotions can cause extraneous cognitive load
Types of goals in an academic context
Learning goals vs performance goals (approach vs avoidance)
Pygmalion effect
Self-fulfilling prophecy, importance of expectations. Mixed bag with replication, real effect seems small
Immediate vs delayed feedback
Immediate is better if the feedback focuses on the outcome, delayed is better if it focuses on processes or metacognition
Attention contagion
Attention and inattention are contagious, inattention more so (mixed reviews, Forrin 2024)
High stakes tests v achievement
In low-achievement systems they drive improvement, in high-achievement systems they are correlated with slight decline. Bergbauer, Hanushek
Abstract vs concrete examples (Kaminski et al)
Solution strategies less likely to transfer from concrete situations, concrete situations often introduce extraneous information
DEAR
Doesn’t work. It’s unclear if the kids who need it are even reading, much less learning. Willinghan/Shanahan
Not SMART goals…
FAST goals - frequently discussed, ambitious, specific, transparent
Rewards that don’t affect intrinsic motivation
Unexpected and task-noncontingent rewards (Deci et al)
