1. The document discusses a framework called How Learning Works that bridges educational research findings and teaching practices. It outlines seven principles of how students learn based on cognitive science, including that students' prior knowledge and motivation impact learning.
2. A case study is presented on the use of PeerWise, a student-generated multiple choice question tool, in a physics course. Students engaged well beyond minimum requirements, and participation was correlated with learning outcomes. PeerWise exemplified principles like knowledge organization and motivation.
3. The document concludes by acknowledging contributions and providing resources on How Learning Works and PeerWise for further information.
Ah yes, but that would never work with my students
1. “Ah yes, but that would never
work with my students….”
Simon Bates
CTLT Institute
May 2013
2. Overview
I. A framework for learning (and teaching)
II. One such framework: How Learning Works
III. Two principles, expanded
IV. Case study: PHYS101 at UBC
3. What is known about learning…
• is a process not a product
• involves change in
knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes
• is not something done to students, but rather
something students themselves do
4. What is known about learning…
Effective teaching has to be rooted
in what improves learning
The instructor can advance learning only by
influencing what the student does to learn
5. Implications for the new instructor
• Do NOT do what I did
• Seek out, learn from, incorporate teaching
strategies that are:
– Theory-grounded
– Evidence-based
Finding these in your ‘Goldilocks
Zone’ is not always easy
6. Bridging
• What is needed is a framework that bridges
and
• Fortunately, such frameworks already exist.
7. “Ah yes, but that would never
work with my students….”
9. What HLW is about:
• A bridge between research about learning
research and implications for teaching practice
:
– Why certain teaching approaches are or are not
supporting students’ learning
– Teaching approaches that effectively foster
student learning in specific contexts
– Transferring and applying these principles
10. About the 7 principles
• Research in brain
science, cognitive, developmental, and social
psychology, anthropology, education, and
diversity studies
• K-12 and higher education
• Domain-independent
• Experience-independent
• Cross-culturally relevant
11. 7 Principles
1. Students prior knowledge can help or hinder
learning
2. How students organize knowledge influences
how they learn and apply what they know
3. Students’ motivation
determines, directs, and sustains what they
do to learn
4. To develop mastery, students must acquire
component skills, practice integrating
them, and know when to apply what they
have learned
12. 7 Principles
5. Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted
feedback enhances the quality of students’
learning
6. Students’ current level of development
interacts with the social, emotional, and
intellectual climate of the course to impact
learning
7. To become self-directed learners, students
must learn to monitor and adjust their
approaches to learning
22. What the research shows
• When S are provided with a structure for
organizing new info, they learn more and
better
• S show better learning gains when given an
advance organizer i.e. a set of principles that
provide a cognitive structure to guide
incorporation of new knowledge
23. Strategies
• Create a concept map to analyze your own knowledge
organization
• Provide S with the organizational structure of the course
• Explicitly share the organization of each lecture, lab or
discussion
• Explicitly highlight deep features
• Make connections among concepts explicit
• Ask S to draw a concept map to expose their knowledge
organizations
• Monitor S work for problems in their knowledge organizations
25. Motivation determined by:
1. Subjective value of a goal
2. Expectancies or expectations for successful
attainment of that goal
Source HLW Fig 3.1
26. Value of a goal
• Attainment value: satisfaction from mastery
and accomplishment
• Intrinsic value: satisfaction from simply doing
the task
• Instrumental value: degree to which an
activity or goal helps to achieve another (e.g.
