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Can Anyone Learn Almost Anything? A Research Study Says: Yes

Might it be true that almost anyone can learn almost anything? And if it’s true, how might we approach the challenge of developing high levels of learning for the wide variety of students whose learning we want to develop? The results of a major study released by Carnegie Mellon University earlier this year may provide the answers.

The study drew from 1.3 million observations across 27 datasets involving students from elementary to college level courses in math, science, and language. The results provide several interesting and promising insights about learning and how we can help our students become successful, especially when challenged by certain learning tasks.

First, a caveat: Students need to be ready to learn for any set of strategies to be successful. If students aren’t ready and willing to engage, the best instruction and learning strategies provide little effect. We need to prepare students for learning by stimulating interest, sparking curiosity, helping them to see a purpose, or otherwise generating a level of commitment necessary to invest energy and persist at a reasonable level. Of course, this step requires us to know our students and have a relationship strong enough to be influential. Nevertheless, once students are ready to learn, we need to help them move forward. Here’s where the Carnegie Mellon study can be most helpful.

Second, two definitions: A skill is something that’s learnable. Talent is the rate at which you can acquire a particular skill. Talent according to the researchers is largely determined by background knowledge and experience. Of course, knowledge and experience come from interest and engagement. Still, the researchers found that despite variations in where learners begin their learning journey, the rate at which learning occurs from one instruction and practice session to the next is surprisingly consistent. In the end, the level of learning or skill mastery achieved is more likely to be determined by persistence than initial talent.

So, what’s the powerful strategy that can lead to almost anyone learning almost anything? It starts by identifying the specific skill or set of concepts to be learned. Next, we need to break down, or “chunk” the complex skill or concepts into the component parts of which it’s comprised. The size and complexity of these “chunks” depend on the complexity of the skill or concept involved and the background knowledge and experience learners brings to the learning task. As examples, success in geometry requires understanding of relationships between points, lines, surfaces, angles, and shapes. Learning calculus requires mastering the fundamentals of algebra, functions, and graphs, as well as solving linear and quadratic equations and other processes.

These subskills or concepts become the focus of a series of cycles of learning and practice, known as deliberate practice.* Deliberate practice features a clear learning goal, embedded instruction, initial and subsequent attempts, followed by additional instruction, feedback, reflection, and application. The researchers found that seven cycles of learning and deliberate practice are adequate to master most skills and learn most concepts. In fact, they labeled this part of the learning process the “Rule of 7.”

The researchers also noted that for attainment of skill mastery and concept knowledge to be successful, students need supportive learning conditions. They need access to necessary resources to support their learning. They need coaching and feedback to help them remain focused and on track. Progress tracking can provide timely information that provides encouragement and supports reflection. The ongoing attention and engagement of an influential adult also can add crucial emotional support.

Additionally, learners can focus their learning and increase learning retention by frequently self-testing as they learn. The process of developing self-questions, formulating responses, and identifying areas in need of review or further study focuses attention and signals the brain that this information is important for long-term storage. Of course, occasionally returning to previously learned skills and concepts for review and reflection further embeds learning in the brain and extends recall.

We know that students come to us with varying background information and experience. However, it’s helpful and hopeful to note that regardless of background our students can learn challenging content and master difficult skills. The key is to provide manageable “chunks” for learning and engage learners in deliberate practice, with supportive learning conditions. The bonus of self-testing and distributed practice can make the learning long-lasting and accessible when needed.

**The concept of deliberate practice was discussed in greater detail in IYC: When Learning Requires Heavy Lifting on October 5, 2021

March 16, 2023

Six Secrets to Help Students Escape Common Thinking Traps

This is a time of the year when students often encounter multiple learning challenges. Past experiences, assumptions about their capabilities, and beliefs about their learning can hinder their academic success. As a result, they may stumble and struggle to stay focused and move forward.

Of course, we need to ensure students have access to instruction and other learning resources necessary to ensure their success. However, students can be held back by patterns of thinking and assumptions about how learning occurs and can be unaware of what power they possess to overcome some of the most common learning challenges. Fortunately, our timely and strategic coaching can help students find their way through to success. Let’s explore six of the most common thinking traps and how we can coach students to escape them.

