Too Much Homework Hurts Your Students. Here’s What to Do Instead.

Photo by Daniel Chekalov on Unsplash

At the CTTL, we’re focused on using the best of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to help teachers maximize their effectiveness and guide students toward their greatest potential. Doing that often means addressing what we like to call “Learning Myths”—those traditional bits of teaching wisdom that are often accepted without question, but aren’t always true. We also like to introduce new insight that can change the classroom for the better. In our Learning Myths series, we’ll explore true-or-false statements that affect teacher and student performance; for each, we’ll dive into the details that support the facts, leaving teachers with actionable knowledge that they can put to work right away.

True or False? Homework should be given every night, as this routine promotes learning.

Answer: False! Nightly homework is unnecessary—and can actually be harmful.

Homework for homework’s sake, or homework that’s not tied into the classroom experience, is a demotivating waste of your students’ time and energy. The Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit puts it this way: “Planned and focused activities are more beneficial than homework, which is more regular, but may be routine or not linked with what is being learned in class.”

How might teachers put this insight into action?

Homework, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. The key is to make sure that every homework assignment is both necessary and relevant—and leaves students with some time to rest and investigate other parts of their lives. Here are four key mindsets to adopt as an educator:

• Resist the traditional wisdom that equates hardship with learning. Assigning constant homework is often tied into the idea that the more rigorous a class is, the better it is. However, according to research from Duke University’s Professor Harris Cooper, this belief is mistaken: “too much homework may diminish its effectiveness, or even become counterproductive.” A better guideline for homework, Cooper suggests, is to assign 1-2 hours of total homework in high school, and only up to 1 hour in junior high or middle school. This is based on the understanding that school-aged children are developing quickly in multiple realms of their lives; thus, family, outside interests, and sleep all take an unnecessary and damaging hit if students are spending their evenings on busy work. Even for high schoolers, more than two hours of homework was not associated with greater levels of achievement in Cooper’s study.
• Remember that some assignments help learning more than others—and they tend to be simple, connected ones. Research suggests that the more open-ended and unstructured assignments are, the smaller the effect they have on learning. The best kind of homework is made of planned, focused activities that help reinforce what’s been happening in class. Using the spacing effect is one way to help students recall and remember what they’ve been learning: for example, this could include a combination of practice questions from what happened today, three days ago, and five days ago. (You can also consider extending this idea by integrating concepts and skills from other parts of your course into your homework materials). Another helpful approach is to assign an exercise that acts as a simple introduction to material that is about to be taught. In general, make sure that all at-home activities are a continuation of the story that’s playing out in class—in other words, that they’re tied into what happened before the assignment, as well as what will happen next.
• When it comes to homework, stay flexible. Homework shouldn’t be used to teach complex new ideas and skills. Because it’s so important that homework is closely tied with current learning, it’s important to prepare to adjust your assignments on the fly: if you end up running out of time and can’t cover all of a planned subject on a given day, nix any homework that relies on it.  
• Never use homework as a punishment. Homework should never be used as a disciplinary tool or a penalty. It’s important for students to know and trust that what they’re doing at home is a vital part of their learning.
• Make sure that your students don’t get stuck before they begin. Teachers tend to under-appreciate one very significant problem when it comes to homework: often, students just don’t know how to do the assignment! Being confused by the instructions—and without the means to remedy the situation—is extremely demotivating. If you find (or suspect) that this might be a problem for your students, one helpful strategy is to give students a few minutes in class to begin their homework, so that you can address any clarifying questions that arise.

In order for students to become high academic achievers, they have to be learning in a way that challenges them at the right level—much like the porridge in the Goldilocks story, it’s got to be just right. Homework is a great tool, but it must be used wisely. Part of our role as teachers is to make sure that the time we ask our students to give us after they leave class is meaningful to their learning; otherwise, the stress and demotivation of “just because” homework can be detrimental to their well-being. As the CTTL’s Dr. Ian Kelleher advises, “The best homework assignments are just 20 minutes long, because those are the ones that the teacher has really planned out carefully.” Put simply: quality beats out quantity, every time.

Here at the CTTL, we’re all about quality over quantity. Case in point: our newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global, helps teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices.

Typing Notes in Class: Fast, Easy, and (Usually) Totally Useless. Here’s Why.

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

At the CTTL, we’re focused on using the best of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to help teachers maximize their effectiveness and guide students toward their greatest potential. Doing that often means addressing what we like to call “Learning Myths”—those traditional bits of teaching wisdom that are often accepted without question, but aren’t always true. We also like to introduce new insight that can change the classroom for the better. In our Learning Myths series, we’ll explore true-or-false statements that affect teacher and student performance; for each, we’ll dive into the details that support the facts, leaving teachers with actionable knowledge that they can put to work right away.

True or False? Typing notes in class is just as effective as handwriting them.

Answer: False (for most people)!

When it comes to taking notes, as with so many other things, the truth is less than convenient: for most students, the easiest way isn’t the best way.

