Rebecca Gotlieb – Education & Teacher Conferences

About Rebecca Gotlieb

Rebecca Gotlieb, Ph.D. is a human developmental psychologist and educational neuroscientist. Her research focuses on individual differences in social, emotional, cognitive, and brain development from early childhood through adolescence and young adulthood with implications for education. Dr. Gotlieb is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the University of California, Los Angeles. She completed a Ph.D. in the University of Southern California's Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She received a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Brain Sciences and membership in Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College.

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The Power of Making Thinking Visible: Practice to Engage and Empower all Learners by Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church

Rebecca Gotlieb

September-22-2021

The Power of Making Thinking Visible: Practice to Engage and Empower all Learners by Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church

Imagine how schools might be different if educators focused on the process rather than product of students’ thinking and tried to support students’ disposition to think. Ron Ritchhart, Senior Research Associate and Principal Investigator at Harvard Project Zero, and Mark Church, consultant with Harvard Project Zero, argue for this shift in The Power of Making Thinking Visible: Practice to Engage and Empower all Learners. This book offers innovative teaching practices, each illustrated with real world examples, for supporting students’ deep learning and cultivating habits of mind for productive engagement with other people, ideas, and actions.

Ritchhart and Church make a compelling case that teaching with a focus on making thinking visible can transform students’ learning experience by giving them more agency and thus greater feelings of engagement, deepening their understanding (measured in both standard and non-standard ways), enhancing formative assessment, and ultimately supporting their intellectual character so that they will be lifelong learners, prepared for all they will encounter beyond school.

There are many tools that teachers can use to make thinking visible, and part of teachers’ and students’ task is to develop skill in understanding which thinking tools are appropriate for a given context. The authors focus on 18 routines for making thinking visible. They explain the purpose of the routine, the contexts in which it is appropriate to use the routine, steps to implementation and possible variations, and how to assess students’ use of the thinking routine. They also offer compelling and informative examples of the use of the routine in diverse classroom settings. Routines are aimed at increasing questioning, noticing, empathic listening, perspective taking, observing, documenting, and planning. Some routines seek to support students in reasoning with evidence, synthesizing, reflecting, identifying core concepts, considering possibilities, exchanging ideas, receiving feedback, and appreciating truth and beauty.

It is possible to make thinking visible across all academic subjects and domains. Advancing students’ thinking skills in a domain can help students master curricular content more efficiently.

Especially with the examples and instructions provided in this book it can be easy to implement these thinking routines, but doing so well can remain a challenge. Teachers benefit from developing an understanding of when and where deep thinking is needed, noticing it as it emerges, cultivating students’ thinking when they are doing it, and reflecting on how to embed more deep thinking opportunities into the learning experiences of students. Teachers who are skilled at supporting thinking set long-term learning goals for students, listen and respond to students, remain flexible, set high expectations, and believe in the transformative power of teaching thinking skills. Focusing too much on a short-term daily agenda or scheduling class time too densely can be counterproductive. Given the difficulty associated with teaching to make thinking visible and the fact that teachers’ own growth and development as educators takes time and experience, it is important for educators to support one another in the process of making thinking visible. Ritchhart and Church suggest ways to facilitate teachers in supporting one another in developing this skill.

The Power of Making Thinking Visible is an extremely practical, usable guide for educators to support students in honing sharp minds. To learn more about supporting the process of thinking, see Creating Cultures of Thinking, also by Ron Ritcchart.

Ritchhart, R., & Church, M. (2020). The power of making thinking visible: practices to engage and empower all learners. John Wiley & Sons.

Learn Like a Pro: Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything by Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe

Rebecca Gotlieb

July-29-2021

Learn Like a Pro: Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything by Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe

With the school year starting in just a couple of weeks, Learn Like a Pro: Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything by Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe is an excellent resource to help students start the school year with strong study habits. Using a fun, accessible tone and helpful graphics this book instructs readers about how to manage procrastination, exert self-discipline, stay motivated, study actively, think deeply, memorize new content, take better notes, read more efficiently, and ace the next test. Oakley is a professor of engineering at Oakland University and known for her widely popular massive open online course. Schewe is the founder and CEO of an EdTech start up, Educas.

