The HG2S Training Blog

Measured “return on investment” and “training effectiveness” are two of the business metrics commonly used to yoke trainers and developers in business and government training centers around the globe. “Is the training effective?” and “Is it worth the cost?” are standard queries at development meetings and design reviews. Knowledgeable designers and managers invoke Bloom, Kirkpatrick and things like ADDIE to promote development of effective training, little knowing that Pygmalion might provide the help they need.

A little over 40 years ago, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson performed a simple and ingenious experiment in a California school that jolted educational psychology. Dubbed the Pygmalion Effect (after the play by George Bernard Shaw; later the musical and movie My Fair Lady) the experiment showed that the effectiveness of teaching was largely determined by the belief of the teacher in the students. That is, all things being equal, if a teacher believes the students are exceptional, they will tend to match the expectation. Surprisingly perhaps, this “effect” has been replicated many times since its inception and has garnered support from similar studies done in colleges, industry and the military. What Pygmalion describes might be taken as the equivalent of the Placebo Effect in education, but it might just as well be a re-coining of the psychotherapeutic expression “you have to believe in the Process” directed toward the classroom.

What Rosenthal and Jacobson did in their study was give teachers false information about their students based on what they said was an advanced test to determine future performance and achievement. In reality they administered a standard IQ test, randomly selected a group of students without regard to the test results, told the teachers these students were going to bloom in achievement and sat back and noted the results. At the end of the school year the students were tested and the results showed that a significant number of the “bloomers” had in fact made unexpected gains in academic performance and behavior. In fact, tests of the same students two years later showed that they carried and maintained this advantage over that time.

Interestingly, while accounts of the first study did not include details of what went on in the classroom while the study was underway, written reports by the teachers themselves indicate that no special measures, programs or materials were provided to assist the “bloomers” in learning or to enhance the classroom experience. What Rosenthal and Jacobson concluded the “bloomers” got that the control group missed were clear signs of approval, more chances to interact with the teacher and patient acceptance, all moderated unconsciously by of the beliefs of the teacher.

Over the years the Pygmalion Effect has come under scrutiny by many researchers and has been criticized for its original experimental design and the general meaning of its results. But, all in all, it remains steadfastly rooted in the literature of educational psychology and provides a lasting contribution to the field.

References.

Rosenthal, R., and Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils’ intellectual development’. New York: Rinehart and Winston. (Newly updated edition, 2003)

Rosenthal, R., and Jacobson, L. (1966). Teachers’ expectancies: Determinates of pupils’ IQ gains. Psychological Reports, 19, 115-118.

Rosenthal, R. (1965). Clever Hans: A case study of scientific method. Introduction to Oskar Pfungst, Clever Hans (translated by Rahn, C. L., 1911). New York: Bolt, Rinehart and Winston, pp. ix-xiii.

In a note that could have been taken from one of Maria Montessori’s books, researchers in neuroscience, machine learning, education and psychology have convened to show that findings from a joint study suggest that “the prepared environment” might be supported by new scientific data.

“The ‘prepared environment‘ is Maria Montessori’s concept that the environment can be designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration by the child.”

Terrence J. Sejnowski, Ph.D, researcher at the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and co-director of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC) at the University of California, San Diego, echoes Montessori in his team’s findings. As quoted in Science Daily:

“To understand how children learn and improve our educational system, we need to understand what all of these fields [neurobiology, psychology, education, machine learning] can contribute. Our brains have evolved to learn and adapt to new environments; if we can create the right environment for a child, magic happens.”

The cross-disciplinary research points to a new science of learning that might influence the way classrooms are organized and run in the future. In particular, three guiding principles (or concurrent processes) emerge from the study:

1. Learning is computational
2. Learning is social
3. Learning is supported by neurological (perception-action) circuits

Research in machine learning and developmental psychology illuminate the computational complexity employed by learners who use statistical patterns and probabilistic models to infer rules of logic, relationships between words, syntax, and causal dependence between objects in the physical world.

