The Most Important Loop in Learning

A simple graphic represting a "feedback loop"

in "What can I do for my students that would have the greatest impact on their learning?" This question is simple and results-oriented, and I think that we all want to know the answer, since we all are teachers in some capacity!

All that being said, these words from Helen Keller about the teaching that she experienced speaks volumes without empirical data: 

"It was my teacher’s genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me." 

On a different note, I will credit Steve LoCascio, who was my "co-operating teacher" as I was learning, with demonstrating that the properly-timed application of the right information and motivation profoundly affected students as individuals and groups. 

In both cases, the power of high quality feedback was highlighted. Feedback is something that we seek as naturally curious creatures: we want to know if our actions have created the result that we imagined. In the learning process, the repeating path of action, feedback, adjustment, and trying again is a loose description of a "feedback loop".

So how important is feedback, really? Imagine trying to learn something without feedback for a moment. It's a bit like trying to park a car in utter darkness! Deprived of direction based upon our performance of a task, we may conitnue to grow in any direction with regard to that task, including a negative one! 

Now we come to a point in connecting this idea to lab work for students: if this strategy is to be effective, feedback and multiple feedback loops must be part of any well-designed lab experience. While this may sound "good", or "obvious", as pointed out in previous posts, it is not the norm. Lab exercises unfortunately are "one-and-done" and rarely revisited. Another important point arises from this: in STEM education, design is emphasized, which in itself is a process involving (you guessed it) feedback loops! Only one conslusion is possible from these facts: common science labwork is inherently incompatible with what we intuitively understand about STEM and design!

Yes, during my in-service, it came to light that feedback trumped all other teacher actions in improving student achievement, including having students do homework. Simple homework, or practice, without feedback, should be rethought and then discarded. Feedback might come in many forms, and does not mean that every stroke of the student's pencil, or keyboard, must be viewed, analyzed and reported back. It does mean that meaningful feedback is necessary to keep the practice from being a waste. 

I am extremely interested in your thoughts on this topic. I believe this should be the cornerstone idea behind any learning environment, from a "brick and mortor" classroom to an online learning system. So yes good reader, I now ask you for what we all need to learn *grins* feedback!

I promise that I will return to the Curiosity mission in my next post. Until then, I can recall sitting in a teacher "in-service" many years ago. Let's say 15 years ago +/- 5 years. The presentation was interesting, and had to deal with research on what teacher activities improved student learning. These activities included lecturing, one-to-one practice, tutoring, cooperative learning and several other teaching techniques and behaviors. Perhaps I am too competitive, but I was interested

More Than One Way to Skin a Lab

Options galore for playing with pendula!

When last discussed, I identified "practice" along with "feedback" as critical components of the process of learning. In a lab setting, what different types of practice can be facilitated? What are the best ways to facilitate practice?

Perhaps one of the best ways to practice a skill or process to the point of mastery is repetition in different contexts. This allows for both deep mastery of fundamentals, and an interesting exploration and transfer at higher orders of knowledge. What contexts are available? One is the traditional lab setting. This is the way things have been done for many decades in brick and mortar schools. Others have become more recently available facilitated by improved communication and technology and include virtual simulations, virtual labs (which I will differentiate in a later post), video recreations of procedures with data analysis, and labs as design challenges. All of options mentioned are opportunities for repetitive practice and varied contexts.

Let's consider the PhET simulations produced by the University of Colorado as an example. These are simulations that are web-based, therefore available annywhere and anytime one has connectivity to the internet. They are JAVA based and accessible. The link provided above will take you to the pendulum simulation that you can explore as many times as you wish. Thereby, it provides the element of repetition and practice.

In future posts, I will be exploring other forms of labs, diving in more deeply into the different species of labs that have evolved over the past 20 years through technology. In the mean time, what are some of these types of experiences that you have found? What have you liked, and disliked? I look forward to hearing you comments!

The Key - The Opportunity

How inspiring could something this simple be?

Based on yesterday's post, a coworker who wishes to remain anonymous emailed an anecdote to me. His Chemistry teacher used Hypercard or something similar to as a tool for the students to create a lesson of their choice, including using graphics and sounds. My coworker stayed after school to create a few more, motivated by the opportunity. This fellow is now the finest Flash designer I have ever worked with, and his skills go well beyond Flash!

There is much to be learned from this short story. In keeping with this group of posts, the teacher created an environement of doing. The doing involved practice, and feedback. I am sure that failure WAS an option, and in fact encouraged. Ultimately, both excitement and mastery were the result!

We see common elements in seeking mastery in a setting where students are doing. They are outlined above and can be concisely fingered: practice, opportunities to risk and fail, feedback, and challenge at the right level. With hands on labs, we have both the best of challenge and a risk of failure, but this mode has inherent limitations. Practice and feedback are daunting components of this important feedback loop!

