Обсуждение:The ABCs of How We Learn

Belonging Other studies have found that helping people to think about themselves as having multiple identities, in particular, focusing on those facets of their identity that are in-group (e.g., college student) rather than out-group (e.g., female), improves performance for those at risk of stereotype threat (Rydell, McConnell, & Beilock, 2009; for more examples, see http://www.reducingstereotypethreat.org

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CONTRASTING CASES ARE close examples that help people notice features they might otherwise overlook. They increase the precision and usability of knowledge.

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DELIBERATE PRACTICE IS characterized by a high degree of focused effort to develop specific skills and concepts beyond one’s current abilities. Deliberate practice contrasts with the more common practice of simply

http://thedanplan.com).

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ELABORATION IMPROVES MEMORY by making connections between new information and prior knowledge.

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FEEDBACK IS INFORMATION that flows back to learners about the quality of their ideas and behaviors. Learners can then use the feedback to make adjustments.

For instance, an iPad game called Critter Corral lets students see how far their answer is from correct (Figure F.2). In one of the games, children need to decide how much food to serve to the restaurant patrons, and they can see if they served too much or too little. Ideally, this helps children learn the relative sizes of the numbers while also providing some guidance for how to revise. With only right/wrong feedback, learners can only guess at how to fix a mistake.

But this is a short-term effect that depends on putting the learner in the “right mood.” Can we help people learn to seek constructive criticism more generally? We addressed this question by making a game-based assessment called Posterlet. In the game, players create posters for booths at a funfair. They choose a booth and then design a poster. When done, they select a focus group of animal characters to assess their design. Each member of the focus group shows up with two thought bubbles, as shown in Figure F.3. One says, “I don’t like …” and one says, “I like …” Players can choose either the constructive negative feedback or the positive feedback about their graphic design for each character, but not both. Students then get a chance to revise if they want. Finally, they send their poster to the booth, and they learn how many tickets sold. Students repeat the cycle three times. All told, players have nine chances to choose between constructive criticism and praise (three per poster). The assessment is unique because the goal is not to test students’ factual or procedural knowledge but, rather, to assess students’ free choices relevant to learning (see Schwartz & Arena, 2013).

GENERATION IS A memorization technique that relies on the fact that remembering something makes it easier to remember the next time.

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HANDS-ON LEARNING OCCURS when people use their bodies and senses in the learning process. It recruits perceptual-motor intelligence to give meaning to words and symbols.

Does a hands-on activity need to be hands on? There are many computer simulations of hands-on activities that include mathematical and science manipulatives (see, e.g., the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives at http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html, and PhET Interactive Simulations at http://phet.colorado.edu). The answer to this question depends on whether learners can elicit the right perceptual-motor experiences without physically touching.

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IMAGINATIVE PLAY INVOLVES creating a story that is different from the world at hand, often letting one thing stand for another (e.g., a stick becomes a swooshing plane). Theoretically, imaginative play should improve a number of developmental outcomes, such as verbal abilities, symbolic creativity, intelligence, cognitive control, and social competence. (Below we explain why we say “theoretically.”)

How to Use Imaginative Play to Enhance Learning There is a prevailing hypothesis that improving children’s executive functioning, a major component of socioemotional functioning, will have cumulative effects on future learning. Children will be better able to control their attention, concentration, and impulsivity when learning and interacting with others. People have looked to play-centered curricula to strengthen executive functioning in four- and five-year-olds. The Tools of the Mind curriculum wraps executive function exercises around imaginative play (see http://www.toolsofthemind.org/

For example, children may be asked to play specific roles (e.g., doctors) and behave like doctors (and not patients). This differs from immature play where children do not try to play within rules. Rule-based behavior, by its very nature, is not stimulus driven.