According to education writer David Didau, our ability to type doesn’t actually do us any favors in terms of note-taking. Because typing is so fast for most of us, we can copy down every word we hear in class. While this might seem helpful on the surface, the problem is that we’re not really processing what we’re hearing—and we retain less meaningful information.

“Because handwriting is slower,” Didau says, “we are forced to interpret and paraphrase what a speaker says instead of simply producing a transcript. This act of synthesis leads to better semantic processing, which means that schematic changes to long-term memory are likely to be taking place as notes are taken.” The act of making the task harder is the thing that helps it stick. That’s why, as teachers, we need to coach our students when it comes to study strategies: they’ll often naturally gravitate toward methods that feel easier, even if they’re less effective in the end. (Hint: for more ways to encourage better learning strategies, check out our last blog post!)

How might teachers put this insight into action?

For most students, encouraging handwritten notes gives them an ongoing opportunity to practice processing what they hear and determining how important each piece of information is.

In classrooms where computers are generally allowed, handwritten notes can be a tough sell to students. However, you can mitigate their fear of missing key information by asking them to practice with a safety net. Here are some ideas:

• Ask students to take notes by hand for one session. Encourage them to use graphic elements like diagrams or mind mapping as they see fit—because the brain uses separate pathways for words and pictures, activating both at once provides an opportunity to integrate them (a process called dual coding). To alleviate potential worries about missing something important, assure them that you’ll hand out a set of printed-out class notes that they can review afterward.
• Set each student up with a note-taking buddy. Provide time after the lesson for buddies to compare notes and share what they learned (and check to see what they might have missed).

In addition to increasing meaningful processing, recording notes by hand opens up an opportunity for metacognition. As students take notes, encourage self-inquiry: What strategies work best for me? What are my strengths and weaknesses? The best way to capture and interpret information may vary from subject to subject, so it’s helpful to encourage reflections like these over time.

On that note: of course, there are some exceptions to the handwritten-is-best rule. Students who struggle with motor control or dysgraphia, for example, should have the option to use whatever methods work best for them! And students with attention issues may learn best by not taking notes at all; their ideal option may be the opportunity to just listen, without the distraction of having to record anything. In short: the best choice may vary from student to student. Use your judgement and nuanced understanding of your students’ needs to help guide them forward.

Overall, note-taking is an excellent area in which to teach strategies alongside content—something we practice constantly at the CTTL. Keep the conversation going with your students as they try new things. Is this strategy working for you? How can you fine-tune your approach? Remind them that their brains are constantly growing and changing—and that they always have the power to increase their capacity for learning.

Looking for an extra serving of strategy with your content? Look no further—we’ve always got both! The CTTL’s newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global, helps teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices.

Why Your Students Aren’t Really Learning—And How You Can Help

Caption: Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash

We’ve all been there.

Our students complete a new task with no problems in the classroom. But, once they get home, their newfound skills fly out the window. The next day, our inquiries about their homework are met with downcast eyes and blank stares.

What’s going on here?

Put simply, we’re seeing what happens when knowledge doesn’t stick. The key to truly learning something—as opposed to going through the motions, only to lose the information before it’s retained—is understanding how knowledge makes it into our long-term memory.

As we learn, we’re activating two crucial parts of our brain: active working memory, which holds fewer things for shorter periods of time than we expect; and long-term memory, which is effectively limitless. Any thinking task we take on begins in our active working memory. From there, we combine information from our environment with knowledge that’s already in our long-term memory. Once we begin working those elements together, we’re able to write or revise the schema in our long-term memory, integrating our newfound understanding of the task at hand. That’s basically how we build knowledge.

Unfortunately, teachers (who are often under constant pressure to push more learning on their students in shorter periods of time) often fail to help students shepherd new knowledge into their long-term memory. That means that students can often hold onto it just long enough to grasp it in the immediate term, but fail to store it successfully for later recall. In short, their active working memory doesn’t have the capacity to write or revise the knowledge schema in their long-term memory.

That’s caused by a confluence of three factors: the cognitive load of the task itself; the extraneous cognitive load of the environment (which can include passive aspects of the student’s setting as well as the specific parameters set for the task’s completion, such as time pressure); and the inherent “germane load” needed to transfer the task into long-term memory.

There’s not much we can do about the germane load, so the levers we can pull as teachers show up in the first two factors. If the cognitive load of the task itself or the factors surrounding it are too great, we’ll create the conditions for our students to do the task, but not actually learn it.

Here’s how teachers can address these issues and help students retain their newfound knowledge.

• First, help students manage the cognitive load of the tasks before them. As adults, we sometimes forget how taxing it was to learn various concepts as young people. A helpful analogy is driving: after having our license for many years, we can handle some kinds of multitasking (handing our children something in the backseat, changing the radio station) without breaking our concentration. But when we first learned, we likely felt completely stressed out when we had to do anything besides focus on the road! Be aware of when you might be asking your students to take on more than they can handle at a given time, and watch for signs of overwhelm.
• Secondly, craft your curricula to help build knowledge—step by careful step. Make sure that key facts and skills are learned in a sequence that sets the stage for what comes next, and use formative assessment to check that current concepts are locked in before moving on. By creating a learning pathway that helps students store each lesson robustly in long-term memory, you’ll help them avoid having to juggle too many new things at once. With fewer demands on their active working memory, students are more likely to learn.
• Thirdly, help create the best environmental and process-based conditions for learning. This includes the physical learning environment: minimizing distractions and eliminating any nonessential elements help to lighten the cognitive load. It also involves using efficient learning strategies that maximize the learning-to-load ratio. Under stress, out of habit, or simply because they don’t know another way, students will often gravitate to learning methods that might be instantly gratifying, but don’t serve their ability to retain and recall information in the long term. Luckily, you can offer alternatives that will help them truly understand what you’re trying to teach! (We’ll dive into that in just a moment.)

