Students who have activated their prior knowledge learn much more effectively from new experiences, yet this area of lesson planning is often neglected.
In this week's post you will find:
A Visual Summary of Constructivist Theory (Piaget): New knowledge is constructed out of previous knowledge. New Experiences are viewed through the filter of previous knowledge and either assimilated or accommodated into the existing knowledge framework.
Reading for the Rest of Us Part 3: Preparing to Read
While this is about reading texts the principles and strategies apply equally to watching lecture-style lessons or any other form of information transfer.
Misconceptions lead to mis-perceptions:
Surprising findings from physics education that pre-existing misconceptions actually change what students see/hear/observe and what that means for wider education. And in a surprising twist - true gains in learning are often accompanied by feelings of confusion rather than clarity - this has some serious implications as we head towards performance pay based, at least in-part, on student evaluations.
The Importance of Prior Knowledge:
"Educators often focus on the ideas that they want their audience to have. But research has shown that a learner's prior knowledge often confounds an educator's best efforts to deliver ideas accurately. A large body of findings shows that learning proceeds primarily from prior knowledge, and only secondarily from the presented materials. Prior knowledge can be at odds with the presented material, and consequently, learners will distort presented material. Neglect of prior knowledge can result in the audience learning something opposed to the educator's intentions, no matter how well those intentions are executed in an exhibit, book, or lecture." from: http://www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/museumeducation/priorknowledge.html
Fisher and Frey's article "Building and Activating Background Knowledge" in Principal Leadership highlights the importance of activating prior knowledge in learning quite nicely.
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READING FOR THE REST OF US PART 3 : PREPARING TO READ
Preparing to Read Involves:
1. Activating Prior Knowledge is essential for effective learning as it provides knowledge "hooks" to attach new knowledge on to as it arrives. Misconceptions must be identified and challenged appropriately before new knowledge is presented or risk misinterpretation that actually reinforces the misconceptions rather than the intended learning.
- Activities That Help Students Activate Prior Knowledge
- More Activities to Activate Prior Knowledge
2. Establishing a Purpose for Reading provides motivation to read and focusses attention. Purpose enables readers to discern relevant from irrelevant information more effectively.
- Activities That Help Students Set a Purpose for Reading
3. Previewing & Predicting has been shown to foster motivation, attention, retention and comprehension. Previewing prepares the learner for what to expect in the reading, providing an overview to organise the information and uncover connections. Predicting engages the interest and generates an desire to find out.
- Skimming and Scanning
- The Directed Listening and Thinking Activity Process
- Teaching and Using Text Structures
- Activities That Support Predicting
FURTHER READING:
- ThinkLiteracy Cross Curricular Reading Guide
- Adolescent Literacy Resources Website
Derek Muller's TED talk:
1. Activating Prior Knowledge is essential for effective learning as it provides knowledge "hooks" to attach new knowledge on to as it arrives. Misconceptions must be identified and challenged appropriately before new knowledge is presented or risk misinterpretation that actually reinforces the misconceptions rather than the intended learning.
- Activities That Help Students Activate Prior Knowledge
- More Activities to Activate Prior Knowledge
2. Establishing a Purpose for Reading provides motivation to read and focusses attention. Purpose enables readers to discern relevant from irrelevant information more effectively.
- Activities That Help Students Set a Purpose for Reading
3. Previewing & Predicting has been shown to foster motivation, attention, retention and comprehension. Previewing prepares the learner for what to expect in the reading, providing an overview to organise the information and uncover connections. Predicting engages the interest and generates an desire to find out.
- Skimming and Scanning
- The Directed Listening and Thinking Activity Process
- Teaching and Using Text Structures
- Activities That Support Predicting
FURTHER READING:
- ThinkLiteracy Cross Curricular Reading Guide
- Adolescent Literacy Resources Website
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Misconceptions lead to mis-perceptions:
Physics is hard.
So difficult in fact, that a flood of carefully designed, well explained, highly visual and interactive educational resources have come into existence - truly remarkable resources.
And the result?
Physics is still hard.
Why? Why do our exceptionally clear explanations seem to have no impact?
The answer is truly surprising: Students actually "see" it wrong.
The problem with clear explanations or demonstrations is that many students don't actually see what we are showing them. Their observations are filtered through pre-existing misconceptions and altered into what they think they should be seeing. Showing demonstrations, even ones that clearly contradict their preconceptions, simply reaffirm their false understanding.
Famed Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur recently investigated this effect, adding to 20 years of research from the Mazur Group at Harvard into the Peer Instruction model of teaching. Derek Muller recently finished his PhD on the subject that confirms Mazur's conclusion and provides more evidence on the a way forward for Physics Education -> Confront the misconceptions first, then teach.
This has spurred a whole movement of educators to raise awareness and fight against the pervasive "pseudoteaching" in our education systems. Teaching that looks and feels like teaching, but actually teaches very little.
Additionally, this research has uncovered another startling conclusion - one with implications for use student evaluations as part of teacher appraisal systems: students rate teachers poorly when they are learning more and highly when they a learning next to nothing.
Social scientists figured out a while ago that ignorance begets confidence - it's called the Dunning-Kruger Effect and it is also closely related to Confirmation Bias.
Derek Muller's TED talk:
MUST-VIEW RESOURCES:
1. Derek Muller's 8 min summary of his PhD paper. A slow start (since he's poking a little fun at Sal Khan) but stick with it - his findings are quite important.
2. "What is psuedoteaching?" from Frank Noschese's blog "Action-Reaction"
3. Dan Meyer's TED talk on Math and Psuedocontexts
FURTHER READING/VIEWING RESOURCES:
1. Eric Mazur's Lecture: Confessions of a Converted Lecturer. 1hour, 26 mins
2. Veritasium Derek Muller's YouTube Channel ** turn down you sound **
3. The Mazur Group - Harvard Physics Education Research Group Website
4. "Science Education in the 21 Century" 83 mins. Nobel Physicist Carl Wiemann's research confirming and extending Mazur's work.
5. The Dunning-Kruger Effect: YouTube blog 7 mins
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