Evidence-Based Teaching Strategiesand the Research Behind Them

Marie Norman, PhD

MERMAID Sept 2017

• Describe 5 evidence-based teaching strategies.

• Explain the research that supports them.

• Discuss applications and adaptations.

Objectives

Why successful strategies work

When they work

How to adapt them to new contexts

Exam Wrappers

Think of a challenging task

• How did you prepare?

• What mistakes did you make?

• How would you change your strategy?

Strategy: Exam Wrappers

Ask students to reflect (in writing) on their study strategies immediately after an exam and when they get the exam back.

Lovett, 2013

Ambrose et al, 2010

Achacoso, 2004

• How do you think you did

on this exam?

• How did you study for it?

• Do you think your study

strategies were effective?

• Compare how you thought

you performed with how

you actually performed.

• How effective do you think

your study strategy was?

• Is there anything you’d do

differently next time?

Wrapper BWrapper A

Metacognition

Assess the task

Assess yourself

Plan strategyMonitor strategy

Reflect and adjust1

5 2

4 3 Carey et al, 1989

Dunning, 2007

Chi et al, 1989

Dunning-Kruger Effect

• Individuals with low ability overestimate competence.

• Individuals with high ability underestimate competence.

Kruger & Dunning, 1999

Why do exam wrappers work?

• More accurate self-

assessment

• Opportunity to reflect

and adjust

We don’t learn from experience. We learn

from reflecting on experience.

John Dewey

Reappraisal

I’m nervous about

this

exam/presentation

I’m excited about this

exam/presentation.

Reappraisal

When a high-arousal emotion such as anxiety is redefined

as another high-arousal emotion such as excitement, it

reduces stress and improves performance better than

simply trying to calm down (emotional suppression.)

Cutuli, 2014

Brooks, 2013

Cognitive Reappraisal

• Cognitive consistency

(unlike suppression)

• Threat mindset

opportunity mindset

Why does reappraisal work?

Collaborative

Testing

Use exams as a learning opportunity and put students in

groups to take them collaboratively.

Strategy: Collaborative Testing

Research on Collaborative Testing

Students who take tests collaboratively learn more and

develop better critical thinking skills than students who take

tests individually.

Eastridge, 2014

Rivaz et al, 2015

Rao et al, 2015

Gilley & Clarkston, 2014

Meseke et al, 2010

Pandey & Kapatinoff, 2011

• Reduces test anxiety

• Builds communication skills

• Builds listening skills

• Leverages “Protégé Effect”

Why does collaborative testing work?

Tip #1: Include an individual component.

Tip #2:Use for complex content.

Desirable

Difficulties

Slides that (A) articulate compete ideas or (B) provide an

outline but require students to fill in missing pieces?

Which is better…

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Use slides that compliment lecture but don’t stand alone to

make students engage in deeper cognitive processing.

Strategy: Use Skeletal Slides

Students learn more deeply and retain what they learn

longer when learning is (reasonably) difficult.

Bjork, 1994

Roediger & Karpicke, 2006

Rohrer & Taylor, 2007

Yue et al, 2013

Bjork & Kroll, 2015

McDaniel et al, 1994

Research on Desirable Difficulties

• Testing > restudying

• Generating answers > identifying answers

• Mixed (“interleaved”) practice > blocked practice

• Spaced practice > “massed” practice

• Slides that don’t match speech exactly > slides that do

• Imperfect outlines > perfect outlines

Commonality: require deeper cognitive processing.

Examples of desirable difficulties

Caveat #1:Too much difficulty is not desirable

Caveat #2:Distraction is not a desirable difficulty.

Caveat #3:Desirable difficulties are not always desired.

• Deeper cognitive processing

• More elaborated encoding

• Better learning and retention

Why is difficulty desirable?

Growth

Mindset

Avoid talking about intelligence as a fixed trait. Instead,

emphasize that intelligence is malleable and evolving.

Strategy: Emphasize a growth mindset

People who believe that ability is innate (fixed mindset) are

significantly less resilient than those who believe it can be

developed with effort (growth mindset.)