In order to help identify action-based strategies for you, we reviewed education researcher Barak Rosenshine’s “Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know.” Here are some of our favorite ideas for making sure that students retain what they’re learning:

• Understand the idea of threshold concepts, and put them to use. Threshold concepts are gateways to new ways of thinking. They might be challenging to get your head around—but, once you understand them, new areas of knowing and doing open up. Some are large milestones that apply across subjects: for instance, understanding the need to use evidence to support your ideas. But many smaller examples show up in most lessons. We might call these hinges—because knowing, understanding, or being able to perform one key nugget within the lesson opens the door for all that comes next. For example, understanding a key passage in a book might help you reinterpret a character’s motives; understanding where the variables in a physics equation come from may help you solve a variety of different problems. In order to make learning easier with threshold concepts, follow these steps:
  1. Identify the threshold concepts of all sizes in your class.
  2. Figure out ways to walk your students through them.
  3. Watch out for common misconceptions and challenges.
  4. Keep some scaffoldings (teaching techniques that help students take progressive steps toward self-sufficiency when they’re having trouble) ready in your back pocket for students who need help.
  5. Use short formative assessments to check whether students have truly understood each threshold concept. (Read on for more ideas about this.)

• Incorporate spaced practice into your classroom methods. In the face of a stressor like a test, it’s tempting for students to resort to terrible learning strategies like cramming and frantically rereading. Help them experience the usefulness of spaced practice—in other words, encourage them to let themselves forget a bit, so that remembering a given piece of knowledge is a process of retrieving, not just rereading until they find it. The mini-struggle that their brains experience is good for them! (The key here, of course, is allowing enough time in your lesson planning for that bit of forgetfulness to happen.) You can practice this with something as simple as flashcards: don’t let your students flip to the back immediately! Encourage them to embrace the struggle and let their brains work before they check their knowledge.
• Plan your lessons to incorporate learning in small steps, with practice after each step. This helps build knowledge and store it in long-term memory, freeing up active working memory for higher-order thinking and learning.
• Check in on your students’ understanding with formative assessment. Don’t assume that they’re getting it just because they’re not telling you otherwise! It’s easy to think that since you’ve taught it, they’ve learned it; however, that’s often not the case. You can use formative assessments to check in; that includes multiple strategies that involve finding out what students actually know and using those insights to chart next steps. You can verbally ask questions to the class, introduce a no-stakes pop quiz, or run a short reflection session for the last five minutes of class (“What’s one thing that sticks in your mind from our class today? What’s one thing that’s still puzzling you?”). From there, you’ll know what you need to review, help your students practice—or even totally reteach.
• Connect new information to prior learning. Linking new learning to old helps create more durable knowledge, and can lessen the cognitive load burden in working memory. But, as expert learners ourselves, teachers can overestimate students’ ability to place new knowledge in context with what they already know. We can’t assume that students will make connections on their own, though they certainly might; developmentally, they’re still figuring out how to do it! Make sure to prompt those connections through questions and other formative assessments, deliberately crafting moments that help students activate and use their prior knowledge and skills.

 

The bottom line: truly understanding a new concept, rather than remembering it long enough to spit it back out for a test, is hard work. The good news is that you, as a teacher, can help students make the leap with research-informed strategies for successful learning! As our own Dr. Ian Kelleher puts it: “The most successful educators lean on research knowledge and classroom experience. It’s not that one is more important than the other, it’s that the magic happens at that intersection! Greatness will happen when there are more people playing in that interstitial space.” We invite you to join us there—and to see what magic can result.

Unsurprisingly, the knowledge-building methods we share in this article aren’t just for young learners! They’re great for adults, too—which is why we use them all in our newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global. Using spaced learning, formative assessment, threshold concepts, and more, we help teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices. In other words, we use the science of learning to teach the science of learning. Join us!

The Truth About Male vs. Female Brains—And What It Means For Your Students

Photo: NeONBRAND via Unsplash

At the CTTL, we’re focused on using the best of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to help teachers maximize their effectiveness and guide students toward their greatest potential. Doing that often means addressing what we like to call “Learning Myths”—those traditional bits of teaching wisdom that are often accepted without question, but aren’t always true. We also like to introduce new insight that can change the classroom for the better. In our Learning Myths series, we’ll explore true-or-false statements that affect teacher and student performance; for each, we’ll dive into the details that support the facts, leaving teachers with actionable knowledge that they can put to work right away.

