A Cognitive Perpective on How People Learn: Implications for Teaching

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A Cognitive Perpective on How People Learn
Implications for Teaching

• Geoff Norman, Ph.D.
• McMaster University

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GOALS

• To explore theories of cognitive psychology
  related to learning, transfer and problem-solving
• To examine implications of these theories for
  teaching

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The Cognitive Perspective
thinking

• The essence of intelligence is less a matter of
  reasoning and more a matter of knowing a lot
  about the world
• H.A.Simon, 1989

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Teaching MUTES

• Memory and
• Understanding
• Transfer
• Exercises
• Skills

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Some assertions about learning and recall

• Learning and remembering results from
  assimilation of new knowledge into existing
  knowledge, and meaning is critical to learning
• Transfer (applying old knowledge to new
  situations) doesnt happen easily
• Structured, planned, practice with multiple
  examples is key to transfer
• Experience is critical in everyday and expert
  performance
• General skills dont exist its all imbedded in
  knowledge

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Learning and Understanding

• Learning is strongly influenced by the meaning .
• If we can understand what we are learning in
  terms of pre-existing knowledge, better learning
  and retention results
• Meaning is a consequence of the interaction
  between learner and to be learned

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The Jeopardy Challenge

• (Picture removed) of two Jeopardy contestants

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Watson

• (Picture removed) of Watson the computer

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• Watson definition available at Wikipedia
  http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)Har
  dware
• Watson can process 500 gigabytes, the equivalent
  of a million books, per second.
• Watson has much faster reaction time.
• The humans were notified by a light, which took
  them tenths of a second to perceive. Watson could
  activate the buzzer within about 8 millisecond.

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But when hes wrong hes spectacularly wrong.

• Trebeck
• This U.S. city has two airports named after a
  World War 2 pilot and a WW2 battle.
• Watson
• What is Toronto?
• (its Chicago Midway and OHare)

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• So Watson, reading a million books a second,
  and button-pushing in 8 msec., can beat
  Ken.just.
• How can Ken be so gosh-darn good?

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Me and my iBook

• CPU speed 1/5 sec. 1/2000,000,000 sec.
• RAM 3 bytes 4,000,000,000 bytes
• ROM ?inf 250 Gb

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• We should be less impressed that computers can
  do about as well as humans than that humans can
  do as well as computers, given the large
  architectural disadvantages they suffer from.
• Paul Johnson , Medinfo 1977

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The Secret Ingredient

• meaning.

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• Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
• Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
• To the last syllable of recorded time.
• And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
• The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
• Lifes but a walking shadow, a poor player
• That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
• And then is heard no more. It is a tale
• Told by an idiot Full of sound and fury
• Signifying nothing
• W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, v

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• DAMES DONATE DUBLINS CITS
• SPEEDPILLS VELOCITOUS
• AEROLITHS BELIEF
• SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN
• SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS. SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS.
  ITHACANS VOW
• PEN IS CHAMP
• J. Joyce. Ulysses. P.148

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• Sound is walking, stage struts and a tale is
  heard. No more a poor candle, frets life. A
  brief idiot, fury and shadow, is in a dusty fool.

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• drswa gtrus hdrkl opono rluta
• sflta dnaro lensa bfdoa radit
• sogfv sonap vfhoe qpofs cpoas

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• G???? dF?e ß? ??dfp?? ?aß??p

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• Meaning is imposed by the learner and involves
  an interaction between existing knowledge and new
  information

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• The procedure is quite simple. First you arrange
  things into different groups. Of course, one pile
  may be sufficient. If you have to go somewhere
  else due to lack of facilities, this is the next
  step. It is better to do too few things at once
  than too many. At first it seems complicated, but
  soon it just becomes a fact of life. After its
  over, you arrange the materials in groups again,
  then put them in the right place.

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Washing Clothes

• The procedure is quite simple. First you arrange
  things into different groups. Of course, one pile
  may be sufficient. If you have to go somewhere
  else due to lack of facilities, this is the next
  step. It is better to do too few things at once
  than too many. At first it seems complicated, but
  soon it just becomes a fact of life. After its
  over, you arrange the materials in groups again,
  then put them in the right place.

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Evidence of the Role of Meaning

• Chess
• Nephrology

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How do you get to be a chess master?

• Is it
• - learning the rules?
• - learning to think of more moves and deeper
  strategy? (process)
• - learning to think better moves? (knowledge)

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Recall of Chess Positions

• 4 levels of chess player
• mid-game positions
• 5-7 sec exposure

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Recall after 5 sec. Exposure(real positions)
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Recall after 5 sec. exposure
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Its not just Visual Patterns

• Lab data, nephrology problems
• 5 research associates
• 6 students
• 5 experts

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Recall of Nephrology Data
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Basic science and meaning

• Why do students need basic science?
• Some docs use it a lot?
• Nephrologists, anesthesiologists, intensivists
• Many docs use it a little?
• With difficult problems
• It may provide meaning and coherence for
  students.

