MetaLearning:Teaching Students Howto be Self-Directed Learners

St. Cloud State University~ 2013

Stephen Carroll, PhD

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The Problem: Presented by Father Guido Sarducci

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4

Our Problem:• Students arrive in our classrooms knowing very

little about the kinds of learning they are expected to do in college

• Much of what they do “know” is wrong• Using the habits of learning they developed in

high school leads to inefficient and ineffective learning

• Reduced performance caused by the inaptness of their learning habits creates motivation and engagement problems that further reduce their academic performance—and learning.

A Solution:• Teach students how to learn• Metalearning Flight School is based on current

research in cognitive science, the neurobiology of learning and learning theory

• Seven years worth of data and experience show that it makes a significant difference in students’ learning

• It’s especially effective in making students more self-motivated and more self-directed learners

The ContractThis is not a miracle cure and it will be difficult at first. It will take you and your students a while to unlearn old habits and to develop new ones. (It takes ~21 days to break in a new habit.)

What I can promise you is that if you teach your students how to learn, they will learn more, learn faster and retain what they learn longer—thus, your performance as faculty will increase as well.

Start with one day—the first day of class, perhaps.

Objectives for Today• Motivate you to try metalearning

techniques with your students to help them become more effective learners

• Provide you with theories, resources, tools and inspiration to help you develop your own metalearning lessons

• Provide you with tools to prove it works

MetaLearning: 6 Steps to Changing Learning Habits1. Help students discover self-motivations for

learning2. Align their definitions of learning with ours

(redefine learning)3. Teach students how learning works and

derive principles they can use to guide themselves

4. Derive strategies and tactics from principles (application)

5. Practice often to develop effective learning habits

6. Maintain those habits

Step 1: Fostering Self-Directed LearningOvercoming unhelpful beliefs about learning:• Carol Dweck’s work on mindset• Students who believe in innate talents and aptitudes

don’t learn as well as those who believe improvement is possible

• So we need to prove to them improvement is always possible

Overcoming unhelpful learning habits:• Especially in the wake of NCLB, students are used to

simply doing as they are told. They don’t expect to be responsible for or to direct their own learning.

• We need to break this habit quickly and forcefully. Part 1: Building Self-Motivated Learners

Priming Students for Self-Directed Learning

Start with the foundation and the goal

Videos online throughmetalearninghabits.org

learninghabits.wordpress.com

and on our YouTube Youtube.com/user/learninghabits/videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwu8QqhrOP8

Part 1: Building Self-Motivated Learners

Fostering Self-Directed LearningKey Take-Aways:• Get students to recognize that they have goals of

their own and that these goals will require them to change who they are and how they think

• Get students to commit publically to their own learning goals for your course so that these goals can be used to guide and regulate classroom activities and behavior

• Show students how their current learning habits prevent them from attaining their goals

Fostering Self-Directed Learning• Places the burden of responsibility for learning on

the student• Connects students’ learning to their goals• Helps them develop a practice of self-reflection

and self-regulation in relation to metalearning• Herbert Simon: “Learning takes place in the mind

of the student and nowhere else, and the effectiveness of teachers lies in what they can induce students to do.

-”What we Know about Learning, Journal of Engineering Education

Step 2: Aligning Definitions of Learning• What is learning?

•What does it mean to learn something?

•How can you tell when you’ve learned something?

Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Understanding• Knowing something• Understanding something• Being able to teach

something• Getting it• Eureka! • Making a connection to

something new• Insight• Discovery• Enlightenment

• Knowing that (vs. knowing how)

• Memorizing• Being able to recall• Remembering something• Understanding the

principles• Seeing the logic• Being able to extrapolate• Seeing how it works• Epiphany

Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Skills• Being able to do

something• Knowing how• Facility• Doing it• Mastering a procedure

or process• Increasing level of

proficiency• Following correct

procedures

• Being able to use what I know

• Being able to apply something in a new situation

• Acquiring the knack of something

• Gains in craftsmanship• Getting better at

something

Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Affective• Learning to like

something• Getting engaged• Being inspired• Being motivated• Finding joy• Wanting to do more• Wanting to practice• Looking for chances to

use what I know

• Learning to love something

• Learning to see the beauty or complexity or artistry in something

• Learning to appreciate something

• Gaining confidence• Becoming more

interested in something

Part 2: Defining Learning

Typical Answers - Habits• Being able to do

something without paying a lot of attention

• Doing things automatically

• Integrating what I know into my life

• Using what I know as a matter of course

• Knowing when to use what I've learned

• Ability to improvise based on what I already know

Part 2: Defining Learning

Defining Learning

How we define learning affects how we teach and shapes how students learn in our classes.

