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How it Helps Students

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What Is ‘Transfer of Learning’ and How Does It Help Students?

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American Institutes of Research

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The Chronicle of Higher Education

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This evening, my family will sit down on the couch together to enjoy the opening episode of America's favorite spectacle of poor metacognition. Along with millions of others, including some of you, we will marvel at the sight of so many human beings eager to put their deficient cognitive skills on display for the world.

I'm talking, of course, about the season premiere of American Idol, where lousy metacognition will join lousy singing for two cringeworthy hours tonight and another hour tomorrow night, as amateur musicians audition for the opportunity to win fame, fortune, and a recording contract. The opening two episodes of each season have become notorious for featuring the worst singers who auditioned for the show, encouraging viewers to engage in some gentle schadenfreude as Idol participants make fools of themselves on national television.

What makes so many of those atrocious singers laughable to us-excepting the ones who put on deliberately bad performances in order to get on camera-turns out to be a problem that plagues many undergraduates, especially the weakest among them: an inability to judge accurately their own level of skill or knowledge in a specific area.

Poor metacognition means that some terrible yet hopeful singers on American Idol are unable to assess their own weak vocal talents. And it means that some students have a mistaken sense of confidence in the depth of their learning.

Cognitive psychologists use the term metacognition to describe our ability to assess our own skills, knowledge, or learning. That ability affects how well and how long students study-which, of course, affects how much and how deeply they learn. Students with poor metacognition skills will often shorten their study time prematurely, thinking that they have mastered course material that they barely know.

I was introduced to this concept by Stephen Chew, professor and chair of the psychology department at Samford University, who wrote to me in response to my column last month on teaching and human memory. Chew's credentials in this area immediately caught my attention: In 2011 he was named one of four outstanding professors of the year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. His work focuses specifically on the implications of cognitive research for learning and instruction.

As a part of his work in this area, Chew has produced a series of videos for students on how to study effectively. After watching all five of the videos in his series-which I highly recommend to all administrators and faculty members who work with first-year students-I thought it worthwhile to devote one more column to drawing out a principle from cognitive psychology that could help many of us do our jobs better.

I asked Chew to give readers a basic definition of metacognition, with some illustrations of the concept both from education and everyday life. "Metacognition," he explained in an e-mail, "is a person's awareness of his or her own level of knowledge and thought processes. In education, it has to do with students' awareness of their actual level of understanding of a topic. Weaker students typically have poor metacognition; they are grossly overconfident in their level of understanding. They think they have a good understanding when they really have a shallow, fragmented understanding that is composed of both accurate information and misconceptions."

That leads weak students, he said, to make poor study decisions: "Once students feel they have mastered material, they will stop studying, usually before they have the depth and breadth of understanding they need to do well. On exams, they will often believe their answers are absolutely correct, only to be shocked when they make a bad grade."

As for examples outside of education, Chew had no trouble pointing them out in a variety of areas, including reality television shows.

"Poor metacognition is a big part of incompetence," he explained. "People who are incompetent typically do not realize how incompetent they are. People who aren't funny at all think they are hilarious. People who are bad drivers think they are especially good. You don't want to fly on a plane with a pilot who has poor metacognition. A lot of reality shows like American Idol highlight people with poor metacognition for entertainment. Everyone knows people who are seldom in doubt but often wrong."

Yes, I know quite a few of those people. I'm related to at least one of them.

But let's assume that I want to help people with poor metacognitive skills, instead of just trying to avoid them at our next holiday gathering. I asked Chew what faculty members can do to assist students do a better job of assessing their own skills and knowledge.

"The best way to reduce the impact of poor metacognition," Chew said, "is to use formative assessment during teaching. Formative assessments are brief, low-stakes activities that students do in order to give both themselves and the teacher feedback about their level of understanding. There is a wide assortment of assessments that faculty can use, such as think-pair-share activities, minute papers, and so-called 'clicker' questions."

"I like to use ConcepTests, developed by Eric Mazur, in which I present the class with a multiple-choice question similar to ones that will be on the exam," he added. "Students select their answers individually, and I poll the class. They can then discuss their answer with other students, after which I poll the class again. Finally, we discuss the answers as a class. This gives me a sense of how well students understand the material. I can identify and address problem areas."

Most important, he said, these ConcepTests-which can be used quite simply even in the most overcrowded lecture courses-help give students a more accurate assessment of their own understanding.

"I emphasize," Chew said, "that the question I use is similar in difficulty level to questions they will see on exams, so if they did not answer correctly or were confused, they need to improve their understanding. Formative assessment helps students study and learn more effectively before exams, and they are less likely to feel 'tricked' by questions they didn't expect. The actual exam should never be the first time the faculty or the students get feedback about the actual level of student understanding."

Chew's recommendation for the frequent use of "brief, low-stakes" assessments echoes a key pedagogical principle that came out of last month's column-and that corresponds with what just about every expert in learning theory and pedagogy will tell you. An understanding of metacognition, and the influence it has on our students, gives us one more reason to shift our courses away from providing students with a steady diet of lectures, punctuated by a few high-stakes exams.

Lectures do have a place in the college classroom of course. Just about every teaching strategy we can imagine may have its place over the course of the semester. But I know from my own experience-as I am gearing up to teach a literature survey course in the spring-how easily we can allow lectures to become the sole or dominant mode of instruction, especially as the semester wears on, and we feel the urge to cram as much material into the course as possible.

A 40-minute lecture, followed by a 10-minute formative-assessment activity, may help our students learn much more effectively than a 40-minute lecture followed by weak discussion starters like "Any questions?" And, as Chew pointed out in response to an early draft of this essay, students frequently don't ask questions precisely because their poor metacognitive skills have convinced them that they understood the lecture perfectly.