Evidence that the three component processes happen concurrently is supported by the fact that learners do not calculate and compile statistical models of the environment indiscriminately but throttle the process using social cues from the people around them. Further, animal studies point to the presence of certain neurosteroids secreted during social interaction that promote learning.

Imitation also comes into play as a key factor:

“Imitation [presumably from others in the environment] accelerates learning and multiplies learning opportunities. It is faster than individual discovery and safer than trial-and-error learning.”

In essence, a social context fosters learning.

Brain circuits that support both actions and perceptions are directly involved with learning. As seen in language learning, for example, there is a complex mix of imitative, computational and articulatory processes that come into play as learning proceeds that might be further facilitated or enhanced at specific developmental periods. In general, neuroscientists have determined that there is considerable overlap in the systems brought into play during learning that support both perception and action. From Science:

“For example, in human adults there is neuronal activation when observing articulatory movements in the cortical areas responsible for producing those articulations. Social learning, imitation, and sensorimotor experience may initially generate, as well as modify and refine, shared neural circuitry for perception and action.”

Finally, experts in machine learning and artificial intelligence are taking advantage of the recent findings in social learning, computational modeling and the plasticity of the brain to design software that monitors and uses social cues and environmental factors to enhance learning. In the future this software may be used in tutorial programs or embedded in instructional robots that are specifically “tuned” to enhance teaching practices in classrooms.

References.

New Science Of Learning Offers Preview Of Tomorrow’s Classroom

Foundations for a New Science of Learning

New science of learning offers preview of tomorrow

From baby scientists to a science of social learning

In an article that reads surprisingly like a case study from a course on McLuhans’ Laws of Media, T. X. Hammes writes in the Armed Forces Journal on the pernicious effects of pushing PowerPoint too far in the presentation culture of the Pentagon. Apparently keenly aware of the implicit bias of media, Hammes observes:

“Every year, the services spend millions of dollars teaching our people how to think. We invest in everything from war colleges to noncommissioned officer schools. Our senior schools in particular expose our leaders to broad issues and historical insights in an attempt to expose the complex and interactive nature of many of the decisions they will make.

Unfortunately, as soon as they graduate, our people return to a world driven by a tool that is the antithesis of thinking: PowerPoint. Make no mistake, PowerPoint is not a neutral tool — it is actively hostile to thoughtful decision-making. It has fundamentally changed our culture by altering the expectations of who makes decisions, what decisions they make and how they make them. While this may seem to be a sweeping generalization, I think a brief examination of the impact of PowerPoint will support this statement.”

Others have voiced concern over the nature and limitations of this tool and its ilk. Edward Tufte for example penned the monograph “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within” in an attempt to illustrate the common problems with the medium and offer suggestions on how to rectify them. Designers, illustrators and even cognitive scientists join the chorus in an effort to stem the plague of needlessly ineffective slide shows.

PowerPoint and its cousins have their genetic roots in presentation packages designed for selling, which is why PowerPoint still has a strong tendency to reduce everything it touches to a sales pitch. Hammes lights on this when he mentions how language and communication are bent to that of the Ad Man:

“Let’s start by examining the impact on staff work. Rather than the intellectually demanding work of condensing a complex issue to two pages of clear text, the staff instead works to create 20 to 60 slides. Time is wasted on which pictures to put on the slides, how to build complex illustrations and what bullets should be included. I have even heard conversations about what font to use and what colors. Most damaging is the reduction of complex issues to bullet points. Obviously, bullets are not the same as complete sentences, which require developing coherent thoughts. Instead of forcing officers to learn the art of summarizing complex issues into coherent arguments, staff work now places a premium on slide building. Slide-ology has become an art in itself, while thinking is often relegated to producing bullets.”