True or False? Male and female brains are significantly different.

Answer: False! Though we observe subtle physiological differences between male and female brains, there is no evidence that these result in any cognitive or learning differences. More importantly, the normal range of variation within a gender is much greater than the differences between them. We don’t have significant evidence that might direct us to approach learning or teaching differently for different genders. (This myth can sometimes stem from a misreading of very specific research in books like The Essential Difference: Men, Women, and the Extreme Male Brain, which focuses largely on patients with autism.)

How might teachers put this insight into action?

In order to help students thrive, regardless of gender, teachers can embrace the concept of neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change over the course of a person’s life. New neural connections form, strengthen, or are pruned away depending on what we ask the brain to do. New situations or environmental changes can lead to new kinds of brain activity; we can also make deliberate choices to strengthen existing neural pathways by practicing skills and building knowledge. Neuroplasticity has been shown to exist throughout adulthood, but young people are especially good at it; therefore, teachers have ample opportunity to build their students’ brains in the classroom.

Of course, some things are set from the start. Our genes do dictate part of our inherent cognitive strengths and weaknesses. With that in mind, you might think of neuroplasticity as an invitation to focus on the “nurture” half of the nature/nurture aspects of learning, even as you recognize that “nature” will have its say to some extent. Because each student must be treated as an individual case, and not grouped by gender, or any other social identifier, it’s important to remember that every young person has different learning needs. The important thing to remember is that every student can grow and change for the better; the path forward may take time to reveal itself, but you can help your students chart the course.

Making the most of neuroplasticity in your classroom is largely about mindset. Anytime we say “I am this kind of person, so I can do this, but I can’t do that,” we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. As educators, our job is to help our students avoid the trap of a fixed mindset and encourage them to ask questions like:

• “This is hard, and I’m not great at it yet. What’s a good strategy to help me improve?”
• “I’m having a hard time finding the right strategy. Who can I turn to for help?” (Hopefully, the first person who comes to mind in response to the second question is you, the teacher!)

As human beings, we’re always evolving. No matter how hard we might try to put ourselves into categories, our stubborn individuality keeps showing up! Luckily, when it comes to learning, that gives us a whole world of possibilities—if we’re willing to stay open to them.

Hungry for more actionable insight? The CTTL’s newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global, helps teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices.

The Key to a Super-Productive Classroom Just Might Surprise You

At the CTTL, we’re focused on using the best of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to help teachers maximize their effectiveness and guide students toward their greatest potential. Doing that often means addressing what we like to call “Learning Myths”—those traditional bits of teaching wisdom that are often accepted without question, but aren’t always true. We also like to introduce new insight that can change the classroom for the better. In our Learning Myths series, we’ll explore true-or-false statements that affect teacher and student performance; for each, we’ll dive into the details that support the facts, leaving teachers with actionable knowledge that they can put to work right away.

True or False? Teaching students how to multitask will help them work more efficiently.

Answer: False! The human brain is actually unable to multitask. In reality, it switches back and forth between tasks—but there is a transaction cost each time it does so, which makes “multitasking” less efficient than focusing on one task at a time (or “monotasking”).

How can teachers put this insight into action?

Teachers are constantly trying to manage many inputs at once. It can be tough to resist attempting to multitask, especially as technology seeps into every aspect of our lives, and as productivity becomes more and more synonymous with our measurements of success. However, it’s crucial for teachers to learn how to focus on one thing at a time so that their students can follow suit. Otherwise, the switching costs can become overwhelming, impeding learning and exhausting a student’s active working memory as her mind scurries from one thing to another and back again.

We’ve collected some actionable ways for teachers to encourage focus and monotasking in the classroom:

• Be careful not to give instructions to students while other things are happening (i.e. after the bell has rung and their friends are walking out the door, or after they’re already focused on a particular task you’ve assigned).
• Avoid asking students to read and listen to you speaking at the same time. Let them engage in one kind of processing at a time. (Using multiple modalities within one kind of processing, i.e. showing pictures next to text, is okay.)
• Figure out what’s really important, communicate that importance to your students, and engage them in paying attention to that one thing while you’re teaching it. Students don’t learn unless they engage, and they’re more likely to do so when they understand the weight of a particular lesson.
• Be critical about how you use technology in the classroom. Tech can open up a huge range of knowledge and experiences for students, but it can also contribute to dividing their attention. Make sure that your tools don’t encourage scattered brains!

Hungry for more actionable insight? The CTTL’s newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global, helps teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices. (Yes, we’re taking our own advice and using technology to help you monotask!)

From Academy to School: One Teacher’s MBE Journey

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Jessica Clingman, 5th Grade Science Teacher Princeton Day School

Editor’s Note: Periodically, the CTTL receives guest blog posts from teachers and school leaders who experienced one of its in-person programs. Jessica Clingman and some of her colleagues from the Princeton Day School in New Jersey participated in the 2018 Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy and we are excited about how she took that experience back home to her school and most importantly to her science students. Enjoy this share.

