THE LISTENING & NOTE-STUDYING STRATEGY?

LINKING THE “GRADE STRATEGY” TO RECENT BRAIN SCIENCE FINDINGS

​

GWEN BERRY, PH.D

GOALS FOR TODAY

1. Share research from brain science that links to the steps of the GRADE Strategy
2. Share resources for PD sessions and teachers for teaching the L & N Strategy
3. Gather your input on how this strategy can be updated and better utilized

​

DID YOU KNOW…

• The GRADE Strategy is a sub-strategy contained in the Listening & Note-Taking Manual
• GRADE contains evidence-based practices for how to STUDY and has direct links to current brain research

INSPIRATION & SOURCES

• American RadioWorks
• National documentary unit of American Public Media Reports
• Create documentaries, series, podcasts, and online content for public radio and the Internet
• Special interest in exploring the people, ideas, and innovations that are changing education in the 21^st century
• http://www.americanradioworks.org/about/

​

THE SCIENCE OF SMART

• Looks at some of the big ideas coming out of brain science
• Includes work of experts in cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience
• Shares stories of teachers and students who are trying to apply the knowledge learned from how the brain acquires and holds knowledge
• http://www.americanradioworks.org/documentaries/the-science-of-smart/

STORY #1: VARIATION IS THE KEY TO DEEPER LEARNING

KEY RESEARCHERS & COLLEAGUES

• Dick Schmidt, retired UCLA Professor of Psychology and an authority on how humans learn and develop motor skills
• Tim Lee, retired Professor and Kinesiologist, McMaster University, Canada (long-time friend and colleague of Dick Schmidt)
• Bob Bjork, UCLA Psychologist who has studied cognitive skill learning with Schmidt
• Their collective work on how humans learn best suggests that much of the way students are taught (and how they study and practice) could be more effective

​

INTERLEAVING

• Repetitive drilling on the same task is called “block practice”
• Doing the same thing over and over, in one block of activity
• A better way to learn is “variable practice” or “interleaving”
• Practice several new things in succession
• Example: if practicing golf swings, don’t repeat the same shot every time, but interleave by aiming at different targets each time, mixing up the kinds of shots you take, or switching the types of club you use

BJORK’S FINDINGS

• 70 percent of participants in Bjork’s studies believed that blocking was a more effective way to study (even though it wasn’t).
• Bjork states that interleaving seems to fit the mind’s natural capacity to detect patterns and recognize differences (best for all but the youngest minds).
• Interleaving tends to encourage learners to spread out their studies (don’t cram as you won’t learn as well in the long run)
• When students interleave studies over a spread-out space of time, the repeated act of recalling the information leads to deeper, more long-term learning.

​

Bob Bjork, a UCLA psychologist who studies how humans learn. (Photo: Stephen Smith)

LISTENING & NOTE-TAKING LINK

Lesson 4: The GRADE Strategy

See pages 35 & 36 for discussion of crammers and spacers

WHEN AND WHERE DO YOU STUDY?

• When do you normally study for a test?
• How long do you remember the information after the test?
• Where do you study?
• Being able to concentrate is key
• Consider resources that may be necessary for studying

​

ADDITIONAL FINDINGS FROM BJORK

• Bjork is also interested in how making mistakes can enhance long-term learning
• A level of “desirable difficulty” built into the learning and exam process appears to boost the overall retention of new skills and knowledge.
• Frequent, low-stakes quizzes and group discussion can be great opportunities to learn from mistakes.

Link to Vygotsky’s ”Zone of Proximal Development”

In the middle circle, representing the zone of proximal development, students cannot complete tasks unaided, but can complete them with guidance.

MAKE MISTAKES�

​

3^rd Grade Class at Bridges Community School; Make Mistakes lyrics by Bri Miller

​

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4-Hve9RKtg

​

INTERLEAVING STUDY AT LIBERTY MIDDLE SCHOOL, TAMPA

• University of South Florida Psychologist Doug Rohrer and Jen DeMik, 7^th grade pre-algebra teacher
• Homework sets with one type of problem are boring and stunt learning; Important to have a mix of types of problems so students practice identifying the proper solving strategy AND executing it.