Incidentally, formative-assessment activities can be even simpler than the one Chew describes. The most basic activity a faculty member can use to check understanding at the end of a class is the now-classic "minute paper," described in Thomas K. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross' Classroom Assessment Techniques. At the end of a lecture or discussion, ask students to pull out a half-sheet of paper and answer some variation on the following two questions: "What was the most important concept you learned in class today?" and "What concept did you find the most difficult or confusing?"

When students identify a throwaway example you used as the most important concept they learned, you know you have more work to do. And when you point that out to students in the next class session, they should know that they have more work to do as well.

For readers interested in learning more about metacognition, and its influence on what we experience in our classrooms, begin by checking out the first episode in Chew's video series. In addition to his clear explanation of the topic, he provides an interesting example from one of his own courses, in which he graphs out the test scores his students expected to receive and the scores they actually received.

Chew also supplied me with a list of additional reading materials in this area. If you wish to delve deeper into the subjects of both metacognition and formative-assessment activities, visit my Web site at http://www.jamesmlang.com, where I have posted his reading recommendations and brief overviews of each source.

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This evening, my family will sit down on the couch together to enjoy the opening episode of America's favorite spectacle of poor metacognition. Along with millions of others, including some of you, we will marvel at the sight of so many human beings eager to put their deficient cognitive skills on display for the world.

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Vanderbilt University

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Cite this guide: Chick, N. (2013). Metacognition. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/metacognition/.

Thinking about One's Thinking | Putting Metacognition into Practice

Thinking about One's Thinking

Metacognition is, put simply, thinking about one's thinking. More precisely, it refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance. Metacognition includes a critical awareness of a) one's thinking and learning and b) oneself as a thinker and learner.

Initially studied for its development in young children (Baker & Brown, 1984; Flavell, 1985), researchers soon began to look at how experts display metacognitive thinking and how, then, these thought processes can be taught to novices to improve their learning (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986). In How People Learn, the National Academy of Sciences' synthesis of decades of research on the science of learning, one of the three key findings of this work is the effectiveness of a "'metacognitive' approach to instruction" (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000, p. 18).

Metacognitive practices increase students' abilities to transfer or adapt their learning to new contexts and tasks (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, p. 12; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; Scardamalia et al., 1984; Schoenfeld, 1983, 1985, 1991). They do this by gaining a level of awareness above the subject matter: they also think about the tasks and contexts of different learning situations and themselves as learners in these different contexts. When Pintrich (2002) asserts that "Students who know about the different kinds of strategies for learning, thinking, and problem solving will be more likely to use them" (p. 222), notice the students must "know about" these strategies, not just practice them. As Zohar and David (2009) explain, there must be a " conscious meta-strategic level of H[igher] O[rder] T[hinking]" (p. 179).

Metacognitive practices help students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses as learners, writers, readers, test-takers, group members, etc. A key element is recognizing the limit of one's knowledge or ability and then figuring out how to expand that knowledge or extend the ability. Those who know their strengths and weaknesses in these areas will be more likely to "actively monitor their learning strategies and resources and assess their readiness for particular tasks and performances" (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, p. 67).

The absence of metacognition connects to the research by Dunning, Johnson, Ehrlinger, and Kruger on "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence" (2003). They found that "people tend to be blissfully unaware of their incompetence," lacking "insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills." They identified this pattern across domains-from test-taking, writing grammatically, thinking logically, to recognizing humor, to hunters' knowledge about firearms and medical lab technicians' knowledge of medical terminology and problem-solving skills (p. 83-84). In short, "if people lack the skills to produce correct answers, they are also cursed with an inability to know when their answers, or anyone else's, are right or wrong" (p. 85). This research suggests that increased metacognitive abilities-to learn specific (and correct) skills, how to recognize them, and how to practice them-is needed in many contexts.

Putting Metacognition into Practice

In " Promoting Student Metacognition," Tanner (2012) offers a handful of specific activities for biology classes, but they can be adapted to any discipline. She first describes four assignments for explicit instruction (p. 116):

Preassessments-Encouraging Students to Examine Their Current Thinking: "What do I already know about this topic that could guide my learning?"

The Muddiest Point-Giving Students Practice in Identifying Confusions: "What was most confusing to me about the material explored in class today?"

Retrospective Postassessments-Pushing Students to Recognize Conceptual Change: "Before this course, I thought evolution was... Now I think that evolution is ...." or "How is my thinking changing (or not changing) over time?"

Reflective Journals-Providing a Forum in Which Students Monitor Their Own Thinking: "What about my exam preparation worked well that I should remember to do next time? What did not work so well that I should not do next time or that I should change?"

Next are recommendations for developing a "classroom culture grounded in metacognition" (p. 116-118):

Giving Students License to Identify Confusions within the Classroom Culture: ask students what they find confusing, acknowledge the difficulties

Integrating Reflection into Credited Course Work: integrate short reflection (oral or written) that ask students what they found challenging or what questions arose during an assignment/exam/project

Metacognitive Modeling by the Instructor for Students: model the thinking processes involved in your field and sought in your course by being explicit about "how you start, how you decide what to do first and then next, how you check your work, how you know when you are done" (p. 118)

To facilitate these activities, she also offers three useful tables:

Questions for students to ask themselves as they plan, monitor, and evaluate their thinking within four learning contexts-in class, assignments, quizzes/exams, and the course as a whole (p. 115)

Prompts for integrating metacognition into discussions of pairs during clicker activities, assignments, and quiz or exam preparation (p. 117)

Questions to help faculty metacognitively assess their own teaching (p. 119)

Weimer's " Deep Learning vs. Surface Learning: Getting Students to Understand the Difference " (2012) offers additional recommendations for developing students' metacognitive awareness and improvement of their study skills:

"[I]t is terribly important that in explicit and concerted ways we make students aware of themselves as learners. We must regularly ask, not only 'What are you learning?' but 'How are you learning?' We must confront them with the effectiveness (more often ineffectiveness) of their approaches. We must offer alternatives and then challenge students to test the efficacy of those approaches." (emphasis added)

She points to a tool developed by Stanger-Hall (2012, p. 297) for her students to identify their study strategies, which she divided into " cognitively passive" ("I previewed the reading before class," "I came to class," "I read the assigned text," "I highlighted the text," et al) and " cognitively active study behaviors" ("I asked myself: 'How does it work?' and 'Why does it work this way?'" "I wrote my own study questions," "I fit all the facts into a bigger picture," "I closed my notes and tested how much I remembered," et al). The specific focus of Stanger-Hall's study is tangential to this discussion, ¹ but imagine giving students lists like hers adapted to your course and then, after a major assignment, having students discuss which ones worked and which types of behaviors led to higher grades. Even further, follow Lovett's advice (2013) by assigning "exam wrappers," which include students reflecting on their previous exam-preparation strategies, assessing those strategies and then looking ahead to the next exam, and writing an action plan for a revised approach to studying. A common assignment in English composition courses is the self-assessment essay in which students apply course criteria to articulate their strengths and weaknesses within single papers or over the course of the semester. These activities can be adapted to assignments other than exams or essays, such as projects, speeches, discussions, and the like.

As these examples illustrate, for students to become more metacognitive, they must be taught the concept and its language explicitly (Pintrich, 2002; Tanner, 2012), though not in a content-delivery model (simply a reading or a lecture) and not in one lesson. Instead, the explicit instruction should be "designed according to a knowledge construction approach," or students need to recognize, assess, and connect new skills to old ones, "and it needs to take place over an extended period of time" (Zohar & David, p. 187). This kind of explicit instruction will help students expand or replace existing learning strategies with new and more effective ones, give students a way to talk about learning and thinking, compare strategies with their classmates' and make more informed choices, and render learning "less opaque to students, rather than being something that happens mysteriously or that some students 'get' and learn and others struggle and don't learn" (Pintrich, 2002, p. 223).

Metacognition instruction should also be embedded with the content and activities about which students are thinking. Why? Metacognition is "not generic" (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, p. 19) but instead is most effective when it is adapted to reflect the specific learning contexts of a specific topic, course, or discipline (Zohar & David, 2009). In explicitly connecting a learning context to its relevant processes, learners will be more able to adapt strategies to new contexts, rather than assume that learning is the same everywhere and every time. For instance, students' abilities to read disciplinary texts in discipline-appropriate ways would also benefit from metacognitive practice. A literature professor may read a passage of a novel aloud in class, while also talking about what she's thinking as she reads: how she makes sense of specific words and phrases, what connections she makes, how she approaches difficult passages, etc. This kind of modeling is a good practice in metacognition instruction, as suggested by Tanner above. Concepción's " Reading Philosophy with Background Knowledge and Metacognition " (2004) includes his detailed "How to Read Philosophy" handout (pp. 358-367), which includes the following components:

What to Expect (when reading philosophy)

The Ultimate Goal (of reading philosophy)

Basic Good Reading Behaviors

Important Background Information, or discipline- and course-specific reading practices, such as "reading for enlightenment" rather than information, and "problem-based classes" rather than historical or figure-based classes

A Three-Part Reading Process (pre-reading, understanding, and evaluating)

Flagging, or annotating the reading

Linear vs. Dialogical Writing (Philosophical writing is rarely straightforward but instead "a monologue that contains a dialogue" [p. 365].)

What would such a handout look like for your discipline?

Students can even be metacognitively prepared (and then prepare themselves) for the overarching learning experiences expected in specific contexts. Salvatori and Donahue's The Elements (and Pleasures) of Difficulty (2004) encourages students to embrace difficult texts (and tasks) as part of deep learning, rather than an obstacle. Their "difficulty paper" assignment helps students reflect on and articulate the nature of the difficulty and work through their responses to it (p. 9). Similarly, in courses with sensitive subject matter, a different kind of learning occurs, one that involves complex emotional responses. In " Learning from Their Own Learning: How Metacognitive and Meta-affective Reflections Enhance Learning in Race-Related Courses" (Chick, Karis, & Kernahan, 2009), students were informed about the common reactions to learning about racial inequality (Helms, 1995; Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 1997; see student handout, Chick, Karis, & Kernahan, p. 23-24) and then regularly wrote about their cognitive and affective responses to specific racialized situations. The students with the most developed metacognitive and meta-affective practices at the end of the semester were able to "clear the obstacles and move away from" oversimplified thinking about race and racism "to places of greater questioning, acknowledging the complexities of identity, and redefining the world in racial terms" (p. 14).

Ultimately, metacognition requires students to "externalize mental events" (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, p. 67), such as what it means to learn, awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses with specific skills or in a given learning context, plan what's required to accomplish a specific learning goal or activity, identifying and correcting errors, and preparing ahead for learning processes.

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1 Students who were tested with short answer in addition to multiple-choice questions on their exams reported more cognitively active behaviors than those tested with just multiple-choice questions, and these active behaviors led to improved performance on the final exam.
References

Adams, Maurianne, Bell, Lee Ann, and Griffin, Pat. (1997). Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook. New York: Routledge.

Bransford, John D., Brown Ann L., and Cocking Rodney R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Baker, Linda, and Brown, Ann L. (1984). Metacognitive skills and reading. In Paul David Pearson, Michael L. Kamil, Rebecca Barr, & Peter Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of research in reading: Volume III (pp. 353-395). New York: Longman.

