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What Teachers Need To Know About The Science Of Learning--And What They Don't

Lately there’s been a push to acquaint educators with “the science of learning.” But only some aspects of that science actually help teachers do their jobs. Others just waste their time.

You might think that before aspiring teachers take up their posts, they’re taught what scientists have discovered about how children learn. In fact, many teachers are unaware of that research, and—for complex reasons—some are actually hostile to scientific recommendations.

Recent efforts to connect educators with these findings, including some by deans of education schools and by teachers themselves, are beginning to bear fruit. And some foundations—notably those headed by Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates—are putting significant resources into bringing the science of learning into classrooms.

But there are two basic categories of learning science: cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Some efforts—particularly the Zuckerberg initiative—focus on neuroscience rather than psychology, while others mingle the two. That’s a problem, because—whatever its larger value—neuroscience is distinctly less useful to teachers.

What’s the difference? Neuroscience focuses on the brain’s structure and the regions that are activated when people engage in various tasks. Psychology, on the other hand, focuses on the mind and behavior. The distinction may sound academic, but it’s not.

Neuroscience is appealing partly because the data appears to be incontrovertible: just look at how different parts of the brain “light up!” But there’s a lot that brain scans can’t tell us—like whether a student is actually learning anything, or what to do if she isn’t. Changes in the brain may or may not have an impact on behavior.

Cognitive psychology, in contrast, has yielded a number of insights into what makes teaching and learning effective. It’s well established, for example, that students get a bigger boost from quizzing themselves about something they’ve read—or being quizzed by the teacher—than from rereading and highlighting the text. Psychologists have also shown that reading comprehension has far more to do with a reader’s background knowledge and vocabulary about a particular topic than with supposed general reading comprehension skills. But because these findings aren’t widely known, students are more likely to reread and highlight than to self-quiz, and elementary teachers are far more likely to focus on illusory comprehension skills than to build students’ knowledge.

When neuroscience does provide support for a particular pedagogical approach, it’s often just confirming something we already know from cognitive psychology. For instance, psychological studies have shown that it’s more effective to space learning out over a period of time than to cram for a test. Brain imaging suggests the reason is “enhanced maintenance rehearsal”—or, in plain English, more time spent thinking about the material. That may be nice for teachers to know, but would it make any difference in how they teach?

Cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham has opined that acquainting teachers with neuroscience is “a colossal waste” of their time. Testing expert Dylan Wiliam says he’s unaware of “a single neuroscience finding that helps teachers,” and he’s not sure there ever will be one. At least some neuroscientists agree that cognitive psychology does the intellectual “heavy lifting” when it comes to providing guidance to teachers.

A focus on the brain rather than the mind is sometimes not only unhelpful but positively harmful; it can prevent educators from exploring effective ways of addressing learning difficulties that stem from psychology rather than neuroscience. A case in point is the dyslexia community, which has embraced neuroscience that sheds light on the aspect of reading called decoding—that is, connecting sounds with letters. There’s evidence that the brains of dyslexic individuals differ in activation and structure when compared to those of typical readers.

Leaving aside the question of whether that kind of evidence is necessary to address decoding difficulties, the community’s orientation toward neuroscience has been problematic when it comes to the other important component of reading: comprehension. To the extent that teachers of dyslexic students have focused on comprehension (which is not all that much), they’ve viewed problems in terms of neurobiological deficits in “executive function,” oral language comprehension, or working memory. Or, like most teachers, they’ve seen a lack of supposed comprehension skills, like the ability to make inferences or visualize images. What they haven’t focused on—at least until recently—is providing students with what psychology has found to be the most important factor in comprehension: knowledge.

None of this is to say that neuroscience lacks value. By all means, scientists should continue to expand our knowledge of the brain. Their findings may help diagnosticians determine the root causes of learning difficulties and other aspects of human behavior. The question is whether teachers need to devote their limited time to learning about neuroscience.