In PowerPoint language is reduced to a staccato burst of one-liners. Complete sentences are not at home in the medium. Language and rhetoric are reduced to a fractured mosaic of bullets, images and partial thoughts that serve as placeholders for information and ideas. The inherent bandwidth limitation of the medium is fine for sales presentations but falls flat when content and depth are required. Users struggle, perhaps unknowingly, to compensate for the inherent bias of the medium:

“Our personnel clearly understand the lack of clarity and depth inherent in the half-formed thoughts of the bullet format. In an apparent effort to overcome the obvious deficiency of bullets, some briefers put entire paragraphs on each briefing slide. (Of course, they still include the bullet point in front of each paragraph.) Some briefs consist of a series of slides with paragraphs on them. In short, people are attempting to provide the audience with complete, coherent thoughts while adhering to the PowerPoint format. While writing full paragraphs does force the briefer to think through his position more clearly, this effort is doomed to failure.”

Compounding the problem, (post-literate) reading speeds and the need to digest detailed and complex data fly in the face of the easy sales pitch proffered by the slide deck:

“People need time to think about, even perhaps reread, material about complex issues. Instead, they are under pressure to finish reading the slides before the boss apparently does. Compounding the problem, the briefer often reads these slides aloud while the audience is trying to read the other information on the slide. Since most people read at least twice as fast as most people can talk, he is wasting half of his listeners’ time and simultaneously reducing comprehension of the material. The alternative, letting the audience read the slide themselves, is also ineffective. Instead of reading for comprehension, everyone races through the slide to be sure they are finished before the senior person at the brief. Thus even presenting full paragraphs on each slide cannot overcome the fundamental weakness of PowerPoint as a tool for presenting complex issues.”

Hammes notes other signs of users’ struggle against the flow of the medium in mentioning the “quad chart” and slides crammed with so much information they cannot be processed by the viewer’s visual system, let alone addressed by the speaker. This is simply a low-bandwidth medium with rigid boundaries.

An Example Quad Chart

“The next major impact of slide-ology has been the pernicious growth in the amount of information portrayed on each slide. A friend with multiple tours in the Pentagon said a good rule of thumb in preparing a brief is to assume one slide per minute of briefing. Surprisingly, it seems to be true. Yet, even before the onslaught of the dreaded quad chart, I saw slides with up to 90 pieces of information. Presumably, some thought went into the bullets, charts, pictures and emblems portrayed on that slide, yet the vast majority of the information was completely wasted. The briefer never spoke about most of the information, and the slide was on screen for a little more than a minute. While this slide was an aberration, charts with 20 items of information portrayed in complex graphics are all too common. This gives the audience an average of three seconds to see and absorb each item of information. As if this weren’t sufficient to block the transfer of information, some PowerPoint Ranger invented quad charts. For those unfamiliar with a quad chart, it is simply a Power Point slide divided into four equal quadrants and then a full slide is placed in each quadrant. If the briefer clicks on any of the four slides, it can become a full-sized slide. Why this is a good idea escapes me.”

Hammes further notes that PowerPoint, like every technology, creates or alters the environment of the user. Interestingly, Hammes cites the effect PowerPoint has on time and events:

“PowerPoint has clearly decreased the quality of the information provided to the decision-maker, but the damage doesn’t end there. It has also changed the culture of decision-making. In my experience, pre-PowerPoint staffs prepared two to four decision papers a day because that’s as many as most bosses would accept. These would be prepared and sent home with the decision-maker and each staff member that would participate in the subsequent discussion. Because of the tempo, most decision-makers did not take on more than three or four a day simply because of the requirement to read, absorb, think about and then be prepared to discuss the issue the following day. As an added benefit for most important decisions, they ’slept on it.’

PowerPoint has changed that. Key decision-makers’ days are now broken down into one-hour and even 30-minute segments that are allocated for briefs. Of particular concern, many of these briefs are decision briefs. Thus senior decision-makers are making more decisions with less preparation and less time for thought. Why we press for quick decisions when those decisions will take weeks or even months to simply work their way through the bureaucracy at the top puzzles me.”

