Transcript Evidence for Deep Learning Building Study Skills Breaking the Lecture Mold Linda Green & Jung Choi School of Biology, Georgia Tech Teaching Retreat 2015

Evidence for Deep Learning
Building Study Skills
Breaking the Lecture Mold
Linda Green & Jung Choi
School of Biology, Georgia Tech Teaching Retreat 2015
• Our focus today is to consider how to create
deeper learning experiences for our students
by
– Incorporating metacognition strategies
– Breaking the lecture model
Metacognition
The ability to:
 think about one’s own thinking
 be consciously aware of oneself as a
problem solver
 monitor, plan, and control one’s mental
processing (e.g. “Am I understanding this
material, or just memorizing it?”)
 accurately judge one’s level of learning
Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. In L. B.
Resnick (Ed.), The nature of intelligence (pp.231-236). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Why haven’t most students
developed metacognitive skills?
It wasn’t necessary in high school
The Story of Two Students
 Travis, junior psychology student
47, 52, 82, 86
B in course
 Dana, first year physics student
80, 54, 91, 97, 90 (final)
A in course
Why Can Students Make Such a
Fast and Dramatic Increase?
It’s all about the strategies!
Counting Vowels in 45 seconds
How accurate are you?
Count the vowels
in the words on the next slide.
Dollar Bill
Dice
Tricycle
Four-leaf Clover
Hand
Six-Pack
Seven-Up
Octopus
Cat Lives
Bowling Pins
Football Team
Dozen Eggs
Unlucky Friday
Valentine’s Day
Quarter Hour
How many words or phrases
from the list do you remember?
Let’s look at the words again…
What are they arranged
according to?
Dollar Bill
Dice
Tricycle
Four-leaf Clover
Hand
Six-Pack
Seven-Up
Octopus
Cat Lives
Bowling Pins
Football Team
Dozen Eggs
Unlucky Friday
Valentine’s Day
Quarter Hour
NOW, how many words or phrases
from the list do you remember?
What were two major differences
between the 1st and 2nd attempts?
1. We knew what the task was
2. We knew how the information
was organized
What we know about learning
• Active learning is more lasting than passive
learning
-- Passive learning is an oxymoron*
• Thinking about thinking is important
– Metacognition**
• The level at which learning occurs is important
– Bloom’s Taxonomy***
*Cross, Patricia, “Opening Windows on Learning” League for Innovation in the Community College, June 1998,
p. 21.
** Flavell, John, “Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive–developmental inquiry.”
American Psychologist, Vol 34(10), Oct 1979, 906-911.
*** Bloom Benjamin. S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain. New
York: David McKay Co Inc.
Bloom’s
Taxonomy
Making judgments based on
criteria and standards
through checking and
critiquing.
This pyramid depicts the different levels of thinking we use when learning.
Notice how each level builds on the foundation that precedes it. It is
required that we learn the lower levels before we can effectively use the
skills above.
Creating
Evaluating
Analyzing
Carrying out or using a
procedure through executing,
or implementing.
Breaking material into
constituent parts,
determining how the
parts relate to one
another and to an
overall structure .
Applying
Understanding
Retrieving, recognizing,
and recalling relevant
knowledge from
long-term memory.
Putting elements together to
form a coherent or functional
whole; reorganizing elements
into a new pattern or
structure through generating,
planning, or producing.
Constructing meaning
from oral, written, and
graphic messages through
interpreting, exemplifying,
classifying, summarizing,
inferring, comparing, and
explaining.
Remembering
http://www.odu.edu/educ/llschult/blooms_taxonomy.htm
How do we teach students to move
higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy?
Teach them the Study Cycle
*adapted from Frank Christ’s PLRS system
The Study Cycle
344
Reflect
Review
Reflect
Preview
Preview before class – Skim the chapter, note headings and boldface words, review
summaries and chapter objectives, and come up with questions you’d like the lecture to
answer for you.
Attend
Attend class – GO TO CLASS! Answer and ask questions and take meaningful notes.
Review
Review after class – As soon after class as possible, read notes, fill in gaps and note any
questions.
Study
Assess
Study – Repetition is the key. Ask questions such as ‘why’, ‘how’, and ‘what if’.
• Intense Study Sessions* - 3-5 short study sessions per day
• Weekend Review – Read notes and material from the week to make connections
Assess your Learning – Periodically perform reality checks
• Am I using study methods that are effective?
• Do I understand the material enough to teach it to others?
Intense Study Sessions
Decide what you want to accomplish in your study session
1
Set a Goal
2
Study with Focus
30-50 min
Interact with material- organize, concept map, summarize, process, re-read, fill-in notes, reflect, etc.
3
Reward Yourself
10-15 min
Take a break– call a friend, play a short game, get a snack
4
Review
1-2 min
5 min
Go over what you just studied
Center for Academic Success
B-31 Coates Hall ▪ 225.578.2872 ▪www.cas.lsu.edu
Two Valuable References
Gabriel, Kathleen F. (2008)
Teaching Unprepared Students.
Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing
Nilson, Linda. (2013) Creating
Self-regulated Learners
Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing
What happens when we teach
metacognitive learning strategies,
Bloom’s Taxonomy, and the Study Cycle
to an entire class, not just individuals?