​

MIX AND MATCH STUDY

• Designed study where half of class’s homework assignments stayed the same; the other half had interleaved assignments
• Rohrer took all the homework questions the teachers had used the year before and mixed them up
• Interleaved assignments would have the some questions about what the class was currently studying and some questions about things they’d studied earlier in the year.
• Two 7^th grade classes; material broken up into 4 units; controlled the study by interleaving different units for each of DeMik’s 2 classes.

​

MIX AND MATCH STUDY

• Unannounced test at the end of study on everything they had covered until then, both interleaved and standard.
• Problems with interleaved practice = Kids averaged 72% correct
• Problems with blocked practice = Kids averaged 38% correct

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

• Don’t cram; short, spaced out study sessions result in better retention.
• Frequent, low-stakes quizzes and group discussion can be great opportunities to learn from mistakes.
• When quizzing and practicing a skill, continue to include information learned earlier. *Note that many SIM strategies include this type of practice ☺
• Aim for a desirable level of difficulty in the learning and exam process (not to hard or too easy!)

​

​

STORY#2: LEARNING TO LOVE TESTS

MICHAEL YOUNG

• Decided he wanted to be a doctor while working as a counselor at a drug abuse clinic
• Approached the nearest university, Columbia State and told “Well, we don’t really have a premed program and besides, people from Columbia State don’t go to medical school.”
• Interesting Bio 2 Class (fishing!)
• Put together a modified premed program for him, he managed a decent score on the medical entrance exam, and accepted at Georgia Regents University Medical School.

MICHAEL’S EARLY MED SCHOOL EXPERIENCES

• First Class = Biochemistry
• Didn’t understand any of the notations, the formulas, or even the vocabulary the professor used
• Studied 16 hours a day before the first test

​

“I STUDIED FROM THE TIME I WOKE UP IN THE MORNING UNTIL THE TIME I WENT TO BED, 16 HOURS A DAY. I TOOK MY NOTES, READ THEM. WHEN I FINISHED, READ THEM AGAIN. WHEN I FINISHED, READ THEM AGAIN. AND I SAID, ‘OKAY, I’VE GOT THIS. I MEMORIZED IT IN THE BOOK. I KNOW THIS. I’M JUST GOING TO DO GREAT.'”��

Michael Young

Predict the results of his first (and other) tests

What was he doing wrong?

“

”

CHECK YOUR PREDICTION

• Young earned a 65 (failing grade)
• The same think happened on his next couple of tests, in ALL of his classes.

​

RESEARCH FINDINGS

• Rereading is by far the most common study strategy for students in higher education
• This may be because it feels good; you feel like you know the information and in the short term you do.
• Rereading is almost totally ineffective for long-term remembering (even remembering that has to happen just a day later)

“I ASKED MYSELF THE QUESTION: AM I DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT? I KNEW THAT THE ANSWER WASN’T STUDYING MORE, BECAUSE I KNEW THERE WAS NO WAY TO STUDY MORE THAN WHAT I DID. AND I THOUGHT, ‘WELL, MAYBE I’M JUST NOT STUDYING THE RIGHT �WAY.’��

Michael Young

Rather than giving up or dropping out he decided to approach his problem scientifically.

​

“

”

ENTER RODDY ROEDIGER

• Psychology Professor at Washington University in St. Louis
• Head of the school’s Memory Lab (a memory obsessive)
• Has been studying how and why people remember things for four decades
• Roediger and Young struck up a conversation and exchanged lengthy emails

THE EXPERT’S ADVICE

• The first thing Roediger told Young was to stop rereading and and start testing yourself.
• Read a chapter, look up from your book, try to recall the information you just took in. Make little quizzes for yourself.
• Young states that this type of studying was difficult for him and felt “inefficient”

THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT

• An early study by Roediger (memorizing 60 images in 20 minutes) led him to the “testing effect” or “retrieval practice”
• This phenomenon has been understood for centuries, but it has been overlooked in recent years.
• 350 BC, Aristotle wrote that “exercise in repeatedly recalling a thing strengthens the memory.”
• Francis Bacon mentioned it
• Pscyhologist William James also mentioned it

​

RODDY ROEDIGER

• “Psychologists interested in learning and memory have always emphasized the acquisition part of memory and neglected the getting it out part” according to Roediger
• The actual act of retrieving information over and over is what makes information retrievable when you need it.

