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Research Digest – December 2016
Breakfast clubs boost reading and mathematics results for elementary students
Brain Training may be harmful to some aspects of memory performance
What the world can learn from the latest PISA test results
Is Ed-Tech research nearing its ‘Big Tobacco’ moment?
Frequency of feedback – is there a better way?
Study: Most Professional Training for Teachers Doesn’t Qualify as ‘High Quality’
A sedentary lifestyle is linked to poorer reading skills for boys
The Dark Cultural History of IQ and Why We Can’t Measure Intelligence
Why schools should not teach general critical-thinking skills
Digest of Education Statistics 2015
Does Pisa really tell us anything useful about schools?
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Independent Learning week 6: Why Implement Harkness?
By Sarah Donarski
Teacher-led approaches are a vital step in a pupil’s learning process but they should not be our sole focus in the classroom. As educators, we also have to enable our pupils to develop skills that help them to adapt, manipulate and actively apply their information; we want to encourage higher levels of thinking and allow them to gain accessible, long-term understandings of academic material. Our classrooms must be tailored to promote these learning behaviours and the dialogical classroom – Harkness – plays a fundamental role in this.
In a comprehensive study on the ways dialogue enhances a lesson, Gillies (2015) asserts:
There is no doubt that talk, albeit by the teacher or peers, has the capacity to stimulate and extend students’ thinking and advance their learning. Teachers do this when they encourage students to engage in reciprocal dialogues where they exchange information, explore issues, interrogate ideas, and tackle problems in a cooperative environment that is supportive of these discussions. In turn, students learn to listen to what others have to say, consider alternative perspectives, and engage critically and constructively with each other’s ideas by learning how to reason and justify their assertions as they cooperate together. (Gillies, 2015)
In fact, there are many articles stemming across the International Journal of Educational Research (Alexander, 2008; Mercer & Littleton, 2007; Webb, 2009) that demonstrate the importance of dialogue in the classroom. All of which prove the following 3 benefits of implementing dialogic strategies in lessons:
1. It encourages pupils to apply their judgements explicitly and logically.
2. It encourages pupils have to make effective arguments; this involves using subject terminology correctly.
3. It promotes engaged and sustained interactions where knowledge is challenged, altered, shifted and confirmed.
Therefore, knowledge in the dialogic classroom does not become something that is a fixed or transferred entity. Rather, it is a process of learning that is both fixed (core knowledge) and adaptable. A dialogic classroom and pedagogies such as Harkness can actively encourage pupils to explore learning gaps and systematically close them.
Moreover, pedagogies such as Harkness further enhance subject memory recollection and higher-order thinking, as pupils must manipulate knowledge immediately to take part in Harkness style discussion. It was cited by the Consolidation Guidelines FNQ Explicit Teaching Team that:
Students demonstrate understanding by applying [knowledge] to other contexts. ‘Information learned and processed through higher-order thinking processes is remembered longer and more clearly’
(Brophy, Jere. “Probing the Subtleties of Subject-Matter Teaching.” Educational Leadership (April 1992).
Our pupils are given a greater chance to master subject knowledge if Harkness and other dialogical approaches are implemented in our practice. Without dialogic pedagogies, we risk that a pupils’ knowledge may become limited to knowledge regurgitation, as they have simply learned to transfer information without developing a coherent or holistic understanding of it. A teacher must deliver outstanding content but should also seek lesson time to promote conversation, questioning and discourse. This gives pupils a greater opportunity to remember information and to strengthen their ability to use and adapt it successfully.
How to Harkness
Strategies and Advice to Assist in Implementing Harkness into Educational Practice.
Without dialogic pedagogies, we risk that a pupils’ knowledge may become limited to knowledge regurgitation, as they have simply learned to transfer information without developing a coherent or holistic understanding of it. A teacher must deliver outstanding content but should also seek lesson time to promote conversation, questioning and discourse. This gives them a greater opportunity to remember information and to strengthen their ability to use and adapt it successfully.
So, how do you effectively implement Harkness? When do you start it and when is the best time to trial it? This blog simply takes you through these questions.
When do you effectively implement Harkness?
The following diagram is something I have touched upon in a few of my pedagogical talks. It is a summary of our purpose in the classroom and presents a visual map of how our methodologies must change as our pupils aim to master their subject knowledge. Harkness is a teaching strategy that can be implemented effectively into practice when you become a coacher (stage 3) and/or a facilitator (stage 4) of your pupils’ understanding. It is not always effective earlier as modules and topics may require a basic understanding of core material which you might have to explicitly teach them.
I initially felt most confident implementing Harkness when pupils were consolidating their knowledge at the end of a topic or section from a literary work. However, I recently observed a Harkness between Phillips Exeter and Wellington students on Hamlet that demonstrated how Harkness can work to coach pupils into understanding the work. For this, teacher still needs slight input.
The audio below was recorded during this and demonstrates Harkness in Stage 3 where the teacher effectively coaches the students into their knowledge development. You can hear in the following recording that pupils are working through the extracts of Hamlet. Here, the teacher is still steering the conversation by asking questions to evoke the discussion and facilitates it towards language. The coaching style is non-threatening and the teacher is clever in his approach: he asks pupils what they do not understand to open the table up to the idea that there might be gaps in their knowledge at this point. What is most effective here, however, is that before answering the questions himself, he enables pupils to explore it. Therefore, the teacher plays a minor role.
But Where to Start?
