The Master Teacher Blog

Most of us have had the experience of presenting information to students only to discover later that nothing seemed to “stick.” For whatever reason, students failed to recognize, absorb, or store the information we intended them to learn. Of course, there are many possible reasons for why students may fail to grasp what they are asked to learn. However, the most frequent cause, when you eliminate factors related to disengagement, is failure of the information to find its way into working memory.

Working, or short-term, memory is the entry point for learning. It is where the brain sifts and sorts what is important, what is not, and what should be learned and stored. Working memory is activated when students hear, observe, or experience something they see as having the need, potential, or worthiness to learn. It occupies the space between initial reception of information and moving it into long-term memory, the repository of concepts and skills we have learned. Long-term memory preserves what we deem to be important and want to be able to recall.

Access to short-term memory is an essential factor in the learning process. Unfortunately, there are several forces that can get in the way of students recognizing the significance and potential of something to be learned and then moving it to short-term memory. Among the most common barriers are:

• Stress. When students are feeling stressed, they often ignore what we deem important in favor of focusing on what is stressing them.
• Uncertainty. Not understanding what is expected or having a lack of connection to what they already know can lead students to not invest the attention necessary to access their short-term memory.
• Confusion. When students fail to understand elements such as structure, relationships, and sequence in what they are asked to learn, they often let the lack of understanding slide by and neglect to give the attention required to work through and learn.
•  Distractions and disengagement. Too much information too early, too many irrelevant details, or other disruptions and distractions while learning can tempt students to pay attention to elements and aspects of what they encounter that divert their attention from what we want them to learn.
•  Lack of confidence. What students believe about themselves can play a determinative role. If they believe they cannot learn something, too often they do not.

The good news is that there are steps we can take to counter these forces and factors and lead students to pay attention and activate their working memory. Here are eight techniques to consider:

• Identify value and purpose. Help students to see how what they are asked to learn can be valuable to them. Point out how what they are learning can make them more successful in school—and discuss practical applications that link to life outside school.
• Focus and simplify instruction. Limit the length of instruction, and confine information and processes to what is essential. Avoid tangents and examples that are not central to what students are learning.
• Group and chunk information. Break complex information into small, manageable groups. Give students time to process and apply the information. Check for understanding in multiple ways, both formal and informal, before introducing next steps or elements.
• Minimize cognitive load. Where possible, reduce levels of stress students may be experiencing. Check for and address areas of confusion. Aim for clarity and conciseness in processes and desired outcomes.
• Reduce distractions. Schedule instruction during uninterrupted time, as much as possible. Resist sharing unrelated information or making announcements in advance of instruction that students may find disruptive or disturbing. Avoid overdecorating walls and excessive displays that might be overstimulating to students.
• Discourage multi-tasking. Encourage students to give their full attention to what they are to learn and to focus on one thing at a time. Resist giving students multiple instructions or introducing multiple tasks simultaneously. Even the most organized and efficient of students can benefit from fewer steps in assignment directions.
• Incorporate activities. Design activities that encourage students to actively interact with the content to be learned. Initiate discussions and implement hands-on learning opportunities. Have students participate in simple but collaborative activities such as think-pair-share, or elevate discussions by having students participate in Four Corners, where they move to a corner of the room to show their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement.
• Use visual aids and organizers. Utilize charts, graphs, diagrams, pictures, and other supports to reinforce what students may be hearing. Flow charts, mind maps, and other visual supports can prevent confusion and add clarity to instruction and gain access to working memory.

Our time with students is precious and limited. We need to utilize every opportunity to help students get learning right the first time. By helping them to access their working memory, we open the door to learning processes that lead to the understanding, retention, and future access they will need to be successful.

We want our students to be ready for their future. Every day, we prepare lessons, design activities, and plan experiences to help our students absorb new content, learn the next concept, or master a new skill. We have a roadmap in the curriculum for what we are to present and what students are to learn. However, we may think less about how well their everyday classroom experiences are preparing our students for the future they will face.  

The growth of artificial intelligence, changing workplace expectations, the emergence of new careers, and growing numbers of independent workers will make the workplace our students will experience different from that of their parents and grandparents. The shifts are not just in the work; equally dramatic will be the nature of the engagement and relationships our students will experience and need to master in the workplace to be successful.