Part 2: Defining Learning

Learning is Forming New Habits• Fueled by attitudes and desires (emotion)• Supported by skills and understanding

Part 2: Defining Learning

ThereforeTeaching ≠We want to move away from the learning-as-acquisition-of-facts and teaching-as-Sherwin-Williams model toward defining learning as durable habit formation and teaching as developing and mentoring self-directed learners.

A Cross-lateral Neurobic

Cross-lateral NeurobicCross-lateral activity opens up the corpus callosum•Gets more of your brain involved

•Balances the load•Aids memory•Makes learning easier

Write your summaries

3-5 sentences in 3 minutes

Step 3: The ART of Learning• Acquire new material

• Retain new material

• Transfer use of new material

R

A

T

AcquireRetainTransfer

The ART of LearningThe A in ART is for Acquisition

Mnemonic: Actively Build Connections

Part 3: How Learning Works

Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning IS making connections:Neurons that fire together wire together

2 pyramidal neurons forming a synapsePart 3: How Learning Works

Ideas are patterns of neural firing

Part 3: How Learning Works

More complex ideas are more complex patterns—made up of smaller patterns

Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning IS Making Connections• Learning has the physical and metaphorical

structure of an analogy. • Therefore we must teach analogically, not de

novo.• “Nothing we learn can stand in isolation; we can

sustain new learning only to the degree we can relate it to what we already know.” (Sci Am Mind, July 2010.)

Learning Hard Stuff Grows Your Brain

Part 3: How Learning Works

New Brain Cells Forming

Learning Builds and Maintains Healthy Neurons

Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning works best when it is difficult• Therefore, we must teach our students to seek

challenge• Always prefer the difficult over the routine or the

easy• Optimal learning occurs in “flow state”—midway

between boredom and anxiety• Analogy: crosswords and sudokus

Engagement comes from Difficulty

Based on Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2002)

The ART of LearningHabits of Acquisition (Making Connections)

• Note-Taking• Reading strategies• Paying attention/active learning• Not multitasking

Part 3: How Learning Works

The ART of LearningR is RETAIN (Acronym)• REview, • Test, • Analyze, • INtegrate.

Part 3: How Learning Works

Part 3: How Learning Works

Retention is controlled by Repetition and Chemistry

Review/Repetition• The importance of review within certain

windows• How to make review happen in the classroom

• Daily review at start of class• Daily summaries at end of class

• Review summaries offline on a regular basis• Repeated review is necessary for habit formation and transfer

• Frequent low-stakes quizzes• Classroom mantras

Key Influences on Brain Chemistry

• Emotions• How much and what kind of sleep you’re getting

• How much and what kind of exercise you’re getting

• Hydration and nutrition (including caffeine and alcohol)

• Physical cycles and rhythmsPart 3: How Learning Works

Managing Emotions: Your Amygdalas

Amygdalas

Part 3: How Learning Works

Fear response

Part 3: How Learning Works

Key Factors Shaping Retention• Repetition and reinforcement• Strong emotion• Sleep (then review)• Exercise• Hydration and nutrition• Richness of the learning and studying

environments

Part 3: How Learning Works

The ART of LearningT is for Transfer (Bus transfer)

Part 3: How Learning Works

Transfer is taking what you know and applying it to what you don’t know. You can’t get there from here.

Teaching for Transfer• Transfer is about pattern recognition and

• Changing set• It is the most difficult part of learning

• … and the least practiced!• Students need to practice as much as possible

Part 3: How Learning Works

Principles derived from neurobiology: 1)Learning ONLY works when it is active

and conscious.2)Learning actively connects new ideas to

old information. 3)Learning IS making connections/patterns.4)Involving multiple senses enhances

learning

Part 3: How Learning Works

Principles derived from neurobiology: 5) Learning works best if it requires real effort (if

it is difficult). 6) Learning depends on managing emotions well.