Brown, Ann L. (1980). Metacognitive development and reading. In Rand J. Spiro, Bertram C. Bruce, and William F. Brewer, (Eds.), Theoretical issues in reading comprehension: Perspectives from cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and education (pp. 453-482). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Chick, Nancy, Karis, Terri, and Kernahan, Cyndi. (2009). Learning from their own learning: how metacognitive and meta-affective reflections enhance learning in race-related courses . International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 3(1). 1-28.

Flavell, John H. (1985). Cognitive development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Hatano, Giyoo and Inagaki, Kayoko. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In Harold Stevenson, Azuma, Horishi, and Hakuta, Kinji (Eds.), Child development and education in Japan, New York: W.H. Freeman.

Lovett, Marsha C. (2013). Make exams worth more than the grade. In Matthew Kaplan, Naomi Silver, Danielle LaVague-Manty, and Deborah Meizlish (Eds.), Using reflection and metacognition to improve student learning: Across the disciplines, across the academy. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Salvatori, Mariolina Rizzi, and Donahue, Patricia. (2004). The Elements (and pleasures) of difficulty. New York: Pearson-Longman.

Schoenfeld, Alan H. (1991). On mathematics as sense making: An informal attack on the fortunate divorce of formal and informal mathematics. In James F. Voss, David N. Perkins, and Judith W. Segal (Eds.), Informal reasoning and education (pp. 311-344). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Weimer, Maryellen. (2012, November 19). Deep learning vs. surface learning: Getting students to understand the difference. Retrieved from the Teaching Professor Blog from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/deep-learning-vs-surface-learning-getting-students-to-understand-the-difference/.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Nancy Chick Print Version Cite this guide: Chick, N. (2013). Metacognition. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/metacognition/. Thinking about One's Thinking | Putting Metacognition into Practice Thinking about One's Thinking Metacognition is, put simply, thinking about one's thinking. More precisely, it refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess...

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Apa.org

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A powerful way to improve learning and memory

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Jeffrey Karpicke, PhD, discusses how practicing retrieval enhances long-term, meaningful learning, and how it has been shown to produce more learning than engaging in other effective encoding techniques.

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Yale Center for Teaching and Learning

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Examples and Recommendations

Active learning includes techniques for large lecture courses in auditoriums with fixed seating, as well as for small classes with students seated in seminar-style rooms.

1.) Activities to supplement lectures without major modifications to course structure

Clarification pauses and collaborative note-taking - The instructor pauses during lecture and asks students to take a few minutes to summarize in writing what they have just learned and/or consolidate their notes. Students may then exchange notes with a partner to compare, in order to catch key ideas that a student might have missed or misunderstood. The instructor can then field clarifying questions.

Retrieval practice / one-minute papers - At the start of class, students write down major points they can remember from the previous class. Similarly, at the end of class students write down key takeaways and consider logical next steps. The instructor might review responses in class and encourage questions.

Demonstrations - Students predict the outcomes of a demonstration. After the demonstration, the instructor asks them to discuss the observed result and how it may have differed from their prediction. The instructor then follows up with a detailed explanation. Demonstrations may be enhanced through tools like open educational resources or 3D printing.

More techniques for effective lectures can be found here.

2.) Activities to supplement lecture time with active-learning individual/partner/group work

Error identification - Instructor provides statements, readings, proofs, or other material that contains errors. Students must find and correct the errors.

Concept map - Students are provided with a list of terms and must arrange the terms on paper, drawing arrows between related concepts and labeling each arrow to explain the relationship. Alternatively, students can use software like MindMeister or bubbl.us to project their maps on a screen or share with the class.

Categorizing grids - Instructor gives students several important categories and a list of scrambled terms, images, equations, or other items. Students sort the terms into the correct categories.

Active Review Sessions - Instructor poses a question which students work on in groups or individually. Students are asked to show their responses to the class and discuss any differences.

Inquiry Learning - Instructor presents a major concept and then asks students to make observations, pose hypotheses, and speculate on conclusions.

Brainstorming - Instructor provides a topic or problem and then asks for student input. After a few minutes, the instructor asks for responses and records them on the board.

Role Playing - Students use dramatic techniques to get a better idea of the concepts and theories being discussed. They might stage dialogue in a case study, act out a scene in a literature class, produce a mock debate of a historic issue, or present (within a safe context) problematic social responses requiring discussion.

More techniques for effective lectures can be found here.

3.) Activities to strengthen student motivation and metacognition

Ice breakers - Students learn each other's names and interests to facilitate group/partner work later in the semester.

Experiential Learning - Instructor facilitates site visits that allow students to see and apply theories and concepts. For example, students can visit museums or libraries, engage in field research, or work with the local community. Experiential learning may also include 3D printing, under the right knowledge circumstances. More information about field trips and experiential learning at Yale can be found here.

Peer Review - Students complete an individual homework assignment or short paper. Before the assignment is due, students submit one copy to their partner or group, and then provide each other with critical feedback.

Instructors may also consider teaching in an Active Learning Classroom, an environment that promotes active learning through flexible seating, surrounding whiteboards, and digital displays. Yale features several ALCs that instructors can reserve.

Additional Resources

ABL Connect (Posted Resources, Harvard University)

Active Learning (Essay and recommendations, Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching)

Active Learning Continuum (Recommendations, University of Michigan)

Active Learning Day grew from a White House Initiative to improve the quality and scope of active learning in STEM classrooms. The practice continues in association with the AAC&U.