Hammes does not miss the effect the indiscriminate use of the tool has on understanding and thought processes (“We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” – McLuhan):

“Unfortunately, by using PowerPoint inappropriately, we have created a thought process centered on bullets and complex charts. This has a number of impacts. First, it reduces clarity since a bullet is essentially an outline for a sentence and a series of bullets outline a paragraph. They fail to provide the details essential to understanding the ideas being expressed. While this helps immensely with compromise, since the readers can create their own narrative paragraphs from the bullets, it creates problems when people discover what they agreed to is not what they thought they had agreed to. Worse, it creates a belief that complex issues can, and should, be reduced to bullets. It has reached the point where some decision-makers actually refuse to read a two-page briefing paper and instead insist PowerPoint be used.”

In closing Hammes concedes that there are appropriate uses for PowerPoint but these tend to be presentations that are closer to its origin: “primarily, information briefs rather than decision briefs.” As depth and complexity increase, the appropriateness of PowerPoint falls away. As Hammes says, “There is a reason students cannot submit a thesis in PowerPoint format.”

I think it was from Marshall McLuhan that I first heard:

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”

Now, for the first time, neurological evidence is demonstrating that this is literally true. Data published in the June 23rd issue of Current Biology shows that when we use a tool, even for a short time, it actually modifies the brain’s body schema. That is, the brain enhances the area of its map of our body associated with the tool. As reported in Science Daily:

“‘Since the origin of the concept of body schema, the idea of its functional plasticity has always been taken for granted, even if no direct evidence has been provided until now,’ said Alessandro Farnè of INSERM and the Université Claude Bernard Lyon. ‘Our series of experiments provides the first, definitive demonstration that this century-old intuition is true.’”

A report by the British Psychological Society describes the experiment:

“After several minutes using the grasping tool, the participants subsequent reaching movements with their hand were slower to start and stop, making them longer-lasting overall, compared with before the tool use – as if their own arm was now perceived as longer. Moreover, when the participants were subsequently blindfolded and asked to point to where they’d just been touched by the researchers, on the tip of the middle finger and on the elbow, the places the participants pointed to were further apart, compared with before tool use, again suggesting that they now perceived their arm to be longer.”

Interestingly the feedback loop from man-to-tool and back again is observed. From Science Daily:

“After using a mechanical grabber that extended their reach, people behaved as though their arm really was longer, they found. What’s more, study participants perceived touches delivered on the elbow and middle fingertip of their arm as if they were farther apart after their use of the grabbing tool.

People still went on using their arm successfully following after tool use, but they managed tasks differently. That is, they grasped or pointed to object correctly, but they did not move their hand as quickly and overall took longer to complete the tasks.”

The authors of the study go on to say:

“We believe this ability of our body representation to functionally adapt to incorporate tools is the fundamental basis of skillful tool use. Once the tool is incorporated in the body schema, it can be maneuvered and controlled as if it were a body part itself.”

Further information on this study can be found here:

Cardinali, L., Frassinetti, F., Brozzoli, C., Urquizar, C., Roy, A., & Farnè, A. (2009). Tool-use induces morphological updating of the body schema. Current Biology, 19 (12) DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.009

Information designer Tom Wujec of AutoDesk gives a short talk at TED on three ways the brain processes images and media to create meaning. Wujec points out that the better we understand the way the brain creates meaning, the better we can communicate and collaborate.

Seeing an image sends the visual impression to the visual cortex which feeds (at least) three parts of the brain.

• Ventral Stream (the ‘what’ detector)
• Dorsal Stream (locates an object in physical body-space)
• Limbic System (the ‘feeling’ part)

Wujec goes on to say that a “good graphic invites the eye to dart around.” It invokes “visual interrogation,”  in his words, and creates “visual persistence,” aiding memory and recall. Good graphics are interactive and invite engagement.

Adult and continuing education is a growing and common feature of modern life. More and more people are getting involved in taking classes and online courses as part of an ongoing need to keep pace with developments in their professions, move into new careers, and to further recreational pursuits. Government, military and corporate employers see the same need to offer continuing education to their workers. And, not to be forgotten, education among retired people is also growing as seniors renew old and embrace new interests and skills.