It is important to remember that scaffolding is key. In order to make Harkness as effective as possible, you must train pupils on how to do it. It is essential to remember that they are not used to leading prolonged academic conversation and (in a surprisingly scary admittance), we usually haven’t taught them how to ask good academic questions. As a result, you cannot expect them to understand this level of independence instantly.
When first starting, it is useful to the follow three key steps: Preparation, Practice and Praise and Direct.
- Preparation: You have to guide them to the accurate material that will assist them in building a conversation around a subject.
I recently taught my Year 10s How to Harkness. This involved 2 lessons of ‘set up’ or Preparation before we organised the official Harkness lesson.
Lesson 1 involved gathering knowledge and material for the Harkness that they would bring to the discussion. Normally, I find this is much easier if you quantify the knowledge they need to prepare and give each pupil a role.
For this activity I asked one pupil on each table to find different knowledge of Macbeth. Pupil #1, for example, was asked to explore what they consideredthe most significant 3 sections of Lady Macbeth’s character. This encourages their own personal view – which might differ from their classmates. It also forces them to individually reflect on and actively critique the text; it involves them personally refining their knowledge and understanding.
Preparation for this task is vital. It is also a good homework activity to give them. You could put a few leading questions at this stage depending on the independent ability of your group. For example, you could further break down each section: Find 3 key images from each section and be able to explore the devices used by Shakespeare in these. It will depend on how comfortable with the task you feel your group are at this stage.
- Practice: You have to allow them space to vocalise their knowledge for an extended period of time.
The second lesson for this group that I gave was a Harkness practice lesson. It involved each pupil leading a ‘mini-Harkness’ on their tables (groups of 4) for 15 minutes. This encouraged their tables to add any information or key vocabulary that the pupil leading may have missed but also built their confidence in vocalising their ideas to each other before the whole class.
- Praise and Direct: You must stop every now and then to praise good, intelligent ideas and direct where pupils may have a gap in their knowledge – or are applying their knowledge incorrectly.
In my 5th form, I intervened every 20 minutes just to guide pupils to really vital information that had been raised. I would stop the discussion but still took a minor role when I drew attention back to something mentioned. In this following audio, you can hear how a quotation was mentioned in discussion and I coerced the pupil who had made the point to highlight it again to the class. In this sense, it was student led – I simply acknowledged that it was effective knowledge to have.
Extra Tips?
Don’t implement it too early: Ensure students have enough preparation time.
Don’t be afraid to give them a week to get their information together. It would be a superfluous exercise to implement Harkness if students do not have the groundwork to develop their understanding. As mentioned in my previous blog, classroom discussion is effective in heightening subject knowledge; it furthers critical thinking skills and forces students to adapt what they knowinto a coherent, cohesive argument. If they do not know anything, the impact of Harkness is arguably threatened. In such a case, the pupils may simply continually repeat their previous knowledge without deepening their understanding.
Don’t feel threatened by silences:
One of my outstanding colleagues, Tom Hicks (blog: here), said a student once told him:
“Sir, don’t worry about our silences… that’s when we are thinking.”
In the audio below a silence in the Harkness of my 5th form occurs. I do not intervene and you can see how a more confident pupil decides to move the learning forward:
At times, as practitioners, silences are the moment we are taught to intervene as it signals alarm bells for a lack of knowledge. If pupils fall silent throughout a Harkness, let the silence happen. It often happens that another pupil will add onto a point, complete their point or move the conversation along. Teach them to do this by giving them the sentence starters:
- ‘Now we have seemed to finish that point, I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to…’
- ‘I have a question for the group. I’d like to ask everyone what they thought…’
- ‘Do you agree that…’
- ‘I would like to raise a new point discussing…’
- ‘I would like to add on from that point to mention…’
Allow Debates to Happen:
We have also unlearned the healthiness of a good debate in our classroom. We believe it demonstrates rowdiness, or that pupils are out of our control. In Harkness, when pupils feel more comfortable, there will be times they appear to talk over each other. You will most likely find that this is diffused quite quickly. It should also be a good indicator that students are clearly passionate about the subject material enough to explore it in depth. If it does not diffuse, do not underestimate your ability to step in. Again, praise and direct pupils to vital points and give them time to explore how or why an argument occurred – all of which can be extremely interesting!
Below is an audio clip of a Harkness debates. It is quite interesting as it shows how passionate the pupils feel about the content but the debate is also very quickly diffused as pupils begin to reason with each other:
Anything else?
Harkness is a great tool to assess a student’s understanding of content.
Some students have a good knowledge of content material but simply need work in the skills to apply this knowledge in an exam format. Harkness is a great way to build the confidence of these pupils and also identify whether it is examination skills they’re missing or subject knowledge.
Finally, teach them that Harkness is not answering a question, it is about exploring it. Knowledge is about knowing the ‘right’ answer but also knowing why something is ‘not the right answer’ and accurate knowledge is an ability to understand in depth (and width) rather than simply on the surface.
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Independent Learning week 5: Mindset and Motivation
A key determinant in student success is the inherent beliefs they have about themselves in terms of their ability and how they learn. The two major areas to consider here are Carol Dweck’s work on Growth Mindset and Angela Duckworth’s on Grit. However we might also pause to consider the broader areas of engagement and motivation and whether they are even a good proxy indicator of learning at all, and whether these approaches can be taught explicitly or whether they should be seen more as a overarching philosophy as opposed to an intervention.
Growth Mindset
Carol Dweck’s work over many decades claims that some students have an ‘entity theory’ of intelligence, more commonly known as a ‘fixed mindset’ which means they believe ability to be set and that no matter how hard they work they are simply stuck with their level of intelligence. Other students have an ‘incremental theory’ of intelligence, known as a ‘growth mindset’ which means they believe intelligence to be malleable. As Dylan William notes, “smart is not something you are, smart is something you get.”
