The%20science%20of%20learning%20and%20the%20learning%20of%20science:%20Introducing%20desirable%20difficulties

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The science of learning and the learning of
science Introducing desirable difficulties
Robert A. Bjork Marcia C. Linn
University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Berkeley

• SYMPOSIUM ON BRINGING COGNITIVE SCIENCE INTO THE
  CLASSROOM
• Meetings of the American Psychological Society
• Los Angeles, California
• May 28, 2005

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Introducing Desirable
Difficulties for Educational
Applications in
Science
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 Cognition and student learning program Institute of Education Sciences
www.psych.
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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

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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

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Generation Interleaving
Spacing
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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?

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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

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On-going projects

• WISE Platform
• Laboratory studies, UCLA
• Classroom studies, UCB
• Design Principles
• Laboratory studies, UCLA

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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)

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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

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• Read condition Later recall of
  butter
• Presented Bread Butter
• Participant Bread Butter..13
• Generation condition
• Presented Bread B_tt__
• Participant Bread Butter..41

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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

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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
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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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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

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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

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Undergraduate laboratory study Read vs. generate
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Laboratory study Single-concept vs.
integrated-concept generation
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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).
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Undergraduate laboratory studies Implications

• Chain of evidencecan generalize paradigm from
  typical recall studies to investigations using
  typical science concepts
• Counterintuitive desirable difficulty can be
  used successfully to enhance instruction
• Opportunitieshow does generation work in typical
  middle school classroom settings?

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Middle-school classroom study read versus
generate
Posttest Performance

• Generation led to greater recall of material
• (F (1,115) 18.769 , p .000)

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Middle-school classroom studySingle vs.
integrated generation
Posttest Performance

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

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Middle school classroom studyIllustrative
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.
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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.

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Current middle school studyWhat forms of
generation improve learning?
Four groups, either within or across classrooms
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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?
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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.
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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