CourseSource ("open-access journal of peer-reviewed teaching resources for undergraduate biological sciences"; focus on active learning and alignment with learning goals)

Engaging Students in the Classroom and Beyond (Videos, University of Michigan)

Promoting Active Learning (Essay and recommendations, Stanford University)

Interactive Classroom Activities (Recommendations, Brown University)

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (database featuring hundreds of accessible STEM- and social science - based case studies)

Wieman's Observation Guide for Active-learning Classroom (Assessment, Stanford University)

The downloads section (bottom) features a printable handout version of this web page.

References

Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Rep. No. 1).Washington, DC: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development.

Handelsman, Jo, Sarah Miller, and Christine Pfund. Scientific Teaching. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching, 2007. Print.

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Active learning includes techniques for large lecture courses in auditoriums with fixed seating, as well as for small classes with students seated in seminar-style rooms. Clarification pauses and collaborative note-taking - The instructor pauses during lecture and asks students to take a few minutes to summarize in writing what they have just learned and/or consolidate their notes.

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Faculty Focus

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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I was wrapping up a presentation on memory and learning when a colleague asked, "How do we help students learn in courses where there's a lot of memorization?" He explained that he taught introductory-level human anatomy, and although the course wasn't all memorization, it did challenge students' capacity to retain dozens of new terms and concepts.

The question itself is tricky because most teaching professionals are heavily invested in the idea that learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam. We also worry, and with good reason, that emphasizing rote learning steals time and effort away from the deeper thinking that we want students to do. But in my work I've come to realize that memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, acquiring content knowledge doesn't have to detract from critical thinking, reasoning, or innovation-rather, it can complement all these. Cognitive scientists are making new discoveries all the time about the connections between memory and processes such as drawing inferences, making predictions, and other skills that make up the ability to think like an expert in a discipline.

So what techniques target this specific teaching and learning challenge? We're all familiar with mnemonics such as the first-letter technique-using a word such as RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) or a catchy phrase (Every Good Boy Does Fine) to remember a sequence of information. Mnemonics are one good tool, but what else can we offer?

Learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam, but memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise

For starters, we should convey to students (and keep in mind ourselves) that memorization challenges nearly everyone because the mind simply isn't set up to take in reams of disjointed facts. Our memory systems evolved to be picky about what we remember, selecting the information that is most relevant to our goals and discarding the rest. Understanding this helps us and our students have realistic expectations about the level of effort needed to succeed.

It also helps to understand how we create memories for words, because many memorization tasks involve scientific terms, foreign language vocabulary, and the like. How we do this has been hotly debated among researchers, but one view is that we rely on a special piece of mental machinery called the phonological loop that holds speech sounds.

If you've ever muttered a phone number to yourself while you ran around looking for a pencil to write it down with, you've experienced the phonological loop in action. But recycling phone numbers isn't the phonological loop's main reason for existing. Rather, its real job kicks in when we run into a word we haven't heard before. When this happens, the phonological loop grabs onto the sequence of sounds and keeps it fresh while other memory systems set up representations of what the new word means. The catch is that phonological loop capacity varies fairly substantially from individual to individual. This means that words of three, four, or more syllables overwhelm some people's ability to learn new words on the fly.

With these two points in mind-that memory doesn't handle disjointed facts well and new vocabulary hinges on one sometimes-shaky mechanism within memory-here are some ways to help students manage memorization:

Emphasize context and purpose. Ask yourself why students are being asked to memorize these facts in the first place. If students can readily answer that question and if they can picture future situations in which they will use the information, they will be better primed to remember it.

Break down new vocabulary words, especially those that are more than two syllables long. Allow time to rehearse and remember the first couple of syllables before tacking on later ones. Also keep in mind that this process will be easier for some students than others due to wide variation in phonological loop capacity; you may want to design in a "mastery learning" or other individualized approach for vocabulary so that students can move through at their own pace.

Visualize information. For most people, imagery is highly memorable, perhaps because so much of the brain is devoted to visual processing. Memory champions, such as the ones populating the best seller Moonwalking with Einstein, use elaborate visualization strategies to achieve incredible feats of memorization. Similarly, strategies such as the keyword mnemonic work by linking word sounds to images (such as using an image of a cowboy on a horse to remember the Spanish word "caballo," which sounds a bit like "cowboy").

Take advantage of the "Big Three" applied memory principles-testing, spacing, and interleaving. Briefly, these refer to the facts that quizzes are a great way to study and that we do best when we spread out our study sessions and alternate between different topics. Tackling a big memory project such as human anatomy means we need every advantage we can get, and dozens of research studies have supported these three as producing the biggest memory payoff for the time invested.

Avoid the rereading trap. Students tend to fall into passively reviewing material, and in doing so they miss the key advantage of techniques such as testing: retrieval practice. Retrieval practice strengthens memory, but it works only when we actively challenge memory. Flash cards, a favorite student strategy, are fine as long as students use them to actively quiz themselves.

It's okay to expect students to learn the facts and terms needed to become experts in a discipline. With an understanding of memory and some strategies to share, we can make this side of learning productive and maybe even painless-but certainly at least less painful.
Michelle Miller is a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Northern Arizona University.
Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 28.9 (2014): 3. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved.

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Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

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Although there is more to learning than regurgitating facts on an exam, memorization is an important route to building content knowledge and expertise.

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Active vs. Passive Learning Strategies

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How well do students learn when a lesson is mainly in PowerPoint? Henrik Berger Jørgensen, CC BY-NC-ND

For a brief period in the history of teaching, using PowerPoint automatically qualified you as a tech-savvy professor - an innovator who wouldn't settle for the usual combination of staticky black-and-white overhead films and hand-scrawled chalkboard notes.

Now, it's hard to believe that PowerPoint was once considered innovative by anyone. Popular criticism includes everything from tongue-in-cheek comments about death by PowerPoint to serious claims that it fundamentally degrades how we think and communicate.