We were lucky enough to have Carol Dweck speak at the Festival last year and she kindly gave an interview to some of our student research council which you can listen to here:
Grit
Angela Duckworth’s work over the last decade on ‘grit,’ which she defines as “passion and perseverance towards long term goals” seeks to ask an important question, namely why do some individuals accomplish more than others of equal intelligence? Individuals high in grit are able to maintain their determination and motivation over long periods despite negative experiences with failure and adversity. One of the interesting assertions by Duckworth is that this facility of grit is more predictive of long term success than intelligence. While there are some issues with the very definition of this trait, it does raise the question of how we might affect that disposition in students.
Two years ago we worked with researchers from Harvard graduate school of education to explore the extent to which students at Wellington had ‘grit’ and to what extent they felt they were able to persevere towards long term goals. You can read the published working paper on that study here.
Working with the student research team and Harvard yielded some unique perspectives, not least how both growth mindset and grit can work synergistically to great effect and also how students can ‘switch off’ to direct attempts to try to motivate them. If students are taught explicitly about the value of Growth Mindset, Grit and the notion that ability is not ‘fixed’, does that cause a cognitive dissonance in the face of a culture of fixed target grades and league tables? As one student wrote:
If the students are aware that their perception of their own ability is being directly “targeted”, the majority will refuse to accept the concept in any quantity. A particularly significant idea that arose from our research demonstrated that many students achieve very high levels of academic success, but possess fixed mindsets. Since such pupils achieve consistently good grades, they feel comfortable with the manner in which they are working, and deem it appropriate. Education has been one of the only ‘constants’ in the lives of students, so to admit that one has not been learning as well as they potentially could have for a number of years will be unlikely to yield an effective response. The very patient nature of what growth mindsets appear to be may, in some cases, cause a student to lose focus as their final aim does not seem instantly achievable. This is where the idea of ‘grit’ becomes a necessity. Perseverance and resilience in the face of adversity combined with a positive attitude towards learning (as demonstrated by the Growth Mindset) will bear for greater individual performance, and thus also higher levels of personal satisfaction and feelings of achievement. This is likely to be one of the most encouraging factors in the development of a student, both academically and emotionally.
The problem with ‘engagement’
So how might we gauge whether students are indeed motivated and persevering towards long term goals? One of the most common signs of motivation and learning is seeing that students are ‘engaged’, however there are some real problems with this as a proxy indicator. As Rob Coe points out, engagement is one of the most misleading indicators of learning.
Now these all seem like key elements of a successful classroom, so what’s the problem? and more specifically, why is engagement is such a poor proxy indicator – surely the busier they are, the more they are learning?
This paradox is explored by Graham Nuthall in his book ‘The Hidden Lives of Learners,’ (2007) in which he writes:
“Our research shows that students can be busiest and most involved with material they already know. In most of the classrooms we have studied, each student already knows about 40-50% of what the teacher is teaching.” p.24
Nuthall’s work shows that students are far more likely to get stuck into tasks they’re comfortable with and already know how to do as opposed to the more uncomfortable enterprise of grappling with uncertainty and indeterminate tasks. A good example of this as Alex Quigley has pointed out is that engagement in the form of the seemingly visible activity of highlighting is often “little more than colouring in.”
The other difficulty is the now constant exhortation for students to be ‘motivated’ (often at the expense of subject knowledge and depth) but motivation in itself is not enough. Nuthall writes that:
“Learning requires motivation, but motivation does not necessarily lead to learning.”p.35
Motivation and engagement are vital elements in learning but it seems to be what they are used in conjunction with that determines impact. It is right to be motivating students but motivated to do what? If they are being motivated to do the types of tasks they already know how to do or focus on the mere performing of superficial tasks at the expense of the assimilation of complex knowledge then the whole enterprise may be a waste of time.
Learning is in many cases, invisible as outlined many times by David Didau and is certainly not linear but rather more nebulous in actuality. As Prof. Coe reminds us, ‘learning happens when people have to think hard’ but unfortunately there is no easy way of measuring this, so what does he suggest is effective in terms of evidencing quality?
Ultimately he argues that it comes down to a more nuanced set of practitioner/student skills, habits and conditions that are very difficult to observe, never mind measure. Things like “selecting, integrating, orchestrating, adapting, monitoring, responding” and which are contingent on “context, history, personalities, relationships” and which all work together to create impact and initiate effective learning. So while engagement and motivation are important elements in learning they should be seen as part of a far more complex grouping of factors.
A key question to consider then is whether students can be taught to have a growth mindset or grit by teaching those concepts explicitly and whether students are motivated at all if they are merely doing ‘busywork’ that they already know how to do, or the kinds of activities that learn to superficial understanding. Are students engaging in the kinds of ‘desirable difficulties’ such as spacing, interleaving, self quizzing and the broader aspiration of intellectual curiosity that might be more difficult in the short term, but lead to greater mastery and motivation in the long term? The paradox of this field is that mastering a difficult concept through hard work, failure and eventual success may well motivate a student far more effectively than ‘motivation’ itself.
Final advice:
- Encourage students to see mistakes as opportunities to learn rather than as a lack of ability.
- Praise effort rather than ‘cleverness.’
- Encourage them to view intelligence as something that can be affected by hard work not as a fixed entity.
- Emphasise current progress rather than past performance.
- Encourage students to view grades as temporary performance indicators not measures of fixed intelligence.
