This is Important:

Before we get started, could you please… Use the Four Questions worksheet provided to prepare a short

memorable

introduction of yourself with answers to the four questions listed

MetaLearning: Facilitating Student Success in the 21

st

Century

St. Cloud State University ~ 2013 Stephen Carroll, PhD

Thoughts & feelings that arise

Notes You Can Use

Date, Course, Page # Notes on what’s being presented This makes sense!

Q: How does this connect with … ?

Summary: Summary Reflections: ASAP –

before sleeping What’s worth reviewing & remembering?

For Best Results: Review Summary within 24 hours

Framing our Problem: A Vision of Students Today

A Vision of Students Today

The Problem:

Students’ existing ways of learning are based on 19 th century paradigms and technologies that are ill suited to our present world They know very little about how to learn in ways that will create success in college and they do “know” is wrong, leading to inefficient and ineffective learning Reduced performance caused by the inaptness of their learning habits creates motivation and engagement problems that further reduce their academic performance—and learning Success in the 21 st century demands rapid adaptation (learning) Average number of jobs a person will hold skyrocketing Number of years spent per job is plummeting

A Big Problem: Passive Learning Current Practice: 10-20% EXCELL S

t1

S

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20-50% complete college but with a MEDIOCRE EDUCATION 20-70% FAIL to complete college

One Solution: Teach MetaLearning

Teach students

how to learn

for the 21 st century Teach them to learn for themselves Teach them all the learning skills we want them to have Metalearning is based on current research in cognitive science, neurobiology and learning theory Seven years worth of data and experience show that it makes a significant difference in students’ learning It’s especially effective in making students more self motivated and more self-directed learners

One Solution: Teach MetaLearning S

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Teacher/Coach S

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S

t1

Teacher/Coach S

t2 •

?

Meta-Learner:

S

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Teacher/Coach S

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?

•

Meta-Learner: One Who Takes Charge of their… Own Learning/ Development Own Knowing/Beliefs Own Thinking Own Performance Own Caring/Values

One Solution: Teach MetaLearning If we can help students Learn how to learn: 30-60% EXCELL 10-20% complete college but with a MEDIOCRE EDUCATION S

t1

Teacher/Coach 10-20% FAIL to complete college S

t2

MetaLearning’s Promise

This is no panacea; it will be difficult at first. It will take you and your students a while to unlearn old habits and to develop new ones. (It takes ~21 days to break in a new habit, so you need to supervise their development for a month or two.) The payoff is that your students will learn more, learn faster and retain what they learn longer—thus,

your performance as faculty will increase as well

. Start with one day—the first day of class, perhaps.

Objectives for Today

Have you experience metalearning Motivate you to try metalearning techniques with your students Provide you with theories, resources, tools and inspiration to help you develop your own metalearning lessons Provide tools so you can prove it works

MetaLearning: 6 Steps to Changing Learning Habits

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Help students discover self-motivations for learning Align their definitions of learning with ours (redefine learning) Teach students how learning works and derive principles they can use to guide themselves Derive strategies and tactics from principles (application) Practice often to develop effective learning habits Maintain those habits

Step 1: Priming Students for Self-Directed Learning

Start with the foundation and the goal

Choice Point: Do you want to watch videos and discuss?

Or Do the activity yourselves?

Part 1: Building Self-Motivated Learners

Self-Directed Learning Videos

Videos online through metalearninghabits.org learninghabits.wordpress.com

and on YouTube Youtube.com/user/learninghabits/videos http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwu8QqhrOP8

Fostering Self-Directed Learning

Key Take-Aways: Get students to recognize that they have goals of their own and that these goals will require them to change who they are and how they think Get students to commit publically to their own learning goals for your course so that these goals can be used to guide and regulate classroom activities and behavior Show students how their current learning habits prevent them from attaining their goals

Fostering Self-Directed Learning

Places responsibility for learning on the student Connects students’ learning to their own goals Helps them develop a self-directed and self sustaining metalearning practice Herbert Simon: “Learning takes place in the mind of the student and nowhere else, and the effectiveness of teachers lies in what they can induce students to do. -”What we Know about Learning, Journal of Engineering Education

Step 2 Aligning Definitions of Learning

What is learning? What does it mean to learn something? How can you tell when you’ve learned something? Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Understanding

Knowing something Understanding something Being able to teach something Getting it Eureka! Making a connection to something new Insight Discovery Enlightenment Knowing that (vs. knowing how) Memorizing Being able to recall Remembering something Understanding the principles Seeing the logic Being able to extrapolate Seeing how it works Epiphany Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Skills

Being able to do something Knowing how Facility Doing it Mastering a procedure or process Increasing level of proficiency Following correct procedures Being able to use what I know Being able to apply something in a new situation Acquiring the knack of something Gains in craftsmanship Getting better at something Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Affective

Learning to like something Getting engaged Being inspired Being motivated Finding joy Wanting to do more Wanting to practice Looking for chances to use what I know Learning to love something Learning to see the beauty or complexity or artistry in something Learning to appreciate something Gaining confidence Becoming more interested in something Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Habits

Being able to do something without paying a lot of attention Using what I know as a matter of course Doing things automatically Knowing when to use what I've learned Integrating what I know into my life Ability to improvise based on what I already know Part 2: Defining Learning

Learning is Forming New Habits

Fueled by attitudes and desires (emotion) Supported by skills and understanding Part 2: Defining Learning

Therefore Teaching ≠

We want to move away from the learning-as acquisition-of-facts and teaching-as-Sherwin Williams model toward defining learning as durable habit formation and teaching as developing and mentoring self-directed learners .