One argument is that if teachers knew more about neuroscience, they would be less susceptible to “neuromyths”—persistent and widespread beliefs that have no evidentiary basis, like the idea that different students have different learning styles. But why not simply tell teachers these myths are untrue? Or better yet, not spread the myths in the first place? As Daniel Willingham has observed, “Teachers … shouldn’t need to learn neuroscience to be protected from charlatans.”

Another argument is that neuroscience can identify learning disorders before they show up in behavior. Even if that’s true—which is unclear—teachers themselves aren’t able to scan the brains of their students to predict which ones are at risk.

The strongest argument for acquainting teachers with neuroscience is that it can help them deal with students suffering from “toxic stress”—chronic trauma, often associated with poverty, that can affect students’ brains in ways that interfere with their ability to learn. When such students act up in class or have trouble focusing, teachers need to understand that the best way to counteract the effects of toxic stress is to provide a warm, supportive atmosphere. At the same time, that knowledge may not do much good if a teacher’s pedagogical approach is uninformed by cognitive psychology. If teachers use methods that don’t work, students are likely to become frustrated and feel like failures—as are the teachers themselves.

Teachers have a tough job, and we waste enough of their time with education courses and “professional development” sessions that provide them with little useful information. Let’s not add to the problem by requiring them to learn about activation patterns in the prefrontal cortex, bilateral temporal-parietal junction, and posterior medial structures. They need practical information about what actually helps students learn.

The Art of the Drill

by Zach Gorman | 2/20/19 2:15am

While many universities require students to take classes in a second language, Dartmouth is unique with its use of language “drill” classes. These classes serve as a supplement to students’ normal language courses and are taught by a fellow Dartmouth student — a drill instructor — who is fluent in the language. Drill emphasizes repetition, with the instructor repeatedly cueing individual students to articulate sentences with slight changes each time. Students must pay close attention to the repeated sentences in order to understand exactly what they will have to say when the instructor selects them to speak. One of the primary goals of drill is to acquaint students with conjugating verbs and forming complete sentences on the fly by repeating phrases.

Some Dartmouth students find this repetition to have a positive impact on their understanding of the language they are studying. Henry Phipps ’21, who is currently taking drill classes for Spanish 3, “Spanish III,” believes that the drill format helps him master the concepts at hand despite the difficulty of the classes.

“I think it forces me to think and it gives me the practice to form these phrases … I think it can be tough because you have to be really focused to … feel it, otherwise it’s brutal because you keep forgetting stuff and you just end up feeling bad about yourself,” Phipps said.  

However, some students feel that drill becomes too repetitive and that other language exercises could have a greater impact on learning. Allister Azagidi ’21, who is also in Spanish 3 drill, says that real conversations could be more effective in developing students’ language skills.

“[Drill] can be a little bit frustrating, to be honest,” Azagidi said. “I’m not really a fan of … doing the exact same formula [repeatedly]. I don’t think that it helps as much as being able to talk back and forth in Spanish to another person.”

Yuvraj Mahadeshwar ’21, who has instructed Spanish drill over multiple terms, agrees that it may be too repetitive at times despite its efficacy as a grammar tool. 

“[Repetition] does help, but it might contribute a little bit to students being a little tired of it by the end of the 50-minute session,” Mahadeshwar said. “But drill is really there to reinforce grammar concepts, and that’s why I think it’s really different from a classroom setting.”

“[Repetition] does help, but it might contribute a little bit to students being a little tired of it by the end of the 50-minute session. But drill is really there to reinforce grammar concepts, and that’s why I think it’s really different from a classroom setting.”

Yuvraj Mahadeshwar ’21

Phipps believes that drill’s repetition can set up situations in which students can be embarrassed by their mistakes in front of their peers, leading to a lesser learning experience.