After reading Neuroteach during a faculty book club at Princeton Day School in Princeton, New Jersey, I knew I needed to attend CTTL’s Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy in the summer of 2018. In addition to that, I was certain my students really needed to know more about their brains. I asked around in my Middle School science department. Was anyone teaching how the brain works? Could I? Could I change my curriculum for 5th-grade science and do just that?

So, I found myself at the St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in July of 2018, surrounded by leaders in the field of Mind, Brain Education. We dissected brains, went to Johns Hopkins University to see research in action, collaborated to create our own research for our classrooms in the upcoming school year, and learned a lot about how our brains learn and process information.

One roadblock to learning about the brain turns out to be neuromyths, facts about the brain that we assume to be true (but really have no backing in science and research at all). To bring this concept into focus for us, CTTL had all the participants at the Academy engage in a Face the MBE Facts: A Neuro-Myth Buster Activity. In our table groups, we received a pack of Neuro-Myth Cards. We were asked to read them, discuss them, and then decide if research showed these statements were true, false or indeterminate. There were emoji cards representing these three options. The cards were deliberately written to provoke discussions and debate. Of course, after we thought we had completed the task, we were surprised to find out that there was no neutral option and we had to sort those cards again!

Back at the hotel for the evening, as I processed all the amazing revelations from the Academy that day, I knew I needed to bring this same myth-busting learning experience to my students as a part of the new 5th-grade curriculum. But the Neuro-Myth Cards were written for teachers, not for 10 and 11-year-olds. So, I had some work to do.

First, I gathered the cards from the conference, my well-worn copy of Neuroteach especially chapter four and its section on neuro-myth busting, and the online version of a formative assessment found at www.thecttl.org/neuroteach. I choose the neuromyths that I thought my students might already have. I rewrote the neuromyths for my younger audience. I changed “avoid having students memorize information since this is an outdated strategy” to “memorizing things is a waste of time” and simplified “hemispheric dominance in the brain means some people are dominantly left-brained (more analytical), while others are dominantly right-brained (more creative)” to “people are either left-brained or right-brained.” Some, like “we only use 10% of our brains,” were great just as they were written. I printed the myths on shipping labels and adhered them to index cards to create four sets of cards for my classes. I color copied the emjoi cards we had gotten at the workshop so I had enough for each group.

On about the fourth day of our brain study, I began my own Middle School Neuro-Myth Buster Activity. The students were given the exact same instructions, with the neutral emjoi included as an option. I heard some comments like “oh yeah, I read that you do only use 10% of your brain” telling me that some of these neuromyths were already present in these young learners, but I also heard a lot of confidence from my students in the idea of neuroplasticity and that their brains can change. There was an audible groan when they realized they would have to sort the neutral ones again, and the students definitely had a harder time agreeing on where the neuromyths belonged than my colleagues at the conference did.

The biggest change I made in the instructions was that I did not give the students the ability to self-check. The original cards had the answers on the back. I thought this might be a little too tempting. So instead, I created a Google slides reveal, so the students could get feedback after the activity about the choices they made. This method allowed us to debrief as a class and led to some edifying discussions. Our most rigorous one was over male and female brains being significantly different or mostly the same!

The wonderful take away from using this lesson is that young students do not have as many preconceived myths about the brain as some adults do. This strengthened my belief that teaching them about how their brains work and learn is the crucial work of a teacher at any age level, but especially those of us who work with younger students. The earlier they learn about brain science, the fewer of these myths they will presume to be true.

If Jessica’s experience inspires you to pursue this professional development opportunity, learn more about the weeklong Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy or email academy@thecttl.org.

The CTTL and TFA, DC Region: The Power of a Replicable Public and Private School Partnership

By Julia Dean

Did you know that our long term memory capacity is limitless? Are you aware that memory is a whole brain activity? How about that acknowledgement, affirmation, and even celebration increase our ability to remember?

St. Andrew’s faculty member Christine Lewis challenged Teach for America (TFA) Corps members and alumni of the DC region to consider these questions while teaching about the science of memory. Lewis modeled strategies that teachers can implement to help students remember material more effectively, such as the use of novelty, relevancy, and visualization, as part of the Brain Science and Advanced Instructional Delivery Fellowship.

In 2010, Gabriela Smith, Founder and President of the Crimsonbridge Foundation, and Glenn Whitman, Director of the CTTL at St. Andrew’s, cultivated this innovative public-private partnership with Teach for America, DC Region. Over the years, the partnership developed a fellowship for rising second-year TFA Corps members and TFA alumni in the DC region to receive training and feedback from veteran St. Andrew’s teachers. The Brain Science and Advanced Instructional Delivery Fellowship evolved from the CTTL and TFA DC’s common goal: to ensure that all students have teachers who understand how students’ brains learn, work, and thrive.

In Whitman’s words, “Each of us from the CTTL and TFA DC share authority for the design, facilitation, and measurement of impact that this professional development experience has. We each bring expertise and experience to this program. It is the type of mutually beneficial public/private partnership that I hope more schools will embrace, like St. Andrew’s has, in their regions of the country.”

This year’s fellowship allows TFA teachers, who instruct students in some of the most underserved schools in the region, to receive professional development from SAES teachers like Christine Lewis.