Part of effective learning and studying involves developing persistence and motivation to stick with one’s studies. One tool Oakley and Schewe recommend to beat procrastination is the Pomodoro technique, which involves remove all distractions, setting a timer for 25 minutes during which one works intently on a single task, then rewarding oneself with a 5 minute relaxing break (i.e., not a break that involves one’s smart phone). Meditation, yoga, and taking time to relax can also help build attention and focus. Removing temptations can make it easier to stick with a goal. Setting specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time limited short- and long-term goals can help increase motivation. Working with others (e.g., in a study group) and finding value in one’s work can also increase motivation. Metacognitive awareness about one’s progress are also helpful. Finally, a healthy lifestyle, which involves physical exercise, high quality and sufficient sleep, and a balanced diet, is key for effective learning.

Oakley and Schewe review good study habits. Active studying (e.g., by using flashcards, explaining concepts and their relations to one another, and brainstorming possible test questions) rather than passive studying (e.g., re-reading notes) is likely to yield results. Studying in frequent, small chunks and reviewing, previewing, and mixing content during those chunks of study time is helpful. Sometimes studying involves memorizing ideas so that a student has mental power available to solve advanced problems with simpler ideas already clearly in mind. Using acronyms, metaphors and other memory tricks can help make ideas stick. Working through practice problems is a great way to check for understanding while studying.

Being a good test taker involves some different skills than being a good student or studier. Oakley and Schewe suggest reading through test instructions and questions carefully, checking the time while taking the test, starting the test by previewing the hardest questions so one can passively think about them while answering other questions, and reviewing answers at the end.

Oakley and Schewe conclude the book with a checklist of ways to become an effective learner. To learn more about these and other helpful study suggestions you may be interested in Learn Like a Pro, as well as other works by Oakley, including Learning How to Learn.

Oakley, B. & Schewe, O. (2021). Learn Like a Pro: Science-based Tools to Become Better at Anything. St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycle of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind by Judson Brewer

Rebecca Gotlieb

June-29-2021

Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycle of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind by Judson Brewer

Even before the increase in mental health challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we were living in an era of heightened anxiety. People experience feelings of worry, nervousness, or unease related to their futures or to life circumstances shrouded in uncertainty. In Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycle of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind, Judson Brewer, professor in Brown University’s School of Public Health and Medical School, shows that anxiety is a type of habit, and that the science of habit formation and addiction can help address anxiety. By some estimates, just shy of one-third of U.S. adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some time in their life. This book is helpful for the many people who struggle with anxiety and for individuals who help support people suffering from anxiety.

Anxiety originates from a brain and mind mechanism intended to support survival—i.e., fear is at the root of anxiety, and fear can be key to keeping us out of life-threatening danger. Anxiety is socially contagious and often exaggerated by judgement about our anxiety from ourselves or others. It cannot be avoided with willpower, reason, distraction, substitution, or environmental changes alone. Instead, Brewer suggests that we become aware of our anxiety habit loop and understand the ways in which we reward and reinforce those habits. Identifying a habit loop involves defining a trigger, subsequent behavior, and reward. He suggests practices for breaking bad habits and forming new ones and urges patience in the process of change. Mindfulness, or purposefully and non-judgmentally attending to the present moment, and curiosity, are key parts of unwinding the anxiety habit and curbing perseverative thinking. Brewer argues that mindfulness and curiosity work in part because they do not require changing the thoughts or emotions we have, but instead involve changing our relationship to those thoughts and emotions. For example, when we fall back on a bad habit, rather than chastising ourselves or saying what we “should” do, we can frame the misstep as a learning opportunity. Brewer urges actively saying “hmm” more often. He suggests that between our comfort zone and our danger zone is a growth zone in which we have the potential to help create a new version of ourselves.

Brewer recommends several specific practices for addressing anxiety and forming new mental and behavioral habits. He developed the acronym RAIN to describe one especially helpful practice which involves: 1) recognizing and relaxing into what one is feeling; 2) accepting and allowing those thoughts and feelings; 3) investigating them with curiosity and kindness; and 4) noting what happens in each moment. Paying attention to the present moment, including through breathing exercises, can be very effective. Loving Kindness meditation, which involves wishing yourself and others well, can help us accept ourselves and others as we are, and allowing the feeling of kindness to run through our bodies can provide a sense of calm. Paying close attention to the adverse behavior in a habit one is trying to break and to the good feelings in the new habit one is trying to form can help bring about habit change. Brewer also encourages having faith that you can learn a new skill or habit, practicing those new habits as needed, and focusing on making change in small, manageable chunks of time.

