Category: Pedagogy

Don’t Study for Your Exams

… cramming—short-term memorizing—does not contribute to retention or transfer [my emphasis]. It may, however, yield positive short-term results as measured by exam scores.

— Jaffee, 2012: Stop Telling Students to Study for Exams in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

It’s getting close to the end of the academic year, and exams are coming up. David Jaffee advocates that we stop telling students to study for their exams; they should, instead, study for learning and understanding.

Jaffee especially piles on on Final Exams:

This dysfunctional system reaches its zenith with the cumulative “final” exam. We even go so far as to commemorate this sacred academic ritual by setting aside a specially designated “exam week” at the end of each term. This collective exercise in sadism encourages students to cram everything that they think they need to “know” (temporarily for the exam) into their brains, deprive themselves of sleep and leisure activities, complete (or more likely finally start) term papers, and memorize mounds of information. While this traditional exercise might prepare students for the inevitable bouts of unpleasantness they will face as working adults, its value as a learning process is dubious.

— Jaffee (2012).

The alternative to exams, Jaffee suggests, is formative and authentic assessment.

A Better Commencement Address

2. Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure.

— Wheelan, 2012: 10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You in The Wall Street Journal

Charles Wheelan provides an excellent perspective on what should be important in a commencement address.

I particularly like this warning about the danger of working only for rewards:

8. Don’t model your life after a circus animal. Performing animals do tricks because their trainers throw them peanuts or small fish for doing so. You should aspire to do better.

— Wheelan, 2012: 10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You in The Wall Street Journal

And this point on conservation and the real meaning of being conservative:

3. Don’t make the world worse. I know that I’m supposed to tell you to aspire to great things. But I’m going to lower the bar here: Just don’t use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already.

— Wheelan, 2012: 10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You in The Wall Street Journal

↬ The Dish

Building a Metaphor (Actually a Grill)

The grill entering the final stages of construction by Ryan V. and Robert M.. Photograph by Autumn F.

It took us a little more than half a day to build a grill. It’s a simple thing of cinder blocks and sand, located near the soccer field so it’ll be convenient for bbq’s next year.

It took the highschoolers all morning to dig an outline for the base of the grill and lay in the foundation, despite it being a small, three-quarters of a rectangle shape, and only ten centimeters (4 inches) deep at maximum. The local clay is extremely dense and hard.

The foundations took the longest time to build.

But the foundations were firm, secure, and level.

When the base was done, two middle-schoolers — ably documented by a peer photographer — finished all the visible parts of the structure in just half an hour.

The next day, after I’d given them a presentation on cognitive development during the teenage years that I realized how nice a metaphor the grill construction was for the training of the brain during adolescence. The extensive pruning and myelination that typifies adolescence establish neural pathways are the foundation for future mental growth.

Good, strong, level foundations are the basis for a rich and fulfilling life.

Good foundations require some effort, but they're worth it.

What Computer-Based Learning of Math Should Look Like

Walter Russell Mead (and his commenters) highlight two articles (here and here) on Virginia Tech’s excellent computer-based learning setup for their mathematics classes. Most of the work is done on the computer, either at home or in a shared Math Emporium where teachers are available to help when necessary; which, except for the computer work, is very much like how my class works. It seems close to the ideal way of using technology to allow flexibility in learning and assessment, and is in many ways similar to New York City’s School of One program.

VT’s approach requires some self-motivation on the part of the students — students are able to use the 24 hour a day Emporium at any time — but the model should fit be a good fit for Montessori middle and high-school students who have much independence in managing how they use their time during the day.

Their assessment method also nice as it allows students to pace themselves and take their tests when they’re ready. It is based on students proving that they’ve learned the material — how they learned it is not important, nor is how many practice tests they took before they get to the test.

Each course is broken up into a series of “modules,” available on Emporium computers or the Internet, that students are required to complete within a certain amount of time. Each module outlines a specific set of mathematic principles and concepts. These are translated into specific examples to review and problems to solve.