Game play for learning has received increasing attention lately. For instance, the Quest to Learn schools in New York and Chicago frame a public school curriculum around games (see http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/projects/quest-schools/quest-to-learn/

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JUST-IN-TIME TELLING

ENABLES students to first experience problems before they hear or read the solutions and explanations. Lectures and readings are more effective when they address a problem students have experienced. This chapter considers how to provide those problem-solving experiences. When students appreciate the details of the problem, they learn the expository information more precisely, and they can use it to learn future material efficiently and solve novel problems effectively. Freely available science simulations (see, e.g., PhET Interactive Simulations at http://phet.colorado.edu) can also set the stage for just-in-time telling. If this is the intent, do not ask students to only explore a simulation on their own, because they may not experience a useful problem to be solved. Instead, let them explore for a few minutes, so they can learn the various controls and general simulation behavior

A second risk is that people may discount compelling experiences, because they do not show an immediate benefit. For instance, Arena (2012) showed that commercial video games, such as Civilization and Call of Duty, prepare students to learn about World War II. Students who had played the games for several hours did not initially exhibit any more WWII knowledge than students who had not, so the games seemed useless. However, this would have been a premature conclusion. While the video games do not portray WWII history per se, students do engage in strategic and tactical problems that can prepare them to learn about those types of issuerom a lecture on WWII. The video games revealed their value only when they were coupled with a subsequent explanation. Students who had played the games learned more from a lecture on WWII than those who had not. The benefit of many experiential activities is that they prepare people for future learning, and not that they are a complete lesson on their own. Blikstein, P., & Wilensky, U. (2010). MaterialSim: A constructionist agent-based modeling approach to engineering education. In M. J. Jacobson & P. Reimann (Eds.), Designs for learning environments of the future: International perspectives from the learning sciences (pp. 17–60). New York: Springer. Bonawitz,

KNOWLEDGE INFUSES

ALL of learning. Prior knowledge enables people to make sense of new information, and “post” knowledge enables people to imagine and achieve goals they previously could not. Because of knowledge’s central importance, we decided to break form. Rather than presenting a chapter for the letter K in our usual style, we offer a brief essay on the broad outcomes of knowledge. Our goal is to help untangle a tacit dichotomy that leads to confusion about the design of educational experiences and desirable learning outcomes.

WITH LISTENING AND sharing learners try to construct joint understandings. Listening and sharing are the cornerstones of collaborative learning. We can learn more working together than working alone.

Determining whether students have learned to cooperate is daunting. Gillies (2002) recorded group member behaviors every 10 seconds—it is not an easily adopted methodology. People are working on more efficient solutions. Basketball has a solution. It is possible to measure the performance of teammates when player X is on the floor versus not. For example, do the teammates score more points when player X is on the floor? It is fun to think of how to do something similar for learning settings. The Programme for the International Student Assessment (see http://www.oecd.org/pisa) is a common test taken by many nations (and causes consternation among officials when their country does poorly). The test makers are trying to measure cooperative skills in negotiation, consensus building, and divide-and-conquer tasks. In a fascinating sample item, a student interacts with three simulated team members in a computer-based task. The team is planning a welcoming activity for visitors. One of their tasks is to decide among several options offered by their simulated teacher, Ms. Cosmo. One of the simulated students, Brad, says, “Who cares? All thehoices are boring. Let’s take our visitors someplace they’ll actually enjoy.” The real student, the one being measured, has four choices:

MAKING

CREATING shareable products, such as gardens, works of art, and computer programs. Making is motivating, yields practical knowledge, and may lead to sustained interest. Being able to create things is both useful and satisfying. Dale Dougherty, who started Make magazine, clairs, “The maker movement has come about in part because of people’s need to engage passionately with objects in ways that make them more than just consumers” (2012, p. 12). Making starts with production, not consumption. People make many things. Beer brewing is a fine example. A Karl Marx (yes, we really are bringing in Marx) wrote of two great forces that constitute a person. One is appropriation—we become what we are by taking up the ideas and artifacts of those around us. The second is production. With Aristotle, he viewed humans quintessentially as builders. We want to produce and create ourselves in the world, whether through ideas or products. This way we can put our element in the social matrix, and other people may appropriate our ideas. Marx did not advocate for a welfare state in which people only had access to appropriation. He advocated for a productive state where people could contribute and impress themselves upon the world. For Marx, the critical political issue was always who owned the means of production, which is oddly consistent with arguments for student-centered classrooms. This does not imply that student-centered teachers are communists! But Marx did capture the essence of making and how it can contribute to learning.