Brewer has examined all these practices through extensive laboratory-based research, as well as through a smart phone app he has developed to change habits. While many people are motivated to address anxiety-related issues because anxiety itself is unpleasant, Brewer offers additional incentive in the form of the wisdom that worrying does not prevent possible future troubles from occurring, but it does rob us of peace in the present moment. To learn more about addressing anxiety and engage with additional resources that Brewer has developed, visit DrJud.com.

Brewer, J. (2021). Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycle of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind. New York: Avery, Penguin Random House LLC

Why Don’t Students Like School? (2nd. ed.) by Daniel T. Willingham

Rebecca Gotlieb

May-28-2021

Why Don’t Students Like School? (2nd. ed.) by Daniel T. Willingham

Why don’t students like school? Daniel T. Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, addresses this and nine other significant questions about how the human mind works and the implications for teaching in his book aptly titled, “Why Don’t Students Like School?” The second edition of this book, with new information about technology now included, was recently released. Willingham’s overarching advice to teachers is to “know your students;” the book explains what about one’s students a teacher should strive to know and how to act on that knowledge.

The ten cognitive science principles for teachers that Willingham highlights are principles that he argues: (1) are true all the time and across contexts, (2) have robust supporting evidence (which Willingham organizes into comprehensive lists to help readers learn more), (3) can impact student performance, and (4) have actionable implications for teachers. By offering insights into students’ minds, Willingham aims to help teachers improve their practice not by prescribing how to teach, but by giving insights into what teachers might expect from their students based on the teaching decisions they make. Willingham is par excellence in his ability to translate cognitive science for an educator audience; this evidence-based, comprehensive synthesis will be of great utility for many educators, and the thought-provoking questions he includes throughout make this book an excellent option for a teacher book club/discussion group.

Much of the reason that students don’t like school (aside from social challenges) has to do with the fact that school rarely finds the sweet spot between to-be-learned content being too hard and too easy, according to Willingham. While we are naturally driven to satiate our curiosity, we also find thinking to be difficult and will default to what we remember rather than puzzling through something new. To make students more inclined to learn teachers can pique curiosity by explaining the question behind content the teachers wish students to learn, connect with students in other ways they find engaging (e.g., through comedy, stories, and demonstrating care), and avoid overloading the amount of information students have to hold in mind at one time.

Many teachers are concerned that teaching students the kinds of facts they need to perform highly on standardized tests undermines efforts to help them develop deep thinking skills or to think like a “real scientist” or a “real historian.” Willingham argues that students are well-served to learn the background information that they do in school because they need these facts to become strong readers and critical thinkers who are able to connect disparate ideas, hold information in mind, and develop sound predictions. Additionally, Willingham explains that the more one knows, the more one is able to acquire additional knowledge.

Experts–people who can create new knowledge in their field after practicing in the field for many years—think qualitatively differently than do novices. As such, we should strive for students to develop a deep understanding, but not to do exactly what experts do, since these same behaviors may not be fruitful without first having that deep understanding. To facilitate deep understanding and abstract thinking educators can help students link new content to information they already know, provide diverse and familiar examples of a concept, and offer analogies. We remember what we think about; to help students remember content, educators should reflect on what their lessons make students think about. Persuading students of the value of knowing the content, using a story-like arc in lectures, and engaging students emotionally can facilitate long-term memory. For memorization of basic information, Willingham lists several common mnemonics (e.g., using acronyms) that can be helpful.

The role of intelligence in education is a perennial and thorny issue. Importantly, Willingham notes the inherent worth of all students regardless of intelligence or talents. He provides convincing evidence that intelligence can change with hard work and is more affected by our environment than genes. Focusing on the learning process rather than raw abilities, teaching that hard work pays off and that proficiency requires practice, and normalizing failure can lead to a boost in students’ academic performance. (Willingham notes, however, that effects of a so-called “growth mindset” on academic performance are small and there is not sufficient evidence about how to teach this mindset successfully in school.) While there is true variability in students’ intellectual abilities, Willingham shows that there are not consistent differences across people in the way they learn (i.e., their “learning style”). Willingham argues that the content to be taught, more than the learning format preferences of students, should drive the way one teaches a lesson.