The days of waiting for a supervisor to tell workers what to do are waning. Self-starting and taking responsibility will be key elements of success. Technology can do most anything that is routine or can be standardized, so managing variability and practicing flexibility will be essential. Answers are plentiful—the ability to ask the right questions and discern the best answers will be a differentiator. The list could go on. However, the key question is: How can we give learners the experiences in today’s classroom that will prepare them for what their future holds?

The answer lies less in the content are students are learning and more in their ability to learn and the attitudes and habits they bring to learning. While there is a need to make major changes to the typical curriculum and the way in which schools are organized, there are shifts we can make now that will increase the readiness of our students for the future workplace they will experience. Here are six shifts to consider making.

Shift #1: Emphasize commitment over compliance. Commitment implies taking ownership for outcomes and persisting until success is achieved. Compliance, on the other hand, involves doing what is asked or required and giving effort only to the point where demands or expectations are satisfied. Most school incentives and sanctions are keyed to whether students do as they are told, behave as expected, and comply with established processes and procedures, yet the future for which we are preparing our students will place a much higher value on commitment. Increasingly, actions and activities that are dependent on compliance can be automated and easily performed by artificial intelligence. Helping students to see meaning and purpose in what they are learning, take ownership for what they are doing, and persist until they succeed is central to this shift.

Shift #2: Value initiative over waiting for direction. Most schools are organized around ideas related to telling students what they need to know, demonstrating how to do it, and monitoring to ensure that students do as they are directed. Students are typically evaluated on whether they follow directions and produce what is expected. Consequently, students are programmed to wait until they are directed rather than take initiative, figure out what they need to learn and do, and find ways to reach a desired outcome. A future that features rapid change and unpredictable challenges will reward those who take initiative, mobilize resources, and discover answers and solutions over those who wait to be told and shown what must be done.

Shift #3: Prioritize questions over answers. Schools typically assess learning by the ability of students to answer questions. Students are presented with questions based on what they have been taught. They are expected to provide the answers that reflect what they have learned, and they are judged on the adequacy and completeness of their responses. Yet, more learning occurs when students ask and pursue good questions that reflect and suggest important learning-related issues. While the process of answering questions is not without worth, the future will place greater value on the ability to ask the right questions and focus attention on the right things. Artificial intelligence, increasingly, can provide answers to challenging and complex inquiries; however, deciding what questions to ask and how to frame an inquiry will be a key human task, at least in the foreseeable future.

Shift #4: Teach connecting over collecting. Most of the time students spend in school and on school-related tasks is allocated to accumulating information and building task-specific skills. While this type of learning is important, it falls short of what will likely differentiate learners and workers in the future. While knowing names, dates, facts, and figures is important, knowing what to do with them—such as seeing relationships, discerning patterns, and identifying themes—provides greater insight and more useful information than isolated information and disconnected skills.

Shift #5: Prioritize agility over predictability. Schools present students with an established, centralized curriculum that is calibrated to offer generalized information and teach general skills. This approach held more merit when the pace of change was slower and the world was more predictable. The utility of standard practices and established procedures diminishes as the pace of change accelerates and the nature of life and work challenges become more complex. Students increasingly need the capacity to be flexible, be able to anticipate what lies ahead, and utilize their intuition to decide the best course of action.

Shift #6: Value wisdom over knowledge. Schools are largely designed to reward the knowledge students develop and their ability to demonstrate what they know on standardized assessment instruments. Traditionally, the knowledge students possess has been the focus of assessments and the measure of student and school success. Without question, knowledge is important. However, knowledge has an increasingly short shelf life. Over time, knowledge can become dated and less useful. Wisdom—knowing what to do—is evergreen. Helping students learn how to reflect, intuit, inquire, and anticipate will serve them better over time than their having accumulated only knowledge.

Admittedly, changing longstanding, traditional practices can be challenging. However, our students and our shared future need and deserve nothing less.  

Student disengagement is not a new concept, but in recent years, it seems to have spiked. Be it stemming from pandemic and post-pandemic habits, societal or generational factors, or something else, most teachers would agree that disengagement is a substantial challenge in the classroom. While we cannot address all that might result in student disengagement, we can examine our approach to instruction to see if there are things we inadvertently do that may contribute to it.

We plan, organize, and design our lessons to ensure that students will learn them. Admittedly, the challenge is great. After all, we want to avoid anything that might undermine or distract from this goal, but over time, we can find ourselves developing habits and engaging in practices that fail to add to or may even distract from students’ engagement and commitment to learn. Students can disengage from learning, from each other, and from the classroom, and their disengagement can take many forms.