Teaching adults has always been a different matter than teaching children. Typically, adults come to class with objectives in mind, posses some background information, require relevance to be part of the training and have a better self-awareness of their strengths and learning styles (that they intend to capitalize on in the learning process). Many other issues enter the adult learning sphere and it is worth the time to consider these when presented with the task of developing or delivering training to an adult audience.

One particularly useful and concise review of the main issues that affect the education of adults was given by Dr. Karen Jarrett Thoms of St. Cloud State University as part of the Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference. A reprint of the talk can be found here.

Right off the bat, Dr. Jarret Thoms reminds us that distinct differences exist between between andragogy and pedagogy. That is, adult learning:

is problem-centered rather than content-centered.

incorporates experiential activities.

prompts redesign and new learning activities based on evaluation.

is based on an evaluation agreement.

permits and encourages active participation.

encourages past experiences.

is collaborative between instructor-student and student-student.

is based on planning between the teacher and the learner.

As such, adult learners expect (and need) to be involved, like to connect to past knowledge and experience, and see the teacher as a collaborator and guide. Doesn’t this sound like a partial description of the modern Web 2.0 learner we read so much about? Maybe there is a shift among certain high school and college age learners toward what we have formerly considered “adult” learning styles? But I digress….

According to Dr. Jarret Thoms the Sage on the Stage is out:

Andragogic sessions vary significantly from pedagogic classes. While there continues to be an increase in the number and degrees of active learning activities taking place in K-12, the college and training arenas may far surpass the learners’ understandings of what may and may not be negotiated as far as objectives, activities, etc. According to Laird (p. 126), andragogy raises interesting questions about the role of the instructor. As stated previously, in andragogy, the role of the instructor is to manage the processes, but not to manage the content. Two-way communication and feedback is critical. Instructors may serve as facilitators rather than lecturers. They may routinely switch between teaching strategies. For instructors, this change to the andragogic level of teaching may require a major adjustment to their teaching strategies.

Accordingly, the modern instructor or instructional designer has to be able to switch gears to meet the attitude, aptitude, learning style and experience of the adult learner.

Dr. Jarret Thoms sees the essence of adult learning represented in 12 basic precepts:

present information in a manner that permits mastery.

present new information if it is meaningful and practical.

present only one idea or concept at a time.

use feedback/frequent summarization.

practice learning as a self-activity.

accept that people learn at different rates.

recognize that learning is continuous/continual.

believe that learning results from stimulation.

enhance learning through positive reinforcement.

follow the concept that people learn by doing.

desires the “whole-part-whole” learning strategy.supports the team environment to improve learning.

knows that training/education must be properly timed.

Dr. Jarret Thoms goes on to suggest that six resultant issues surface that affect the development of successful adult training programs:

Learning is not its own reward. Children and adults learn for different reasons. Adults are not impressed or motivated by gold stars and good report cards. Instead, they want a learning outcome which can be put to use immediately, in concrete, practical, and self-benefiting terms. Adult learners want practical, hands-on training sessions over general, theory-oriented classes. For example, the best way to motivate adults to learn a spreadsheet software package is to show them how they can use it in their own environment.

Adult learning is integrative. The adult learner brings a breadth of knowledge and a vast array of experiences to the learning situation. Adults learn best when they use what they already know and integrate new knowledges and skills into this bank of knowledge. In the event this new knowledge or skill is in direct opposition to what the learner already knows or believes, there is a possibility of conflict, which must be addressed immediately.

Value adjustment. Because training changes how work is processed, the adult learner must understand why the learning is useful and why these new skills must be mastered. Value adjustment means understanding why work that has been done a particular way in the past will not be performed in the same way in the future. Adult learners must be convinced this change is for the betterment of the organization.

Control. Adult learners want control over their learning experiences. In K-12 learning, the teacher tells the students what to do, being very specific about assignments and expectations. Adult learning encourages collaboration with trainees about the pace and the content of the training curriculum. Adult learners in a college classroom can frequently be given more flexibility in determining their assignments, with the understanding that the basic criteria for the assignment must be met.