Educators have heard too many promises about a tech-based education revolution. In spite of this, Willingham argues that technology has not fundamentally changed how our minds work and the effects that it does have on cognition are often unexpected. Willingham suggests that before adopting new technologies in schools, educators consider the evidence about the tool. Screen time can take students away from devoting their time to activities that might provide greater cognitive benefit and a reprieve from social pressures. For these reasons, it may be beneficial to limit technology use.

After devoting considerable attention to the minds of students, Willingham concludes by considering how teachers can support their own cognitive and professional growth. Teaching, like any cognitively demanding skill, must be practiced to lead to improvement. That practice should include measures such as isolating individual subskills to refine, receiving feedback from knowledgeable colleagues, trying new techniques, watching tapes of one’s own teaching, learning more about human development, and recognizing that the process of improving may be hard on one’s ego.

Why Don’t Students Like School? is great summer reading for teachers looking to improve their practice. For other works by Daniel Willingham, see The Reading Mind and Raising Kids who Read.

Willingham, D. T. (2021). Why Don’t Students Like School? Second edition. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.

The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention by Simon Baron-Cohen

Rebecca Gotlieb

April-30-2021

The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention by Simon Baron-Cohen

Cambridge University professor of psychology and psychiatry, Simon Baron-Cohen, recently published The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention. Baron-Cohen argues that for the last 70,000-100,000 years humans have been the only species with the “Systemizing Mechanism,” or the ability to think in if-and-then patterns. This ability, which is stronger in people who work in science, technology, engineering, business, law, and some detail-oriented art fields, has offered us an advantage over other species because it enables invention. Baron-Cohen reviews extensive evidence suggesting that the Systemizing Mechanism is more common among people with autism, that both this mechanism and autism are at least partially genetic, and that they share a genetic basis. As the incidence of autism continues to rise and the need to better support this population and better harness the strengths of people with autism continues to grow, this book will be of interest not only to individuals with autism or to people who work with individuals with autism, but also to those striving to support two of our most uniquely human capacities—the capacity for innovation and for empathy.

Baron-Cohen explains that the Systemizing Mechanism involves first asking a question about the world, then hypothesizing an if-and-then pattern to answer it, testing that pattern repeatedly by making observations or experimenting, and finally, modifying it as appropriate. These steps allow us to learn new things about our environment and ultimately exert some control over it.

Baron-Cohen reviews the 70,000+ year history of human inventions. He argues that although other animal species use tools, and there is evidence of tools from other hominids, only humans can create a novel tool more than once. Baron-Cohen refutes the ideas that language, large working memory capacity, larger brains, or the protracted period of childhood could adequately explain humans’ unique ability to build innovative inventions. Only the Systemizing Mechanism is sufficient to explain our ability to invent.

Despite the power of the Systemizing Mechanism, we typically rely on empathy (a topic about which Baron-Cohen has researched and written extensively) to understand the social world. Baron-Cohen describes a trade-off between empathy and systemizing that may have both a genetic basis and may be influenced by environmental factors, including the prenatal hormonal environment. He says that there are five distinct types of relative orientations individuals have towards systemizing and empathizing—an individual can be very high on one and very low on the other, moderately high on one and moderately low on the other, or balanced in both skills. Readers can assess their own systemizing and empathizing at www.yourbraintype.com. Systemizing is more common among people with autism than among the general population and is more common among people who work in technology than among people in most humanities. People with autism are often experts at recognizing patterns (consistent with systemizing), but may struggle with cognitive empathy, leading to difficulty with social relationships. Hyper-systemizing individuals are genetically more likely to have an autistic child and the parents of kids with autism tend to score higher on systemizing and pattern recognition tests.

The rate of diagnosed autism has risen, which may partially be because of increased awareness, better ability to diagnose, and changing diagnostic criteria, but it may also be increasing in the population because of a genuine growth in its frequency (perhaps secondary to increased mating among people with a genetic disposition to systemizing). Currently, school and the workforce are relatively unwelcoming places for people with autism, which causes them great suffering and loneliness and makes society lose out on their unique strengths. Baron-Cohen calls for offering more social support to people with autism and creating more employment opportunities for these individuals. Appreciating neurodiversity in the population, or the naturally occurring variability in types of brains, is a revolutionary, inclusive idea. Inspired by his work with people with autism, Baron-Cohen helps us imagine a better world—one in which we cease to judge one another for what we cannot do and instead celebrate the special talents we each possess.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). The Pattern Seekers. How Autism Drives Human Invention. Basic Books.