Without intending to or realizing it, what we say and do can undermine the learning environment we have worked so diligently to create. We might group these habits or behaviors into three broad categories: relationships, communication, and instruction. Here are ten of the most common culprits we should pay attention to and monitor.

Relationships

• Favoritism. Students are very attuned to whether everyone, including them, is treated fairly and equally. It is only natural for us to relate to some students more than to others. They may remind us of ourselves or someone we care for, or they may have a personality or approach to life to which we feel a connection. However, we need to be careful not to allow these feelings to influence our interactions with and treatment of other students. Of course, it is also natural that we may find it difficult to connect with and relate to some students for a variety of reasons. Here, too, we need to be cognizant of our actions to avoid any appearance of favoritism. While students may attempt to read into our actions, we need to remain vigilant and avoid allowing our personal feelings to influence our professional behavior.
• Inconsistent expectations. Students are more likely to thrive in an environment of stability and predictability. Uncertainty and shifting expectations can lead to confusion, the stifling of initiative, and a lack of sustained learning commitment. Of course, there are times and circumstances under which we may need to adjust our expectations. These are times when we need to slow down, explain why and how our expectations may need to change, and consider any implications they hold for the behavior and role of students.
• Public shaming. Calling out, embarrassing, or shaming a student when they have misbehaved or failed to meet our expectations may have a visible impact on their behavior and give us some level of satisfaction in the near term. However, public shaming of students can carry unintended implications beyond the immediate situation. Shaming can undermine a student’s self-confidence and sense of identity in ways that last well beyond our time with them. Meanwhile, other students often share feelings of embarrassment and shame, even if they are not the object of our actions. The long-term effects of our actions can be lower levels of engagement, less learning risk-taking, and resentment.

Communication

• Interrupting or talking over students. When we feel pressed for time, when we think we know what we are about to hear, or when we want to make a timely point, we can be tempted to cut students off or inject our thoughts and direction before students have finished speaking. Unfortunately, this behavior can become a habit as we prioritize efficiency and focus on our agenda; however, interrupting and talking over anyone suggests that what we have to say is more important than what the speaker is saying. Equally important, talking is an important element in learning. Allowing students to complete their thoughts can reveal their thinking and give us insights regarding how we might best respond. We can also avoid needless misinterpretation of their message. Ultimately, when students experience frequent interruptions, they are likely to speak and learn less.
• Overtalking. It is a fact that we know much about the content and skills we are teaching. We want our students to benefit from our knowledge and experience. However, part of learning is exploring and discovering. Students need what we can share to guide their learning. However, they may become frustrated and disengaged when we overexplain, excessively repeat, or needlessly digress when introducing new information or providing guidance.
• Overuse of “Because I said so.” We may become frustrated when students constantly ask “why” or otherwise push back on expectations and tasks. As a result, we can find ourselves reverting to our authority and credibility rather than explaining the reasons or logic connected to what we are asking them to do. Unfortunately, doing so can sacrifice opportunities for students to see the purpose and value of our expectations and requests. For students, “Because I said so” is an expression of authority and dismissal of their need to know and understand. Consequently, we can inadvertently undermine students’ respect for our expertise and introduce doubt about the reason and logic underlying our direction.

Instruction

• Lack of preparation. There will be occasions when we neglect to locate a resource, fail to fully prepare a piece of equipment for use, or otherwise miss a key element of preparation. Students understand that we are human. However, when the lack of mental and physical preparation becomes routine, students can interpret our behavior as a lack of commitment, organization, or expertise. Further, correcting the situation takes time away from the opportunity to learn and can result in students losing focus and replacing our agenda and activities with something they find more entertaining.
• Overreliance on a single instructional method. Each of us has favorite methods of instruction, and they are often approaches that work best for us. We may prefer to provide explicit instruction, design an introductory activity, or engage students with technology. Each of these and other instructional methods can provide support for learning. However, when our preferred instructional method becomes overly dominant or exclusively the way we teach, or does not vary in response to student readiness, we risk losing their engagement and inviting distractions and frustration.
• Absent or delayed feedback. We know that feedback is a crucial element in learning. However, we can find ourselves preoccupied with competing priorities and fail to provide students with feedback that contains the depth, timeliness, and clarity that they need to maintain learning momentum. Grading and returning assessments and assignments offer the most value when the turnaround is quick. Where practical, we can use technology to assist us. We might also choose to give students fewer practice activities in favor of a focus on processes and depth of thought or focusing our feedback on a single element rather than correcting and providing feedback on every element. Of course, when practical, we might design learning activities that provide immediate feedback such as online quizzes, physical demonstrations, and individual conferences.
• Poor time management. Time is among the most precious resources available to support learning. Yet, it can easily slip away in the context of an instructional cycle. For example, we can take too much time introducing and presenting a lesson, thus leaving too little time for practice and building understanding at the end. Or we may attempt to cover too much in a single lesson. Regardless, students depend on us to manage the time available and balance the activities we plan in a manner that does not shortchange key elements and deprive them of important supports for learning.

