How (you can help) People Learn (biology)

How (You Can Help) People Learn (Biology)
1
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
impaled by Yersinia on flickr CC-BY-NC-SA
How People Learn

HOW PEOPLE LEARN
Peter Newbury, Ph.D.
Center for Teaching Development,
University of California, San Diego
pnewbury@ucsd.edu @polarisdotca
ctd.ucsd.edu #ctducsd
slides available at tinyurl.com/HPLBiologySp14
April 21, 2014

How (you can help) People Learn3

Survey
How (You Can Help) People Learn (Biology)4
Which of these do you associate with a typical
university lecture?
A) listening
B) absorbing
C) note-taking
D) learning

The traditional lecture is based on the
transmissionist learning model
How (You Can Help) People Learn (Biology)5 (Image by um.dentistry on flickr CC)

Let’s have a learning experience…
6 How (You Can Help) People Learn (Biology)

Here is an important new number
system. Please learn it.
1 = 4 = 7 =
2 = 5 = 8 =
3 = 6 = 9 =

Test
What is this number?

Scientifically Outdated, a Known Failure
9 How (You Can Help) People Learn (Biology)
We must abandon the tabula rasa
“blank slate” and “students as
empty vessels” models of teaching
and learning.

New Number System: tic-tac-toe code
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

What is this number?

Constructivist Theory of Learning
New learning is based on knowledge
you already have.
You store things in long term memory
through a set of connections that are
made with your existing memories.
(Images by Rebecca-Lee on flickr CC)
Creating memories (aka learning) involves
having neurons fire and link up in networks
or patterns. (fMRI is allowing us to observe
learning as it happens.)
learning is done
by individuals

What are the patterns of
how people learn?
How do we use them?

How People Learn
National Research Council (2000).
How People Learn: Brain, Mind,
Experience, and School: Expanded
Edition. J.D. Bransford, A.L Brown
& R.R. Cocking (Eds.), Washington,
DC: The National Academies
Press.
Available for free as PDF
www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9853

Key Finding 1
Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about
how the world works. If their initial understanding is not
engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and
information that are taught, or they may learn them for
the purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions
outside of the classroom.
(How People Learn, p 14.)

Key Finding 2
16
To develop competence in an area, students must:
a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge,
b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a
conceptual framework, and
c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate
retrieval and application.

Key Finding 3
17
A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help
students learn to take control of their own learning by
defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in
achieving them.

Aside: metacognition
Metacognition refers to one’s knowledge concerning one’s
own cognitive processes or anything related to them.
For example, I am engaging
in metacognition if I notice
that I am having more
trouble learning A than B.
([2], [3])
cognitionmeta

Key Finding 3
19
achieving them.

Please gather into groups of 2-3
Each set of colored cards has
 3 Key Findings
 3 Implications for Teaching
 3 Designing Classroom
Environments
TASK: Match the cards into
3 sets of 3 cards
Designing
Classroom
Environment
Key Finding
2
Implications
for Teaching
Key Finding
3

21

Key Finding 1
Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about
how the world works. If their initial understanding is not
engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and
information that are taught, or they may learn them for
the purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions
outside of the classroom.

Implications for Teaching 1
Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting
understandings that their students bring with them.

1 = 4 = 7 =
2 = 5 = 8 =
3 = 6 = 9 =
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
unsupported, unfamiliar content built on pre-existing
knowledge
(tic-tac-toe board)
Transmissionist Constructivist

Classroom Environments 1
Schools and classrooms must be learner centered.

Learning requires interaction [4]
1 2
3 4

Key Finding 2
27
To develop competence in an area, students must:
a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge,
b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a
conceptual framework, and
c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate
retrieval and application.

28

Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth,
providing many examples in which the same concept is
at work and providing a firm foundation of factual
knowledge.
To provide a knowledge-centered environment, attention
must be given to what is taught (information, subject
matter), why it is taught (understanding), and what
competence or mastery looks like.

Development of Mastery [5]
conscious
unconscious
incompetent competent
1
Level of Expertise
Behavior

conscious
unconscious
1
2
Level of Expertise
Behavior

conscious
unconscious
1
2 3
Level of Expertise
Behavior

conscious
unconscious
1
2 3
4
Level of Expertise
Behavior

Why Your Students Don’t Understand You
Expert brains differ from novice brains because novices:
 lack rich, networked connections, cannot make
inferences, cannot reliably retrieve information
 have preconceptions that distract, confuse, hinder
 lack automization (“muscle memory”) resulting in
cognitive overload

Key Finding 3
35
achieving them.

