Student Learning

Test Enhanced Learning

Tests are the primary way we evaluate students. In standard instruction, a test comes at the endpoint of teaching and learning. We teach something, students try to learn it and then we test them to determine what they know.

However, testing can also be a powerful way to enhance student learning. For nearly 100 years researchers have known that when people try to recall what they learned previously, it improves their learning. This is known as the test effect or test enhanced learning.

In early laboratory studies, research subjects memorized lists of words. After this initial memorization period, some subjects were asked to recall as many words as they could (recall practice) and other subjects were given additional time to memorize the words (more study). At a later time, all of the subjects were tested. Those who had studied and then tried to recall the words out performed those who actually had spent more time studying the material.

Memorization of word lists is not the kind of learning we typically expect in college courses. But, research demonstrates that test-enhanced learning also occurs in the classroom with meaningful educational materials. This is well illustrated in a study by Jeffrey Karpicke & Janell Blunt reported in the February 2011 Journal, Science. They demonstrated that college students who read material (in this case science material) and then took a test over it, outperformed students who used other study methods. In the learning phase of the experiment students were assigned to one of four study methods:

1. Study Once. Studied the material in a single study period.
2. Repeated Study. Studied the material in four consecutive study periods.
3. Concept Mapping. Studied the material and then created a concept map of the material.
4. Retrieval Practice. Studied the material and then tried to recall as much of the material as they could remember. They studied the material again and once again tried to recall as much as they could remember. 

One week after the learning phase of the experiment, students in all four groups took a short answer test that included verbatim recall and inference questions. Graphs A and B show the proportion of correct answers for each study method. Students who used retrieval practice, i.e., studied and then tried to recall what they learned, did far better than students who used the other study methods.

Why does retrieval practice work? Think of learning as involving two parts, first, as students encounter new information they try to use what they already know to make sense of it and retain it—this is called encoding. Second, learning also involves being able to recall what was previously encoded—this is recall or retrieval.

Students devote most of their study effort to encoding, trying to make sense of the material and retain it. This is important for comprehending the material and getting it into memory.

Testing, on the other hand, focuses on a different set of processes related to retrieval of what one has learned. Researchers believe that as students try to recall what they learn they reconstruct their knowledge, strengthening their ability to recall it again in the future.

In the Karpicke and Blunt research, trying to remember material had a stronger effect on what students learned than actually re-studying the material numerous times.

More research will shed light on the intricacies of the test effect. Eventually we will better understand when and why testing can boost student learning. But the there are important classroom applications that we can use now. Here are a few suggestions.  

Use retrieval practice as a learning strategy in your class. Think of where you can use tests in your class as a tool to help students learn the material and not simply to evaluate what they learned. A short written response in the middle or at the end of a class period may help students consolidate the class concepts. Or, practice tests could be used in class to help students prepare for a later graded test.

Encourage students to test themselves. Encourage students to do more self-testing when they study. This may be a hard sell; research indicates that students don’t believe that testing is an effective way to learn. In the Karpicke and Blunt experiments, students thought that retrieval practice would be the least effective of the four study methods. Moreover, self testing can be tedious.

Suggest ways that students can break up their reading assignments into segments. Propose that they read a segment then put the material aside and try to remember as much as they can. Not only will the act of retrieval practice improve their learning, but they will be able to identify gaps in their understanding. They can then re-study the material more strategically, concentrating on what they don’t yet know very well.

 

References:

Karpicke, J. & Blunt, R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science. 331, 772-775.

Roediger, H., McDaniel, M., & McDermott, K. (March, 2006). Test enhanced learning. APS Observer. Vol. 19, No. 3.

Motivating College Student Learning

Lack of student motivation complicates our teaching and leads to poor student learning. Often it seems like there is little teachers can do about students' motivation for learning. However, motivation is not a fixed characteristic; teachers can inlfuence students' effort and persistence. We may not transform every student into a self motivated learner--but we can orient our classes and practices to better support student effort and persistence. 

Here are some resources and tools to help teachers better understand the factors that underlie student motivation and strategies teachers can use to support student motivation in their classes. These include:

1. Motivating Student Learning workshop (PPT slides) held November 2011. 
2. Motivation Part 1: Factors that Influence Student Motivation (10 minute video).
   