praise, financial reward)
27. Expectancies
• Positive outcome expectancies: People are
motivated to pursue goals and outcomes that
they believe they can successfully achieve
• Efficacy expectancies: belief that one is
capable of identifying, organizing, initiating
and executing a course of action that will bring
about a desired outcome
28. Expectancies determined by
• Prior experience
• Attribution of success or failure to internal
/controllable causes (more likely to expect
future success)
• Attribution of success or failure to
external/uncontrollable causes (less likely to
expect future success)
• Supportive environment
29. Strategies to establish value
• Connect the material to S interests
• Provide authentic, real-world tasks
• Share relevance to S current academic lives
• Demonstrate the relevance of higher-level
skills to S future professional lives
• Identify and reward what you value
• Show your own passion and enthusiasm for
the discipline
30. Strategies that help build positive
expectancies
• Ensure alignment of objectives, assessments and
instructional strategies
• Create assignments that provide the approp. level
of challenge
• Provide early success opportunities
• Articulate your expectations
• Provide rubrics
• Provide targeted feedback
• Describe effective study strategies
32. • Web-based Multiple Choice Question
repository built by students
• Students:
– develop new questions with
associated explanations
– answer existing questions and rate
them for quality and difficulty
– take part in discussions
– can follow other authors
peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz
45. Timeline
2010-11: UoE pilot study
2011-12: Multi-institution, multi-course
2012-13: UBC PHYS 101
Coursera MOOC
48
46. Previous research
• Good engagement and participation beyond
the minimum requirements
• Correlation between use and end-of-course
outcome
• Replication study in
3 institutions, 5 courses,
3 disciplines
1st year Physics N=172
University of Edinburgh
47. 0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
1 2 3 4 5 6
Taxonomic Category
PercentageofSubmittedQuestions
Previous research
• Question quality: mapped onto levels in
cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy
• Surprisingly high
overall quality, even
from ‘novices’
First semester N = 350
Second semester N = 252
48. Implementation in PHAS 101
2012 W2 3 sections
N=791
51
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 X 8 9 10 11 12 13
T 1 1 2 2 3 X 3 4 - 5 5
L 1 2 2 3 3 4 X 4 - ex 5 5
M M
PW @ @ ! @ !
49. Assessment requirements
As a minimum:
• Write one question
• Answer 5
• Comment on & rate 3
Contributed ~3% to course assessment
(mostly participation, small bonus for performance)
52
50. We were deliberately
hands off.
• No moderation
• No corrections
• No interventions at all
But we did observe…..
53
64. How this case study exemplifies HLW
Knowledge structures and organization
• S challenged to think about gaps / broken links
• Explicit opportunity to build better / repair
structures
• Taps into ‘What?’ and ‘Why?’
• Scaffolded to combine multiple concepts /
ideas / topic areas
65. How this case study exemplifies HLW
Motivation
• Diverse reasons for taking course
• Explicit mention of higher order skills
development
• Low floor / high ceiling
• Their space: control and flexibility
• Rewarding what you value: participation credit
• Community: peer interaction, scores, badging
67. Acknowledgements
• HLW slides - Naureen Madhani
• PHAS 101 – Georg Rieger, Firas Moosvi, Emily
Altiere
• UoE Physics Education Research Group
• Universities of Glasgow, Nottingham, Auckland
68. Resources - HLW
• http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/principles/ind
ex.html
• Brent, R. & Felder, R. (2011). Random
thoughts… how learning works. Chemical
Engineering Education 45(4). 257-8. Available
at:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/f
elder/public/Columns/Ambrose.pdf
• Coming soon – 5 page summary of HLW
69. Resources - PeerWise
Community: http://www.PeerWise-Community.org
JISC-funded multi institution
study:https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/SGC4L/Hom
e
UoE Physics Pilot Study: AIP Conf. Proc. 1413, 359
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3680069
RSC overview article
http://www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/issues/2013January/s
tudent-generated-assessment.asp
UoE Physics scaffolding resources
http://www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/elearning/projects/peerwise
/
70. Image / Icon credits
• Figures from How Learning Works, Ambrose et al. Chaps 2
and 3
• Icons:
– Stack of Books designed by Jeremy J Bristol from The Noun
Project
– Mesh Network designed by Lance Weisser from The Noun
Project
– Excited designed by Austin Condiff from The Noun Project
– Components designed by Iris Q. Li from The Noun Project
– Group designed by Alexandra Coscovelnita from The Noun
Project
– Brain designed by Martha Ormiston from The Noun Project
Hinweis der Redaktion
The teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.
The teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.
Have a basis in a theory of learningHave been trailled and shown to be effective at the coalface (ie the classroom).
Have a basis in a theory of learningHave been trailled and shown to be effective at the coalface (ie the classroom).