Defining Learning

How we define learning affects how we teach and shapes how students learn in our classes far more than what we say about our goals. Part 2: Defining Learning

Try this experiment

Rank your course learning objectives using Bloom’s taxonomy.

Try this experiment

Then ask your students to use a list of verbs correlated with that taxonomy to evaluate where your teaching focuses.

Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Lower-Order Cognitive Tasks

Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Higher-Order Cognitive Tasks

A Cross-lateral Neurobic

Cross-lateral Activity

Cross-lateral activity opens up the corpus callosum Gets more of your brain involved Balances the load Aids memory Makes learning easier

Write your summaries

3-5 sentences in 3 minutes

The ART of Learning

Acquire new material Transfer Acquire Retain new material Retain Transfer use of new material

The ART of Learning.

The A in ART is for Acquisition Mnemonic: Actively Build Connections Part 3: How Learning Works

Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning IS making connections:

Neurons that fire together wire together 2 pyramidal neurons forming a synapse Part 3: How Learning Works

Ideas are patterns of neural firing Part 3: How Learning Works

More complex ideas are more complex patterns—made up of smaller patterns Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning IS Making Connections

Learning has the physical and metaphorical structure of an analogy. Therefore we must teach analogically, not

de novo.

“Nothing we learn can stand in isolation; we can sustain new learning only to the degree we can relate it to what we already know.” (Sci Am Mind, July 2010.)

Learning Changes the Brain A Basic Brain —not very fold-ey Part 3: How Learning Works

A Better Brain —more fold-ey Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning Increases Brain Plasticity

Therefore we need our students to regularly experience sustained, challenging learning tasks The more they learn, the better learners they will become Analogy; Like working a muscle or learning a foreign language

Learning Hard Stuff Grows Your Brain New Brain Cells Forming Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning Builds and Maintains Healthy Neurons Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning works best when it is difficult

Therefore, we must teach our students to seek challenge Always prefer the difficult over the routine or the easy Optimal learning occurs in “flow state”—midway between boredom and anxiety Analogy: crosswords and sudokus

Difficulty Increases Engagement

Based on

Flow

, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2002)

Some Mantras for Learning

Fat sausages Foldey lobes Hairy neurons Fat, Foldey, and Hairy Part 3: How Learning Works

The ART of Learning

• • • • Habits of Acquisition Note-Taking Reading strategies Paying attention/active learning Not multitasking (microbreaks) Part 3: How Learning Works

Counting Vowels?

The ART of Learning

R is RETAIN (Acronym)  REview,    Test, Analyze, INtegrate.

Part 3: How Learning Works

Retention is controlled by Repetition and Chemistry

Part 3: How Learning Works

Review/Repetition

The importance of review within certain windows How to make review happen in the classroom Daily review at start of class Daily summaries at end of class Review summaries offline on a regular basis Repeated review is necessary for habit formation and transfer Classroom mantras

Key Influences on Brain Chemistry

 Emotions  How much and what kind of sleep you’re getting  How much and what kind of exercise you’re getting  Hydration and nutrition (including caffeine and alcohol)  Physical cycles and rhythms Part 3: How Learning Works

Managing Emotions: Your Amygdalas

Amygdalas Part 3: How Learning Works

Fear response

Part 3: How Learning Works

Key Factors Shaping Retention

Strong emotion Repetition and reinforcement Sleep (then review) Exercise Hydration and nutrition Richness of the learning and studying environments Part 3: How Learning Works

The ART of Learning

T is for Transfer (Bus transfer, job transfer) Transfer is taking what you know and applying it to what you don’t know Part 3: How Learning Works

Teaching for Transfer

Transfer is about pattern recognition and Changing set It is the most difficult part of learning … and the least practiced!

Students need to practice as much as possible Part 3: How Learning Works

Principles derived from neurobiology:

1) Learning ONLY works when it is active and conscious.

2) Learning actively connects new ideas to old information. 3) Learning IS making connections/patterns.

4) Involving multiple senses enhances learning Part 3: How Learning Works

Principles derived from neurobiology:

5) 6) Learning works best if it requires real effort (if it is difficult). Learning depends on managing emotions well. Positive emotions (especially self-motivation) accelerate learning by reducing resistance (electrically and metaphorically). Negative emotions (esp. fear and stress) block learning and recall.