Practice must be meaningful. Repetition for the sake of repetition just does not “cut it” with adult learners, and it is unlikely that learning will take place. If repetition, however, does have meaningful results, then learning will take place. Adults frequently tend to be slower in some physical, psychomotor tasks than children. The adults are also less willing to make mistakes (someone might see them make this mistake), and they often compenstate by being more exact. In other words, they may take less “chances” with trial-and-error activities, thus making few mistakes. Send these adult learners home to their work station or with an assignment that will parallel what they have just learned. Because the adult learner does not want to make mistakes, especially on an assignment, might explain why adult learners tend to ask for clarification on assignments more often than traditional learners.

Self-pacing. Because adult learners acquire psychomotor skills more slowly than younger students, adults should be given the opportunity to proceed at their own pace, often in a self-paced learning package. Can self-paced activities always be integrated into the curriculum? No, and this is definitely a challenge to an instructor where there is a mix of adult and traditional learners.

Finally, the characteristics of an optimal instructor emerge. The effective (motivating) instructor:

offers expertise, both in knowledge and preparation.

has empathy, which includes understanding and consideration.

shows enthusiasm, for the course, content, students, and profession of teaching.

demonstrates clarity, whether it be in classroom teaching, explanation of assignments, or classroom discussion.

For further reading, the Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference can be found here.

References.

Arnold, W. and L. McClure. (1995) Communication Training & Development. New York: Harper & Row.

Creating Dynamic Adult Learning Experiences. (1987) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Sound recording. Stephen Brookfield interviews Malcolm S. Knowles, Raymond J. Wlodkowski, Alan B. Knox, and Leonard Nadler.

Gilley, J. and Eggland, S. (1989) Principles of Human Resource Development. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Jarvis, P., J. Holford, & C. Griffin. (1998) The Theory of Practice and Learning. London & Sterling, VA: Kogan Page/Stylus.

Knowles, Malcom. (1998) The Adult Learner : the Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development (5th ed.). Houston: Gulf Pub. Co. Malcolm S. Knowles, Elwood F. Holton III, Richard A. Swanson.

Knowles, Malcolm. (1984) The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species. (3rd ed.) Houston: Gulf Pub. Co.

Knowles, Malcolm. (1984) Andragogy in Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Laird, D. (1985) Approaches to Training and Development (2nd). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Loden, M., and J. B. Rosener. (1991) Workforce America! Managing Employee Diversity as a Vital Resource. Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin.

Nadler, L. and Z. Nadler. (1994) Designing Training Programs: The Critical Events Model (2nd). Houston: Gulf Pub. Co.

O’Connor, B., M. Bronner, & C. Delaney. (2002) Cincinnati: Delmar/South-Western Thomson Learning.

Vella, J. (1994) Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: the Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wlodkowski, R. (1993) Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn: A Guide to Improving Instruction and Increasing Learner Achievement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wlodkowski, R. J., and M. B. Ginsberg. (1995) Diversity and Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

www.public-health.uiowa.edu/icphp/ed_training/ttt/archive/2002/2002_course_materials/Cone_of_Learning.pdf

Adding to a growing body of research in learning that people can acquire new motor skills by watching alone, research at Dartmouth College shows that both viewing and doing are effective in learning new skills. In fact, according to the authors of the study “Human motor skills can be acquired by observation without the benefit of immediate physical practice.” [1] Furthermore, as reported in Science News:

“It’s been established in previous research that there are correlations in behavioral performance between active and passive learning, but in this study we were surprised by the remarkable similarity in brain activation when our research participants observed dance sequences that were actively or passively experienced,” says Emily Cross, the principal investigator and PhD student at Dartmouth.

Cross et al. tested the hypothesis using a video game to teach a series of dance steps after which they compared performances of both actively (rehearsed) and passively (observed) routines. Interestingly,

“We collected fMRI data before and after five days of both visual and physical training,” says Cross, “and there was common AON [Action Observance Network] activity when watching the practiced and observed dance sequences.” [2]

Further information on the study can be gotten here. Correspondence should be directed to researcher Scott T. Grafton.