Game on? Brain On!: The Surprising Relationship between Play and Gray (Matter) by Lindsay Portnoy

Rebecca Gotlieb

March-17-2021

Game on? Brain On!: The Surprising Relationship between Play and Gray (Matter) by Lindsay Portnoy

Game on? Brain On!: The Surprising Relationship between Play and Gray (Matter) is an affectionate, evidence-based, tribute to the importance of play for learning and preparing young people for their future. Author Lindsay Portnoy, who currently serves as an Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University, argues that we are born to play and that games can be an ideal space to develop skill in solving problems, thinking critically and creatively, persevering, collaborating, communicating, and empathizing. Portnoy argues for the value of play for supporting each individual student’s learning and for addressing equity issues in education. Throughout the book and on her website she offers tools to support educators in transitioning to more play-based learning exercises for students and urges educators to push back against rigid, putative learning cultures and standardized assessments. Especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic when students miss their friends and may find online learning to be exhausting and when teachers are seeing anew how challenging standardized curricula can be, we could better serve our students by absorbing Portnoy’s lessons about how to harness the power of play. As such, Game On? Brain On! will be of interest to an array of K-16 educators and education reformers.

Drawing on neurodevelopmental research Portnoy first argues that people come into the world ready to learn. Play is a natural way of facilitating learning by capitalizing on our intrinsic interests in a low-stakes, imaginative context. Portnoy offers numerous examples of games that students enjoy playing and can be educational—from commercially available board games (e.g., Monopoly), to video games (e.g. Fortnite), to physical games at recess (e.g., wall ball), to student or teacher invented games. By observing and probing students about their play while letting the students take the lead, educators can learn a lot about those students’ skills and interests. Simultaneously, they can support the students in developing critical skills such as executive functioning, emotional regulation, convergent and divergent thinking, and metacognition. Among the benefits of play are that it does not ask of students the same high degree of conformity and compliance that classrooms typically do and it draws on students’ strengths rather than admonishing them for their weaknesses.

Classic psychological motivation theories support Portnoy’s call for more game play. While playing games students can experience a sense of competence, autonomy, and connectedness with peers. Games allow students and their playmates to try on different roles creating a safe way to express different parts of themselves, opportunities to draw on peers’ expertise as sources of support and guidance, and a scaffolded context for building empathy. Cognitive psychologists and learning scientists know well that distributed, interleaved practice of skills supports long-term retention. Games encourage recursive practice, and they frame failure as an opportunity for feedback and growth, which supports learning.

Although educators do not often use games as a tool for assessment, games can be effectively harnessed as a way for students to demonstrate what they know and how they can continue to grow. Portnoy urges educators to consider employing reflection about experiences with games or other active learning exercises as a mode of assessment.

Citing examples of several games that are addressing pressing issues, Portnoy notes that through games students may be able to make authentic contributions to real problems in their community or in our society. Further, in school we often divide students by age or ability, but games are conducive to having players of all different ages, interests, and abilities work together, which can offer important social learning opportunities for students.

Children will always play. If we paid less attention to what students play and learn and more attention to how they play and learn, we might be able to bring out the best in our learners by capitalizing on their passions to inspire their continued growth.

Portnoy, L. (2020). Game on? Brain On!: The surprising relationship between play and gray (matter). Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.

Teachers vs Tech?: The Case for an Ed Tech Revolution by Daisy Christodoulou

Rebecca Gotlieb

February-04-2021

Teachers vs Tech?: The Case for an Ed Tech Revolution by Daisy Christodoulou

The dramatically increased reliance on technology to support students’ learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light educators’ need to understand how technology can support learning and how educators can make thoughtful decisions around the use of technology in schools. Daisy Christodoulou, Director of Education at No More Marking, draws on principles of human cognition and evidence about effective teaching and learning practices to offer suggestions for how technology can help bring about necessary improvements in education. Her book, Teachers vs Tech?: The Case for an Ed Tech Revolution, will be of interest to teachers, school technology managers, and EdTech entrepreneurs.