Now might be a good time to reflect on whether any of these behaviors or habits might be creating barriers to your effectiveness and your students’ learning. The list presented here is not exhaustive. What other behaviors or habits would you add?

At this time of the year, it can seem like everything is competing for our time and attention. We need to move our students forward expeditiously, but we also need to be certain that they are learning. We must tend to inevitable distractions and disruptions without losing focus and compromising momentum.

We might think of the challenge as balancing and managing three competing elements: hurry, hustle, and hassle. Each element holds implications for how we prioritize time, manage processes, and move learning forward. Let’s explore these three forces and how we can maintain our focus and protect learning momentum.

The first element, hurry, is the pressure we feel to move quickly and respond to our sense of urgency. Unfortunately, when we hurry, we risk making mistakes, overlooking important tasks and details, and focusing on content coverage and skill introduction rather than learning progress. Hurrying can feel like progress in some cases, but too often, it compromises quality and depth in favor of speed.

The second element, hustle, shares the characteristic of moving quickly and with a sense of urgency, but hustle includes a clear focus on key processes and goals, intensity of effort, and attention to impact. We may move quickly, but we do so with care and commitment to achieving results. Hustle implies that we value quality more than pace alone.

The third element, hassle, captures the distractions that are common at this time of the year, disruptions that can compromise momentum, and difficulties that predictably surface as the end of the year approaches. We need to do all that we can to anticipate potential “hassles” and minimize the time and attention we must allocate to them. Many of the distractions and disruptions that accompany this time of year are predictable, and we can strategize to diminish their impact.

These three forces are easily recognized. The question is how to manage them in ways that allow us and our students to move forward without becoming overwhelmed and risking burnout. Here are eight actions to consider:

• Prioritize essential learning tasks and outcomes. There will never be enough time to accomplish everything we would like. Focusing on what is most important can help us to sidestep some distractions and increase our focus on what matters.
• Pre-assess what students already know. Collecting information at the beginning of a teaching and learning cycle can avoid unnecessary repetition and identify areas where reteaching can accelerate progress with new learning.
• Provide students with tools and coaching to track and share their progress with us. Monitoring progress can provide motivation for students to stay focused. The information students capture and share with us can lighten our load and apprise us of the progress students are making.
• Search for potential efficiencies. For example, you could schedule frequent low-stakes quizzes that can be graded electronically and that provide immediate feedback to students. Or, enlist students and volunteers to set up activities and assist in planning for and conducting them.
• Utilize technology and artificial intelligence resources. Develop templates and correspondence drafts using artificial intelligence, or consider using AI to develop assessment questions.
• Develop and discuss with students end-of-year expectations, routines, and procedures. Clear expectations can reduce off-task behavior. Knowing what lies ahead can lower anxiety for students who value predictability and stability.
• Review previous years’ experiences to anticipate disruptions and distractions. Many events and activities are repeated annually. Reviewing past experiences can assist in planning for and managing what inevitably lies ahead.
• Set boundaries for work and time. Prioritize what is most important and urgent and let go of what can wait or what does not need to be a priority. Determine time to spend planning and grading to structure and minimize spillover into personal time.

We may not be able to avoid all the stresses and strains that accompany the end of the year. However, by paying attention to when we find ourselves hurrying, prioritizing hustle, and minimizing hassles, we can chart a path that leaves us feeling more in control and less overwhelmed as we approach the end of the year.