3. Motivation Part 2: Strategies to Improve Student Motivation (10 minute video).
4. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (animated presentation by Daniel Pink)
5. Exam Wrappers--examples of a technique in which students analyze their preparation and performance on exams (or other assignments) and propose ways they can improve their future learning.
6. Can Perseverance be Taught (17 minute TEDxBlue talk by Angela Duckworth)

Download Motivating_Student_Learning_Workshop_11-11

  

 

Exam Wrappers are post-exam assignments in which students analyze their preparation and performance on an exam and then propose ways to improve their future learning. Introduced by Marsha Lovett and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, exam wrappers engage students in being more self aware about the relationship between their preparation and performance and act more strategically as they try to improve their learning in a course. See additional examples of how instructors are using these types of metacognitive assignments to promote the development of more sophisticated "self regulated" learning. 

Can perseverance be taught? Angela Duckworth's research focuses on the nature and development of dogged perseverance--True Grit--as she calls it.

 

Reducing Students' Test Anxiety

Many college students have test anxiety that impairs their academic performance. For example, a study of students in an undergraduate psychology class found that high test-anxious students had lower scores than low test-anxous students on all three course exams (Cassady & Johnson, 2002). Results like these are typical; test-anxious students underperform on examinations.

But recent research has uncovered a way to reduce the negative effects of test anxiety. And, the intervention is surprisingly easy to implement in college courses. Professor Sian Beilock and her colleagues at the University of Chicago have shown that test anxious students who write about their test-related worries for a few minutes just before an examination perform closer to their actual potential—essentially eliminating the negative effects of anxiety (Beilock, 2010; Ramirez & Beilock, 2011). For more information see the short video below.

 

If you would like to use the expressive writing strategy to reduce students' test anxiety in your classes, here are a few resources and recommendations:

1. Review the Expressive Writing Prompt and the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale. The Cognitive Test Anxiety Questionnaire is a 27 item scale, developed by Cassady & Johnson (2002), that measures students' anxiety related to test taking. You can use the scale to measure how much test anxiety students experience in your classes.

2. Read these guidelines about how to use the strategy in your classes Download Using the Expressive Writing Strategy to Reduce Students’ Test Anxiety

3. To make it easier for instructors to use the Cognitive Anxiety Scale we have made it accessible for download directly into your D2L courses. Click HERE to download the questionnaire for import into your D2L course. Instructions on how to import the file into your D2L course are found here (file has audio instructions): http://screencast.com/t/MpypAd3c95  Once your students complete the questionnaire, you can run a report in D2L to see the results. Instructions on how to run this report in D2L are found here (file has audio instructions): http://screencast.com/t/g1DsNaRvhUav

 

 

 

Using Lesson Study to Investigate Student Learning

We can improve our teaching by better understanding how our students learn. It makes sense that if we know how and why students have difficulty in our classes, we should be in a better position to intervene--to revise our practices to better support their learning. A compelling strategy for this kind of classroom inquiry is lesson study, a process in which several instructors jointly plan, teach, observe, analyze, and refine a single class lesson. The goal is not to create impeccable lessons but to better understand what, how and why students learn or don't learn what we teach them.

Lesson study is a way to carefully examine what takes place in your own classroom as students try to learn the subject matter and skills in your field. Learn more about lesson study at the College Lesson Study Project. Also see materials from Using Lesson Study to Investigate Teaching and Learning, a workshop presented at the 2011 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference. These include a workshop handout (Download LSWorkshop Handout ISSOTL 10-20-11-1) and slide presentation (Download ISSOTL2011Lesson StudyOnline).

Helping Students to Study More Effectively

What is the most important factor in successful student learning?

1. The intention and desire to learn
2. Paying close attention to the material as you study
3. Learning in a way that matches your own learning style
4. The amount of time you spend studying
5. What you think about while studying

Many factors influence how well students learn—but what students think about while studying is especially crucial for learning. Students learn better when they engage the material deeply and are mindful of their own learning.  Deep and mindful are an important combination. Deep engagement means that students think about the meaning of the material whether it is written text, a graphical display, a formula, oral statements, etc. When students try to discern the meaning of material they are more likely to understand and remember it. Students can do this by explaining the material to themselves, self testing their understanding, trying to predict how an idea will play out, noticing similarities and differences among ideas, and so forth. Whether students use these types of strategies depends on their ability to monitor their understanding and regulate their learning (metacognition). Students need to keep track of their own learning, recognizing what they know and don’t know, and then adjust their strategies to work through the gaps in their learning.     

In How To Get The Most Out of Studying Video Series, Dr. Stephen Chew, professor of psychology at Samford University, explores how students can improve their study skills and employ deeper and more mindful approaches to studying. These are an excellent resource not only for students, but also for instructors concerned about promoting better learning in students.