- Discuss student’s long term goals as intrinsic rather than extrinsic.
More:
Growth mindset: It’s not magic
This much I know about…developing a Dweck-inspired Growth Mindset culture
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Research Digest – November 2016
EEF report: Online Reading Support
The Failure of the iPad Classroom
Understanding Evidence: New Guide Explains Four Key Types and How to Evaluate Them
Positive School Climates Can Narrow Achievement Gaps
Strong student-lecturer relationships reduce university drop out
Children see ‘worrying’ amount of hate speech online
21st Century Skills Don’t Exist. So Why Do We Need Them?
Howard Gardner on his ‘multiple intelligences’: the theory is no longer current
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Independent Learning week 4: Marking and Feedback
In outlining some of the problems with contemporary assessment at the Festival of Education 2016, Daisy Christodoulou noted that the concept of assessment for learning has in many cases, merely become assessment of learning. This summative approach has focussed on things like students simply knowing what grade they are working at and being able to reference abstract exam board criteria without any real practical sense of how to move forward. Valerie Shute defines effective feedback as not just a diagnostic tool but rather as an ongoing conversation primarily focussed on improvement:
In seeking to help students become more independent and have more ownership of their progress, we might pause to consider the difference between marking and feedback, and whether they are the same thing at all. In some cases, marking a a set of books can mean a huge amount of effort with little reward in terms of students knowing how to progress. In addition, the opportunity cost of marking several sets of books in this way is worth looking at in light of recent concerns about teacher workload.
Students need to know where they are going wrong but by simply identifying the deficiencies within a piece of work and linking improvement to abstract assessment criteria not linked to actual examples, students are are not active stakeholders in their own improvement and can become frustrated. Feedback should ultimately be productive but as Douglas Reeves reminds us, sometimes this process is not so much a medical as a postmortem.
Furthermore, although research on feedback shows that it is one of the most fruitful ways of enabling student progress, not all feedback is the same and some of it can even have an adverse effect. The Education Endowment Foundation notes that:
Feedback studies tend to show very high effects on learning. However, it also has a very high range of effects and some studies show that feedback can have negative effects and make things worse.
In terms of thinking about independent learning and engendering students to take a more proactive role in their own progress, it is worth considering Dylan Wiliam’s assertion that this process is more effective when students are working just as hard, if not harder than the teacher:
“The first fundamental principle of effective classroom feedback is that feedback should be more work for the recipient than the donor.”
In that sense, we might consider the use of exemplars in encouraging students to take a more metacognitive approach to their own work. A lot of research has shown that students often receive a piece of marked work and simply look at the grade without considering how to improve. One way of addressing that issue and facilitating more independence might be structuring a feedback lesson after an assessment where students have time to properly reflect on their own work against exemplars and common errors pointed out by their teacher. That process might look like this:
1. Mark work correcting any errors making a note of common misconceptions.
2. Give students the best three examples of that particular task from the class.
3. Explain common misconceptions to the class.
4. Give students time to evaluate the exemplars and reflect on their own work.
5. Students write down ways to improve with concrete examples from exemplars.
6. Teacher reviews the students reflection to inform future planning.
This excellent example from Denise Brown features a form where students complete a range of tasks based on a assessment. After looking at how well their answer fulfils assessment criteria, students then look at the best examples of that task from the class and complete the following tasks:
Now, compare your answer to the exemplar response.
Exemplar response mark out of 20:………. Your mark out of 20:……….. Choose TWO examples that worked better* than your essay, and use the language from the assessment grid to say why and how (e.g. ‘Technical term “X” is relevant and supported by an integrated quotation’):
Example 1:
How this works well:
Example 2:
How this works well:
Now, apply what you have learned about better* writing to RE-WRITE ONE PARAGRAPH from your own essay:
Of course, a vitally important aspect of marking work is not just that the student knows how to improve, but also to provide the teacher with vital information in order to inform future planning. However in moving towards a more independent learning environment we might consider the notion that students should have a more proactive role in the process of feedback where they can see their work as being something fluid within a continuum of progress rather than as a fixed point on a scale. As one colleague eloquently put it, when receiving a piece of marked work, students should be looking in a mirror rather than at a painted picture.
More reading:
Marking is not the same as feedback
Is marking the enemy of feedback?
References:
Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and Classroom Learning. Assessment in Education, 5(1) pp. 7-71.Reeves, D. B. (2008). Leading to change: Effective Grading Practices. Educational
Leadership, 65(5), 85-87.Wiliam, D.B.(2011). Embedded Formative Assessment. Solution Tree Press: Bloomington, In.
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Independent Learning: ‘Desirable Difficulties’ part 2
In the last post we looked at the importance of retrieval and the testing effect. In this week’s post we will look at spaced learning and interleaving as ways of enhancing the long term retention of learning.
In 1885 Herman Ebbinghaus conducted a series of experiments on himself to test memory and recall. He studied the memorisation of random syllables, such as “WID” and “ZOF” by repeatedly testing himself after various time periods and recording the results. He plotted these results on a graph creating what is now known as the “forgetting curve”.
The Forgetting Curve.
His research indicated that total recall (100%) for him was achieved only at the point of learning. Following that, the retention of what had been learned fell away very quickly:
- Within 20 minutes 42% of the memorised list was lost.
- Within 24 hours 67% of what he learned had vanished.
- A month later 79% had been forgotten.
Typically students study a unit or topic for a term (massed practice) are tested on that and then move on to a new unit only to revise that material leading up to an exam. This often takes the form of revisiting material the week or even night before in the form of cramming.