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Basic Science and Meaning(Woods, Brooks, Norman,
2003)

• 4 neurology / muscular diseases
• 36 medical students
• Basic Science or Symptom/Disease probability

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Measurement

• Diagnostic Test
• 15 cases, 4-6 features
• Administered at 0, 7 days

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Score on Dx Test
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Score on Dx Test
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Score on Dx Test
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Woods et al., Exp 2

• 4 conditions 6 features / condition
• 3/6 features have a causal (AgtBgtC) story
• 3/6 features no causal story
• 38 undergraduate students
• Test with 15 cases
• 4-6 features mixed diagnoses
• Test at 0, 7 days

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Score on Dx Test
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• Basic science is used to construct and
  reconstruct coherent relations between symptom
  and disease

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Summary

• Remembering for meaningful material is enhanced
  because there are more links or pathways to the
  memory trace

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Implications for Teachers

• How can we, as teachers, help students impose
  meaning on what theyre learning?

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Implications for Curriculum

• What are we doing now?
• Traditional
• PBL
• Does PBL enhance learning
• MACRO -- no or maybe
• MICRO
• Active Learning
• Imbedding problem
• Everyday analogy

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Effect of active, problem-oriented processing

• (Needham Begg, 1991)
• Intro psychology students, 5 classic problems
• Try to solve these difficult problems
• ( 27 successful)
• vs.
• Remember the problem and solution so you can
  solve some additional problems
• (21 successful)

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Effect of Active Problem-solving
Needham Begg, 1991
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Effect of Active Problem-Solving
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Imbedding Principle in Problem

• (Ross Kilbane, 1997)
• Practice and Test problems with
• SEQUENTIAL
• Principle explanation, then problem example
• IMBEDDED
• Principle imbedded in problem, explanation as
  part of problem
• Reversal using original principle incorrectly
  

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Reversal Errors
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Analogy in Learning Science

• (Donnelly McDaniel, 1993)
• 48 students, 12 concepts
• Literal description of concept vs. description
  analogy in familiar domain
• (e.g. pulsar star and lighthouse)
• 24 MCQs 4/concept, 12 basic 12 inference

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An application in Medical Education
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Pressure and Tension on a Membrane
r
P
T
T P r
Law of Laplace
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The weight and string problem
T
a
T W / 2 sin(a)
W
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T W / 2 sin(alpha)
T
T
a
W
W
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t
T
T
t
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Dual Explanations

• (Krebs, Dore, Norman, 2006)
• Three Laws
• Laplace , Right Heart Strain, Starling
• Intervention
• Mechanical Biological Active Comparison
• vs.
• Biological explanation only
• Test 9 diagnostic cases
• Sample -- undergrad psych students

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Percent Correct
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Implications for Teaching/ Curriculum

• Arrange learning to integrate with prior
  knowledge
• Active learning
• Problem based learning
• Imbed principle in problem
• Everyday analogy
• Sequencing of concepts

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Transfer

• using old knowledge to solve new problems

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• As teachers, we act as if all the knowledge we
  impart to students will be available to them to
  solve problems in the future

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• As teachers, we act as if all the knowledge we
  impart to students will be available to them to
  solve problems in the future
• Unfortunately.. it wont

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Views of Transfer

• General Transfer (1900-1915.)
• Subjects like Latin, algebra teach general
  habits of mind
• (disproved by Thorndike, 1913)
• Specific transfer (Behaviorism,1910--gt Now)
• Learned concepts can only be transferred if new
  behavior old behavior
• (disproved by Judd, 1908, Wertheimer, 1959,
  Pressley 1990)
• Intermediate / hybrid transfer
• Learned concepts can be applied (with
  difficulty) to new, dissimilar problem situations

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• A general wishes to capture a fortress located in
  the centre of a country. There are many roads
  radiating from the fortress. All have been mined
  so that, while small groups of men can pass over
  the roads safely, a large force will detonate the
  mines. A full-scale direct attack is therefore
  impossible. The generals solution is to divide
  the army into small groups, send each down a
  different road, and have the groups converge
  simultaneously on the fortress.

