The science of learning and the learning of science: Introducing desirable difficulties

SYMPOSIUM ON BRINGING COGNITIVE SCIENCE INTO THE CLASSROOM

Meetings of the American Psychological Society

Los Angeles, California

May 28, 2005

Robert A. Bjork Marcia C. LinnUniversity of California, Los Angeles University of California, Berkeley

Introducing Desirable Difficulties for Educational

Applications in Science

www.psych.

University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Berkeley

Robert A. Bjork Marcia C. Linn

Lindsey Richland Britte Cheng

Jason Finley

Matthew Hays

Cognition and student learning program:

Institute of Education Sciences

“Desirable Difficulties” (Bjork, 1994)

• Spacing rather than massing study• Interleaving rather than blocking practice

on separate topics or tasks• Varying contextual cues• Reducing feedback to the learner• Testing rather than re-presenting

Learning versus performance• What we can observe is performance, what

we must infer is learning…– and the former is an unreliable index of the

latter

• Instructors are, therefore, susceptible to choosing less-effective conditions of learning over more-effective conditions

• And as learners, we, too, are susceptible to confusing performance with learning

Generation Interleaving Spacing

Goals of the IDDEAS project

• Do such findings extend to to-be-learned materials and retention intervals that are realistic from an educational standpoint?

• And, more broadly, what design principles are fundamental in optimizing educational materials and practices?

WISE (web-based inquiry science environment): http://wise.berkeley.edu

• Advantages as a tool for teachers– Supports authoring and customization– Contains a library of tested projects– Enables collaborative learning, visible thinking,

autonomous investigation– Transportable

• Advantages as an IDDEAS research tool

On-going projects

WISE Platform

• Laboratory studies, UCLA

• Classroom studies, UCB

Design Principles

• Laboratory studies, UCLA

Interleaving

• Motor tasks: patterns, force production, bank machine transactions (Lee & Magill, 1983, Simon & Bjork, 1990 Charles et. al, 1990, Jamieson & Robers, 2000)

• Sports: badminton, volleyball, baseball (Bortoli et al, 1992, Goode & Magill, 1986, Hall et al, 1994)

• Abstract learning tasks: mazes, tracking (Carleson et.al, 1989, Jelsma & Van Merrienboer, 1989, Jelsma & Pieters, 1989)

• Logic rules, boolean operators (Schneider et al, 1995, Carleson & Yaure, 1990)

Generation effects: Example with simple Laboratory materials (Hirshman & Bjork, 1988)

• Read condition:– Presented: Bread: Butter – Participant: “Bread Butter”

• Generation condition:– Presented: Bread: B_tt__– Participant: “Bread Butter”

• Read condition: Later recall of “butter”– Presented: Bread: Butter

– Participant: “Bread Butter”…………..13%

• Generation condition:– Presented: Bread: B_tt__

– Participant: “Bread Butter”…………..41%

WISE Environment

Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) http://wise.berkeley.edu

• Delivers instruction in multiple formats

• Frees teacher to tutor individuals

• Gathers embedded assessments of student progress

Web-based Inquiry Learning Environment

“An Awful Waste of Space” module– Enables learners to

explore the variables that determine whether or not a planet in another solar system might be habitable

• Generation features

– Notes– Journal– Prediction – Argument construction

Middle School WISE Project

Laboratories versus classrooms• Classroom learning

– Students work in pairs

– Students interact with the teacher

– Students motivated by personally relevant tasks

• The booming, buzzing classroom offers many distractions

• Watch the video

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are needed to see this picture.

Undergraduate and classroom studies• Extend chain of evidence for generation from studies

of single words and phrases to concepts • Compare read to generate in the learning of science

concepts• Compare single concept generation to concept

integration about habitability of planets• Laboratory studies: 1 hour of instruction on

concepts, 48 hour retention interval• Classroom studies: 5 class periods, one week

delayed posttest

Undergraduate laboratory studies: Experimental conditions

• Experiment 1: Sentence Completion – Read: Jovian-type planets are

mostly made up of gases. – Generate: ____-type planets are

mostly made up of gases.

• Experiment 2: Sentence level generation, more educationally important– Single: [Mass] Describe in a sentence

how the size of one planet's mass can affect another planet.

– Concept Integration: [Mass + Distance]

Undergraduate laboratory study: Read vs. generate

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Instruction Memory Posttest

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Read Condition

Generate Condition

Laboratory study: Single-concept vs. integrated-concept generation

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Instruction Transfer to NewSingle Concept

Questions

Transfer to NewConcept Integration

Questions

Mean Performance

Single Concept Generation

Concept Integration Generation

Undergraduate laboratory study: Illustrative responses

Single idea Generation

Single concept generation

Concept integration generation

Prompt: The range of distances from the sun where the temperature allows water to be liquid are called the _____ _____.Student: “habitable zone”

Prompt: Scientists often use a single measurement to talk about a planet's distance from its sun, but why is this practice misleading? Use a distance listed in the table you saw to explain.Student: “The distance for Mars would be misleading because Mars travels in an elliptical orbit and is different distances from the sun at different times.”