WHY RETRIEVAL PRACTICE?

• One theory is that doing this poses a challenge to the brain and in effect “greases the wheels of memory”
• Another theory is that information is attached to context (the texture of the page that we flip as we read, the hum of the air conditioner in the background, the taste of the chips we’re snacking on as we study; these all become part of a stored memory
• Every time a memory is retrieved, it becomes connected to new sensations and contexts; the more things you have it connected to, the easier it is to pull it out, because you have lots of different ideas that can lead you to that particular material.

EPILOGUE

• The more Young studied using retrieval, the more his grades improved.
• Soon, he was making A’s and he became a legendary tutor at Georgia Regents

“ONE OF THE GAPS OR PROBLEMS IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM IS THAT NO ONE EVER HELPS A STUDENT FIGURE OUT HOW TO LEARN, AND YET THAT’S THE PRIMARY CHALLENGE A STUDENT IS FACED WITH. YOU’VE GOT TO ASSIST THEM WITH HOW TO DO THAT. AND THAT’S WHERE I THINK WE’RE FAILING SOMEWHAT.”

Mark McDaniel, Professor and Colleague of Roddy Roediger, Washington University

​

“

”

MORE TESTS, NOT FEWER

• Many classes in higher ed are set up to encourage bad study habits
• Professors and students don’t like tests, so they give a few large tests rather than many small ones.
• Andrew Sobel, Professor of International Studies at Washington University heard Roediger give a presentation and realized his students were studying in exactly the wrong way (only gave a midterm and a final)

MORE TESTS, NOT FEWER

• Restructured the class so that students took 9 quizzes rather than 2 large exams.
• This forced students to retrieve knowledge over and over again throughout the course.
• At first students hated quizzes; Sobel was shocked to realize, however, that by the end of the semester the the freshman students in this model were writing answers to his questions that were comparable to those in his upper division classes.

“THAT HAD NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE,” SOBEL SAYS. “AND SO THE ONLY THING THAT CAN EXPLAIN THAT, THE ONLY THING THAT VARIED IN THERE WAS THE TESTING STRUCTURE.”

Andrew Sobel, Professor of International Studies, Washington University

“

”

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED & APPLICATION TO THE GRADE STRATEGY

• Rereading alone is NOT an effective study strategy.
• Frequent pauses with self-quizzing IS an effective study strategy.
• The act of repeatedly retrieving information makes it easier to remember.
• Frequent smaller quizzers versus fewer, large tests results in better retention and understanding of information.

LET’S PRACTICE

• Work with a partner to create 5 questions from these notes
• Use the notecards to create your questions
• Question on front of card
• Answer on back of card

GRADE: STEP 4�DRAW A DIAGRAM

• GRADE introduces 3 different kinds of diagrams that can be used with most of the notes taken in school (Cue Card #15)
• Drawing a diagram requires you to manipulate and interact with information thus making it more memorable.

GRADE: STEP 5�ENCOURAGE YOURSELF

• Utilize this step when taking notes, while studying, before a test, and during a test
• Good learners engage in positive self-talk
• Let’s brainstorm positive statements we can say instead of the negative statements listed on Cue Card #21

POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

​

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DIETlxquzY&feature=youtube_gdata_player
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg&feature=youtube_dgata_player

​

​

​

SHARING RESOURCES & YOUR FEEDBACK

• Please discuss the questions at your table re. the Listening & Note-Taking Strategy (please assign a note-taker
• Be ready to share 1-2 ideas your table discussed

DEBRIEF

1. Should the name of the strategy be changed? Suggestions?

​

• Updated mini-lectures?

​

• Specific format changes?

​

• Is note-taking and studying a skill that is still valued?

​

• Suggestions for making the strategy relevant for today’s teachers and students?