Part 3: How Learning Works

Principles derived from neurobiology:

7) 8) Varying your modes of learning (rich learning environment) increases activity, helps reinforce neural pathway development and moves what was learned to long-term memory.

Active repetition is the best way to create durable learning. (Moving things from short-term to long term memory

requires

reinforcement within 24 hours.) Part 3: How Learning Works

Write your summaries

3-5 sentences in 4 minutes

Break Time!

Neurobic: While on your break, use only your non-dominant hand.

Practice in Teams

Make a team of 4-5 people Pick one of the principles we just derived Make a plan for teaching this to your students Make a plan to change one aspect of your teaching practice to reflect this principle.

Step 4: Strategies and Tactics

Manage the learning environment and emotions to maximize your learning. Reduce fear and stress Make students’ studying as active as possible (but don’t multi-task—that reduces performance) Build bridges between what they’re learning and what they know and love. Build in rewards and positive feedback loops: celebrate successes (even small ones).

Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics

Exercise regularly—  Moving blood and oxygen to your brain helps it work more effectively. (Making new brain cells is a huge metabolic load on the body.)  The chemicals your body makes when you exercise help you make connections more easily.

 And taking your mind off of the mental work you’re doing helps you solve the problems you’re working on. (Eureka!) Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics

Make sure you are properly hydrated and nourished.     If what you eat comes through a car window or if the label lists ingredients with numbers, it isn’t food.

Hard mental work is equally taxing to the body as hard physical work—you have to nourish it to sustain peak performance.

Water is key. Even a modest amount of dehydration decreases your reasoning ability by 20%. (Don’t overdo it—over-hydration also adversely affects cognition.) Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics

Pay attention to your daily cycles and rhythms— you’re more awake and better able to learn at certain times than at others. Arrange your day so that you study during these times.   Attention Cycle: Take breaks every 20 minutes so that you remain active and don’t go on autopilot. Do something physical and bilateral on your break. Study Cycle: Take a major break every 2 hours. Spend ten minutes on a different kind of task. Make sure you get up and move around. (Put an alarm on your phone to help you remember.) Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics

Get enough sleep—    New research shows that mental performance drops off quite sharply if you don’t get

at least

reasoning problems, persistence, etc. six hours of sleep per night regularly. You cannot learn some things without this amount of sleep: long-chain Teenagers need 9-10 hours of sleep for optimum brain performance.

You’ll perform better on the test if you are well-rested than if you have stayed up most of the night reviewing the material one more time.

Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics

Sleep Cycle: 90 minutes.  Minimum of 6 hours for optimum performance. (9-10 hours for teenagers.)  If you must do with less, you want to wake in the REM period at the end of the cycle, not a deep part of the cycle. The less sleep you get, the more important it is when you wake up.

Part 4: Application

Sleep cycles: ~ 90 minutes/cycle

If you wake up in one of these peaks, you’ll feel rested and perform well. REM 1 2 3 7 Chart shows 7 hours of sleep If you wake up in these troughs, you’ll be tired and groggy all day. You’ll perform significantly less well on cognitive tasks. Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics

Sleep Cycles Plot your cycle so that you know how it works.

Your period of maximum fatigue will fall 12 hours after the deepest period of sleep. Use the information-sorting function of sleep to help you solve problems. Focus on the problem you want to solve repeatedly as you fall asleep. Review in the morning. (Keep paper by the bed.) Lucid dreaming can also help you study.

Adjust bedtime to the type of test you’re taking.

Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics

Information Transfer Cycle Summarize materials before you sleep to mark them as important.

Review materials within 24 hours to move to long-term memory. Part 4: Application

Step 5: Practice Note-taking Reading strategies Finding analogies Seeking difficulty Classroom mantras Part 5: Practice

Stages of Change Model

based on the Transtheoretical Model developed by James O. Prochaska Part 6: Maintain

Stages of Change Model

based on the Transtheoretical Model developed by James O. Prochaska

Evidence that MetaLearning Works 1. Dean’s List (Top 10% of each class) • • Juniors: ~40% of my students make this list Seniors: ~45% 2. Elected to honor societies: More than 3 times the rate of the general population.

3. Campus Leadership Positions: Significantly

over-represented

peer tutoring, EMT group, editor of Santa Clara Review, etc.

in The quality of the work my students do now is better in every way than the work my students did before I started using these methods.

More Evidence

• • • • A recently completed study of 6 years’ worth of data showed correlations between MetaLearning and increased learning proficiency in relation to 4 aspects of the course: Instructional approach Integration of class topics, activities, readings and assignments Course activities which required them to read with a critical point of view that displayed depth of thought and is mindful of the rhetorical situation Course activities which required them to analyze the rhetorical opportunities and constraints offered by different modes of presentation

Learning Assessment for Courses

The Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) Free Tools at www.salgsite.org

Thank You!

Don’t forget to write your summaries!

Stephen: [email protected]

Inspiration

What Teachers Make