Teachers encounter challenges, hear complaints, and experience missteps—our own or our students’—nearly every day. We might assume that these experiences come with the territory and just need to be managed. In many cases, this thinking is correct, but often, by reframing what students do and say, we can find new answers to longstanding challenges and resolution to chronic frustrations. Consider these seven common occurrences and how they might be reframed to present an insight or alternative for our response:

• The student who makes what seems like a disconnected observation. Rather than immediately redirecting the student, we might explore whether the contribution reveals a fertile imagination or the ability to see connections between seemingly disconnected concepts or elements.
• The student who constantly seems to be asking “why.” Rather than ignoring the question or providing a shutdown response, we might explore and discover an insatiable curiosity that we can help focus and develop.
• The student who incessantly seeks our approval. Rather than dismissing them as tiresome or by offering a perfunctory response, we may find that we can provide reassurance and coaching to build their confidence.
• The student who challenges us. Rather than treating the response as a disciplinary matter, we might consider whether it is an opportunity to adopt new and more effective ways to diminish power struggles and sidestep needless conflicts.
• The student who refuses to work on a given day. Rather than pressing for compliance, we might seek to understand the reason for the behavior and then decide how we might redirect or otherwise engage the student.
• The student with whom we have struggled to connect. Rather than abandon our struggle, we might broaden our connecting strategies to show we care in ways we have not thought about or tried before.
• The student who resists our leadership but has followers among classmates. Rather than pushing back, we might engage the student as an emerging leader who needs us to help them to understand the importance of following without giving up power.

These are just a few examples of how we might reframe the experiences and challenges we face every day. Consider spending time reflecting on the distractions, frustrations, and interruptions you face and how you might reframe them to be more productive and satisfying as you navigate your day.

The challenge of helping students learn is great enough. However, helping them to move their learning from short-term, or working, memory to long-term memory is no less important. We accomplish little if students retain their learning only long enough to respond to our questions or perform on a near-term assessment.

The process of storing new learning and having it available for later recall is not automatic. Most of us have had the experience of our students seeming to grasp a key concept or important content only to discover later that they cannot recall or use what they have learned. We can find ourselves having to reteach or at least engage in extended review before students are ready to learn what comes next.

Fortunately, there are several strategies we can employ to increase the likelihood that what students learn will be retained once we move on to other topics and skills. Here are eight instructional practices to consider and apply.

Make it meaningful. It may seem obvious, but it is important for students to understand why what they are learning is important, useful, or meaningful. Purpose creates value in learning. We can give students examples of how what they are learning can make them more powerful, influential, or successful. The more students see value in what they learn, the easier and more likely it is that they will store it in long-term memory.

Commence with concepts. Beginning our instruction by helping students to see the big picture or learning key concepts can help students make sense of the elements and details that will complete their learning. Facts are easier to learn and recall when they fit within the context of something students already understand. Much like assembling a puzzle, when we have a picture to follow, placing pieces where they belong becomes easier.

Engage emotions. Emotions play a much more influential role in learning and recall than we might imagine. The presence of emotion often accounts for why we remember certain events or people from long ago in elaborate detail and struggle to recall something that happened only a few days ago or the name of someone we just met. Interestingly, emotions do not have to be positive to have a learning impact. It is their presence that makes the difference. We might tap students’ sense of compassion, insistence on justice, or passion for the latest trend. Introducing new content with a story that tugs at emotions, sharing an emotionally compelling experience, or setting up a conflict to be resolved can be good places to start.

Stimulate the senses. Our senses can have a powerful impact on our recall of experiences, including learning. The neurons in our brains process multiple types of stimuli simultaneously. We might ask students to rely heavily on what we tell and show them as they are learning, but their brains also store what students touch, smell, and taste. In fact, the more senses that are engaged during learning, the more likely the experience will be remembered. We might explore ways to have students feel or visualize an object with a unique texture (slimy or prickly), introduce or imagine a distinctive scent (rotten eggs or cut grass), or taste or conjure a flavor (sour grapes or chocolate fudge) to enhance their learning recall.

Construct connections. New learning and later recall are heavily influenced by how what is learned relates to what students already know. Prior learning represents the “hooks” on which new learning depends. Taking time to review and activate prior learning makes the process of new learning easier and more efficient. The existence and strength of connections between what students already know and what they learn makes the transition to long-term memory faster and more efficient.