Positive emotions (especially self-motivation) accelerate learning by reducing resistance (electrically and metaphorically). Negative emotions (esp. fear and stress) block learning and recall.

Part 3: How Learning Works

Principles derived from neurobiology: 7) Varying your modes of learning (rich learning

environment) increases activity, helps reinforce neural pathway development and moves what was learned to long-term memory.

8) Active repetition is the best way to create durable learning. (Moving things from short-term to long-term memory requires reinforcement within 24 hours.)

Part 3: How Learning Works

Write your summaries

3-5 sentences in 3 minutes

Step 4: Strategies and Tactics•Exercise regularly—

• Moving blood and oxygen to your brain helps it work more effectively. (Making new brain cells is a huge metabolic load on the body.)

• The chemicals your body makes when you exercise help you make connections more easily.

• And taking your mind off of the mental work you’re doing helps you solve the problems you’re working on. (Eureka!)

Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics• Make sure you are properly hydrated and nourished. • If what you eat comes through a car window or if the

label lists ingredients with numbers, it isn’t food.• Hard mental work is equally taxing to the body as

hard physical work—you have to nourish it to sustain peak performance.

• Water is key. Even a modest amount of dehydration decreases your reasoning ability by 20%. (Don’t overdo it—over-hydration also adversely affects cognition.)

• Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol

Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics• Pay attention to your daily cycles and rhythms—you’re more awake and better able to learn at certain times than at others. Arrange your day so that you study during these times. • Attention Cycle: Take breaks every 20 minutes

so that you remain active and don’t go on autopilot. Do something physical and bilateral on your break.

• Study Cycle: Take a major break every 2 hours. Spend ten minutes on a different kind of task. Make sure you get up and move around. (Put an alarm on your phone to help you remember.)

Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics• Get enough sleep—

• New research shows that mental performance drops off quite sharply if you don’t get at least six hours of sleep per night regularly. You cannot learn some things without this amount of sleep: long-chain reasoning problems, persistence, etc.

• Teenagers need 9-10 hours of sleep for optimum brain performance.

• You’ll perform better on the test if you are well-rested than if you have stayed up most of the night reviewing the material one more time. Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics•Sleep Cycle: 90 minutes.

• Minimum of 6 hours for optimum performance. (9-10 hours for teenagers.)

• If you must do with less, you want to wake in the REM period at the end of the cycle, not a deep part of the cycle. The less sleep you get, the more important it is when you wake up.

Part 4: Application

Sleep cycles: ~ 90 minutes/cycle

Chart shows 7 hours of sleep

1 2 73

REM

If you wake up in these troughs, you’ll be tired and groggy all day. You’ll perform significantly less well on cognitive tasks.

If you wake up in one of these peaks, you’ll feel rested and perform well.

Part 4: Application

Strategies and Tactics• Sleep Cycles

• Plot your cycle so that you know how it works.• Your period of maximum fatigue will fall 12 hours after the deepest period of sleep.

• Use the information-sorting function of sleep to help you solve problems. Focus on the problem you want to solve repeatedly as you fall asleep. Review in the morning. (Keep paper by the bed.)

• Lucid dreaming can also help you study.• Adjust bedtime to the type of test you’re taking.

Part 4: Application

Step 5: Practice• Note-taking• Reading strategies• Finding analogies• Seeking difficulty• Classroom mantras

Part 5: Practice

Stages of Change Modelbased on the Transtheoretical Model developed by James O. Prochaska

Part 6: Maintain

Stages of Change Modelbased on the Transtheoretical Model developed by James O. Prochaska

1. Dean’s List (Top 10% of each class)• Juniors: ~40% of my students make this list• Seniors: ~45%

2. Elected to honor societies: More than 3 times the rate of the general population.

3. Campus Leadership Positions: Significantly over-represented in peer tutoring, EMT group, editor of Santa Clara Review, etc.

The quality of the work my students do now is better in every way than the work my students did before I started using these methods.

Evidence that MetaLearning Works

Learning Assessment for CoursesThe Student Assessment of theirLearning Gains (SALG)

Free Tools at www.salgsite.org

Thank You!Don’t forget to write your summaries!

Stephen: step.carroll@gmail.com

Inspiration

What Teachers Make