This is Christine’s third year as a CTTL facilitator with TFA DC in their collaborative program that is offered to second year TFA corps members and TFA alumni. This year’s topics include: the science of stress in the classroom and how to reduce its impact; the science of mindset and how to apply ideas appropriately within a diverse urban classroom; and, most recently, an introduction to the science of memory and its applications for improving academic achievement for all students. Fellowship participants also have the opportunity to earn micro-credentials in topics such as neuroplasticity through the CTTL’s partnership with Digital Promise.

Christine had previously trained in and worked as a launch skills instructor for The New Teacher Project (TNTP), which certifies TFA teachers. Gaining insight and experience into the public school teaching world, Christine, in her words, “developed a deep respect for the individuals who took on this monumental task with no experience or real training other than my six week intensive.”

Through this partnership, Christine Lewis and other SAES teachers over the program’s history have shared their wide range of experiences and knowledge with TFA Corps members. In addition to sharing knowledge, Lewis notes that she “use[s] this time to embody enthusiasm and optimism for the career of teaching as a way to counteract some of the teacher loss that is often associated with TFA assignments.”

The professionalization and retention of teachers is at the heart of this partnership, which has positive benefits for SAES teachers as well, who gain an appreciation for the creative work TFA teachers are doing with the resources available in underserved schools in the District.

Earlier this year, the leaders of the Crimsonbridge Foundation, CTTL, and TFA DC presented at the National Network of Schools in Partnership’s 1st Annual Conference to share what they learned through their nearly decade-long collaboration. Though this journey included many iterations of the CTTL-TFA fellowship, their missions remained aligned: to serve every child to achieve his or her potential by supporting the teachers who work with them every day.

The Brain Science and Advanced Instructional Delivery Fellowship represents a model of collaboration between public and private schools and is one of several offerings the CTTL extends to TFA Corps members and public and charter school teachers. With the support of the Crimsonbridge, Marriott, and E.E. Ford foundations, the CTTL also provides scholarships for public school teachers to attend its Mind, Brain, Education science professional development programs, including the upcoming Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy, which will take place this July.

For more information about the CTTL, click here.

Seniors Step into the Shoes of Teachers: A MBE Research-Informed Final Project

Written by Christina Chalmers’s International Voices Class
Edited by Cristina Anillo and Julia Dean

          St. Andrew’s English teacher Christina Chalmers challenged the seniors in her International Voices elective to integrate Mind, Brain, and Education research into a reflection on their experience working with Chicos and Kids, an organization founded by St. Andrew’s alumna Stephanie Quintero.

          Ms. Chalmers’s students created and executed lesson plans for students at Gaithersburg Elementary School, a multicultural community that includes children from South America, Africa, and the Caribbean. The goals of the trip included serving the community, learning about the teaching process, and understanding the lives of immigrants and their children.

          For their final exam, Ms. Chalmers’s students reflected on how the experience helped them connect themes from the class to the community. In addition, students wrote about their own learning experiences in conjunction with their teaching experiences at Gaithersburg Elementary School. Read the following excerpts to discover the positive impact that Ms. Chalmers, a passionate and hardworking teacher, has on her students:

• “By being in the shoes of a teacher, I know the effort and energy teachers put in everyday to teach a class. Before this, I really did not consider the directions and curriculum teachers have to design everyday to engage students. I will take this experience to college with me to help understand why teachers do the things they do and the effort they go through to engage you into learning.”
• “Since my freshman year at SAES, I have seen huge growth in myself and my mindset thanks to my teachers… I have such appreciation for teachers that enjoy their job.  I believe that a good teacher is what makes the class, and as a student, I tend to work harder depending on if I like the teacher or not.  I do think that being a research informed student helps because it allows one to learn the limits of how much your brain can do and also shows just how amazing the human brain is.”

• “There have been some strategies that some of my teachers used here at SAES that have helped me understand information while actually absorbing the information that is presented to me. For example, in a history class, my teacher used a PowerPoint presentation with pictures to try to explain information about a concept. I found this to be helpful because not only was I gaining information from the bullet points of information along with the pictures, but the visuals were helping me keep and remember the information from the PowerPoint… Now I appreciate my teachers and what they do more because I now see how hard it can be for them sometimes. Being a research informed student-teacher will help me as a college student because it will help me think more analytically and quickly when solving problems.”

• “In the weeks preceding my lesson, I was very nervous and not keen on teaching a lesson mostly because I was not sure what to expect. Would the kids respect me? Would they like me? Would they pay attention to me? Did they even want to be there? Once I got the lesson with my first group out of the way, all my nerves, questions, and concerns vanished. With each group, I got better at teaching the lesson. One challenge I faced early on was keeping the kids engaged. However, I was able to solve this problem for the most part by participating in the activity, allowing me to be more engaged with them.”

• “In ‘Infusing Psychological Science into Curriculum’ one researcher writes, ‘Should teachers be concerned with their students’ ability to learn? The answer to that question depends on a teacher’s belief about the primary goal of teaching… If a teacher believes that the goal of teaching is to develop student understanding, then whether and how students learn is a major concern.’ Teachers that believe the goal of teaching is to develop understanding are the teachers I’ve personally found myself learning the most from both in a classroom setting and a musical environment.”