Domain-independent: apply equally well across all subject areasExperience-independent: Apply to all educational levels and pedagogical situationsCross-culturally relevant: Yes but remember that culture can and does influence how principles should be applied
Students are not blank slates. As they bring prior knowledge to bear it influences how they filter and learnIf robust, accurate and activated, it provides a strong foundation. If inert, insufficient or innacurate it can hinder learning2. We naturally make connections between pieces. Accurate and appopriated organized, can held with retrieval and application. Conversely, innaccurate or filed randomly, students can fail to retrieve and or apply it. 3. Uni life gives greater autonomy. What, where, when and how to studeny. Motivation plays a guiding rtole in determining intensity, persistence and quality of learning behaviours. When students find value in a learning task, and expect to achieve it, and perceive a supportive environment, they are liely to be strongly motivated to learn4. Not just component skills, but practice putting them together for fluency. Know when and hopw to apply these skills.
Learning fostered when students practice towards a goal, with an appropriate level of challenge and oftenenough and ogften. Practice with feedback towards target. Time and frequency that make it useful. Intellectual plus social and emotional dimensions. Climate we create has far reeaching implications for all students. Learn to monitor, error-check and control their learning, evaluate strengths and weaknesses. Monitoring progress. Doesn’t come naturally but are habits of experts.
Experts create and maintain a network of facts, concepts,procedurres and relationships. Often do it subconsciously. Organize knowledge aroind meaningful features and principlesNovices oftem lack a significantly coherent organized representation of material and their learning is impeded as a result of it. What and WHY – how to get at knowledge organizations.
Experts create and maintain a network of facts, concepts,procedurres and relationships. Often do it subconsciously. Organize knowledge aroind meaningful features and principlesNovices oftem lack a significantly coherent organized representation of material and their learning is impeded as a result of it. What and WHY – how to get at knowledge organizations.
Experts create and maintain a network of facts, concepts,procedurres and relationships. Often do it subconsciously. Organize knowledge aroind meaningful features and principlesNovices oftem lack a significantly coherent organized representation of material and their learning is impeded as a result of it. What and WHY – how to get at knowledge organizations.
Experts create and maintain a network of facts, concepts,procedurres and relationships. Often do it subconsciously. Organize knowledge aroind meaningful features and principlesNovices oftem lack a significantly coherent organized representation of material and their learning is impeded as a result of it. What and WHY – how to get at knowledge organizations.
Performance approach goals: focus on attaining competence by meeting normative standards=>better for learningPerformance avoidanec goals: avoiding incompetence by meeting standards
Can follow the author
Scaffolding provided in terms of how to come up with material for good questions. The above handout (a blank version was also provided) encourages students to choose topics within their Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky), identify misconceptions or things they don’t understand and devise questions with a realistic context. Students got around 45 mins for this activity
Scaffolding provided in terms of how to come up with material for good questions. The above handout (a blank version was also provided) encourages students to choose topics within their Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky), identify misconceptions or things they don’t understand and devise questions with a realistic context. Students got around 45 mins for this activity
We provided screencasts online to cover details of signing up, logging in, creating questions, finding questions to answer These are now hosted on the PW site.Creating most popular, viewed 170 times (not necessarily all from the 1A course) Assessment set due 9 days later
We provided screencasts online to cover details of signing up, logging in, creating questions, finding questions to answer These are now hosted on the PW site.Creating most popular, viewed 170 times (not necessarily all from the 1A course) Assessment set due 9 days later
Scaffolding provided in terms of how to come up with material for good questions. The above handout (a blank version was also provided) encourages students to choose topics within their Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky), identify misconceptions or things they don’t understand and devise questions with a realistic context. Students got around 45 mins for this activity
Scaffolding provided in terms of how to come up with material for good questions. The above handout (a blank version was also provided) encourages students to choose topics within their Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky), identify misconceptions or things they don’t understand and devise questions with a realistic context. Students got around 45 mins for this activity
Aside from this being a very creative question, with a great diagram, and a good spread of answers it is also a nice example of peer-tutoringThe author wrote the question and got the calculation wrong in the first version of the questionThis was picked up on, and corrected by, another student the same evening, and the version of the question replaced with the peer’s correct explanation We also placed one of the student generated questions on the exam (not this one).
This is typical of questions submitted by the highest performing students Focussed on quantitative problemsolving* Amusing context * Great care and attention with diags and maths The 4 images show question solutions sketch Solution maths Comment and author’s response.