Prompt: Using Jupiter's distance from the sun as an example, explain how the measure of an object's weight can shift when it is in different locations, even if that object is a planet.Student: “An object's weight can shift when its in different locations because it's weight depends upon the strongest pull of gravity. People weigh more on Jupiter than they do on Earth because Jupiter's gravitational pull is stronger. If the object is a planet, then changing the distance it is from the sun will change it's weight because it will either feel a strong gravitational pull (if close to the sun) or a weak gravitational pull (if further away from the sun).”

Undergraduate laboratory studies Implications

• Chain of evidence–can generalize paradigm from typical recall studies to investigations using typical science concepts

• Counterintuitive “desirable difficulty” can be used successfully to enhance instruction

• Opportunities–how does generation work in typical middle school classroom settings?

Middle-school classroom study: read versus generate

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Study 1

No Generation

Generation

Posttest Performance

• Generation led to greater recall of material

(F (1,115) = 18.769 , p =.000)

Middle-school classroom study:Single vs. integrated generation

Posttest Performance

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Study 2

No Integration(No DesirableDifficulty)Integration(DesirableDifficulty)

• Integrated generation led to more sophisticated understanding (F (1,172) = 3.946 , p = <.05)

Middle school classroom study:Illustrative responses

Single idea Generation

Single concept generation

Concept integration generation

Prompt: The range of distances from the sun where the temperature allows water to be liquid are called the _____ _____.Student: “habitable zone”

Prompt: Are planets always the same distance from their sun?Student: “Because planets' orbits are elliptical, scientists calculate the average number of AUs to describe how far a planet it from its sun.”

Prompt: On Jupiter, would your weight, your mass, or both your weight and your mass be more than it is on Earth? Why?Student: “If I were ever on Jupiter, my weight would change because Jupiter is such a large planet. Since it is a large planet it has a gigantic mass, it has a strong gravity pull. Weight is determined by amount of gravity pull on you, so you would weigh more on Jupiter because there has a greater gravity pull. Although, if I were on Jupiter, my mass would stay the same because mass is the amount of matter in an object and that doesn't change if you go to another planet.”

Laboratory and classroom findings

• Inducing generation does improve computer based science learning– Generation results in more errors during learning,

– but yields better understanding and retention on posttests

• Generation across topics intensifies the effects– Single concept generation easier during learning,

– but is less effective than integrated-concept generation on posttests,

– especially on questions that span concepts.

Current middle school study–What forms of generation improve learning?

Broad ComplexBroad Simple

Narrow ComplexNarrow SimpleNarrow

Broad

Scope of Ideas/Number

of possible connections

Simple Complex

Complexity of Context/Problem DifficultyFour groups, either within

or across classrooms

Prompts illustrating simple, complex, narrow, and broad generation

SIMPLE(Identify Planets in

Habitable Zone)

COMPLEX(Distinguish Planets in Habitable Zone from

Other Planets)

NARROW(Focus on the

Habitable Zone)

In the animation below of the inner four planets of our solar system, at which points is Mars in the Habitable Zone? Explain your answer.

In the animation below of the inner four planets of our solar system, which planets are in the habitable zone? Explain why you think the planets you chose are habitable and others are not.

BROAD (Connect to

factors beyond the habitable zone:

atmosphere, water, temp, etc)

Based on what you see here, What is the main reason Mars is not habitable while Earth is?

Based on what you know of the inner four planets of our solar system (represented below), what kinds of planets should scientists search for if they are looking for life in the universe?

Ideal responses for each condition SIMPLE

(Identify Planets in Habitable Zone)COMPLEX

(Generalization to other planets)

NARROW

(Focus on the

Habitable Zone)

In the animation of the inner four planets of our solar system, at which points is Mars in the Habitable Zone? Explain your answer.

Mars is habitable when it is in the northern most point of its orbit, because the distance from Mars to the sun gets larger as it orbits away from the northern most point making it too cold for life to survive.

In the animation below of the inner four planets of our solar system, which planets are in the habitable zone? Explain why these planets are habitable and others are not.

The planet that is 1/2 of an AU and the next one that is about 1 AU. We chose these because they are the best distance away from the sun. The other planets are either too close or to far from the sun to be in the habitable zone.

BROAD (Connect to

factors beyond the Habitable

zone: atmosphere,

water, temp, etc)

Based on the animation of the inner four planets, what is the main reason Mars is not habitable while Earth is?

Mars is too far away from the Sun during certain points of its orbit so it is only habitable at certain points in time. {Earth, however is in the habitable zone all year long.}

Based on what you know of the inner four planets, what kinds of planets should scientists search for to find life in the universe?

They should look for a planet within the habitable zone and with a climate that won't either turn all the water into gas because of so much heat or turn it all into ice because it's so cold.

Concluding comments

• Research on generation in undergraduate laboratory studies generalizes to the learning of complex science concepts in classrooms– chain of evidence

• Laboratory findings can generalize to a buzzing, booming classroom context – Classroom research can respect teacher goals,

contribute to student learning

• Advantages of integrating laboratory and classroom research