Put aside the fact that this kind of approach can lead to severe stress around exam time, cramming the night before the GCSE exam might yield good results in the short term but will probably not lead to the kind of long term retention of knowledge required for the independent study of subjects in the 6th form and beyond.
It is common sense that when we want to learn information, we study that information multiple times. The schedules by which we space repetitions can make a huge difference, however, in how well we learn and retain information we study. The spacing effect is the finding that information that is presented repeatedly over spaced intervals is learned much better than information that is repeated without intervals (i.e., massed presentation). This effect is one of the most robust results in all of cognitive psychology and has been shown to be effective over a large range of stimuli and retention intervals from nonsense syllables (Ebbinghaus, 1885) to foreign language learning across many months (Bahrick, Bahrick, Bahrick & Bahrick, 1993).
Another way of thinking about the delivery and revisiting of topic material and of engendering long term retention of knowledge is through the process of interleaving where instead of delivering topics through massed practice, material is spaced out and interleaved with each other to induce regular forgetting and retrieval. This process is usually more difficult for students in the short term and requires greater responsibility and independence but leads to great gains in the long term, one reason why Bjork refers to this as a’desirable difficulty.’
What does this look like in the classroom?
There are a variety of ways to harness these benefits. Here are a series of examples from some practitioners are redesigning curricula in extraordinary new ways including this advice from Joe Kirby (who was taught by our very own Tom Wayman):
Over the last decade, eleven cognitive psychologists have taken over a hundred years of laboratory research and applied it to classrooms and subject curricula. Here’s what they recommend:
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Use frequent quizzing: testing interrupts forgetting
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Roll forward into each successive quiz questions on work from the previous term.
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Design quizzing to reach back to concepts and learning covered earlier in the term, so retrieval practice continues and learning is cumulative.
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Frequent low-stakes quizzes in class helps the instructor verify that students are in fact learning as well as they appear to be and reveal the areas where extra attention is needed. Cumulative quizzing is powerful for consolidating learning and concepts from one stage of a course into new material encountered later.
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Simply including one test retrieval practice in a class yields a large improvement in final exam scores, and gains continue to increase as the frequency of testing increases.
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Effortful retrieval makes for stronger learning and retention. The greater the effort to retrieve learning, *provided that you succeed*, the more learning is strengthened by retrieval.
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In virtually all areas of learning, you build better mastery when you use testing as a tool
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One of the best habits to instill in a learner is regular self-quizzing.
Further discussion:
– Is spacing and interleaving more pertinent to some subjects than others?
– Would teaching students to harness the benefits of independent self quizzing improve wellbeing in the long term?
Further reading:
Improving Students’ Learning with Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions from Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham 2011.
Repeated Retrieval Is the Key to Long-Term Retention. Karpicke & Roediger 2007
Retrieval practice is critical in long-term retention. Roediger & Butler 2010
Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Roediger & Karpicke 2006
Retrieval practice with short-answer, multiple-choice, and hybrid tests. Smith & Karpicke 2013
Repeated Testing Produces Superior Transfer of Learning Relative to Repeated Studying Butler, 2010
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Independent Learning: ‘Desirable Difficulties’ part 1.
“The most fundamental goals of education are long-term goals. As teachers and educators, we want targeted knowledge and skills to be acquired in a way that makes them durable and flexible.” – R. Bjork
One of the more counterintuitive things about learning is that when we consider matters in the long term, the kinds of activities we do in the short term might not be as effective as we think. A ‘desirable difficulty’ refers to a learning task that may prove difficult initially but that leads to greater learning and mastery over an extended period of time. Independent learners are characteristically very good at embracing desirable difficulties and view the process of retrieval or having to generate information from memory as an effective method of consolidation.
The term was coined by Robert Bjork in 1994 when he made a helpful distinction between learning and performance. Performance is something that is easily measured through cues and engagement while learning is only something we can infer. Activities like cramming, re-reading material and highlighting information can give the impression of learning but these kinds of activities are often illusory as Bjork explains:
“Basically, current performance, which is something we can observe, is an unreliable index of learning, which we must infer. Massed practice on a task, for example, often leads to rapid gains in performance, but little or no effect on learning, as measured by long-term retention or transfer.”
In helping students to become independent learners who are able to access and use a broad range of knowledge in a wide range of contexts over a long period of time, there are a number of approaches supported by evidence that are useful but can often be met with initial resistance from the student who can feel that by being ‘busy’ they are learning something when in fact they may not be using their time as productively as they could be.
The importance of retrieval:
An effective way of students consolidating learning is to engage in retrieval strategies which require the student to search their long term memory for information as opposed to using their working memory to do ‘busy work.’ Reading over or highlighting material is not as ‘difficult’ a task as trying to retrieve it as the students feel engaged and the material is often already familiar them. This paradox is explored by Graham Nuthall who writes:
“Our research shows that students can be busiest and most involved with material they already know. In most of the classrooms we have studied, each student already knows about 40-50% of what the teacher is teaching.”
Nuthall’s work shows that students are far more likely to get stuck into tasks they’re comfortable with and already know how to do as opposed to the more uncomfortable enterprise of grappling with uncertainty and indeterminate tasks. A good example of this, as Alex Quigley has pointed out is that engagement in the form of the seemingly visible activity of highlighting is often “little more than colouring in.”
The Testing Effect:
The testing effect is a well established phenomenon that has been replicated many times in cognitive psychology. This process doesn’t have to be high stakes and actually works better when students get into a regular pattern of active recall through flashcards or self quizzing in an independent manner.
