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How to Maximize Learning with Students Teaching Students

November 02, 2020 / Oskar Cymerman

Students Teaching Students using Instructional Videos

“When you teach something, you get to learn it twice”

— Jim Kwik

If you’re a teacher, you probably disagree with the quote above. It’s a gross understatement.

Teachers do not teach something just once. We do it daily, repeatedly, and continuously. We teach the whole class, small groups, and individual students. We teach face to face, virtually, and after hours. We tutor to better explain and answer questions to clarify. We teach and get to learn it multiple times.

Explaining concepts, showing others (students and teachers) how to do something, giving examples, and modeling how to apply learning over and over allows us to learn that which we teach more deeply. This is how we constantly level up our teacher mojos.

Good news is… sharing our teaching mojo does not diminish it. It adds to it. Leveraging learning by teaching with our students to help them develop higher levels of expertise makes us better teachers. It allows us to relinquish control and help students figure out how to learn more effectively.

The enhanced real-time processing of concepts and practice of skills involved in creating content designed to teach others improves the understanding and memory of this content and this is the premise of this article.

Student-Created Educational Content

Teaching is one of the best ways to learn because it forces the person doing the teaching (not just teachers) to first understand the content and be able to elaborate on it and then give examples and apply the content in a useful way.

Fortunately, teaching is not just for teachers. Anyone can do it. With direction and practice, students can teach each other. Akin to an effective teacher who focuses on creating educational activities maximizing student understanding and retention in real-time, students can be given opportunities to create instructional videos, graphics, and other devices that explain concepts and teach skills during class time.

Students will not become experts in what they’re teaching right away. That’s not the point. The idea is to help students deepen their knowledge and understanding of the topic by giving them more time to process it and getting them to process it with more intention. And if they feel that learning directly from the teacher serves them better, point out that research proves that active learning leads to actual learning. Thus, engaging in thinking about how to best explain something to someone else and then creating a product that does it results in deeper learning.

Student-Created Instructional Videos

There are many ways we can create lessons and activities that give students opportunities to learn more deeply by teaching each other. Today, I will focus on how teachers can combine smart practice and Flipgrid, an app many of you already use, to get students to process concepts and practice skills they are learning in multiple ways.

This is different from response videos. Instead of just responding to a prompt, students are asked to look through the same creative lens teachers use when designing learning content. But while teachers create content to help others learn and student-created videos can be used in the same way, the main goal of the videos is not to teach others. It is to help those creating the videos learn better.

And students don’t even need to know this. Psych!

I mean, it’s okay to make our protégés privy to this evil, learning-maximizing plan, but it’s not necessary.

Smart Practice and Flipgrid: Instructional Video Activity Example

Many students are not “natural-born teachers.” They need guidance. Concise but specific instructions help with that. Here’s an example activity I used to help my students remember how to calculate atomic mass of an element in a high school chemistry class.

Flipgrid Student Created Teaching Video Instructions

First, I explained how to calculate atomic mass and gave students time to practice a few calculations. Then, I set them loose to work on their “Teaching How to Calculate Atomic Mass” videos. My hope was to get my students to “meta” the procedure - instead of just applying it to solve problems, I wanted them to break it down into steps which would hopefully lead to a deeper level of understanding and longer-lasting memory. I also wanted my students to practice smart by avoiding mindless repetition and learning actively by processing the procedure in several ways.

I use this instructional video activity with my chemistry and engineering students regularly to help them learn more actively and be more successful academically.

Why “Teaching” Maximizes “Learning”

Teaching isn’t standing in front of the class physically or appearing virtually. Teaching isn’t creating and distributing content. Teaching isn’t explaining concepts and exemplifying skills. Teaching is all of these things plus reflection and preparation - perhaps the two biggest teacher mojo multipliers. And, we can use them as learning maximizers too.

Let’s meta it.