Consider that most labs are not done but a singular student, but by pairs, or larger groups. Pair interaction has significant value, but you can imagine and have probably experienced that being one of four students in a lab, it is easy to "go with the flow" and allow others to do the work. Not a great setting for YOU to practice or learn what is really happening!

Also consider that lab chemicals and other materials are sometimes used up. There are limits to lab budgets, and replacing materials can be expensive. There is a practical limit to how many times a lab or other activity involving consumables may be done.

Other limitations exist as well. In my next post, we will begin to discuss some solutions to these limitations. In the mean time, what limitations do you feel are important that have not been mentioned here? There are so many settings for learning today, and I have discuused only the traditional brick and mortar classroom - in other settings what are the challenges and limitations?

...and Times are Getting Better!

How could we do multiple dissections?

So summarizing from my most recent blog:

• science is more interesting when you are "doing" science
• even when doing labs, most students do not really learn more

One point of view might be to abolish labs given the above phrases. Another perspective though is to understand how to get what we want out of the lab experience. Let's go back to the gym for a moment.

Basketball players learn to play by repeating complex body motions many times. Shooting, dribbling and passing in different situations require different actions from the body to be performed quickly. Thinking about these as one might in a game of chess would doom one to failure - reaction rules the day. The only way that this is possible is after each action is rehearsed and practiced. Here is the key: It is practiced, and feedback is provided. Feedback! This feedback allows for correction of faulty motions, and improivement of behavior during a game. In other words: learning!

Now, back to the lab. Think back to your lab experiences and ask yourself how many were experiences that were repeated. I suspect not many! Maybe you dissected a frog. When you did this, most likely, you and your lab partner made a mistake. It may have been a small one, or a catastrophic one! In either case, you recieved feedback, perhaps in the form of a grade on your lab report, and then scurried along to new content and another lab. Master did not occur. It was a "cool" experience, and memorable. Yet, were you able to see the impressive leg muscles, or the interesting structure of the frog heart? It is doubtful. What if you had the chance to do the experiment many times, recieving feedback each time? How might this occur?

As technology improves, there are many ways to "skin a cat" (or a lab, or a frog). Suffice it to say that a scientific concept is not something that should be practiced once and only once. After all, that first attempt at a lab is usually awkward at best! Students need opportunities to practice labs, and parts of the scientific process until mastered. That usually means MORE THAN ONCE! Let me leave you dear reader with this thought: "If the labs you did were so much fun that you still remember them, would they not have been far more fun to do several times!"

How this can be practically accomplished without killing many many frogs or depleating stressed school funding will be something that we touch upon together in my next post. I still want to hear about your favorite labs and how they may have been made even more fun, or hear about your least favorite labs!

They Were the Best of Times...

Lab days were usually the best of science days!

What did you enjoy most from your science education? What science memories endured from your classroom experiences? I would wager that for most people, one of the two or three things that come to mind, "labs" or "lab work" comes to mind. I loved labs. An aside...

I spent the first part of my career teaching. Coaching basketball was a second vocation. I have always believed that coaches provide far superior teaching strategies that are individualized than common classroom teachers. One key to this is "doing" time. A good coach will spend 10% of his time teaching in front of a group, and the other 90% providing practice and feedback. Practice, practice, practice. Bobby Knight, the volatile but revered former coach of Texas Tech and Indiana commented many times: "Perfect practice makes perfect."

Let's return to our science experiences. Dissections, titrations, and modeling were activities that most of us enjoyed more than the day to day lecture from a teacher. The images, interactions and stories that remain with us indicate that the learning that took place was "sticky". I even recall vividly that my lab partner spilled hot cabbage juice indicator all over my light-colored pants in 10th grade, and the explosion that resulted in my college lab when a fellow student did not quite clear all of the sodium out of a test tube before cleaning it (it ended in a bang!). Still, do we remember why we were doing these things? Did we get out of those experiences much more than good memories?

I would suggest that the answer is "no" unfortunately. I have to admit that on these days, the most memorable, enjoyable days of my science learning, I found myself lost almost all of the time. I was simply hopeful that I might get enough data to complete the lab subsequent lab report, or complete the activity without looking foolish. In my physics class, I was so lost based on the results of my lab work that I did not submit several labs! I loved labs, but I something about the experience left me feeling woefully inadequate.

Now that I have outlined a major, well understood challenge in science learning, in my next posts let's explore together some potential solutions - I am hopeful that as we do this, you might come up with some observations, suggestions and practices that I might not have thought of. That's why meeting at a "crossroads" can lead to a productive, enjoyable dialogue. Let's have a cup of coffee and chat about making labs better.