“Varying the context, examples, and problem type engages processes that can lead to a richer and more elaborated encoding of concepts and ideas, which can, in turn, support transfer of that learning to new settings.”
Many of these findings are somewhat counterintuitive when considered in terms of traditional methods of learning where typically students study a unit of material, say a half term and then are tested at the end of that unit.
Bjork’s research found that in the above model, no. 4 was actually the most effective method of retaining knowledge over a longer period of time. He suggests that engaging students in a process of ‘non-threatening’ retrieval through low stakes testing on a regular basis, and harnessing that process as part of covering the content is a far more effective way of consolidating learning.
“difficult but successful retrievals are better for memory than easier successful retrievals”
So having students generate answers rather than just re-read or highlight material, having them regularly engage in self-quizzing through the use of flashcards or multiple choice questions and ultimately have them step into the liminal space of ‘desirable difficulties’ means they will be far better prepared to remember and transfer knowledge in classroom discussions, presentations and formal exams.
Further discussion:
– What does the concept of ‘desirable difficulties’ look like in your subject?
– what are the barriers to students embracing difficulty and challenge?
Further reading:
- What Is the Testing Effect, and How Does It Affect Learning, Knowledge, and Retention?
- How Tests Make Us Smarter
- Deliberately difficult – why it’s better to make learning harder
- Test-enhanced learning: Using retrieval practice to help students learn
- Remembering, Forgetting, and Desirable Difficulties
References:
- Bjork, Robert ‘Desirable Difficulties Perspective on Learning’ https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/07/RBjork_inpress.pdf
- Pyc, Mary A.; Rawson, Katherine A. (May 2009). “Testing the retrieval effort hypothesis: Does greater difficulty correctly recalling information lead to higher levels of memory?” (PDF). Journal of Memory and Language. 60 (4): 437–447. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2009.01.004.
- Roediger, H. and Karpicke, J. (2006) ‘The Power of Testing Memory, Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice’, Perspectives on Psychological Science Volume 1—Number 3
- Nutshell, Graham ‘The Hidden Lives of Learners,’ (2007, p.24)
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What do we mean by Independent Learning?
This document is the culmination of a series of discussions with pupils, HODS and SLT and provides a roadmap for the broader enterprise of independent learning.
The College is committed to the wider concept of developing independence: independent thinking, learning and coping. All of these three are inter-related, and are developed holistically through the wider school experience, through pastoral care, tutoring, co-curricular interaction and parental approach. Everything that is written here about learning should also be applied to thinking and coping.
Some useful starting points:
- Independent learning can be thought of as “the ability to take charge of one’s learning” – Holec (1981)
- Independent Learning should be seen as an desired end but perhaps not the best means to that end.
- Independent learning is rooted in effective questioning and dialogue. (Coaching is a core driver here)
- The ability to make informed choices and to take responsibility for your own learning activities with planning, support and guidance from teachers.
- It represents a shift in responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student. This has to be gradual with scaffolding in place and a flexible path to independent learning with it embedded in all schemes of work.
- It should encourage the following characteristics: curiosity, passion, inspiration, discernment, self-motivation, self-examination, accountability, critical thinking and persistence.
- It should develop the ability of the pupil to know when they need support.
- To that end, strong and productive teacher-pupil relationships are key.
- Metacognition is a key element of independent learning. Students should develop the capacity to learn how to learn.
- Independent learners are able to transfer knowledge across a wide range of contexts and to that end memory and retrieval are key components in this process.
- Independent learners have strong ‘affective skills’ which refers to the ability to manage feelings – the most important of which is the ability to delay gratification.
- Independent Learners have a strong sense of purpose.
Purpose is what keeps us going. Paul Dolan tells us in Happiness by Design that we need purpose as well as pleasure to feel fulfilled. But if we’re only interested in short-term goals like passing exams, what happens when the goal is achieved? Teaching students who seem only motivated by threats and rewards and give every appearance of hating everything to do with school can be a joyless exercise. Teaching students whose purpose is to learn for its own sake is an altogether different proposition. They listen attentively, work conscientiously and strive to relate new concepts and information to what they already know. Having a purpose gives us the desire to master tricky content just because it’s there. (Didau, Rose 2016)
What is not meant by independent learning?
- It does not mean working on your own without any supervision or guidance on long term projects.
- It does not mean less teacher guidance but rather specific guidance with the end goal of student independence.
- It does not mean a rigidly predetermined path to instant independent learning for all and at all times.
- It does not mean students using technology without a clear sense of focus and direction.
“Teacher instruction is vitally necessary to become an independent learner.” (Christodoulou, 2014)
What are the benefits of independent learning?
- It is a skill that is highly valued at university and in the workplace and is vital in life preparation. Whilst the world will change, this skill and associated benefits will remain invaluable.
- It will enable students to feel in control of their academic studies, hence reducing stress, increasing wellbeing, and leading to improved academic performance.
- It will enhance student organisation and the ability to set tangible goals.
- It will increase student motivation and confidence.
- It will enable teachers to provide differentiated tasks.
- It is consistent with our philosophy on coaching.
- It will develop resilience for academic purposes and beyond.
- It will ultimately have a positive impact on end performance in particular in the 6th Form.
What will make independent learning successful?
- Students must develop the necessary organisational skills to work towards independence.
- Students must develop the necessary motivation and confidence to thrive in an independent learning culture.
- Students will learn how to collaborate effectively in a meaningful way.
- Teachers have subject passion and drive to lead the learning, and model independence and intellectual curiosity.