Lack of understanding and misconceptions about how people learn interfere with building technologies that can improve education. One especially important feature of human cognition is that while we have the ability to store vast amounts of information in long-term memory, we can only hold and manipulate a few pieces of information at a time—i.e., we have limited working memory capacity. Too often in-person or technology-based educational tools and techniques are ineffective because they tax our working memory. There is increasing pushback against teaching students facts since students can “just google it.” Christodoulou argues, however, that without sufficient content knowledge students’ working memory capacity would be quickly overwhelmed, they would not be able to understand the things they look up online, and they would easily fall prey to false information. A common misconception about learning is that students have different “learning styles.” This learning myth assumes that, for example, some students learn better with visual information while others learn better with auditory information.

While it is the case that technology could substantially help improve education by personalizing learning, doing so with technology that teaches to different learning styles or lets students guide their own learning based on their interests and assessments of their competency is not effective. Rather, technology could effectively personalize learning by providing targeted feedback and assessments based on students’ objective performance. Good educational technology can break down complex skills into smaller parts, provide helpful examples, and help students practice those skills repeatedly.

Christodoulou warns that a challenge with smart devices is that it is so easy to become distracted from educational work while using such devices. She suggests reducing device use, changing settings to reduce distractions, and potentially moving towards devices designed for a single learning purpose so that there are fewer possible distractions.

Christodoulou suggests that the path forward for EdTech should be to combine teacher expertise, for example in motivating students and evaluating complex ideas, with the ability of tech to do things like scale lectures, engage students in spaced, repetitive practice, and consistently applying rules to make grading fair. Further, teachers should receive training in using new technologies. Before adopting new EdTech, educators should investigate how the technology personalize the learning experience, how it builds long-term memory, how it support attention, and what evidence there is about its efficacy.

Christodoulou wisely concludes that change in education will only be possible when it is grounded in the realities of how people learn and the objectives that society and students have for school, and when it honors the expertise of teachers. Still, she argues that technologies that adapt to students’ performance and provide opportunities to practice challenging component skills provide an example of useful educational technology. In this moment when understanding the possibilities of EdTech is so important, Teachers vs Tech is a helpful read.

Christodoulou, D. (2020). Teachers vs Tech?: The case for an ed tech revolution. Oxford University Press-Children.

Active Learning Online: Five Principles that Make Online Courses Come Alive by Stephen Kosslyn

Rebecca Gotlieb

January-11-2021

Active Learning Online: Five Principles that Make Online Courses Come Alive by Stephen Kosslyn

The COVID-19 global pandemic has spurred a massive and rapid increase in online education. Although it is possible to design effective learning experiences in online classrooms, often online education fails to take advantage of the strengths of recent technologies and of the science of learning to meet students’ educational needs. Stephen M. Kosslyn, a former cognitive psychology professor at Harvard University who has worked in education technology start-ups and currently serves as the president of both Foundry College and of Active Learning Sciences, seeks to empower educators to provider better online education. His new book, Active Learning Online: Five Principles that Make Online Courses Come Alive, first defines active learning and reviews the psychology of how people learn and remember. Kosslyn then reviews five principles that contribute to successful learning—deep processing, chunking, building associations, dual coding and deliberate practice—and discusses ways to combine these principles and motivate students to help them learn. The book ends with clear and helpful examples of specific active learning activities that can be effectively conducted online in middle school through graduate school classes and describes how to implement these for different subject areas and groups of students. Even when the COVID-19 pandemic is better controlled, online learning will continue to be a major part of education; Kosslyn’s dual expertise in the science of learning and online education make him well equipped to guide educators towards practices that will help their students.

Learning, according to Kosslyn, is the process of acquiring and encoding new skills and information in memory. Ideally learned material can be transferred and applied in novel ways. Active learning, or using information in service of achieving a learning outcome, is typically more effective than lectures for helping students to retain and apply information, even if it does not feel to students like they are learning during active learning exercises. Although lectures allow students to passively participate and cannot be tailored to students’ interests and background knowledge, in small doses they can be an effective teaching instrument because they highlight and organize key ideas for students, model expert thinking, and can be used to reach many students at once. Kosslyn advocates for the “learning sandwich,” which features a brief lecture-based explanation of an idea, followed by an active learning exercise, and then a class-wide debrief on the learning exercise.