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• You are a doctor faced with a patient who has a
  malignant tumour in his stomach. It is impossible
  to operate on the tumour. X-rays can be used to
  destroy the tumour. If sufficient rays reach the
  tumour all at once, the cancer cells will be
  killed, but surrounding tissue will be damaged as
  well. How can you arrange the procedure to
  destroy the tumour cells without severely
  damaging the surrounding tissue.
• Gick Holyoak,
  1980

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Transfer and Context Specificity

• The initial solution (multiple simultaneous
  paths) was learned in, and stored with the
  problem context (fortress and army).
• To solve the new problem, must recognize that the
  old problem was analogous to the new, despite
  different contexts
• To recognize analogy, we must recognize
  similarity in deep structure
• this rarely happens..

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• Why not just teach them the principle?
• Teach the principle, then give them an example of
  the principle

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• during early learning, the principle is only
  understood in terms of the earlier example the
  principle and example are bound together. Even if
  learners are given the principle or formula, they
  would use the details of the earlier problem in
  figuring out how to apply that principle to the
  current problem
• Brian Ross

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Effective Use of Practice Examples

• Multiple examples vs. Principle Example
• Active Compare and Contrast vs. Separate
  (Gentner, 2003, Holyoak,1989)

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Multiple Examples vs. Principle Example

• MBA Students , negotiation problem
• Factor 1
• Two cases, implicit principle vs.Principle Case
• Factor 2
• Read case and principle (on successive pages) vs.
  Compare Case and Principle

Loewenstein Gentner, 2003
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Effect of Examples and Comparisons
Gentner, 2003
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Implications for Teaching

• Transfer can be facilitated by use of examples
  during initial learning
• multiple examples gt principle example
• compare and contrast
• Active search for deep structure

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Transfer, examples and practice

• Critical to learning, transfer is the opportunity
  to see the concept arise in multiple contexts
• This can only arise with multiple practical
  exercises
• What can we do to enhance the value of practice?

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Strategies to Optimize Practice

• Mixed vs. Blocked Practice
  (Hatala, 2002)
• Distributed vs. Blocked Practice
• (Schmidt Bjork,1992)

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What do you need to do stats?

• An Observation
• With the availability of sophisticated
  statistical software, the central issue facing
  the statistics student is What test do I use?
• To learn this, students have to see data sets,
  think of possible strategies, and get feedback

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What do you get in stats courses?

• Instructional time occupied by equation proving,
  formula remembering
• Practice at end of chapter of the form
• Do a t test on these data

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So when do you do a t test?

• At the end of the t test chapter

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The solution

• Mixed practice

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Mixed vs. Blocked Practice

• In the face of ambiguous features (which are
  subject to reinterpretation), and multiple
  categories, students must learn the features
  which discriminate one category from another, not
  those which support a particular category

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Mixed vs. Blocked PracticeHatala, 2000

• ECG Diagnosis -- 3 categories
• 6 examples / category
• Blocked
• Review, then 6 examples/category
• Mixed
• Review, 2/category, 12 (4 x 3) practice
• TEST 6 new ECGs

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Accuracy --
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Timing and Sequence of Learning

• Would you rather learn to skate (type, play
  violin, speak Spanish)
• 1 hour/day, biweekly, for 60 weeks 30
• 1 hour / day for 3 days/wk for 10 wks 30
• 3 hours/day, 1 day/week, 10 weeks 30
• 6 hours/day, 5 days, 1 week 30

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Massed vs. Distributed Practice

• Massed
• All learning takes place at one time
• Distributed
• Learning takes place over multiple occasions

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Massed vs. Distributed

• (Raman, McLaughlin, 2010)
• 20 GI residents
• Nutrition course
• - 4 hr, one 1/2 day vs. 1 hr. 4 1/2 day
• Multiple choice test, 0, 1 wk., 3 mo.

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Distributed PracticeSchmidt and Bjork, 1992
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Implications for Teaching

• Practice is critical for learning and transfer
• to impose meaning on concepts
• to overcome context specificity
• to enhance transfer
• Some practice works better than others
• Mixed gtgt blocked
• Distributed gtgt Blocked

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Exercises, Experience and Expertise

• The critical role of deliberate practice in
  acquisition of expertise
• Is practice just a matter of learning to apply
  the rules?
• remember the chess master!!!!

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• How long does it take to learn chess?
• To learn the rules ---- 10 hr.?
• To become an expert ---10,000 hr. / 10 yr.
• Experts know about 50,000 strategies
• 
  (Ericsson, 2004)

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Age and Skilled Chess Performance

• (pic removed) FIDE 1995 ratings graph from
  Ericsson and Charness, 1998

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• How long does it take to learn to play
• Violin
• Field Hockey

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• (Pic of Graph removed) Estimated Accumulated
  Practice Hours compared with Age of Musicians in
  Years
• (Pic of Graph removed) Accumulated Practice
  compared with Years into Career and Chronological
  Age

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Who do you choose?