When teachers look for educational content to use in or to re-purpose for their classrooms, they are forced to consider whether it will and how it will help students learn. If a process or a procedure is complex, we might chunk it and break it down into smaller steps. Then, we look for the best way to teach this new information - one we hope to be concise but comprehensible. Next, we might look at common misconceptions and possible questions. Finally, we do it - we deliver content to help our students learn.

And then we do it all over again. We reexamine, reflect, and recreate year after year. The work is never finished, not always easy, but often fun and mind-expanding. It helps us learn and grow.

How does this apply?

In the Instructional Video Example above, finding the atomic mass problem and deciding which one to use and why, forces students to become engaged and make a thoughtful choice.

Solving the problem gives students additional practice, but it is the deliberate breaking down of the solution into smaller, individual steps that provokes metacognition of the procedure and thus deeper processing.

Aside from providing additional practice, the writing and practicing of the script is an exercise in mindfulness - students are asked to plan and prepare a way of showing someone else how to do something they’ve just learned themselves. You can make this even more powerful (and maybe more difficult) by limiting the video’s running time, which often forces students to rethink what to show and say and how to do it. That’s just more metacognition.

Asking students to be expert - not to read but to explain as if they know the process inside and out - forces them to retrieve and not rote-repeat what they wrote. This helps them find out if they’re actually learning or if they’re just pretending.

Pretenders are only cool with Chrissie Hynde fronting, so let’s stand by our students and teach them to teach others so they can learn how to learn better themselves.

Most involved people understand the meaning of this song.Watch and be stronger.

Students Teaching Students Key Points

When students create educational content they learn actively.
Creating instructional videos leads to better memory and understanding because students get to process concepts multiple times and in multiple ways.
Learning by teaching is effective because it’s a metacognitive process.

References:

Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., and Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (39) 19251-19257

Kruger, J., and Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134.

Freeman, S., Eddy, S., McDonough, M., Smith, M., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., and Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning boosts performance in STEM courses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (23) 8410-8415

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categories / Learning
tags / teaching teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, learning, kids, active learning, teacher resources, instructional resources, classroom strategies, hybrid learning, in-person learning, distance learning, remote learning, teaching strategies, teaching methods

Active Learning: Manipulation of Information

October 27, 2020 / Oskar Cymerman

Active Learning by Manipulation of Information

In the previous post I proposed the ultimate goal of any lesson should be to create activities that promote understanding and increase memory of the topics studied. Then I showed how we can create effective, interactive, digital lessons.

Active learning, or processing of concepts and practice of problem-solving and other skills when they are being introduced (as opposed to after they are taught), increases understanding and recall because students are compelled to think at a higher level.

In this post, I share how to create digital activities that allow students to learn actively and think more deeply by manipulating educational content.

More Active Learning, More Processing

While some teachers make lectures interesting and make room for audience interaction, the main objective of lectures is to provide learners with information. This limits how much each student is allowed to interact with the teacher, other peers, and the material itself. Even when the teacher asks questions during the lecture most students end up listening to someone else processing out loud.

Creating classroom activities that allow students to process the content presented is important for recall and comprehension. But it’s difficult to incorporate more than one follow up activity into lessons that start out with a lecture. There’s simply too little time. Answering questions related to the lecture is not enough. It’s too passive. We must look for ways to give our learners the opportunity to learn more actively.

Getting Started With More Active Learning

A few years ago, I replaced all my lectures with lessons that start with an introductory activity (brief direct instruction or an instructional video or a choice between the two) followed by two to three short application activities. I decreased the amount of content and focused on giving students several ways of processing one to two main concepts during class.

Doing so rejuvenated my teaching. Being able to dive deeper into one concept and not worrying about time relieved the stress. Frequent daily interaction with individual students and small groups as I walked around and helped them learn was fun. The power dynamic changed. It was no longer me telling them what to learn.

Rather, I set a learning path for students to follow each day, showed them the starting point, and provided them with multiple resources to reach comprehension. I was still the number one resource, especially for some students, but now many students could choose whether they needed my help or not, and in many cases they did very well without me once I gave them a few initial instructions.