Minor interventions can help create a growth mindset.

Carol Dweck, 2006

Research on Mindset

When individuals from a stereotyped group are

anxious about confirming a negative stereotype, it

impedes cognitive processes and performance.

Steele & Aronson, 1995

Aronson et al, 1989

Gonzales, Blanton, & Williams, 2002

Franceschini et al, 2014

Research on Stereotype Threat

• Black and white Stanford

students given a challenging

multiple choice test.

• Group 1: Race was cued

• Group 2: Race was not cued

• Black students in group 1 showed

significantly depressed

performance relative to group 2.

Ex. Steele & Aronson, 1995

• Older people and memory tasks

• Women and math/entrepreneurship/science

• Southerners and intellectual ability

• White men and basketball…

Replicated extensively

•When the stereotype is relevant to the task at hand

•When the task is challenging

•When the task matters to the individual’s self-identity.

•Whether or not the individual believes the stereotype.

Stereotype Threat occurs…

• Emphasizes factors students

have power over

• Helps to overcome

stereotype threat

Why does a growth mindset help?

•Use exam wrappers (metacognition, Dunning-Kruger)

• Train students to reappraise anxiety (cognitive reappraisal)

•Consider group testing (collaborative testing)

•Use skeletal slides(desirable difficulties)

•Cultivate a growth mindset (mindset and stereotype threat)

Recap

Thoughts? Questions?

Applications?Take-aways?

Thank you!

References

• Achacoso, M. V. (2004). Post-test analysis: A tool for developing students' metacognitive awareness and self-regulation. New Directions for Teaching and Learning,2004(100), 115-119. doi:10.1002/tl.179

• Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M.W., DiPeitro, M., Lovett, MA, & Norman, M. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

• Aronson, J., Lustina, M.J., Good, C., Keough, K., Steele, C.M., & Brown, J. (1989). When white men can’t do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 29-46.

• Bjork, R. A. (1975). Retrieval as a memory modifier: An interpretation of negative recency and related phenomena. In R. Solso (Ed.), Information processing and cognition: The Loyola Symposium (pp. 123–144). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

• Bjork, R. A., & Kroll, J. F. (2015). Desirable difficulties in vocabulary learning. The American Journal of Psychology, 128(2), 241-252. doi:10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.2.0241

• Brooks, A.W. (2013). Get excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 143, 3, 1144–1158.

• Carey, L.J., Flower, L., Hayes, J., Shriver, K.A., & Haas, C. (1989). Differences in writers’ initial task representation (Technical Report No.34). Center for the Study of Writing at University of California at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University.

• Cutuli, D. (2014). Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression strategies role in the emotion regulation: An overview on their modulatory effects and neural correlates. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8, 175.

• Dempster, F.N. (1990). The spacing effect: A case study in the failure to apply the results of psychological research. American Psychologist, 43,627-634.

• Dunning, D. (2007). Self-insight: Roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself. New York: Taylor & Francis.

• Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

• Eastridge, J. A. (2014). Use of collaborative testing to promote nursing student success. Nurse Educator, 39(1), 4-5. doi:10.1097/01.NNE.0000437366.96218.f1

• Franceschini, G., Galli, S., Chiesi, F., & Primi, C. (2014). Implicit gender-math stereotype and women’s susceptibility to stereotype threat and stereotype lift. Learning and Individual Differences, 32,273-277.

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• Pandey, C., and Kapitanoff, S. (2011). The influence of anxiety and quality of interaction on collaborative text performance. Active Learning in Higher Education, 12 (3), 163-174.

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• Rohrer, D., & Pashler, H. (2010). Reviews/Essays: Recent research on human learning challenges conventional instructional strategies. Educational Researcher, 39(5), 406-412.

• Steele, C.M. & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African-Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5),797-811.

• Yue, C. L., Castel, A. D., & Bjork, R. A. (2013). When disfluency is—and is not—a desirable difficulty: The influence of typeface clarity on metacognitive judgments and memory. Memory & Cognition, 41(2), 229-241.