Tellin’ Ain’t Teachin’: The Need for Frequent Processing by Spencer Kagan

[proud2BlibKansan]

If teaching were the same as telling, we’d all be so smart we could hardly stand it. (Mark Twain—pen name of Samuel Clemens; American author and humorist; 1835–1910.)

If our academic content is gum, and the discussion and thinking about the content (processing) by students is chew, then brain science gives us a clear directive: Increase the ratio of chew to gum. A lot of gum with no chew leads to little learning.

First, we will overview the neuroscience rationale for increasing the frequency and amount of processing. There are many ways to have students process learning: taking notes, writing summaries, making drawings, discussing ideas. Here I will focus on just one way, what I believe to be the most powerful form of processing: student interaction over the content. After providing the neuroscience rationale for increasing the amount of student interaction over content, we will turn to the issue of how best to have students interact. It turns out that some common ways of having students process our academic content do not lead to equitable educational outcomes. These common approaches to processing actually contribute to the achievement gap! If we want all students to benefit from the chew, we must carefully structure their interaction as they process the content.

Neuroscience Support for Frequent Processing

This section summarizes six reasons for providing processing time to students.

more . . . http://i-a-e.org/newsletters/IAE-Newsletter-2012-98.html

[patrice]

1. I used to keep daily journals & counted different instances of "the chew" for each student,

including different qualities of "chews"; it takes a human being to identify whether a question is a mechanical question, e.g. "Will this be on the test?" or an example of cognitive processing, e.g."Is that like _______________?"

Machines/computers CAN'T do that.

[mike_c]

2. student interaction with content is KEY for learning....

When I started using group work and structuring active learning around collaborative experiences ten years or so ago, my colleagues were strongly critical. Some went so far as to accuse me of being "lazy" because I took the classroom focus off of delivering lectures and put it on student collaboration. I remember one department retreat in particular when I sat up with a group of colleagues until late at night arguing about it, with a couple of colleagues becoming so heated in their condemnation of what I was doing that they later felt compelled to share a drink and apologize. They saw what I was doing in the classroom-- shifting the center of attention away from the professor and onto student knowledge construction-- as threatening to their entire previous experience, which emphasized the primacy of good lectures and passive information transfer.

To this day, my university has few rooms that are suitable for real collaborative learning, with most lecture halls having fixed, theater style seating that isolates individuals and impedes group activities. Still, many of the folks that criticized me a decade ago have since come and asked for advice about how to implement some of those ideas in their classes. My dean, who once scoffed at my desire to use collaborative learning-- literally dismissed the notion-- now chairs a college wide group we call STEM-PAC that is charged with improving pedagogy through active learning, collaborative learning, etc.

Collaborative learning works. I've seen 10-20 percent grade improvements covering identical material by talking less and engaging students with other students more.

[msongs]

3. collaborative learning doesn't jibe with rote standardized testing for coprorate profit nt

[mike_c]

5. I don't see why not....

In my experience it's more effective than passive information transfer no matter what the motive for learning. What doesn't jibe well with standardized testing and corporate profits is the emphasis on teachers as deliverers of information, as though teachers have the ability to open students' heads and pour knowledge in. The emphasis on testing is implemented to place the onus for learning on teachers, rather than upon student learners where it belongs. It forces teachers to attempt to maintain complete control over student learning rather than giving students the lead and simply pointing them where they need to go and helping to structure their journey to get there.

[patrice]

6. Collaborative learning can be & is abused too. There needs to be an appropriate balance

between independence and dependence.

[LWolf]

7. Yes. I usually have students

process content cooperatively before I ever ask them to do so independently.

Unless I have them read a selection independently before they work cooperatively, and then move back to independence.

The bottom line? At some point, they need to be able to access and use content independently, so we need to give them plenty of opportunities to process that content with support before they get there.

[patrice]

8. Agreed! I also like to use grading strategies that weigh different modalities equally, so student

strengths can balance out liabilities. Independent workers are not penalized by too much weight on co-operative style and vice versa.

[patrice]

4. btw, low-level IT training is going through exactly this same kind of stuff, causing HIGH levels of

churn, and the costs associated with that, from radical in-congruence between systems and training, producing, also, secondary level high downward pressure on low-level engineers' wages, because system proprietors CAN'T fill those first tier positions effectively with just anyone off the street with a high-school diploma or a little better; most of them don't know how to "chew", so system proprietors have to seek more technically qualified employees higher up the food-chain, i.e. low-level engineers who previous to this whole situation started out at $20-25 an hour, but are lucky if they're offered $10-$12 @ hr. for those first tier CSR jobs now.