But much of today's college instruction isn't in face-to-face classrooms, a setting in which PowerPoint was traditionally used. It's in the burgeoning field of online learning.

So if more learning is moving online, does that mean that teaching with PowerPoint is becoming a thing of the past?

Surprisingly, the answer is no.

Passive learning through PowerPoint?

Even though there's little research that directly addresses whether PowerPoint affects learning in college students, critics have questioned its value in educational settings.

Some ask whether PowerPoint might indirectly undermine the quality of teaching by reinforcing a passive learning approach.

We know that lecturing is less effective than alternative methods. It therefore makes sense for teachers in face-to-face classrooms to question how much of their class time ought to be spent on slideshows.

But the fact is "slideshows" remain a popular method for presenting content in today's online courses.

Technically, these are often not PowerPoints, but decks generated using other types of specialized programs.

And they may differ from standard in-class PowerPoint presentations in important ways.

For example, taking advantage of the increased flexibility of the online environment, they give students more control over how quickly to go through the material and when to backtrack. They can also have more interactive features, such as quizzes, that ask students to apply material while they are learning it.

Even so, the basic - and flawed - idea is the same: put the material in front of students, and learning will happen.

What's wrong with slideshows in online courses

As a psychologist specializing in teaching techniques and course design, when I talk to faculty about teaching effectively with technology, I sometimes tell them to follow the ABS principle: anything but slideshows.

I'm only half-kidding with that blanket statement.

After all, we learn with the same brains in online environments as we do face-to-face; the principles of learning don't change just because the medium changes. And today's learning theorists agree: active involvement trumps passive viewing.

Students need to grapple with challenging problems, practice skills, discuss and defend viewpoints. But for this kind of active learning to happen, instructors need to ensure they do not rely too heavily on slides.

There are alternatives: simulations, problem-based learning, even educational games are all proven methods for drawing students in. They also transplant well into online learning.

Using slideshows the right way

So do slideshows have any place in a well-designed online course? Possibly.

They can be used strategically for things they are best at: giving students an overview of new material, or providing a refresher on concepts students will need for an upcoming activity.

Slides are also great for for integrating visual illustrations. This is important because visuals - diagrams, figures, photos and the like - have a powerful impact on learning.

Visual information is almost always more memorable than sound, text or other modalities.

This isn't because of the now-debunked idea that some people are "visual learners," but more likely stems from how the brain codes images. There are separate systems for representing verbal and visual information in the brain. When we save information in both places, it is easier to recall.

Teachers don't have to stick with static images, either. Even basic animations can illuminate conceptual relationships - such as cause and effect, or the unfolding of a process over time - in ways that text can't.

Furthermore, as University of California, Santa Barbara researcher Richard Mayer has discovered, visuals and the spoken word pair up in powerful ways, so that audio plus visuals produce better learning than either alone.

Research also tells teachers some things not to do with visuals. Instructors should avoid purely decorative graphics, as these can actually hamper learning.

They should also eschew reading text verbatim, instead using a conversational, natural speaking style for voiceovers and verbal explanations.

What this means in the larger context of online learning

In sum, slideshows can be a useful part of online instruction, when used for the right things and designed in the right way. But they shouldn't be the main, or the only, method of instruction - any more than lectures should dominate face-to-face classes.

But it's not just instructors who need to hear this message.

Publishing and educational technology companies, who provide many of the tools that educators rely on, can do more to develop products that push beyond familiar formulas and draw on the latest learning science.

We need tools that make it easy to create assignments that ask students to apply what they have learned, in scenarios that are as realistic and challenging as possible.

These learning tools also need to be adaptive, adjusting the material and pace to the individual learner. This kind of educational technology does exist, but far more can be done to expand the available options.

Teaching in the age of technology comes with its own set of opportunities as well as challenges. And online education presents educators and tech developers with a rare opportunity to fundamentally rethink what we do.

Will we use it to explore new avenues for learning, or will we fall back on the the same old techniques that don't work well in face-to-face classrooms?

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Learning from PowerPoint: is it time for teachers to move on?

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Slideshows, when designed right, can be a useful part of online instruction. But they shouldn't be the main, or the only, method of instruction.

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Vanderbilt University

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Critical Thinking in Higher Education, A Pedagogical Approach

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Critical Thinking in Higher Education, A Pedagogical Approach

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Research Gate

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ASCD

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by Robert Delisle

To organize education so that natural active tendencies shall be fully enlisted in doing something, while seeing to it that the doing requires observation, the acquisition of information, and the use of a constructive imagination, is what needs to be done to improve social conditions.

. Dewey 1916, 1944, p. 137

All education involves either problem solving or preparation for problem solving. From mathematical calculations ("What does this equal?") to literary analysis ("What does this mean?") to scientific experiments ("Why and how does this happen?") to historical investigation ("What took place, and why did it occur that way?"), teachers show students how to answer questions and solve problems. When teachers and schools skip the problem-formulating stage-handing facts and procedures to students without giving them a chance to develop their own questions and investigate by themselves-students may memorize material but will not fully understand or be able to use it. Problem-based learning (PBL) provides a structure for discovery that helps students internalize learning and leads to greater comprehension.

Origin of Problem-Based Learning

The roots of problem-based learning can be traced to the progressive movement, especially to John Dewey's belief that teachers should teach by appealing to students' natural instincts to investigate and create. Dewey wrote that "the first approach to any subject in school, if thought is to be aroused and not words acquired, should be as unscholastic as possible" (Dewey 1916, 1944, p. 154). For Dewey, students' experiences outside of school provide us with clues for how to adapt lessons based on what interests and engages them:

Methods which are permanently successful in formal education . . . go back to the type of situation which causes reflection out of school in ordinary life. They give pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results (Dewey 1916, 1944, p. 154).