Making happens in clubs, museums, homes, and even school. One fun example is the SparkTruck (see http://sparktruck.org)—a big mobile truck carrying tools and materials that delivers maker projects to kids across the country, logging over 20,000 miles as of 2015.

We take the example of Scratch, a visual programming language developed at the MIT Media Lab (Resnick et al., 2009). Scratch includes the essential ingredients of productive agency. There are resources for making, namely, the learner-friendly programming

NORMS

ARE RULES of social interaction. They are often culture specific and can vary by intellectual tradition and setting. Good norms enable productive learning interactions. Norms of intellectual engagement shape what people learn and what they value.

As Richard Posner put it, “If you don’t play chess by the rules, you’re not playing it at all” (1997, p. 365). Norms allow people to play the game of social life. If players have different rules of the game, it is a recipe for frustration and no game play at all. In a learning setting, productive norms increase the effective exchange of information and ideas. Shared goals and methods of interaction ensure that learners are playing the same game, smoothing out the process of learning and problem solving together. Shared norms reduce the need to enforce rules of engagement.

.PEOPLE LEARN BY watching other people’s attitudes and behaviors. Learning by watching is called observational learning. It is especially effective for overt procedural skills, affective responses, and social values. Observational learning occurs naturally without explicit instruction—people learn to imitate both good and bad behaviors by watching those around them.

What Is Participation? PARTICIPATION REFERS TO engaging in an existing cultural activity. The major benefit of learning through participation is that it involves a rich and purposeful social context, often with a trajectory of continued participation and growth.

Developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky stated, “What a child is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow” (1934/1987, p. 211). This thought undergirds his most influential idea, the zone of proximal development (the ZPD, as it is fondly called), a region along a trajectory of growth where, with a little social help, learners can begin participating in an activity. Participating, in turn, further drives the processes of development and learning so that eventually the learner can participate without help.

This brings up an important point. Good learning environments provide a trajectory for continued learning and deeper involvement. Sports provide an impressive example: children can begin in little leagues and move through clubs of increasing abilities until they become professional athletes. The best video games make extensive use of the ZPD to create trajectories for more complex participation (Gee, 2003). At early levels, the computer accomplishes many of the tasks of the game, such as maneuvering additional players and offering a lax opposition. Players have a chance to experience why one would play such a game while also learning some of the basic game mechanics. As the player moves up in skill level, the game reveals more complexity along a “Goldilocks” ramp that is neither too hard nor too easy. (See Chapter R for why this is also very motivating.) II. How to Use Participation to Enhance Learning

Gee, J. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

QUESTION-DRIVEN LEARNING

The Jasper Woodbury videos are carefully constructed problem-based learning activities with two key features: they introduce a rich and compelling video-based problem-solving context that does not handicap children with poor reading skills, and they are self-contained and provide sufficient information to address the question. This latter feature is in contrast to more open-ended, project-based approaches that have students work on real-world problems, such as, “How can we increase the percentage of students who recycle at school?” This is more authentic, in the sense that it has a potential impact on people’s lives. Projects can be very rewarding, but they are also more demanding for the instructor, because the space of subproblems and possible relevant resources can become unruly.

http://wise.berkeley.edu

A REWARD IS a desirable outcome received in response to behavior. As might be expected, rewarding a behavior drives people to adopt that behavior. Punishing a behavior leads to the opposite. People often think about learning in terms of improved understanding. Another important outcome of learning involves simply taking on good behaviors. If only parents could get their teenagers to do homework instead of playing video games all the time! progression of appropriately applied rewards can produce complex behaviors. B. F. Skinner (1986), a major proponent of behaviorism, tells the story of nurturing art appreciation. Two undergraduates wanted to place a painting on their dormitory wall, but their roommate wanted to put up his sports awards. The undergraduates decided to change their roommate’s behavior by rewarding pro-art behaviors surreptitiously. During a party, they paid a young woman to ask the roommate about art and to hang on his every word. They later took him to a museum and covertly dropped a $5 bill on the floor next to a painting he was observing. They also paid more attention to him when he discussed art. As the story goes, a month later the roommate had bought his first painting for the dorm room.