• Dr. JS. finished residency last year and was in
  top 5 on cardiology exam?
• Dr. KT finished residency 10 years ago and was
  in top 1/3 on cardiology exam?

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What does the clinician gain from years of
experience?

• Years of experiences

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• A challenging diagnostic task..

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• A much easier diagnostic task

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• (Picture removed) Cat and Dog comparison sketches
• Cat and Dog concepts combined
• Picture of Dalmatian dog with black spotted cats

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Similarity and recognition of everyday objects

• When we recognize everyday objects, the process
  is effortless, seemingly unconscious.
• We are not aware that we are eliciting or
  weighting individual features
• The process appears to occur all at once (Gestalt)

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• Familiar Categories
• Rapid, effortless, accurate recognition
• - despite massive within category variation
• - despite no overt understanding of rules
• Unfamiliar Categories
• Slow, effortful, inaccurate recognition
• Despite NO within category variation
• Despite an explicit and simple additive rule

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Exemplar Theory - Medin, Brooks

• Categories consist of a collection of prior
  instances
• identification of category membership based on
  availability of similar instances
• Similarity is non-analytic (not conscious),
  hence can result from objectively irrelevant
  features
• Ratings of typicality, identification of
  features, etc. done on the fly at retrieval

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Effect of Similarity (Allen, Brooks, Norman,
1992)

• 24 medical students, 6 conditions
• Learn Rules
• Practice rules
• Train Set A Train Set B
• (6 x 4) x 5 (6 x 4) x 5
• Test (9 / 30)

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• (Picture removed) different pictures of various
  areas of same skin condition
• Picture of most commonly diagnosed area on the arm

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Accuracy by Bias Condition
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Hatala et al, ECG Interpretation

• Medical students/ Fam Med residents
• PRACTICE (4/4 7 filler)
• middle aged banker with chest pain
• OR
• elderly woman with chest pain
• Anterior M I
• TEST ( 4 critical 3 filler)
• Middle aged banker
• Left Bundle Branch Block

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RESULTSPercent of Diagnoses by Condition
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CONCLUSIONS - The Role of Examples

• Categories and concepts are based on our specific
  experience with the world as well as application
  of rules

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Implications for Teaching

• Practice with examples is critical in ambiguous
  domains
• Practice results in a collection of exemplars as
  a problem-solving resource

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What happened to Skills?

• Any measure of problem-solving, reasoning,
  critical thinking, clinical judgment, etc.
  correlates across problems at about 0.1-- 0.3.
• Process measures of the above show no gradient
  with expertise

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But what about technical (motor) skills?

• Do surgeons (e.g.) have innate talent?
• Are surgical skills generalizable (high
  transfer)?
• Are there predictors of technical skills (e.g.
  motor ability, spatial ability?

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• Do surgeons (e.g.) have innate talent? No
• Are there predictors of technical skills (e.g.
  motor ability, spatial ability? No
• Age, gender, grades, manual dexerity dont
  correlate with surgical skill.
• Visual-spatial may, but swamped by practice

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• Are surgical skills generalizable (high
  transfer)? NO!
• Transfer across similar procedures low
• (Wanzel, 2002)
• Strong gradient of mortality with no.of
  operations (within procedure)
• Colorectal Cancer Recurrence rate 1.4 x for lt21
  resections/year
• Abdominal aneurism Operative failure rate
  decreases up to 55/year
• Pancreatic cancer resection
• Mortality rate
• lt 5 cases, 19
• 5-50 cases 7
• gt50 cases 1

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Recurring Themes Learning

• Human learning and remembering is critically
  sensitive to the meaning the learner imposes on
  the to be learned

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Recurring Themes

• Transfer of concepts to new, dissimilar
  problem situations does not occur effortlessly or
  frequently
• Enhanced by active learning, search for
  principles, multiple practice examples
• Impeded by learning for memory, passive
  learning, single example

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Recurring Themes

• Formal conceptual knowledge is insufficient
  for expertise
• Experience provides an array of prior examples
  to draw from and reduce memory load

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Recurring ThemesKinds of Knowledge

• Expertise is more a matter of having the
  right knowledge (both formal and experiential)
  and being able to mobilize it, than of any
  general skills

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• Thinking depends on specific, context-bound
  skills and units of knowledge that have little
  application to other domains.. The case for
  generalizable, context-independent skills that
  can be trained in one context and transferred to
  other domains has proven to be more a case of
  wishful thinking than hard, empirical evidence.
  
• Perkins Salomon, 1989

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Conclusion

• The problem-solving difficulties of novices
  can be attributed largely to the inadequacies of
  their knowledge base and not to limitations in
  their problem-solving capabilities
• R. Glaser, 1984
• We have discussed a number of strategies to
  improve the knowledge base
  

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The End

• Thanks