• “[One] interaction I had with a student was with a little girl who was absolutely silent. When I noticed that she was not talking to others in her group, I asked if she was ok, and if she knew what the directions were. When I asked the question she responded “yes” and showed me her work sheet, which was completely filled out with reasons why people should vote for her. This interaction gave me the knowledge that every kid is different when it comes to working in groups.”

• “This experience really opened my eyes to how important teachers are in the world of education. According to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), after the students themselves, teachers are the next greatest source of variance that can make a difference in a student’s achievement. Therefore, we need to ‘direct [our] attention at higher quality teaching, and higher expectations that students can meet appropriate challenges.’ Although, following this experience, I gained a greater appreciation for teachers and the role they play in shaping the youth, moving forward, I still am not likely to consider ever becoming a school teacher. However, I will move onto the next stage of life being a research informed student-teacher. This knowledge will aid my growth and ability to better communicate with my professors as I become a college student next fall.”

          Ms. Chalmers’s students appreciated this positive experience; they not only learned about the different voices in the community, but they also gained appreciation for the teaching profession and Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) science.  By employing their metacognitive skills, the students bridged the gap between MBE research and the classroom.  This experiential learning opportunity with Chicos and Kids allowed seniors to reflect on their service learning experience through a MBE lens while directly applying themes from their International Voices class with Ms. Chalmers, an educator who routinely integrates research into the classroom.

What the CTTL is Reading This Summer: 2017? (Our Top Ten)

 

One of the great myths about teachers is that they do not work during the summer. Certainly teachers at schools that have recognized the need for classes to meet more than the magic number of 180 days, or year-round schools, would loudly disagree with this perception that is rooted in the outdated way in which the American school year was designed around the farming calendar (see also “The Myths of Having Summers Off” from Edutopia).

But in fact, the most dedicated teachers and school leaders need summer days to engage in what might be both considered a luxury as well as a necessity to advance their thinking about teaching and learning. The opportunity for uninterrupted time to read, to learn from others, and then to return to school with new lenses in which to design their programs, classes and work with each individual student is important professional development for teachers and school leaders.

So, what is on the CTTL’s Summer reading list to enhance individual teacher’s understanding of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) Science research? The exciting news is that there continues to be a growing body of literature from various stakeholders in education: teachers, researchers, and policymakers that are translating MBE research into actionable strategies that teachers’ and students’ work should be informed by.

The CTTL’s hypothesis is that until teachers and school leaders understand how the brain learns, works, and changes, each individual student will not meet his or her full potential. We also have learned from our work with public, public-charter, state and private schools in the United States and abroad that few teachers have met our threshold for foundational knowledge, skills, and mindsets in MBE Science. Reading is a great next step to close the gap between where teachers and school leaders currently are in their MBE Science professional development journey and where they should be. Let us know what you are reading on twitter @thecttl and we welcome you to sign-up for a free subscription to the CTTL’s monthly newsletter “The Bridge”.

Neuroteach: Let’s get the obvious, self-serving selection out of the way. Neuroteach was written by the Director and the Head of Research for the CTTL. So, while this suggestion is 100% biased, it is also 100% serving what many teachers are yearning for, a book written by classroom teachers that seeks to translate research into next day applications. The idea for Neuroteach was inspired by Toni Morrison who once wrote, “If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

Learn Better: Ulrich Boser’s hot off the press book validates what we have come to learn about memory (thanks Peter Brown, Mark McDaniel, and Henry Roediger for Make It Stick). It provides strategies for students, teachers, parents, and policymakers to better think about the science behind learning and its implications for the daily lives of students and how we think about the future of teaching, learning, and schools.

 

Making Good Progress? This book was recommended by our friends in the U.K. who lead EvidencedBased Education. Simply put, they said this is their “go to” for rethinking of assessment. That was enough for us to buy it, read it, and begin to consider it in how we think about assessment for our students at St. Andrew’s.

 

 

Overloaded and Unprepared: While this is the oldest book on our list (published in 2015) it was very influential as our school undertook an analysis and revision of its daily schedule this year. It forced us to address the question: “How do schools set a high and appropriately challenging academic bar while being mindful of students’ well-being and anxiety levels?” We also had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Pope at Stanford earlier in 2017 and we left thinking that if teachers and school leaders have not yet read her book, then they should.

 

Leadership for Teacher Learning: We first became familiar with Dylan William’s work through researchEd and have found his work to be a much-needed lens into thinking about teaching and, in the case of this book, leadership.

 

 

 

Clever Lands: We have been awaiting the arrival of this book ever since we saw Lucy Crehan present at the Wellington College Festival of Education in 2015. Lucy’s on the ground research and lived in experiences with teachers in countries like Finland, Japan, and Singapore will force all readers out of a local, state, or even national thinking about education. Cleverlands is a reminder that the evidence base for teachers, school leaders, and policymakers is a global one and we can look beyond our shores to find evidence of what works to enhance teacher quality and student learning. If only we all had the courage, and time, to take a journey like Lucy’s.

