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Novices Need to be Taught Differently from Experts

June 17, 2014 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) at 05:14 AM

Continuing with excerpts from Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn (pp 149-150):

"Cognitive load theory research has been very much concerned with teaching procedures that will assist novices. But these same procedures could be far less effective, even time-wasting, when teaching knowledgeable people. This is because their memory systems are operating very differently. To help a novice focus and learn it is essential to contrain the level of information that needs to be processed through working memory. This idea becomes one of the basic notions underpinning applications of load theory. Novices need to concentrate as deeply as they can on specific ideas without encumbrance from other sources.

"Recognizing the learner's inherent limitations is one of the key implications of cognitive load theory research. As a knowledgeable person, a teacher may underestimate load being imposed on a novice's brain, and may misread the feedback cues. For example, a learner might continue to give cues to a teacher in the form of head nods, eye gaze, or positive words such as 'uh-huh'. Such signs mean that the learner is concentrating on keeping items swirling within working memory. But teachers may often assume such signs indicate deeper understandings, and so proceed without appreciating how the novices are close to capacity point. Such a point may be reached through merely holding too many items in the mind, without an awareness of how these items are supposed to be interacting with each other.

"The finding that many standard instructional procedures suit students who have prior familiarity with an area, but fail to acknowledge a novice's working memory limitations, is a theme that runs through a good deal of the work published by cognitive load theory researchers."

Cognitive load theory is a big part of the explanation why novices do not tend to learn as much when exposed to child-centred methods like discovery learning and group projects and immersion. This principle especially applies to disadvantaged students, as they are likely to have less prior familiarity with any given area.

Comments

Most classroom educators are fooled by students who are pretending to learn. In part, it is due to the lack of knowledge and training in working memory. My youngest was an expert in fooling the teachers that she was learning, but she was using maladative coping strategies to masked the working memory difficulties. Hence, there was little learning taking place in the classroom for my child from grade 1 to grade 5. All the learning was being done at home using direct instruction, drill & practice and other effective strategies that aids in improvement of working memory. I first learned about working memory when my child was in grade 2 on the LD blogs and chat forums. Working memory discussions was a big topic with LD parents and other parents who children had working memory difficulties. Now it is 2014, there is an explosion of research on working memory, and there should be no reason why educators are not taking advantage to help their students. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/keep-it-in-mind/201206/working-memory-and-the-classroom

In another - “Working memory difficulties are often associated with: poor phonological awareness,
learning disorders and learning difficulties
attentional issues, anxiety, worry and trauma.”
http://www.psych4schools.com.au/excerpt/working-memory

More importantly, working memory problems will become a big issue in the classroom, when students do not have prior knowledge on the subject material being taught. Discovery learning practices such as starting off with the big idea, and let the students to discovered on their own the basic fundamental facts behind the ‘big idea’ actually increases the cognitive load of students, making learning more difficult than what it should be.

Working memory problems can be improve. There is no magic pill but the best way I know of improving it is to targeted to the specific skill or knowledge being taught. For my youngest child, it was in the areas of math and science. As my child’s working memory improved in areas of math and science, the working memory improvements transferred to other subjects and skills where the classroom teachers were just amazed at the transformation and my child’s ability to learn in the classroom. My child’s academic strengths started to shine through, that was masked by her learning difficulties of low phonemic awareness, lower working memory capacity and sequencing problems.

Posted by Nancy on 06/17 at 08:03 AM

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Novices Need to be Taught Differently from Experts

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