More than 80 years after that was written, students still learn best by doing and by thinking through problems. Educators who use problem-based learning recognize that in the world outside of school, adults build their knowledge and skills as they solve a real problem or answer an important question-not through abstract exercises. In fact, PBL originally was developed for adults, to train doctors in how to approach and solve medical problems.

Traditionally, medical schools taught doctors by requiring them to memorize a great deal of information and then to apply the information in clinical situations. This straightforward approach did not fully prepare doctors for the real world where some patients might not be able to identify their symptoms or others might show multiple symptoms. Though students memorized basic medical information for tests in their courses, they did not know how to apply the information to real-life situations and so quickly forgot it.

Recognizing that Dewey's maxim held true for medical education, Howard Barrows, a physician and medical educator at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, wanted to develop methods of instructing physicians that fostered their own capabilities for reflection outside of school in ordinary life. For Barrows, the ultimate objective of medical education was

to produce doctors capable of managing health problems of those who seek their services, in a competent and humane way. To do this, the doctors . . . must have both knowledge and the ability to use it (Barrows 1985, p. 3).

While most medical schools focused on providing knowledge, Barrows thought this was just the first of three interdependent elements:

(1) an essential body of knowledge, (2) the ability to use . . . knowledge effectively in the evaluation and care of . . . patients' health problems, and (3) the ability to extend or improve that knowledge and to provide appropriate care for future problems which they must face (Barrows 1985, p. 3).

Medical schools generally agreed on the content that should be taught; how this material should be learned remained an issue. Barrows developed problem-based learning to

allow [medical] students to integrate, use, and reuse newly learned information in the context of patients' problems; the symptoms, signs, laboratory data, course of illness, etc., provide cues for retrieval in the clinical context (Barrows 1985, p. 5).

This led to his first educational objective for PBL:

The medical students we educate must acquire basic science knowledge that is better retained, retrieved, and later used in the clinical context (Barrows 1985, p. 5).

Barrows designed a series of problems that went beyond conventional case studies. He didn't give students all the information but required them to research a situation, develop appropriate questions, and produce their own plan to solve the problem. This cultivated students' "clinical reasoning process" as well as their understanding of the tools at their disposal. He found that PBL also developed students' abilities to extend and improve their knowledge to keep up in the ever-expanding field of medicine and to learn how to provide care for new illnesses they encountered. Students who were taught through PBL became "self-directed learners" with the desire to know and learn, the ability to formulate their needs as learners, and the ability to select and use the best available resources to satisfy these needs. Barrows and Tamblyn defined this new method, problem-based learning, as "the learning that results from the process of working toward the understanding or resolution of a problem" (Barrows and Tamblyn 1980, p. 18). They summarized the process as follows:

1. The problem is encountered first in the learning sequence, before any preparation or study has occurred.

2. The problem situation is presented to the student in the same way it would present in reality.

3. The student works with the problem in a manner that permits his ability to reason and apply knowledge to be challenged and evaluated, appropriate to his level of learning.

4. Needed areas of learning are identified in the process of work with the problem and used as a guide to individualized study.

5. The skills and knowledge acquired by this study are applied back to the problem, to evaluate the effectiveness of learning and to reinforce learning.

6. The learning that has occurred in work with the problem and in individualized study is summarized and integrated into the student's existing knowledge and skills (Barrows and Tamblyn 1980, pp. 191-192).

Problem-Based Learning and the School Improvement Movement

Although the PBL method outlined in the preceding section originally was designed for medical schools, it has been adopted by a growing number of K-12 schools working to raise student achievement. Students educated for the world of the 21st century must develop habits of thinking, researching, and problem solving to succeed in a rapidly changing world. Yet, too many children in traditional education are not developing these increasingly vital abilities.

Thinking and problem-solving skills are not explicitly measured on a national basis. But studies show that while students are making progress in learning basic skills, only a small percentage perform at desired grade levels and master higher-order thinking.

For example, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test, 57 percent of 17-year-olds scored below the level necessary to "find, understand, summarize, and explain relatively complicated literary and informational material" (National Center for Education Statistics 1996, p. 114). Only 10 percent of students scored in the top two levels (proficient and advanced) on the NAEP history test. And while more than half of 17-year-olds (59 percent) could answer "moderately complex procedures and reasoning," only 7 in 100 showed a mastery of "multi-step problem solving and algebra" (National Center for Education Statistics 1996, p. 122). In science, less than half (47 percent) could "analyze scientific procedures and data," with only 10 percent able to "integrate specialized scientific information" (National Center for Education Statistics 1996, p. 126). Clearly, while students are taught the basics, they are unable to proceed to understanding and using advanced knowledge.

Problem-based learning fits right into the movement for higher standards and greater achievement. PBL asks students to demonstrate an understanding of the material, not just to parrot back information with a few word changes. Research and teachers' experience have demonstrated that active instructional techniques like PBL can motivate bored students and raise their understanding and achievement. These student-centered strategies build critical thinking and reasoning skills, further students' creativity and independence, and help students earn a sense of ownership over their own work.

In classrooms where educators employ active learning strategies, students talk to each other, not through the teacher, and they initiate and manage many of their own activities. In these classes, the teacher serves as a guide to learning, providing room for students to increase their independence and build their own creativity. The teachers rely less on textbooks, using them as only one of a number of valid information sources that include everything from the Internet to community members. Similarly, schools using active learning become more flexible, allowing teachers greater freedom to direct their students and structure their own courses. They recognize that helping students master information needed to solve a problem and building their analytical reasoning skills are at least as important as memorizing a predetermined answer.