“I tend to not get embarrassed that easily in front of other people, so in that case, drill is well-suited for me, because if I mess up in front of a group of students, I don’t really care that much,” Phipps said. “But I can imagine someone feeling pretty pressured to have their fellow students watch them forget three words even though they were said eight times, 30 seconds ago.”

Beyond the inherent repetitiveness of drill, one common complaint is the timing of drill classes. Many drill classes are scheduled at 7:45 a.m. three days each week in order to avoid conflicting with students’ other classes. If students have engagements that conflict with the other drill time slots, they have no choice but to take the 7:45 drill. Mahadeshwar, who has never instructed a 7:45 drill, believes that the time slot is very difficult for people to adjust to.

“I’ve never taught a 7:45 course and I’ve never signed up for one because I personally cannot wake up that early to teach a course,” Mahadeshwar said. “So I know that there would be a lot of students who also would have issues with being able to be awake and ready to learn.”

While Mahadeshwar says that he appreciates that the 7:45 a.m. option is available for students and instructors who cannot be present for the other time slots, he thinks it would be worthwhile for language programs to look for another time slot that could be more conducive to learning. 

Phipps, who has taken a 7:45 a.m. drill class in the past, also believes that this early time slot harms students’ ability to effectively learn from the drill system.

“Some people get stuck at times that don’t work for their brains,” Phipps said. “I know that I literally could not think at 7:45 a.m., so to me it seems strange that students would be forced to participate so early when they aren’t getting anything out of it.”

Both Azagidi and Mahadeshwar believe that some alternative practice could serve as a useful supplement to the traditional drill format. Azagidi believes that drill could be more helpful if students were able to have conversations with each other in the language, with the instructor correcting any mistakes students make in their conversation.

 “Rather than being forced to conjugate some random phrase, I think that drill would be better if we were just able to talk back and forth over various subjects and just be forced to do that and then have the instructor come in and correct every now and then,” Azagidi said. “I think that, overall, would improve everyone’s pronunciation [and] everyone’s ability to think better on the ball.”

 Mahadeshwar says that the repetitiveness of drill could be mitigated if some other interesting activities were integrated into drill’s curriculum. Drill instructors are allowed to lead a language-based game or competition, but only after each session’s material has been completed. Mahadeshwar thinks such activities could help to maintain students’ interest if used in a greater capacity.

“One [improvement] would be just to include more activities for students to do because it tends to get very repetitive and boring by the end,” Mahadeshwar said. “I think that some more activities, like mini-breaks or mini-competitions or something just to keep the students engaged would be more ideal for encouraging more learning.”

 Despite his few reservations regarding the repetitiveness and timing of drill sessions, Mahadeshwar says that he loves the program and believes that, when it is structured ideally, drill can have a real impact on students learning a new language.

“I think [drill’s efficacy] really just depends on the structure of the class itself and that’s really dependent on each instructor, but as long as the students are in a spot where they’re ready to learn and the instructor is there passionately teaching, I think that it can provide a lot of opportunities for students,” Mahadeshwar said.

New superintendent rides the bus

Daily Reporter staff reports

FORTVILLE — Mt. Vernon Community School Corp.’s new superintendent, Dr. Jack Parker, started his mission to acquaint himself with the district by riding a bus with elementary students on his first day.

Within his first week, he toured each of Mt. Vernon’s five schools and the preschool. In the following months, Parker plans to engage with staff and students at each of the schools, learn about Mt. Vernon and connect with the community.

Parker spent his first two days on the job touring and getting to know staff and students in each building including the Mini-Marauder Preschool. He met with several staff members, and he looks forward to becoming familiar with each school’s programs as well. He met with the bus drivers collectively, sharing that they are an integral part of the Mt. Vernon team.

Parker plans to meet with several core groups in the district and has already begun to connect with the greater community. In his first week, he spoke to the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce and moderated the Legislative Breakfast at Mt. Vernon with Speaker Brian Bosma, Sen. Michael Crider and Rep. Bob Cherry in attendance.