Performance in Gen Chem I in 2011
Based on One Learning Strategies Session
Exam 1 Avg.:
Exam 2 Avg.:
Final course Avg*.:
Final Course Grade:
Attended
71.65%
77.18%
81.60%
Absent
70.45%
68.90%
70.43%
B
C
The one 50-min presentation on study and learning strategies
resulted in an improvement of one full letter grade!
*Cook, E.; Kennedy, E.; McGuire, S. Y. J. Chem. Educ., 2013, 90 (8),
961–967
Performance in Gen Chem 1202 Sp 2013
Based on One Learning Strategies Session
Exam 1 Avg.:
Homework Total
Final course Avg*.:
Final Course Grade:
Attended
71.33%
169.8
82.36%
Absent
69.27%
119.1
67.71%
B
D
The 50-min presentation on study and learning strategies
resulted in an improvement of two letter grades!
Typical study habits for exam 1,
BIOL 1520 at GT
• 50% spend < 10 hours, 25% spend > 15 hours in intensive
exam-prep studying
• Most start studying on Sunday (S14) or Tuesday (F13) for
Thursday exam
• Most common tactics are reviewing lecture slides, then notes
in F13; reviewing LC questions, then notes in S14
• Most common ideas of what to do differently: study
earlier/more and change focus/method
Compiled from F13 and S14
Typical study habits for exam 4,
BIOL 1520 at GT
• Most start studying on Tuesday for Thursday exam
• Most common tactics are reviewing
lecture slides, then
40
mastering biology homework 35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
• 33% feel more comfortable with the material than the same
moment prior to exam 3
Compiled from S14
We can significantly increase learning by…
• teaching students how to learn
• making the implicit explicit
• not judging student potential on initial
performance
• Implementing small interventions to
address psychological factors
• encouraging the use of metacognitive
tools
Flipping/Inverting the Classroom
• The “flipping” method of classroom instruction
relies on
– significant student engagement of the material prior to class,
– interactive learning techniques during class, and
– reinforcement of the material after class through homework
• The goals are
– to increase student engagement and comprehension during the
class period
– to move the bulk of instructor-directed content outside of class
and use class time to engage in activities where students drive the
pace of learning.
– students spend class time recognizing what they know and don’t
know, and instructor can better assess student learning.
How can we guide learning and metacognition
among novice students?
because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't
know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't
know. – Donald Rumsfeld
Self-Reported Study Methods Biol 510/11 Fall 2014
Asked of Biol 1511 students fall 2014: What is the
most effective way for you to learn? In situations
where you learned a lot, what worked?
• 5/42 – mentioned only passive modes
(listening to lecture, reviewing)
• 7/42 – primarily note-taking during
reading, lecture
• 29/42 – highly active modes (drawing,
small group discussion, quizzing, teaching
others, homework problems, lab exercises)
Fig. 2 Highly structured course designs benefit all students, but especially disadvantaged
students.
D C Haak et al. Science 2011;332:1213-1216
Published by AAAS
Using higher bloom’s taxonomy at little cost
• When UMich Intro Bio
instructors flipped their
course, they saw post-hoc
that the nature of their
exams changed  harder!
• Student performance
stayed the same despite
more challenging
questions
M. Duffy, Dynamic Ecology blog
1520 Class Structure
• 92 (85) students, 35% BIOL majors
• 3-5 Learning Objectives per class or 2-class topic
• Pre-class video, animation, or reading
assignment paired with a 5 question Incoming
Knowledge Evaluation (IKE) in Learning Catalytics
• Team-based In-Class Activities (TICA) for every
class period, interspersed with 10 min
lecturettes and Learning Catalytics questions
• Post-class weekly homework assignments using
a Mastering Biology
Fall ‘13 versus Spring ‘14
80
Exam Score
78
76
Fall 2013
74
Spring 2014
72
70
68
1
2
Fall: 121 students, 29% BIOL.
3
4
5
Spring: 92 students, 35% BIOL.
95
Fall Overall Grade
Spring Overall Grade
90
85
80
85.1
84.2
90.6
90.3
90.6
87.5
91.5
87.0
87.0
86.4
87.6
85.3
75
81.7
79.9
80.2
76.1
70
Bus
Ch/BCh
F_N
S_N
Bus
7
4
Bio
Ch/BCh
9
7
Eng
Bio
35
30
IAL
Eng
26
21
IAL
8
2
Psy
Psy
9
9
CS
CS
19
6
Overall
116
85
Overall
In-Class Activities
Working in a team helped me better understand the material
I was engaged and focused during class all or most of the time
I was more likely to be distracted during ‘work time’ c/t Dr. Green lecturing
I generally understood the material from pre-class activity, class was unnecessary
I would rather have moved past the basic principles and spent class in applied
scenarios
It was clear to me from class activity what I needed to know for that topic
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
Neither
Agree
Strongly
agree
Big Ideas for Smaller Classes
•
•
•
•
•
Homework portfolios
Authentic experiences
Case studies
Team-based learning (IFAT style)
Problem-based learning
What resonates for your teaching?
• These tools (teaching metacognition, ‘active’
teaching) usually result in big impacts on
student engagement and satisfaction
– Are you convinced?
– How could this be applied to your class?