The first thinking trap is availability of time. Students can become trapped into thinking they’ve no time for anything else because of their full schedules. They fail to see they've a choice regarding what they do with their time. They don’t have more or less time than anyone on earth. Everyone has a 24-hour day each day throughout the year. They must thoughtfully choose how to fill their schedules to increase their chances for success. Success in a changing world requires them to prioritize what they need to do and learn. They can free up time, but they can’t create more of it.

The second trap is feeling overwhelmed. When students feel overwhelmed, they’re often preoccupied with the volume of work, size, and complexity of the challenges they face. The result too often is they become paralyzed. A key counter strategy is to help students focus on where they are and what initial steps they can take. Often the metaphor of a journey can be useful. While a journey may be long and has an ultimate destination, it begins with a single step. There’ll be opportunities to adjust, arrive at decisions, and mark progress along the way, but success begins with that first step. Further, each step taken often reveals the next step to take.

A third thinking trap is experiencing failure. Students often feel as though failure reflects who they are, not actions they’ve taken. They may see a failed attempt as evidence of a lack of intelligence or talent. The trap is seeing failure as a permanent condition, not as a temporary state, relevant only until subsequent action moves them forward. A key strategy in the face of failure is to focus on what can be learned. Learning gives value to the experience and can prepare students to move forward and become successful. Failure is nothing more than evidence that there’s more to be learned and an invitation to try again.

A fourth thinking trap is feeling stuck, leading to the inability to see a solution or path forward. Students can feel as though they’re “spinning their wheels” and not making progress regardless of the effort they’re giving. Here, the key strategy is to think of being stuck as actually a threshold for learning something new. Feeling stuck likely means the student has exhausted the strategies they know and now are ready to learn more. In some cases, becoming unstuck can be as simple as reframing the challenge to help them view the situation from another perspective. At other times, an effective counter is to coach students to step back and consider what strategies they’ve tried, what other strategies might be employed, what effort they’ve given, how they might adjust their approach, what resources they’ve tapped, and what additional resources they might consider.

A fifth thinking trap is that productivity is a function of time given to a task. In fact, focus and the presence of supportive conditions can be more determinative than the number of minutes or hours students invest in studying or completing a project. The coaching strategy is to help students understand that removing distractions, such as social media, technology unrelated to the task at hand, and other competitors for their attention often contributes more to their productivity than the actual time they spend. As a strategy, short “learning sprints” featuring intense focus and effort followed by brief breaks for reflection and relaxation commonly result in more learning than long periods of study plagued by distractions and a wandering focus.

A sixth thinking trap is that creativity is best generated by focusing on a task, problem, or challenge, and pressing for ideas. Too often, pressing in a direction or pursuing a single focus gets in the way of creativity. Unlike productivity that rewards concentration, creativity often thrives with task-switching, attention shifting, and exploring a variety of approaches. We might coach students to step back and explore, engage in other tasks, and allow their thinking to wander. As they do, their minds are freer to make connections, see possibilities. and generate ideas that’ll feed their creativity.

Our knowledge of and experience with our students at this time of the year can position us to predict many of the thinking traps they'll encounter. Our anticipation, reassurance, and coaching can help students avoid many of the most common and distressing thinking traps. Of course, avoiding these thinking traps is preferable and more productive than having students try to extricate themselves once they’re caught.