Many students can become self-directed quickly when given the opportunity. This can set them on an educational path of not only “owning their learning,” but figuring out how to learn efficiently as well.

Any teacher can try this. Take just one lecture and replace it with perhaps 10 minutes of instruction followed by 3 short application activities. Once you become comfortable with this format, create a lesson in which you just explain where students need to go to get the information and set them loose on 3 or 4 activities.

Students do not need to know everything about the topic upfront. They can discover and learn to apply at the same time. This is how the homo sapiens have done it for millennia before and after we started writing on cave walls and stone tablets. This is how students do it outside of school when pursuing their passions. Trial and error. Failure and learning from failure. They apply what they are learning almost immediately. Why not leverage this naturally-evolved best practice every day in schools?

Active Learning in the Whole-Class and Small-Group Formats

There are of course students who like lecture and drill and kill learning, but while those activities tend to be passive, these students find a way to learn actively and understand more profoundly when they ask questions, answer teacher questions, and readily participate in small group or whole class discussions.

Unfortunately, many learners, for various reasons, shy away from such participation even when placed in small groups as these tend to be dominated by one or two pupils. So while we need to continue with collaborative work that promotes content comprehension, skill-building, and social-emotional learning, teachers must also look to create classroom activities that enable all students to participate fully and equally. These types of activities allow students to manipulate educational content.

Digital Manipulation of Information

Manipulation of content in thoughtful ways promotes higher level of processing. In such activities, teachers take a step back, provide support, and challenge students to problem-solve as they interact with the content, draw their own conclusions, and ultimately learn.

Discussion protocols such as Think-Pair-and-Share, drawing pictures, diagrams, and concept maps, building models, summarizing notes, philosophical chairs, or fishbowl activities are all great classroom activities but are not always practical in the digital format necessitated by distance- or hybrid-learning. For example, while drawings and written activities can be digitized, Think-Pair-and-Share is hard to do even in synchronous settings.

But while only some traditional activities work online, the digital format affords many ways of creating interactive and engaging activities. The rest of this article’s focus is on these. Below are three examples I use with descriptions and download links you can use to copy and modify to fit your needs.

Google It! Active Learning Activity

At first glance, the Google It! activity may look basic - Google the stuff and fill out the table with information. How is that different from filling out a packet? Let’s take a closer look.

First, students are not watching the teacher present on Elements, Compounds, and Mixtures. They are not copying from their notes or textbooks into the table. They are asked to go online and find the information for themselves. This is akin to a caveman interacting with his world and learning concepts and skills that allow him to not just survive but to control his environment.

Our students are far from being cave people but they will need transferrable skills they can apply in life and on the job. When “Googling It!,” they are learning to find and curate information. They might encounter some wrong or biased information, but that just adds to not diminishes the learning experience. I believe that it is increasingly our job as teachers to not just teach content but to help our students navigate the world of today and learn skills they can use to better influence their personal and professional outcomes.

Second, the very process of looking and curating online information aids memory because student brains are exposed to the information many times and in many ways. They read and process the information to understand it. They paraphrase it in their own words. They are asked to find and manipulate visuals for each concept. They have to elaborate by finding and picking examples of each concept and identifying another characteristic (pure substance or not).

This is different than using a textbook that conveniently puts everything together and allows students easy access but promotes mindless data entry.

Google It! Active Learning Activity in Google Slides. Click on the image for a copy you can modify.

Third, nothing prevents the teacher from following up and discussing the topics after students discovered their own answers. In fact, it’s advisable to meet in person or virtually to make sure students can correct errors and teachers can address misconceptions. That’s more active learning! Making and correcting of mistakes is a powerful way to learn because we tend to remember mistakes as they evoke emotions and reflection.

This activity works well in a traditional setting (though you have to waste paper on printed copies) as long as students are not given the answers upfront but asked to seek them on their own while the teacher facilitates. I happen to use it in Google Slides as part of the Digital Interactive Chemistry Notebook I created but it is easily applicable to any subject, so grab a copy by clicking on the image above if you’d like to try it.