To support students’ learning it is helpful to understand a few key aspects of how human learning and memory work. One key principle is that the more mental effort one exerts on understanding or manipulating a piece of information the more likely that piece of information is to be retained. Similarly, linking new information or ideas to existing knowledge aids learning. Pushing students just slightly beyond their current skills and knowledge can create a fertile environment for them to engage in this sort of deep processing and association building. Another key principle is that it is easier to learn content that has been organized into a few small units. Educators might organize lectures into three or four distinct chunks and pause between chunks or build in active exercises between chunks to aid learning. Presenting information in both verbal and visual forms aids learning. Educators often rely on verbal information deliver (e.g., through lectures and texts); maps, charts, graphs, and diagrams can be used to engage with information visually. Specific, timely, and actionable feedback, coupled with a learner’s motivation to improve, can help learners make significant gains. Kosslyn suggests several classic memory tricks that draw on and integrate these principles of how people learn. For example, he describes the method of loci in which one draws on known visual images to learn lists or sequences.

For students to learn they need to be motivated to participate in the learning experience. Kosslyn reviews basics of theories of motivation. An intrinsic desire or inherent interest in learning stems from an individual’s basic desire to feel competent, autonomous, and socially connected to other people. Extrinsic motivation involves offering incentives or threatening consequences. Kosslyn offers examples of ways to capitalize on these sources of motivation. He concludes with several examples of exercises and activities that can be incorporated into online classes, whether those classes are synchronous or asynchronous, and explains how to set up the relevant technology for these activities. Active learning exercises can include analyzing and evaluating various materials, engaging in perspective taking via debates, role playing and storytelling, solving problems, finding information, making predictions, and explaining ideas.

Online learning has really come of age in the last year. Educators can equip themselves to be able to teach effectively online with the advice in Active Learning Online.

Kosslyn, S. M. (2020). Active Learning Online: Five Principles that Make Online courses Come Alive. Alinea Learning; Boston, MA.

How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice by Paul Kirschner and Carl Hendrick

Rebecca Gotlieb

December-11-2020

How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice by Paul Kirschner and Carl Hendrick

Bridging the research-practice divide is a perennial issue in education. Fortunately, Paul A. Kirschner and Carl Hendrick’s book— How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice — helps address this issue by presenting time-tested, impactful research in a way that is useful for educators. Kirschner, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the Open University of the Netherlands, and Hendrick, who teaches at Wellington College, explain the significance of several seminal studies, engage readers with stories and insightful commentary, explicate applications of research for teaching practice, and provide helpful definitions of research terms and lists of resources for further reading. Kirschner and Hendrick define learning as a change in long-term memory. They discuss implications of how the mind works for supporting learning, the impact of socio-cultural factors on learning, and effective and ineffective teaching and learning practices. They conclude with commentary about common myths about learning and education. This book is a useful primer for teachers in training and individuals new to educational psychology research who seek to bring an evidence base to efforts to improve learning.

Kirschner and Hendrick first explore aspects of how the mind works. They explain, for example, that experts think qualitatively differently than novices and exert less mental effort to do a task. They present research showing that, although it may feel counter-intuitive, deep and effortful processing is conducive to learning and retaining information. They review several factors that facilitate learning. For example, what one knows already about a topic or skill shapes the extent to which and ways in which they will learn more about that topic or skill. Self-regulation, feelings of efficacy around learning, practice, and metacognition (i.e., thinking about one’s own thinking) all play a role in how people learn. Kirschner and Hendrick offer an overview of the research on “mindsets,” i.e., how beliefs about intelligence and other skills affect performance, and relatedly, the meaning individuals make of experiences of success or failure. They also suggest effective study techniques and how to use them.

In addition to ending each chapter with clear and useful bullet-point descriptions of applications of this research for classroom practices, Kirschner and Hendrick devote a section of the book to research specifically about teaching and tutoring. They discuss the importance of structured support for optimally supporting learning. Good teachers ask questions, check for understanding, and correct students’ misconceptions as they arise. They gradually introduce new and increasingly complex information, provide conceptual models, and offer examples. Good teachers are experts at providing useful feedback. They recognize that assessments are not just for measuring what students know, but also can be useful for expanding what students know and can do.

In addition to advocating for the benefits of direct instruction and showing the evidence base for the efficacy of doing so, Kirschner and Hendrick acknowledge that, as social beings, we learn by observing others in context. In this way, apprenticeships can be a useful way for individuals to learn. Educators should attend to the way our social environments affect how and what we learn.