Once the module materials are completed, students can take randomly generated practice tests that draw on a central bank of thousands of potential questions. If they get questions wrong, the computer refers them back to the appropriate materials, and there’s no limit to the number of practice tests they can take. When they decide they’re ready, students come to the Emporium to take an official, proctored test that’s generated in exactly the same way as the practice quizzes. Then they move to the next module. Instead of marking progress by time—the number of hours spent in proximity to a lecturer—Emporium courses measure advancement by evidence of learning.

— Carey, K., 2008: Transformation 101 in Washington Monthly

↬ Tyler Cowen ↬ Walter Russel Mead ↬ Ms. Douglass

Control your Destiny: How the Adolescent Brain Works

During your adolescence, which lasts from your early teens into your 20’s, the brain changes rapidly, you develop new abilities and capacities, and the habits of mind and skills you develop will last long into adulthood.

Abilities: The last part of the brain to develop is the Frontal Lobe. It’s responsible for reasoning and judgement — aka Executive Function. So, it’s somewhat understandable that teens often have poor impulse control — their Frontal Lobe (the prefrontal cortex in particular) is still developing.

The parts of the adolescent brain.

However that’s not an excuse. It is essential for adolescents to be held to account, because it’s only by practicing responsibility that they get to learn how to use their Executive thinking skills.

Because that’s how we learn — by practicing.

When we’re learning something new, brain cells, called neurons, reach out and connect to form networks. As we practice and focus on specific things — certain patterns of movement or certain ways of thought — some of the unused connections get pruned away, while others become stronger. The axons that connect the most-used pathways get coated in myelin, which acts as an insulator to make sure signals can pass quickly and efficiently.

Neurons in the brain transmit information to each other along long axons and across the synaptic gap.

By reorganizing the connections between brain cells, the brain learns and becomes better at what you’re practicing. Thus we gradually transition from novices to experts.

However, there is a cost.

Making strong pathways makes for quicker thinking about the things we’ve practiced, but makes our brains somewhat less flexible at learning new things. We develop habits of mind that stay with us for a long time.

Some of those habits we might not actually want to keep; and there’s also the possibility that we might not develop some habits of mind that we really would like to have.

The development of the frontal lobe during adolescence opens a window of opportunity for learning good judgement/executive function, but it does not mean we actually will learn it. We need to actually practice it.

So, if you would like to know yourself, want to be able to control yourself, and, especially, want to shape the future person you will become, then you’re going to have to figure out: which habits of mind you want to be practicing and which ones you don’t.

Longer School Days?

Peter Orszag advocates for increasing the length of the school day by about 2 hours.

As a teacher, I know I would appreciate a little extra time in all my subjects. Based as my experience as the sole teacher in a middle school classroom, I think about how much more we could have done with the extra time to round out the curriculum. But I think it only makes sense to add those two hours if they’re used properly. More of the same — like sitting at desks — is unlikely to help a lot.

Orszag points out that there’s some evidence (see Dobbie and Fryer, 2011 (pdf) and Fryer, 2011 (pdf)) that longer school days have improved student performances. But it’s crucial to note that the longer days are part of extensive changes in the curriculum that I don’t think can be separated from the other changes: “frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations” (Dobbie and Fryer, 2011); “a more rigorous approach to building human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations” (Fryer, 2011).

When I think of longer school days, I tend to think of a more apprenticeship model. Giving students time to work on personalized projects, interacting with experts as they need.

↬ Ezra Klein

On the Loss of Boredom in the Internet Age

I remember, as a child, being bored. I grew up in a particularly boring place and so I was bored pretty frequently. But when the Internet came along it was like, “That’s it for being bored! Thank God! ….”

It was only later that I realized the value of being bored was actually pretty high. Being bored is a kind of diagnostic for the gap between what you might be interested in and your current environment. But now it is an act of significant discipline to say, “I’m going to stare out the window. I’m going to schedule some time to stare out the window.”

— Clay Shirky in an interview with Sonia Saraiya on Findings.com

We need a little boredom, to let our minds wander and thus to spur creativity.

Zoë Pollock, on The Dish, highlights the thoughts of Clay Shirky and the response of Nicholas Carr on loss of space for boredom in the internet age.