   

Learning Styles Don't Exist

In conversations about teaching and learning, how often do you hear phrases like. . . "Everyone learns differently," "Everyone has a unique learning style," "Teachers should try to teach to different learning styles." The belief that people have unique learning styles is widely accepted. It just seems like common sense. But . .

Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia, contends that there is little evidence that learning styles exist, and little evidence for the claims made about the educational importance of learning styles. Watch his video, Learning Styles Don't Exist. 

Professor Willingham clarifies what he means by good instruction in this short follow up video

Readers interested in the research on which Willingham has based his claim that learning styles do not exist can refer to http://www.danielwillingham.com/blog--learningstyles  

When Students Learn (or don’t learn) from Active Learning Experiences by Bill Cerbin

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin

 

Benjamin Franklin’s aphorism makes intuitive sense; if students are more deeply involved and engaged they will learn more deeply. That sentiment is prevalent in higher education where many instructors use active learning strategies intended to involve students more deeply in the learning process. The term “active” implies that students learn by doing, whether the activity involves interactions among students, hands-on experiences, or broad approaches to learning such as problem-based or cased-based learning. As these techniques proliferate, it is worth asking why some active learning experiences are better than others; why some lead to deeper learning and others simply result in action without learning.   

 

A science education project at Vanderbilt University points to some answers. Researchers created a 6^th grade science curriculum called Mission to Mars in which students grappled with authentic problems about space travel to and from Mars. At the end of the unit students did a culminating project in which they built and launched model rockets, a highly engaging, hands-on activity.

As expected they were excited about the project, and successfully built and launched their rockets. But as a learning experience the task was a flop. Students were unable to answer questions about how a rocket works or what accounts for an effective design. When asked about the purpose of the activity, students said things like, “You know, to build them and see how high they will go.” Asked about measuring how high things go, a common response was, “You know, look at it go up and see how high it goes.” Students had participated in an engaging, hands-on activity in which they learned almost nothing about science.

 

Disappointed with the results, the researchers redesigned the task with two goals in mind—to preserve students’ enthusiasm for the subject and to promote their understanding of scientific knowledge of rocketry. They came up with an elegant solution; students were given the job of developing design plans for a NASA rocket kit that would be used by children across the country. The assignment, called Request for Design Plans, asked students to examine various features of model rockets and then determine what materials should be included in the rocket kits. Below is an excerpt of the assignment.

 

We are especially interested in three questions. First, will our rockets go higher if we sand and paint them or leave them unfinished? While it would be much cheaper to leave them unfinished, we want to maximize the height our rockets reach; second, will the number of fins have any effect on the height of the rockets; primarily 3 vs. 4 fins? Again there are economic considerations involved; third, does the type of nose cone have an effect on the height of the model rocket? We have rounded and pointed cones.

 

How did the design-a-rocket-kit project work out? By all accounts the new assignment produced a much richer learning experience. Students were excited about creating rocket kits for other children, and worked on the project in earnest. They also developed deeper understanding of the science of rocketry including

·         how to do controlled experiments to test the quality of their designs

·         how to measure the height of a rocket launch

·         recording results from each launch

·         noting sources of variance in their measurements (e.g., a windy day)

·         debating what features should be experimentally manipulated in each subsequent rocket trial.

 

Teachers indicated that students asked better and more informed questions about rockets in class. And, the students spontaneously offered assistance to students from classes that did the traditional build-a-rocket assignment.

 

Implications for college teaching. Here you have two engaging, hands-on activities with strikingly different outcomes. What accounts for the differences in learning? These tasks illustrate that what matters most in active learning is not what students do physically but how they engage the tasks mentally. What’s going on inside their heads trumps what they are doing behaviorally. The build-a rocket task did not evoke scientific thinking; all students had to do was follow a set of instructions. In contrast the design task presented students with authentic problems and nudged them toward a way of thinking about them (e.g., experimental manipulation of variables). To accomplish the task students needed to adopt a methodology and bring scientific knowledge to bear on the solutions. The task provided a knowledge building framework with problems, conditions and constraints within which to operate.

 

Some active learning experiences in college are equivalent to the build-a-rocket task. For example, many times I use a generic discussion format to involve students in class (e.g., form small groups and discuss this topic). These are often lively but not always productive learning experiences. If you have observed discussions in your own or others’ classes you have certainly seen student interactions that are halting, irrelevant to the topic, and meandering.

 

To promote learning from discussion, of course, involves designing a task that engages students in the kind of thinking you want and the kind of interactions that support that thinking. A well designed active learning task engages students in a knowledge building process of using the subject matter in a purposeful, authentic way. In my classes, discussions are more productive if they are motivated by questions and problems that matter (i.e., have some obvious significance beyond the context of school learning). Of course, not all students care about the problems but at least there is a point to the discussion beyond killing time until class is over.