 

The ABCs of How We Learn: Before reading this book from a team at Stanford University led by Dr. Daniel Schwartz, Jessica Tsang, and Kristen Blair, a fun challenge would be to consider what you or your colleagues think each of the letters of the alphabet will stand for. Then check your work by diving into this very accessible book that will provide you with 26 fresh ways to look at your teaching and learning and your school.

 

Visible Learning in Action: While not the most recent of Hattie’s books, the case studies are a great way to look at his larger meta-studies. We finally had the chance to observe Dr. Hattie present at the 2017 Learning & the Brain Conference in San Francisco. While hearing first-hand about his research methods and conclusions was exciting, so was his “Kenny Rogers” approach to teaching and learning strategies.

 

The Teaching Brain:  We quickly became a fan of Dr. Rodriguez’s work as she forced us to give as much consideration to each individual teacher’s brain as educators give each individual student’s brain. Dr. Rodriguez’s book grew out of her doctoral work at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and Dr. Kurt Fischer’s dynamic skill theory model.

 

 

Emotions, Learnings, and the Brain:  One of the most important Mind, Brain, and Education science concepts that teachers and school leaders need to be informed by is the connection between emotion and cognition. That is what makes Dr. Immordino-Yang’s book so important. It is incredibly well-researched and includes the opening chapter, “Why Emotions Are Integral to Learning,” which should be required reading for educators. This book is equally important as we consider both the student learner and the adult learner within all educational settings.

Some interesting research papers:

There is scant time for teachers and school leaders to read research studies during the flow of the school year. Most teachers do not have the training to read research articles, and one article read out of context of the field of research as a whole is a dangerous activity we should avoid. But in the same way we ask students to stretch themselves to take on achievable difficulties, teachers should use the summer to work their way through ONE meta-study that aggregates and discusses multiple studies in one area. Here are some of our very accessible suggestions and pass ones you like along to us.

• Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning
• Neuroscience and Education: A Review of Educational Interventions and Approaches Informed by Neuroscience
• Education Research Highlights

• “Practice with Purpose” from Deans for Impact and video
• “The Science of Learning” from Deans for Impact

Spaced Practice: One of the Keys to a Student’s Final Exam/Project Preparation

In less than 3 weeks, each individual 6th through 12th grade student will share his or her knowledge and skills acquired for each of his or her courses via a final exam or project. Beginning next week, St. Andrew’s students will receive final exam review sheets, project guidelines, or rubrics from their teachers. This is the official commencement of the first of three distinct parts of the final exam period at St. Andrew’s (noted in green on the calendar).

The second distinct period, one that every current and former student (parents, that’s you) has firsthand knowledge of, is completing the exam or project itself (noted in orange on the calendar). However, far too many schools equate the exam with the end of the school year, which certainly was the case for St. Andrew’s until last year.

But instead of just receiving a final exam grade two weeks later, St. Andrew’s students have the opportunity to reflect and receive feedback from each of their teachers on their performance during four final class periods (noted in blue on the calendar).

This decision is informed by research from the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring and others in the Mind, Brain, and Education Science field, which suggests that developing a student’s ability to think metacognitively and to receive timely feedback on assessment performance are some of the “biggest bangs for the buck” to deepen learning (more about the exam feedback period will be available in a future newsletter and CTTL blog post).

 

What students do with the review sheets is a critical step in their preparation for exams and provides an opportunity for students and parents to talk about the research-informed strategy of spaced practice (as opposed to “massed practice,” better known as cramming).

Using this final exam period schedule, students should layout how they will space their practice and preparation for their exams and projects. Although it can be expected that students will study the night before each of their assessments, their preparation should not be limited to cramming. While at times the cramming strategy might be beneficial for the short run, it also contributes to increased stress and the likelihood that what was memorized will not be there when called upon under a stressful exam situation. 

Think about designing a 10-day period by spacing out what exams students study for on a particular night. It could look something like this:

 

or, to prepare for more than one class at a time, the spaced practice over nine-days could look like this:

 

After setting a spaced practice preparation schedule, students should consider the following strategies as they consolidate, and further embed into memory, the skills and knowledge they have learned this year:

• Retrieval practice: Always begin each study session with this strategy. Have your child take out a piece of paper and write and sketch what he/she knows (“dual coding” of words plus pictures may help, depending on the subject and student – students can experiment with it and see what works for them).
• Flashcards (Handwritten or Quizlet): Most students usually use the cards incorrectly. They flip them over too quickly, creating a false sense of understanding. One important tip: students should not turn over the card to check for an answer unless they have deliberately considered the answer. The not-knowing-struggle-pause is the crucial step.
• Self-testing: Encourage your child to use review sheets, check the posted answer guide, check notes where understanding is unclear, and check in with the teacher if questions or uncertainties remain.

In addition to students independently figuring out what works best for them, the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning is a resource for all students looking for strategies to help make themselves more efficient, confident, independent, and successful learners. Encourage your students to stop by!