Label It! Active Learning Activity

The Label It! activity works best in digital formats. I use the specific one below as a digital notebook warm-up review activity the day after the students watched an interactive EdPuzzle video, took notes from it, drew a model of the atom, and recorded a Flipgrid video explaining what the atom looks like using their model.

The arrows with labels are outside of the slide so students can drag them onto the slide to point to the correct parts of the atom they represent. Students are also asked to rotate the arrows to keep them from crowding one area of the slide. My main goal is to provide retrieval practice and teach the chunking strategy with this activity, which involves grouping concepts into chunks of similar logically-connected information. Students first complete it on their own. Then, I pull up the key so they can check their answers and I explain how they can combine 11 pieces of information into 2 brain chunks.

Label It! Active Learning Activity in Google Slides. Click on the image for a copy you can modify.

The Label It! activity can be used as review or as a prior knowledge activity. You can even make it into a guessing-game and ask students to try to guess where the parts of something they have not yet been exposed to go and then show them the answer key so they can see how many they guessed correctly. That last one is probably the best for learning but I’ll have to try it first as I only thought it up now.

Drag, Drop, and Describe Activities

Drag, Drop, and Describe activities can be created using a platform such as Google Slides. The idea is for students to move objects to build something and then to describe the rationale behind it or explain it in their own words.

This type of digital activity works best for previously learned concepts and to practice problem-solving. The one below promotes higher level thinking about elements, compounds, and mixtures all the while being very visual.

First, the student must figure out what the substances given in each box are. Then, she must decide what they form (or break down into, which is a twist many students miss on the last one) based on the description underneath the empty “product” box. Finally, they have to explain the rationale behind their creation.

Elements vs Compounds vs Mixtures Drag, Drop, and Describe Activity - click on image to copy

Combining problem-solving and content learning in this way can be very powerful in learning if done right. Follow up with an explanation is a must to make sure all students can ask questions, get feedback, understand, and level up their critical thinking.

From Manipulation of Info to Creation of Content

The VARK learning styles theory has been debunked as a myth a while ago but evolutionary adaptation and current science agree that multisensory learning increases student achievement and should be used as much as possible. The activities that allow students to not just read and write, but also to use visuals and manipulate objects in the real or virtual worlds lead to increased neuronal interaction in the brain improving memory and understanding.

So does creation of educational content, but that’s next week’s post. Till then…

Key Points

Active learning increases higher order thinking in students. They like it more too.
Manipulating digital content can lead to better memory and understanding of concepts because these tasks require students to process concepts multiple times, in multiple ways, and using multiple senses.

References:

Dolan, E. L., & Collins, J. P. (2015). We must teach more effectively: here are four ways to get started. Molecular biology of the cell, 26(12), 2151–2155.

Richmond, A. S., & Hagan, L. K. (2011). Promoting Higher Level Thinking in Psychology: Is Active Learning the Answer? Teaching of Psychology, 38(2), 102–105.

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Distance Learning: Helping Students Set Up a Daily Routine

March 31, 2020 / Oskar Cymerman

Helping Students Set Up a Daily Distance Learning Routine

This is my fifth post on Distance Learning. You can check out the other three by searching for “Distance Learning” in the search bar on the right. All posts are intended to help make the transition from traditional to completely-online learning easier. Please use the comment section at the bottom to share helpful ideas, tools, and techniques you use.

I wasn’t gonna do this…

But then this happened:

“The transition to isolation is weird. I think I’m finally getting the hang of things and having a routine, but it is hard having the motivation to do homework.”

— Student posting to a discussion board I set up for distance learning

She’s a really good student. It looks like she’s adjusting well. She’s figuring this distance learning thing out. But it got me thinking…

How many students are having a really hard time with this transition?

and,

What else can I do to help?

