Takeaway 1 this week is a Twitter thread that I posted drawing some interesting connections between retrieval practice and scaffolding self-regulated learning. I really enjoyed this paper.

Takeaway 2 is an excellent list of readable papers that cover the majority of the main points from education research that I’ve found most valuable over the past few years. Well worth working through.

3, 4, an 5 are an infographic on effective study, research answering ‘why is teaching a good way to learn something’, and a good follow up to last week’s metacognition paper respectively.

The titles of takeaways 6 to 9 should guide you through them.

As for 10, well, watch it if you’d like your day brightened!

Enjoy : )
(all past TOTs here), sign up to get these articles emailed to you each week here.

Improving self-regulated learning with a retrieval practice intervention

Here are some of my takeaways from an excellent paper by Ariel and Karpicke. Original thread here. 

Karpicke continues his excellent work on retrieval practice. This time turning his attention to retrieval practice training for language learning. In an online learning environment, intervention students were given ONLY the following training, i.e., two brief paragraphs. (thread)

Here’s the Figure that was referred to. Btw, Paper is: Ariel, R. & Karpicke, J.D. (2018) Improving self-regulated learning with a retrieval practice intervention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 24 (1), 43.

Students proceeded in choice and practice blocks. A key thing to note here is how well scaffolded the learning environment was. The online protocol made it very easy for students to differentially select between studying (re-reading) and retrieving. As outlined below.

Here’s how it looked.

Study and practice (retrieval) was then undertaken by means of students virtually ‘flipping’ cards from the study and practice piles, and either returning them to their initial piles for more practice, or sending them to a ‘done’ pile. Here are a few key measures that Ariel and Karpicke examined. Firstly, were those who received training more likely to select retrieval practice over re-study? Answer: Yes

Secondly, what was the ‘accuracy criterion’ to which participants’ held themselves. More simply, did the intervention group follow the advice to ‘Not stop studying a translation until you have remembered it at least 3 times’? Again, the answer seems to be yes.

Third, what impact, if any, did the prompting to retrieve information correctly 3 times have on overall study time?

Fourth, did the intervention group perform better on the final assessment (direct testing of the vocabulary items) than did the control group? Again, yes.

Fifth, and crucially, were those who undertook this training more likely to use retrieval practice (without prompting) in another task up to a week later?… You guessed it!

To me, this is a really powerful study because it demonstrates the impact on both study behaviours and learning outcomes that can come from study advice delivered in the parsimonious form of 2 paragraphs of text and a graph. However, we shouldn’t underestimate the benefit of the scaffolding provided by the online learning environment, which made it very easy for participants to apply/trial their new knowledge of the value of retrieval. Thus, it isn’t just about communicating the value of retrieval practice it’s also about providing clear, structured, and easy to implement ways for students to put retrieval into practice. On that, I’ll leave you with a final idea from the authors on how to improve such a scaffolding protocol. (End of thread)

If I was tasked with designing a reading list for first year teacher training, I don't think I could do much better than this, via @teacherhead

Infographic of what makes effective studying, via @C_Hendrick and @olivercavigliol

Why is teaching one of the best ways to learn something? Finally, a plausible explanation! via @researchdigest

Making sense of metacognition, via @HuntingEnglish

Improving engagement and attainment in maths and English courses: insights from behavioural research Research and project report (snippets) via @HarryFletcherWood

I love Harry's threads!

Here are some research snippets from Harry Fletcher-Wood on the impact of grit interventions, whether volunteering increases job opportunities, the immediate costs vs. longer term benefits of undergoing further education, and some other interesting things.

Full thread here: https://rosasreadings.wordpress.com/2018/05/08/hume-et-al-2018-improving-engagement-and-attainment-in-maths-and-english-courses/

The following is written by Harry.

Really interesting (long) summary of the work of @B_I_Tweets in further education & adult literacy. A few things stand out (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…)

 

 

Strong impact of texting nominated study supporters on students' attendance and results.

GCSEs really helps you get job interviews; functional skills and volunteering don't seem to make a difference.

This gem (about adult education) is a pretty concise explanation for why many students at any age don't study hard.

Most literacy/numeracy interventions in the workplace received tiny responses: except where literacy/numeracy was mandatory/essential for promotion (army, hospitals) where behavioural psychology made little difference.

Finally, incentives for attendance & incentives combined with attendance of a (randomly-chosen) peer made a big difference to attendance at literacy classes.

One pager: Language for building a culture of error, via @Doug_Lemov

Algebra by example (and non-example) a great resource for research based mathematics activities, via @andylutwyche

Pull your head in! Some signs that intellectual humility might be a catalyst for learning, shared by @Pepsmccrea

I didn't read this full article. Including here should anyone want to look in further and potentially reference at some point down the track.

‘Don't forget to show love'. Honestly, you gotta watch this

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