Small Teaching = Large Learning

James M. Lang

Small Teaching Book Talk

Story of sabbatical - Coffee shop to write the book
-Same conversation about the same order with the same employee for three months
-Makes one small change in his interaction with the worker - asked her to recall his order - and she was able to remember after that

One small change can make a big difference

Make it Stick, Brown, Roediger, McDaniel
"Much of what we've been doing as teachers and students isn't serving us well, but some comparatively simple changes could make a big difference."

Pausing for learning - checkpoints - metacognition moments (study from the 1980s)
-45 minute lecture - 2 minute pauses 3 times throughout the class
-During pause, subjects formed dyads and discussed lecture content - no instructor-subject interaction occurred
-resulted in learning gains

Opening and closing of class - framing - can have a huge impact on learning

Small Teaching Innovations
-Brief (5-15 minute) interventions into individual learning sessions
-Limited number of interventions or activities within an entire course
-Minor changes to course design, assessment structure, or communication with students

Retrieval
-how we strengthen foundational knowledge and skills - learning and recall
-Curious (Ian Leslie) - "Learning skills grow organically out of specific knowledge domains - that is to say, facts...The wider your knowledge, the more widely your intelligence can range and the more purchase it gets on new information."
-Students who have math facts memorized can find greater success on higher order math concepts and skills
-Foundational knowledge is important

Word pair experiment - testing effect - if we want to remember something we have to practice remembering it - test and quizzes as potent learning tools
-word pairs on both study sheet and test
-word pairs on test but not study - same results as on both
-word pairs on study sheet but not test AND word pairs drop off on both study sheet and test - same results

Long-term memory isn't challenged by capacity - but rather retrieval methods
-strengthened by subsequent retrieval and recounting after initial learning

Focused study guides and multiple choice quizzes have a greater effect than no studying
-but, having to retrieve and think about it - short answer conditions - had the highest impact

"Memory is the residue of thought."
-We remember what we think about.

Summary of Learning Strategies
-Low utility - summarize, highlight, re-read, keyword mnemonics, imagery
-Moderate utility - elaborative interrogation, interleaved practice (work on multiple skills / concepts in parallel), self-explanation
-High utility - distributed practice (retrieval activities spaced out over time), practice testing

Practice testing can benefit learning even when not in the same format as the criterion test

Practice tests that require more generative responses (short answer, fill-in-the-blank) are more effective than practice tests that require less generative responses (matching, multiple choice)

Concerning dosage - more is better - practice testing more often is more helpful!

Strategies
-open class by asking students to "remind" you of the previous content or summarize readings without accessing notes
-close class by asking students to write down the most important concept from the day and one remaining question
-Use clickers or free recall activities halfway through class in order to renew attention and prepare for new learning
-Build retrieval practice around the core concepts that underpin the cognitive skills you teach (writing, speaking, problem-solving)

Retrieval practices have a backward effect but a potential forward effect, too
-can help you to learn the next pieces of content or skills

Poll Everywhere: https://www.polleverywhere.com/
Kahoot!: https://kahoot.com/welcomeback/

Retrieval into engagement during polling
-Instructor poses a question or problem
-students think individually and post responses
-students turn to their neighbor and explain their response -
-student resubmit answers
-instructor solicits explanations from students
-instructor provides correct answer

Class dynamics -
-Civil attention - students will be quiet and docile
-condensation of responses - only a few will respond
-we need to work toward democratization - clickers and polls can help to do that
-overcoming the power of norms - early intervention more successful

Engagement Opportunities
-Beginning - reading questions, previous content
-Middle - understanding checks, application questions
-End - most important idea, questions and curiosity

Connecting
-What helps students deepen their knowledge?
-expanding knowledge networks - creating more connections between and among what they know
-George Orwell - "Here and there in the midst of their ignorance, there were small disconnected islets of knowledge..."
-Expert learners have a dense weave of connections between and among all that they've learned
-Novice learners do not have this web of connections

How Learning Works
"number or density of connections among the concepts, facts and skills they know...as experts in our domain, we may organize our knowledge in a way that is different than the novice learner."

Help students make their own connections
-invite students to connect what they are learning in your class to all others (Connection Notebook)

• list one way in which the day's content manifests itself on campus or in their home lives
• identify a televison show, film, book that illustrates a concept from class
• describe how today's material connects to last week's
• why does it matter (students must be asked explicitly to do this in order to be able to do it)

-Concept maps - specifically helpful before a test

• students who completed concept maps on a topic had higher levels of knowledge retention and transfer 
• https://mindnode.com/

-Handouts with gaps (instead of copies of slides)

• have a powerful impact on learning and perfomance
• students have a hard time structuring this knowledge
• helping them to start to frame it can help them make connections

"You now see why 'cramming' must be so poor a mode of study...But a thing thus learned can form but few associations." 

-William James (1899)

Motivation
-pattern of lecture followed by highly effective instructors
-What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain

1. Begin with a problem or question (essential questions) - we are curious about questions
2. Explain significance or relevance
3. Give students an opportunity to consider
4. Provide the answer
5. Conclude with problem or question

Narrative connection

-Daniel Willingham, Why Students Don't Like School

-"The human mind seems exquisitely tuned to understand and remember stories..."