- There is a critical balance for teachers to establish between using subject specific expertise, and challenging students through effective and powerful questioning and dialogue.
- Positive relationships between teachers and students that are based on trust and a mutual responsibility for learning.
- Marking is not the same as feedback. The quality of feedback is fundamental to the success of independent learning.
- Students will need to learn cognitive and metacognitive skills.
- Teachers will all need to develop the ability to ask the right questions to elicit independent thinking.
Independent Learner characteristics:
- Independent learners are firstly well organized with a clear sense of success criteria for each subject unit.
- Independent learners have a positive relationship with their teachers and tutors and ask for help and guidance when needed.
- Independent learners have developed a robust set of digital skills to enable them to use technology and navigate the Internet in a discerning and critical manner.
- Independent learners focus less on poor revision techniques such as the storage of information (re-reading/highlighting) and more on the generation of questions and answers themselves through self-quizzing/regular low stakes testing.
- Independent learners are able to evaluate exemplar material from their peers or from the exam board to reflect and improve on their own work.
- Independent learners have a sense of agency over their future. They have strong self-regulation and metacognitive skills and are deeply reflective about their individual strengths and weaknesses.
- Independent learners have an intellectual curiosity bolstered by a wide range of extra-curricular activities.
- Independent learners have a well-developed capacity for intrinsic questioning as opposed to extrinsic questioning.
- Independent learners are empowered, unstressed, and in control.
Further discussion: Independent Learning Pathway
Independent Learning is a desired end but perhaps not the best means to that end. What might independent learning look like at different stages of pupil development?
Further reading:
Literature Review: What is independent learning and what are the benefits for students? (CUREE)
Independence vs Independent Learning
What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Psychology (Didau, Rose 2016)
Seven Myths About Education (Christodolou, 2014)
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Harkness teaching and UK education
Harkness teaching and UK education
Head of VI Form and leading Harkness practitioner Dr Guy Williams on a US-developed pedagogy which is growing in use over here.
‘Harkness’ teaching is a pedagogy based on round-the-table discussion between students, in which peer-to-peer dialogue is emphasised. This is different from a teacher-led dialogue, in which points keep being referred back to or get directed by a teacher. The whole point is to get students talking to one another, so that they become responsible for the intellectual content of the lesson. To put it visually, you can imagine a teacher-led dialogue as a map on which all roads lead to Rome: comments and questions keep coming back to the hub of the classroom, the professional educator. A Harkness map meanwhile would look like a mesh of many intersecting routes, as the impetus for the dialogue comes from all corners.
This approach to teaching was developed by a small group of private schools in the US, starting with Phillips Exeter Academy, which put in place a new system of small group teaching in the 1930’s (naming the philosophy after a major benefactor: Edward Harkness). It spread among other prominent US schools (Andover, Lawrenceville, etc.) and now table-based seminars are fairly common in American private schools. Given this success, it’s curious that Harkness teaching hasn’t been much imported into the UK education system. In fact, the Harkness method itself is partly a product of UK teaching – staff from Phillips Exeter identified good teaching with the tutorials and seminars of Oxford and Cambridge while developing what would become their philosophy. One might imagine that it would made a natural fit in British schools.
At Wellington College, we see great value in promoting Harkness as part of our tool kit for teaching and learning. The advantages are many: it puts the onus on the students, requires independence and critical thinking, it works through collaboration and constructive discussion (not point scoring), and so it develops a lot of the intellectual and social skills that we require of our students. To be successful in Harkness, you must be a good listener, a thinker, empathetic, articulate, and unashamedly intellectual. Given all of these advantages, introducing Harkness at scale would seem to be a good move for any progressive school wishing to develop an open and academic culture.
However, there are a few hurdles to overcome before Harkness can take off over here, partly based on the way in which we perceive the educational cultures of our schools.
It could be argued that Harkness is skills-based and process-driven, chiefly interested in how students behave in a learning environment, whereas the UK system puts emphasis on performance and outcomes. Most teaching in US schools is not related to a specific, external, high-stakes assessment, whereas UK 6th formers are all taking A Level or IB courses. In other words, Harkness is how we would like to teach in an ideal world, but we are trapped in the iron cage of league tables, inspections, UCAS, and other performance-driven systems. Harkness is a luxury we cannot afford.
There are a couple of misconceptions at work here.
Firstly, it’s wrong to assume that student-led dialogue is light on content. Quite the contrary, successful dialogues are all knowledge-based. A good dialogical teacher understands this and so puts in place a consistency of expectation and assessment that prevents a blind-leading-the-blind scenario. A good Harkness lesson starts from significant preparatory work, student questions, rigorous standards for participation, and a teacher who guards the process carefully. Teachers who set the prep work and demand that students follow through will cover prescribed course content just fine. It’s not a soft regime, except where it’s misunderstood.
Secondly, it’s just an assumption that teacher-led lessons are necessary to meet performance outcomes. We often think this way: teachers ‘know the system,’ can ‘explain the exam,’ and so on. Teachers act as a kind of guide through dangerous territory. Perhaps there is some truth in this and there is something to be said for teachers speaking frankly to a class about their experience and insight of an assessment system, having been through it many times before. Nevertheless, it is also perfectly possible to construct a genuine dialogue around the system itself, with students taking responsibility for interpreting the course, its components, assessment system, etc. It’s a question of setting up that dialogue carefully and thoughtfully, rather than just leading the class on a guided tour.