Accelerate applications. We can be tempted to wait until students have been introduced to a complete concept before having them practice and apply what they are learning. However, waiting risks students losing portions of what we teach before we are even finished with instruction. Instead, we might have students practice partial solutions, test initial understandings, or explore potential implications. We can think about the small steps, easy lifts, and confidence builders. The adage “use it or lose it” applies to learning from initial introduction through completion.

Activate associations. The brain functions much like a sophisticated network. We can help students to remember what they learn by tapping into existing knowledge and creating new links. As examples, we might emphasize aspects of what they are learning that are familiar, memorable, or relevant. We can introduce beneficial metaphors, useful similes, and compelling examples. We also might introduce and reinforce patterns in new content to help students connect details and see relationships. The more students make sense of what they are learning, the easier the process of storing it in long-term memory becomes.

Coach creativity. Something magical often happens when students can use something they have learned to create something meaningful, important, or valuable to them. Absorbing content and applying new learning are important activities and are necessary steps in the learning process. However, when students use what they have learned for their own purposes, the transition from working memory to long-term recall is accelerated and extended, often dramatically. There is a reason that the highest level of Bloom’s taxonomy urges creation!

Obviously, some of these strategies work better for some students and content areas than for others, and some of these strategies will feel more comfortable and useful to us than others. This is why it is important to have multiple options and approaches available for our use. It is also true that these eight approaches are not the only ways to help students move new learning from short-term to long-term memory. What other strategies would you add?

There are many lessons we want and need to teach our students. Schools are designed to present students with a set of lessons, related experiences, and feedback to build their learning, and they typically have a formal curriculum that presents the learning that students are expected to gain. Consequently, we spend most of our time designing lessons and experiences that are aligned with intended outcomes and that we hope will result in learning.

However, there are times when we may also be teaching our students lessons of which we are not conscious or do not intend. We may do so by habit, neglect, or tradition. In fact, they may be lessons that we were taught as students, and we are simply passing them along. Yet, they can narrow our students’ understanding of learning, leave them with assumptions that cap their learning potential, and limit their preparation for life. Here are five lessons we need to be careful not to pass along to our students. 

Lesson #1: Learning is primarily for the purpose of getting good grades. We often tell students to study hard and practice so that they will get a good grade. However, the purpose of studying and practice should be to learn. A good grade may follow good learning, absolutely. A high grade gained by any means other than learning is not worth much. A better lesson to teach is that studying and practicing are for the purpose of learning. When study and practice are done well, good grades will typically follow.

Lesson #2: Adults are supposed to ask questions and students are to give answers. The traditional school structure features teachers questioning students to determine if they have learned. Students are to respond with expected answers. While this process has a role in the teaching and learning process, too often it focuses students’ attention on what adults want to hear, not on what students want to know. In fact, student questions are often discouraged because they take up precious time and may lead to distractions from a planned lesson or activity. Yet, meaningful learning often comes through discovering answers to questions students ask, not just the questions presented by teachers.

Lesson #3: Learning only happens when students are quiet and listening. Certainly, listening is one way to take in information and being quiet can facilitate listening. However, learning can occur through many channels, including when students discuss, debate, and engage in dialogue. Learning can happen when students try something and it does not work as they expected. Learning can result from what students wonder about and choose to explore. In fact, experience-based and curiosity-driven learning often lead to deeper understanding and longer recall than when students are only told how something works. There are times for sitting quietly and listening, but we need to be careful to balance listening with other types of learning.

Lesson #4: Compliance is of greater value than curiosity. Our schools were originally designed to prepare students to become compliant workers. Our system of education was created at the dawn of the moving assembly line; employers needed workers who would show up, do what they were told, and ask few questions. Moving assembly lines did not encourage or accommodate curiosity or creativity. Yet, the world for which we are preparing today’s students will require constant creativity, incessant curiosity, and ongoing initiative.

Lesson #5: Every problem is solved by finding one right answer. Most problems presented to students in school, in fact, have only one correct answer. The questions are designed for that to be the case. Yet, teaching students to always find the one correct answer is inconsistent with how the world works. In life, there are often multiple right answers. Some answers may be better than others. Some answers work better in one circumstance or at one time than others. While being precise has a role to play in learning, so does speculation, intuition, and suspicion. We need to be careful to avoid having students learn that problems they will encounter always have to be solved with the one right answer.

Obviously, these are only a few of the potential lessons we want students not to learn from us. What other examples of lessons not to teach might you suggest?