[1] Cerebral Cortex 2009 19(2):315-326; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn083

[2] Dartmouth College (2008, July 15). Passive Learning Imprints On The Brain Just Like Active Learning. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 29, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/07/080714111425.htm

Researcher Annika Lantz-Andersson has taken an interesting look at how students respond to making mistakes while being tutored with mathematics software. Comparing both traditional textbook students to those using mathematics software she found that the computer-based group had a decided tendency to blame the computer (or the software) when they got a problem wrong:

“When students attempting to solve a mathematical problem, were informed by the computer that their answer was incorrect, they often focused on trying to find the reasons for this in the functions of the educational software itself. ‘They would maintain that their answers merely needed to be rephrased, that the computer’s answers were wrong in the same way as answers on an answer key of a mathematics textbook could be wrong, or provided other similar explanations,’ says Annika Lantz-Andersson. Her study shows that the often-repeated proposition that educational software is self-instructing is just not true.” [1]

What seems apparent from Lantz-Anderson’s work is that software employed in this fashion has to be used in conjunction with a teacher who gives feedback in order for the software to be effective as a teaching tool. As the old teaching maxim goes: “Telling is not teaching,” even if a computer does the telling.

“The extremely rapid increase in educational software predicted around the year 2000 has not been realised, although most textbooks today have a digital application linked to their conventional text. ‘Educational software has many advantages, not least its interactivity and its opportunity to promote cooperation amongst the students. There is still a strong belief that digital technology improves learning, despite the fact that this has not been proven’, declares Annika Lantz-Andersson. ‘Instead of getting mired in a debate about how digital tools can solve various types of classical pedagogical problems, it would be more relevant to focus on the new types of interaction and knowledge that can arise from the use of digital tools.’”  [2]

Annika Lantz-Andersson presented these findings as part of her thesis “Framing in Educational Practices. Learning Activity, Digital Technology and the Logic of Situated Action” at the Department of Education, University of Gothenburg, on Friday, 29 May, 2009.

Although I find that teaching the history of a subject is often a big help in understanding its present state, recent reseach from Amsterdam suggests that using illustrations (drawings and diagrams) in the teaching of history might have no positive effect on learning. Dr Maaike Prangsma and associates looked at the effectiveness of using various illustrations in the teaching of history and found that no discernible differences could be found in test results between illustrated and plain text presentations immediately after the instruction was delivered or six weeks later. Interestingly, the students did say that on the whole the graphics made the learning easier, leading investigators to conclude that the illustrations might enhance the efficiency of the training. The British Psychological Society’s report on the study claims that:

“The key finding was that the nature of the learning task made no difference to learning outcomes. The plain text version appeared to be just as effective as the versions involving a diagram, drawings, or combination of the two. The researchers were surprised by this result and offered a number of possible explanations. For example, perhaps the initial text on the fall of the Roman Empire was so effective it undermined any possible differential effects from the learning tasks. Or perhaps graphics aid science learning because there are clear rules about what different signs and symbols mean, whereas history lacks these conventions and the students therefore didn’t know how to use the visual aids.”

In agreement with a basic philosophical tenet underlining this blog, the authors of the study concur that garnering a positive appreciation of the subject matter presented is not to be ignored:

“The goal of educational motivation is not only to make learning more efficient … or effective … but also to make learning more pleasant such that the affective learning experience is more satisfying and learners will want to learn more.”

Further information concerning this study can be found in rewiew here.

Prangsma, M., van Boxtel, C., Kanselaar, G., & Kirschner, P. (2009). Concrete and abstract visualizations in history learning tasks. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 79 (2), 371-387 DOI: 10.1348/000709908X379341

Triple Self Portrait

One time honored technique of train-the-trainer programs is to video tape a trainer’s presentation for critique and analysis. Often painful for the new trainer, seeing and hearing oneself from the point of view of the student or attendee can stimulate a shift in perception and lead to improved presentation skills if the trainer can recover from the initial shock.