So, Harkness can nurture genuine academic performance and isn’t just a cosy learning environment. But the question then arises of how schools can make the shift towards this philosophy. The most important step is obvious – just give it a go! Set up the parameters of your dialogue, explain your objectives to the class, and take the risk of trying something.
However, the wider process of introducing an educational philosophy is subtle and difficult. One interesting idea for engineering a school in which Harkness can succeed is the use of Harkness for admissions. At Wellington, we have started to use Harkness discussions as part of our interview process, putting less emphasis on plain interviews and taking more of an interest in the academic virtues on display in the classroom. Can candidates work constructively, engage with material, and respond positively to each other in discussion? Having run both admissions interviews and admissions Harkness sessions, I have a sense that it is actually the latter that is more revealing of candidates, rather than their thoroughly prepared interview pitch.
It might be better to see this in terms of shifting the academic culture of a school and setting expectations to students, rather than mastering a new ‘technique’ for teaching. Can you educate your students to be independent, confident, open learners? Can you get them to buy-in to the kind of change you want to make in teaching? If you can do that, your lessons will break out into serious academic dialogue of their own accord.
So, will we finally see Harkness teaching take off in UK schools? To some extent, I think it’s just a matter of time until we catch on to the importance of a grown-up learning environment, remodelling our learning spaces with seminar tables, and shifting some of the dynamics between the students and the teachers. Having said that, there are also fundamental challenges that should not be underestimated, not the least of which is financial. But with some creativity and investment, it may be possible to make positive changes to the academic culture of our schools through learning from and, as far as possible, implementing the Harkness ideal.
Guy Williams, Feb 2016
Want to find out more about Harkness teaching? Consider taking part in one of the exciting Harkness courses for educators taking place this summer. Both courses will be led by expert Harkness teachers from the US.
Humanities and Social Science: http://wctsp.org.uk/course-detail.php/Humanities-Social-Sciences-CPD-course-with-The-Lawrenceville-School-USA-69/
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Teaching to the Test
By Julian Thomas, Master of Wellington.
I wonder if you noticed the recent study conducted by researchers at Oxford University. It should have rung a loud alarm bell and yet seemed to slip by largely unnoticed in the Christmas rush. The findings of the study suggest that the UK are among the world’s worst (or best) at teaching students to pass the exam at the expense of nurturing deep and lasting knowledge and understanding. According to the leader of the research, Professor Dorling, UK schools focus on short term knowledge acquisition to help pupils to pass tests; knowledge which is quickly forgotten.
Then in recent days, the World Education Forum focused its conference around what it calls The Fourth Industrial Revolution: the digitisation and automation of the workplace over the next five years and the changing skill set that will be needed to thrive in the new landscape. The WEF thinking resonates with a view I expressed in a recent article for the Sunday Telegraph (hyperlink here), in which I argued that the UK education system, which began to take on its present form in the mid-19th century, has stopped evolving, and the result is that we are failing to fully prepare the young people of today for the world they will live in tomorrow.
It is clear that all schools have to genuinely commit to an education which goes way beyond simply the acquisition of grades A*-C. We have to equip our children with the skills and aptitudes they need to live, thrive and survive in the future. Skills such a critical thinking, problem solving, independent thinking and learning, leadership and creativity.
It all sounds very seductive so why does it seem so hard for schools to adopt this approach? It is perhaps easier to understand when we remember that our examination system – established in 1858, and little changed since – does not fully recognise these attributes but instead seems to place higher value on the recall of information and the application of the standard methods required to satisfy an overworked marker. I believe that it is time for government and leading educators to come together to create a new strategic vision of how school and student assessment could evolve to meet the needs of current and future generations.
The problem is compounded by the annual beauty parade of newspaper league tables, in which schools are numbered and ranked based on statistics which take little or no account of a school’s context or its success in creating well-rounded, interesting, inspired students. The same students who will be happy and successful in their lives beyond school.
Schools, driven by the need to hit targets, satisfy stakeholders and compare well with their competitors, are often tempted to withdraw to the safest and easiest method of achieving good grades – “teaching to the test”. Worse still, there is often a temptation to make educational decisions which maximise grades at the expense of the students’ best interests. The greatest betrayal of all.
All of which makes the school league table – at least in its current form – much worse than an unnecessary distraction but, in fact, a key driver for poor educational practice.
Who is to blame? J’accuse….me (and probably you too). Anyone who has ever used the tables of raw results to compare one school over another. Anyone who has ever thought that School A is better than School B because it is 30 places higher in the list. We should recognise that there are exceptional schools outside the top 200 just as there may be mediocre schools inside the top 50. We simply cannot tell from the information provided. Yet we all collude in this harmful merry-go-round through our seemingly unquenchable fascination with measurement and comparison.
I have higher aspirations for Wellington College students than top examination results on their own, which is why we will no longer be conspicuous by our presence in the newspaper league tables. This simply means that we will not be providing data on request to newspapers in the immediate aftermath of the exam results season. At the same time, we will make sure that our results are clear for all to see, no more than one click away from the home page of our website. If people wish to make comparisons they are welcome to do so, but our own focus will be on other, more important, indicators of educational success.
The irony of all of this is that outstanding results and outstanding education do not have to be mutually exclusive. Changes to the curriculum and assessment procedures would be welcome but with the will, it is not impossible to provide a great education within the current system. What is required is for UK schools to approach teaching in a way that truly nurtures and inspires every child’s all-round potential. Excellent examination results will follow naturally. It is a bold step away from the comfort blanket of “teaching to the test” but one that all educators must take if we are to fulfil the Secretary of State’s vision of the UK as a world leader in character education. We still have a long way to go.