The first question is important to ask but the answer doesn’t really matter because one is enough. But of course there are many students at all levels who don’t have it figured out. Some don’t know how to begin. Yeah, they’re calling it coronacation, hiding their true feelings. Deep inside not panic but no picnic, they are stressing.

Their normal is going from class to class and following their teachers’ lead. In the new distance learning world of school, teachers can leave it up to parents to help kids with this transition and many parents will do well. I just think that in this case the teacher’s responsibility to “give students the right tools for the job” extends beyond the bricks and now-locked doors of schools.

We should help.

First, we can help with the transition by easing into distance learning.

Second, we can help our students set up a daily distance learning routine.

Below is what my lesson plan for this looks like. Click on the image if you’d like a copy. The rationale and descriptions follow.

Setting Up Your Distance Learning Routine Lesson Plan

Chronotypes

Michael J. Breus, or the “sleep doctor,” identifies four animals: Bear, Dolphin, Lion, and Wolf to separate individuals into four categories determined by how our biology and the time of day influences our focus and productivity. These categories are called chronotypes. According to Dr. Breus, identifying the chronotype helps a person identify the optimal time or times for his or her brain to focus and execute.

When writing my lesson plan, I summarized Dr. Breus’ findings in 328 words in a teen-friendly What Chronotype Are You? article (copy and use if you wish). This short reading activity will help students identify their chronotypes which will later help them set up routines that best fit their lifestyles and biology.

Optimal Time

When a student identifies her chronotype she begins to understand her internal clock. This allows her to strategically pick the optimal times for her to work on school assignments. The Daily Routine for Learning from Home activity I designed shows students examples of routines for different chronotypes. Here’s one:

Example Distance Learning Routine for the Lion Chronotype

The examples are followed by a blank Distance Learning Routine Table students can fill out based on their chronotypes. Notice that I included alternative schedules at the bottom and a third column for students to consider work habits that will support their productivity.

Supporting Habits

Having the routine written down is an important first step. Next comes the follow through - the actual doing of the routine. I am certain students can set up great routines and have smashing intentions on following them but if they do not plan for maintaining focus and avoiding distractions they will lose focus and get distracted.

Enter supporting habits. This might be the most important column in the table because it implores students to consider habits that will help them get stuff done.

If you teach or parent or anything really you know the smartphone is both the most sophisticated learning and access to everything weapon and one of mass distraction. We need to teach students (and remind ourselves at times) to plan for using it the right way at the right time. It’s okay to use the phone to check you social during the five-minute break but if you keeping doing it during a scheduled work session? Well… Shit just got put off… It’ll get done but it’ll be a minute…

Truthfully, I’m addicted to my phone and I’m 42. Teens are like something-teen which means even their will power is willfully contrary. But maybe, just maybe, if they choose the good habits themselves (we might suggest, but they must pick) they will follow through. That’s the hope at least.

Visual Directions for Creating a Distance Learning Routine

Flexibility

I like things being done a certain way. Don’t you? So do our students. Chances are all of us like things done a certain different from each other way. We like things done our way because they are convenient for us. But what’s convenient for us may be inconvenient for our students and the goal of education is not teacher convenience. It’s student learning and students learn best at different times of the day. Their life situation may require they learn during less kosher hours of the day. Distance learning is gifting us with the chance to let them. And does when they learn really matter if they do in fact learn?

Distance learning requires flexibility not rigidity. The sudden transition from traditional to online schooling created numerous inconveniences for teachers and students alike so its important to adjust in a way that invokes the least stress. This involves flexibility with due dates and adjusting how and when you grade summative work.

It’ll all work out for the best if we’re flexible. If a student chooses to get his school stuff done mid-day let’s let him. If another chooses to stay up and grind at night why can’t she? The only question that matters is: Is she learning?

Does it matter when?

Key Points

Chronotypes help in figuring out a person’s optimal time to be productive.
Routines mean jack if not supported with good work habits.
Rigidity wins battles, flexibility wins wars. Coronavirus? It’s a war.

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tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, simplicity, skills, success skills, learning, making life easier, kids