Unfortunately, many misconceptions prevail about how people learn and about what students would benefit from learning. Kirschner and Hendrick review the extensive research that has accumulated showing that students do not have distinct “learning styles.” Although it is important to be sensitive to individual differences that exist across students, it is also the case that nearly all students benefit from learning across multiple modalities. Another misconception that exists is that in the age of Google, when information is so easily at our fingertips, it is not important for students to learn content knowledge. This is not so; students need content knowledge to help them build increasingly sophisticated understandings of issues, and they need to be taught how to search for reliable sources of information online and sift through evidence.

Readers of How Learning Happens will not only gain insights into the learning process itself, but also will understand the empirical basis for those insights and develop the language and skills necessary for using research to inform an understanding of how learning happens and how best to support it.

Kirschner, P. A., & Hendrick, C. (2020). How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and what They Mean in Practice. Routledge.

The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust by Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold

Rebecca Gotlieb

October-21-2020

The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust by Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold

The famous, well-replicated “still-face experiment” involves an infant and parent seated facing each other. After a few minutes of play, the parent becomes completely unresponsive and shows a blank face. The infant tries an increasingly dramatic array of tricks to reanimate the parent while becoming more distressed. After a minute of participating in the experiment, the parent reengages, and parent and infant can synchronize once more. Not only did this experiment dramatically shift developmental psychologists’ understanding of infants’ agency in their social relationships, but also the research that built from this study over the last four decades offers insights into how each of us can build a strong sense of self and healthy relationships. In their new book, The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust, Ed Tronick and Claudia M. Gold argue that discord in relationships is common and we build our sense of self, closeness with others, and ability to manage challenges when we embrace relationship mismatches, uncertainty, and the opportunity they present for growth. Tronick is the creator of the still-face experiment and University Distinguished Professor of Developmental and Brain Sciences at University of Massachusetts, Boston and Research Associate at Harvard Medical School. Gold is a pediatrician and author specializing in early childhood mental health and faculty at University of Massachusetts, Boston and at Boston Children’s Hospital. Although the still face experiment focuses on the infant-parent relationship, the paradigm and this book will be of interest to individuals seeking to improve a variety of different types of relationships as well as people who care for others who may have a history of unrepaired relationships.

People feel pressure to or expect to be in sync with relationship partners, but in reality, mismatch is the norm. The way that mismatch is repaired can nurture us and bring about a sense of pleasure, security, and trust. Parents and infants, for example, are out of sync about 70% of the time, but that mismatch is important for infants, and adults, to feel agentic, self-confident, and competent in managing challenges on independently and with the help of others. In this vein, Tronick and Gold echo previous calls that parents should trust their own instincts, remain calm and present, and be simply “good enough;” they should not strive for perfection, which undermines mental health and well-being.

We make meaning, in our bodies and minds, of moments of mismatch and repair with others and the interpretations we build of these experiences stay with us. Because of our parents’ roles in children’s early environment and meaning-making they act as “neuroarchitects,” changing how their children’s minds and brains are built and even how genes are expressed. When people cannot make coherent meaning of events or cannot construct a vision for a better future, it can threaten their sense of self, keep them stuck in a moment of hardship, and produce feelings of hopelessness. Even if an individual had insufficient experience with relational mismatch and repair in early life or experienced other early life stresses, they can learn to self-regulate as they co-regulate in the context of new relationships. Relationships are the best buffer against stress and trauma, way to heal from them, and the best booster of well-being generally.

To build productive interpretations of the messiness of relationships, people need to feel safe and accept that being out of sync is part of the process of connecting. Relationships are dynamic and each party has a responsibility in shaping the dynamic. Considering the other party’s perspective, remaining open and curious about the other person, listening to them and making them feel like they belong, being playful, and leaving room for uncertainty can support relationship health.

Although Tronick and Gold focus primarily on relationships between two individuals, principles from the still-face paradigm have implications for society more generally. Society needs to invest in social relationships, including but not limited to the parent-child relationship; our relationships are literally, biologically, life-sustaining. The differences between us can be our greatest strength if we allow ourselves to work through relational turbulence, accept that struggle is normal, and recover into better and stronger relationships. In this moment in time, with so much political divisiveness, and when we are quarantining at home and many of us are spending significant amounts of time with family, we could all benefit from heeding Tronick and Gold’s relationship advice.

Tronick, E. & Gold, C.M. (2020). The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust. Hachette Book Group.

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