There is no question that artificial intelligence (AI) offers a myriad of opportunities to enrich learning for our students. With AI, learning experiences can be more personalized, resources can be more tailored and be accessed quicker, information about student learning progress can be more complete, and suggestions for next steps can be more focused. 

However, AI is not a risk-free or an infallible answer to student learning challenges. In fact, there are several potential problems and pitfalls of which we need to be aware and for which we need to be vigilant. Expecting students to rely on AI as their primary learning guide can be a mistake. Without our engagement, coaching, and direction, AI can undermine critical aspects of learning, distract from crucial elements of understanding, and even mislead students regarding what they have learned and need to retain in memory. 

Multiple studies have documented the impact of heavy reliance on AI relative to depth of understanding, temporal nature of recall, and absence of accurate information. Here are eight learning risks that AI can present for our students—and strategies we can employ to counter them. 

• Cognitive off-loading. Rather than memorizing general information or automatizing key skills, dependence on AI can lead learners to defer to digital sources to provide answers and consequently fail to develop fundamental skills such as mental math, problem identification, and critical thinking. The absence of independent thinking skills and strategies can diminish the effectiveness of students’ use of digital resources and leave them lost when technology tools are unavailable.  

Counter strategy: Identify and teach relevant foundational skills in your content area that students need to support their learning and engagement with AI. Periodically review and refresh these skills with students.  

• Short-term learning focus. A 2024 study including approximately 1000 students found that solving math problems using AI led to significant performance improvement over students using traditional tools—notes and textbooks. However, when retested without access to AI, their performance growth fell dramatically. While we want students to show short-term learning growth, little is gained when students cannot retain what they have learned.  

Counter strategy: Emphasize to students the importance of retaining what they learn. Coach students to engage in such recall-building strategies as distributed practice, retrieval practice, and other activities to strengthen their ability to recall what they learn.  

• Diminished attention span. A recent research study on attention spans found that the average attention span has decreased by approximately two-thirds since 2004! The availability of immediate information, constant switching of devices and information sources, and lack of focus have all undermined the discipline necessary to stay with a problem, issue, or topic for extended time. Yet, these are the behaviors necessary to gain full understanding, reflect, and engage in sensemaking. 

Counter strategy: Design learning activities that build and strengthen attending skills. Challenge students to gradually extend their focus and build their concentration capacity. Coach them to use approaches such as the Pomodoro Technique that intersperses short breaks following extended (typically 20-25 minute) study sessions.  

• Superficial learning. Educational games and applications often focus on success in the simulation but can actually divert attention from the intended learning. Additionally, the immediate availability of answers using AI can compromise depth of understanding and lead to overconfidence in what is learned. Lack of deep understanding can leave students able to answer surface questions but unable to apply and use what they have learned.  

Counter strategy: Design learning activities that expose students to deeper concepts and issues. Select instructional and learning strategies that position students to investigate, organize, examine, synthesize, apply, and create as they learn. 

• Reliance on biased information. Large language models are a type of AI that rely on information fed into the system to synthesize said information, compose responses, and provide solutions. To the extent that bias has been a part of the information fed into AI systems, it becomes part of what AI accesses for its processing. Several studies have documented the presence of bias in programs ranging from evaluating job applications to facial recognition.  

Counter strategy: Give students strategies for recognizing the potential presence of bias. Coach students to consider elements such as the source of information, potential motivation of the source, consistency with other sources, and so on. 

• Misled by misinformation. Just because information is generated by AI does not make it true. When AI tools rely on inaccurate data, faulty resources, and inadequate programming, they can produce results that are misleading or inaccurate. Without consulting other sources or benefiting from our guidance, students can find themselves misinformed, misled, and mistaken by the information they access from AI. 

Counter strategy: Like examining for bias, we can teach students to identify inaccuracies by consulting other sources, comparing to other known information, and being skeptical when information does not seem correct or is inconsistent with what students already know.  

AI can be a valuable resource to support learning and provide access to instant information and insight. However, without our monitoring, coaching, and teaching, AI can also undermine many of the skills and habits our students need to become successful in work and life.  

References: 

Bastani, H., Bastani, O., Sungu, A., Ge, H., Kabakcı, Ö., and Mariman, R. (2024, July 15). Generative AI can harm learning. The Wharton School Research Paper. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4895486

Mark, G., and Mills, K. (Hosts). (2023, February). Why our attention spans are shrinking. In Speaking of Psychology. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/attention-spans