 

A second design consideration is how to structure and promote the interaction (i.e., the activity). When you tell students to discuss a topic, what do you think that means to them? Unless the task structures knowledge building interactions, students are likely to fall back on their own idea of discussion (e.g., just say something you know). For example, if the goal is for students to develop a better understanding of the topic, the discussion could involve them in using key concepts to explain different viewpoints to one another.

 

Again, the larger point about active learning is that thinking activity trumps the physical activity. Active learning exercises—even relatively simple ones—should promote knowledge building. If they don’t, they are likely to be active, non-learning experiences. John Dewey, an early proponent of experiential and discovery learning noted that, “We don’t learn from experience. We learn by reflecting on experience.” Active learning is most effective when the experience supports students to interact with and reflect on the subject matter in substantive ways.

 

References

Barron, B.J., Schwartz, D.L., Vye, N.J., Moore, A., Petrosino, A., Zech, L., Bransford, J.D. and the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1998.  Doing with understanding:  Lessons from research on problem- and project-based learning.  The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Volume 7, Numbers 3 & 4, 271-311.

 

Recommended reading. There are many books and articles about how to use active learning in the college classroom. One of my favorites is Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty by Elizabeth Barkley, K. Pat Cross and Claire Major. Jossey-Bass Publisher.   

When Students Learn (or don't learn) from Classroom Demonstrations by Bill Cerbin

Classroom demonstrations are used widely in college courses to help make abstract ideas more concrete. For example, MIT Physics Professor Walter Lewin (below) demonstrates the period of a pendulum by suspending himself from a long cable attached to the ceiling of a lecture hall and swinging back and forth in front of the class. The demonstration is intended to attract students’ attention and engage them in thinking about the concept he just explained.

 

But research indicates that students who observe standard demonstrations in class perform no better on related test items than students who do not observe the demonstrations. This finding led Harvard Physics Professor Eric Mazur and his colleagues to consider alternative ways to do classroom demonstrations. They discovered a simple and potent method to improve student learning from demonstrations. It goes like this:

1. First describe the demonstration to students and ask them to predict the outcome of the demonstration. The Mazur group asked students to select a prediction from among several options (multiple choice) or to produce their own prediction (open ended).
2. After they predict the outcome, show students the actual demonstration.

The addition of the extra step—predicting the outcome—improved student learning markedly on test items related to the demonstrated concept. The researchers also found that for particularly difficult concepts, demonstrations were most effective if students predicted the outcome of the demonstration and then spent a few minutes explaining their reasoning in writing or verbally to classmates before observing the actual demonstration.

Why should predicting and explaining improve student learning from demonstrations? Maybe you would like to stop at this point and formulate your own explanation before reading on . . . but here’s what is happening.

 

In a standard demonstration students observe the instructor carry out the procedure. Like the wild physicist swinging across the room, it may capture their attention but they are left to their own devices to make sense of how the demonstration maps onto the concept. The connections between the concept and the demonstration, obvious to the instructor, may be invisible to the novice. There is nothing in the event itself that engages students in discerning connections between the abstract concept and the demonstration.

 

In an enhanced demonstration, predicting and explaining are sense-making activities in which students try to discern the connections between the concept and the demonstration. They construct a model of how the concept works. Their models may be half baked or seriously flawed but represent an emerging understanding of the concepts. Subsequently, when students observe the actual demonstration the outcome is feedback that will confirm or contradict their understanding. If students were thinking aloud at this point we might hear them say things like,

• “Oh, I was on the right track; my prediction is correct. I get it.”
• “Oh, I was sorta on the right track but it’s somewhat different than I thought. Now, I understand it better.”
• “Oh, I was dead wrong, way off track. I was thinking that it was X but it’s not; it’s Y. 

Broader implications for teaching. Teachers use demonstrations, examples and diagrams to illustrate and bring home complex concepts and principles. The design of the demonstration or example is important but what matters more is what is going on inside students’ heads during instruction. The demonstration does not make the concept self evident. Students have to work out their own understanding. As teachers we can influence the way that students think about concepts by asking them to predict, explain, summarize, analyze, evaluate, speculate, interpret, critique, decide and so forth.

 

References

Crouch, C.H., Fagen, A.P., Callan, J.P., & Mazur, E. (2004). Classroom demonstrations: Learning tools or entertainment? American Journal of Physics, 72 (6), 835-838.

 

 

 

This work by Bill Cerbin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.