The teaching of metacognitive skills should be
integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject
areas.
Formative assessments — ongoing assessments designed
to make students’ thinking visible to both teachers and
students — are essential.
We need to give our students opportunities to
practice being metacognitive: having an internal
dialogue about their own thinking

student-centered instructiontraditional lecture

peer instruction with clickers
interactive demonstrations
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
surveys of opinions
reading quizzes
worksheets
discussions
videos
student-centered instruction

Clicker Question
40
The molecules making up the dry mass of wood that
forms during the growth of a tree largely come from
A) sunlight.
B) the air.
C) the seed.
D) the soil.
Question credit: Bill Wood

Typical episode of peer instruction
1. Instructor poses a conceptually-challenging
multiple-choice question.
2. Students think about question on their own
and vote using clickers, colored ABCD cards,
smartphones,…
3. The instructor prompts students, “Turn to your
neighbors and convince them you’re right.”
4. After the peer-to-peer discussion, [the students vote
again and] the instructor leads a class-wide
discussion concluding with why the right answer(s) is
right and the wrong answers are wrong.

In effective peer instruction
 students teach each other while
they may still hold or remember
their novice preconceptions
 students discuss the concepts in their
own (novice) language
 each student finds out what s/he does(n’t) know
 the instructor finds out what the students (don’t) know
and reacts, building on their initial understanding
and preconceptions.
students learn
and practice
how to think,
communicate
like experts

What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
surveys of opinions
reading quizzes
worksheets
discussions
videos

44
Chemistry Day 4 by pennstatenews on flickr CC-BY-NC

Clicker question
A ball is rolling around
the inside of a circular
track. The ball
leaves the track
at point P.
Which path
does the ball
follow?
P
A
B
C
E
D
(adapted from Mazur)

What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
surveys of opinions
reading quizzes
worksheets
discussions
videos

47
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
impaled by Yersinia on flickr CC-BY-NC-SA

What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
surveys of opinions
reading quizzes
worksheets
discussions
videos

Veritasium (Derek Muller)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KZb2_vcNTg
As you watch the
video, notice how
Derek talks to the
people he
interviews.

Active Learning in Discussion Sections
50
 peer instruction with clickers, colored ABCD cards, ABCDE
pdf on smartphones,…
 1-minute papers: What is most confusing right now?
 2-minute pause: Give students 2 minutes to “catch their
breath”, answer questions they have
 Problem Solving in Groups
 Ask what steps would you take to solve problem
(versus actually solving them)
 Critique or “fix” sample work/problem
 overhead slides, document cameras, board?
 If there’s a skill expert biologists have (drawing,
identifying structures in diagram, etc.) give students a
worksheet which gives them practice doing it.

How People Learn
51
Learning is not about what the
instructor does. It’s about what
students do for themselves.

How People Learn
52
Students need to encounter safe yet challenging
conditions in which they can try, fail, receive feedback,
and try again without facing summative evaluation.
(What the best college teachers do [6], p.108)

How People Learn
53
Students will not learn (just) by
listening to the instructor explain.

How People Learn
54
Students will not learn (just) by
listening to the instructor explain.
BE LESS HELPFUL

If in doubt, ask yourself…
55
Who is doing the work,
you or the students?

References
1. National Research Council (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience,
and School: Expanded Edition. J.D. Bransford, A.L Brown & R.R. Cocking
(Eds.),Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
2. Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. In L. B. Resnick
(Ed.), The nature of intelligence (pp.231-236). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
3. Brame, C. (2013). Thinking about metacognition. [blog] January, 2013,
Available at: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2013/01/thinking-about-
metacognition/ [Accessed: 14 Jan 2013].
4. Prather, E.E, Rudolph, A.L., Brissenden, G., & Schlingman, W.M. (2009). A
national study assessing the teaching and learning of introductory astronomy.
Part I. The effect of interactive instruction. Am. J. Phys. 77, 4, 320-330.
5. Sprague, J., & Stuart, D. (2000). The speaker’s handbook. Fort Worth, TX:
Harcourt College Publishers.
6. Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.

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