Present State of Problem-Based Learning

Since Barrows first used PBL at McMaster University in the mid-1960s, PBL "has caused a small revolution in the medical community" (Albanese and Mitchell 1993), and it was cited by a U.S. News and World Report issue reviewing medical schools:

Since the late 1970s, New Mexico has been a pioneer in reforming medical education and training. . . . It was the first U.S. medical school to embrace a curriculum built around a case study method-the problem-based approach adopted six years later by Harvard (Sarnoff 1996, pp. 92-94).

PBL is presently used in more than 60 medical schools worldwide and also in schools of dentistry, pharmacy, optometry, and nursing. It is also used in high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools in cities, suburban counties, and rural communities. Teachers have been trained at the Problem-Based Learning Institute in Springfield, Illinois; the Center for Problem-Based Learning at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Chicago; and the Center for the Study of Problem-Based Learning at Ventures In Education in New York City.

PBL offers K-12 teachers a structured method to help their students build thinking and problem-solving skills while students master important subject knowledge. It empowers students with greater freedom while providing a process that teachers can use to guide and lead students. Most of all, PBL transfers the active role in the classroom to students through problems that connect to their lives and procedures that require them to find needed information, think through a situation, solve the problem, and develop a final presentation.

At this point, you may wish to look at one of the "practical" chapters (Chapters 7 to 11) before proceeding. Reading through some actual PBL problems may help you understand the background information in Chapters 2 to 6.

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by Robert Delisle To organize education so that natural active tendencies shall be fully enlisted in doing something, while seeing to it that the doing requires observation, the acquisition of information, and the use of a constructive imagination, is what needs to be done to improve social conditions. .

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University of Delaware

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Problem-Based Learning at University of Delaware

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The University of Delaware, founded in 1743, offers over 100 academic majors; its distinguished faculty includes internationally known scientists, authors and teachers.

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How the Brain Saves Memory

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Hippocampus  - How the Brain Saves Memory 113

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Science Direct

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Neuroplasticity - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

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Neuroplasticity is a continuous processing allowing short-term, medium-term, and long-term remodeling of the neuronosynaptic organization, with the aim of optimizing the functioning of neural networks during phylogenesis, ontogeny, and physiologic learning, and following brain injury.

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And What They Do

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Neurons and What They Do ~ An Animated Guide

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When you have all the correct answers, the brain image will be complete.

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About the Brain

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By Dr. Lara Boyd

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After watching this, your brain will not be the same | Lara Boyd | TEDxVancouver

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Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation

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Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation

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Cornell University

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Universal design for learning (UDL) is a teaching approach that works to accommodate the needs and abilities of all learners and eliminates unnecessary hurdles in the learning process. This means developing a flexible learning environment in which information is presented in multiple ways, students engage in learning in a variety of ways, and students are provided options when demonstrating their learning.

UDL is similar to universal instructional design and universal design for instruction. All three advocate for accessible and inclusive instructional approaches that meet the needs and abilities of all learners.

Why Use UDL?

Incorporating universal design principles enhances an inclusive learning environment.

Designing a course to accommodate a wider variety of needs may eliminate potential learning barriers or unnecessary learning obstacles. If a course can be designed at the onset to do this, then why not?

Providing students with multiple means of perceiving, comprehending, and expressing their learning allows students to engage with the material in a way that most benefits them, and also encourages students to engage with material to improve in areas in which their skills are not as strong.

Considerations for UDL

Provide Options for Perception - Based on the premise that learners access information differently, this principle means providing flexible and multiple ways to present information. For example, using PowerPoint as a visual supplement to your lecture.

Provide Options for Expression - Since learners vary in their abilities to demonstrate their learning in different ways, this principle means providing flexible and multiple ways to allow students to express their knowledge or demonstrate their skills. For example, providing students an option of writing a final exam or submitting a final assignment.

Provide Options for Comprehension - Students are motivated to learn for different reasons and vary in the types of learning activities that keep them engaged. This third principle means providing multiple ways for engaging in course activities. For example, engaging students in both group work activities and individual work, as opposed to engaging students only in individual work.

Remember that providing choices does not mean changing course expectations (e.g., if your course learning outcomes includes being able to communicate in writing, students need to demonstrate their learning through a written assignment).

Getting Started with UDL

If you have already designed a course, reflect on how it is going. What current course activities, methods of instruction, and assessments are working well? What is your teaching style and what are your students' learning modalities? Ask yourself which students would likely do well in your class and which students might struggle.

Could you offer more flexibility in the way you present content, the way students engage in learning in your course, and the way they are assessed?

Have students choose from a selected bank of assignment topics or at the beginning of the semester, allow students to determine what percentage of their grade can be dependent on certain assessment options.

Check in with your students to see how things are going. Conduct a mid-semester evaluation, and/or evaluate how productive your classroom climate is.

As with any teaching strategy, reflect on how it went. Did it work for you? For your students? Were students able to attain the course learning outcomes? Make necessary adjustments for your next semester.

See more on UDL principles and how they can be applied, or use a course accessibility checklist to check how accessible your course is.

References

Burgstahler, S., & Cory, R. (2008). Universal design in higher education: From principles to practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Rose, D.H., Harbour, W.A., Johnston, C.S., Daley, S. G., & Abarbanell, L. (2006). Universal design for learning in postsecondary education: Reflections on principles and their applications. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 19 (2), 135-151.

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Universal design for learning (UDL) is a teaching approach that works to accommodate the needs and abilities of all learners and eliminates unnecessary hurdles in the learning process.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

UDL Rising to Equity

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey. Do you use social media? Join the conversation happening now in the #UDLrising hashtag.
Meet the UDL Rising to Equity Advisory Board Meet the UDL Rising to Equity Stakeholder Council

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guid…

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Life Science Education

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