One reason this techniques might not work is reported at the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog. Apparently we have a blind spot concerning our ability to read our own body language.

“A fascinating study has shown that we’re unable to read insights into ourselves from watching a video of our own body language. It’s as if we have an egocentric blind spot. Outside observers, by contrast, can watch the same video and make revealing insights into our personality.”

Perhaps the fact that outside observers can read things about us that we are blind to goes to support the old addage that “The first thing you teach in any course is who you are.” (Once again, the Medium is the Message.)

The reviewer at the BPS suggests the answer to this is rooted in cognitive dissonance and the role it plays in hampering (in this case) self-perception.

What was going on? Why can’t we use a video of ourselves to improve the accuracy of our self-perception? One answer could lie in cognitive dissonance – the need for us to hold consistent beliefs about ourselves. People may well be extremely reluctant to revise their self-perceptions, even in the face of powerful objective evidence. A detail in the final experiment supports this idea. Participants seemed able to use the videos to inform their ratings of their “state” anxiety (their anxiety “in the moment”) even while leaving their scores for their “trait” anxiety unchanged.

Details of the study can be found here: “We’re unable to read our own body language.”

Hofmann, W., Gschwendner, T., & Schmitt, M. (2009). The road to the unconscious self not taken: Discrepancies between self- and observer-inferences about implicit dispositions from nonverbal behavioural cues. European Journal of Personality, 23 (4), 343-366 DOI: 10.1002/per.722

Adding weight to the argument that the Emotional Quotient (EQ) is a valid predictor of professional success, recent research from the University of Illinois suggests that social acumen is potentially as  important as cognitive skills in determining a person’s success in the work place:

“… findings show that the most successful students are those who have not only high achievement test scores but also the kinds of social skills and behaviors that are highly rewarded by employers in the workplace.”

The University of Illinois study based its findings on data from 11,000 10th graders followed over a ten year period. The data crossed referenced test scores with teachers’ reviews and activities taken part in by the students. Even after corrections were made for economic, ethnic and educational  influences, researchers found that social skills such as conscientiousness, cooperativeness and motivation were as important as test scores at determining professional success.

The research appears in the September issue of Social Science Research. A review can be found here.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008, October 16). “10 Years On, High-school Social Skills Predict Better Earnings Than Test Scores.”

Researcher Stephen Mahar of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and his colleagues have tested the effect of routine garden-variety animations on the learning of new concepts. Often used by presenters and designers in classrooms and training sessions, these stock slide show animations commonly found in programs like PowerPoint might have a negative effect on student learning.

The team used two versions of a presentation prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint, one with animation, the other without. Students were shown one version of the presentation and tested for comprehension and recall. Apparently, recall of static graphics was much better resulting in higher test scores among the group using non-animated presentation. There are some questions concerning what precisely was being animated (that is, why was animation employed?) and what was the nature of the animation? Further, Mahar et al. go on to suggest that the animation acted as a distraction rather than an enhancement given the nature of the material being presented (factual and “incremental”). Mahar and et. conclude that although the animations were received well by the audience, the benefit to learning is not only missing, it is counter-productive.

The researchers caution that the study evaluated teaching new concepts and it is possible that training more akin to a procedure, method or technique might prove a better match for animated graphics. A follow-up study is planned.

A report of this study is published in the International Journal of Innovation and Learning (“The dark side of custom animation” in Int. J. Innovation and Learning, 2009, 6, 581-592 ). See also: “Less is More When Developing PowerPoint Animations.”

Educational Origami is a wiki site dedicated to bringing the classroom into the 21st Century. It’s a bit “busy” but well worth the effort combing through its many winding links and pages. One of the main features of the site is the update of Bloom’s Taxonomy for the modern electronic learner.

Diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy

Other notable topics include: the 21st Century Teacher, the 21 Century Learner, ITC and Learning Style, and Web 2.0 Tools and Resources.