March 16, 2023

Consider a Fresh Start for the Final Leg

Many of us have been working with the same groups of students for months. We may feel as though we know them well, can anticipate their behavior when they're challenged, can predict their reactions to dilemmas, as well as predict the commitment they’ll make to learning. We also know their growth and maturity hasn’t been static. Our students today aren’t the same individuals who joined us at the beginning of the year. One of the exciting dimensions of working with young people is that they’re constantly growing and changing. It’s important to be fully present for our students, especially now. We can’t allow our history with them to undermine our relationship with them nor underestimate their current learning potential. We need to set aside our assumptions and let go of what we've come to expect. Students can become trapped in past behavior and unable to break out of old patterns if we rely on past interactions to interpret what we’re seeing now. As our students grow and mature, we need to adjust to them. We must give them new opportunities to show who they’re becoming and explore the best ways we can support them. In short, we need to see our students through “new eyes.” Relying on history and assumptions exposes us and our students to several significant risks. We may miss the full implications of questions students ask. We may think that we know what students mean and respond in the context of what’s been. Yet, the questions we hear today likely reflect more knowledge and understanding than their similar questions conveyed earlier in the year. There may be more depth than we assume. In fact, if we assume greater depth and desire to understand, we’ll naturally nudge and coach students to ask questions that feature more depth and nuance. We can overlook fresh insights and novel observations students offer. When we hear some students’ voices, we may reflexively assume that we know what they’ll say and even tune them out. Yet, new interests and growing experiences may be shifting their thinking and opening opportunities for new growth. Our recognition of what students are becoming can offer welcome support for and build new confidence in students’ thinking. We may miss the full richness and creativity of student humor. We may be familiar with their sense of humor, but listening and appreciating what students have to offer is an important sign of respect. Further, our full-throated appreciation in response to humor can be a great way to wash away past conflicts and repair our relationship. Our expectations regarding the capability of students can be lowered and limited based on past behaviors and previous performance. We may think that we know the potential of our students, but what we really know is what they’ve done in the past. And the past isn’t necessarily predictive of the future or what’s possible. Our willingness to encourage, take a new look, and shift our approach may be what’s needed to help students break out of old habits, take more pride in their work, and deepen their learning commitment. Try this: After a calendar break or when students return from a weekend, make a conscious effort to see students through new eyes. What do we see and what might we anticipate if we didn’t know and have a history with our students? We might even have students introduce themselves to us as a symbol of a new start. We might ask students to respond to questions such as, “Who am I today that I wasn’t at the beginning of the year?” “How have my interests changed?” “What am I able to do that I couldn’t do at the start of the year?” “What am I even better at now than I was at the start of the year? Of course, we might ask ourselves similar questions. How have we grown and what implications does our growth have for our students and our practice? What can students expect from us that might not have been possible early in the year? What commitments will we make to our students in the final leg of the year?

March 09, 2023

Build Long-Term Learning Skills with Five Coaching Questions

Students typically see us as the ultimate “answerers” for their questions. Of course, many questions they have, such as classroom expectations, routines, assignments, etc., are our purview. Our timely and efficient responses can move classroom activities along and minimize confusion and distractions. Students also frequently have questions related to the learning tasks, challenges, and projects that support their learning. These questions can be important to moving learning forward, but we’re not always the best person to answer them. In fact, when and how students wrestle with these questions can help their learning to grow, inject greater meaning into their learning, and build learning-related skills for the future. In the interest of time and convenience, we may tell students what their next steps should be, how to find the answers to their learning questions, or we may simply give them the resources they seek. Yet, when we do, we may be helping them to solve today’s problem, while neglecting some of their most important learning. Rather than supplying ready answers, the learning interests of our students are better served by our helping them to find answers, develop strategies, and tap resources available to them. Our positioning shifts from being the “chief answerer,” to coach and co-explorer. Rather than immediately answering the learning-related questions students pose, we might respond with coaching questions to help them see options to finding answers and alternatives to pursue. Here are five coaching questions we might employ. First, what do you think? Students often come to us without having given much thought once they encounter a barrier or are not certain what to do next. We might have a “try three before me” expectation, but even so, students may have ideas and perspectives they’ve not considered or pursued. By asking students what they think, we send a message that their ideas and perspectives matter, and they may have answers they’ve not recognized. At the very least, this question reminds students that learning is what they do. We can’t do it for them. Second, what else might you try? The typical response to this question is, “I’ve tried everything I know.” We might explore with students the attempts they’ve made and what they’ve learned from doing so. We also can coach students to think about additional steps and strategies that have worked for them in the past that might be useful. The goal is to have students “mine” their experience and develop additional options and steps they can try. Third, what do you know that doesn't work? With this response, we’re coaching students to reflect further on what they've tried. Even though previous attempts weren’t successful, they may have encountered an element or aspect that could be part of the answer they’re seeking. The underlying message is that failed attempts can contain information they can use and be valuable learning experiences. Fourth, how else might you think about this? Sometimes the answer lies in backing up and starting anew rather than pressing harder and pushing farther. This question invites students to reframe the problem or situation and consider it from a different perspective. When approached from a new direction, the answer may be clear and immediately useful. Fifth, who else could you ask? Students can become trapped in the mindset that they must solve every learning problem on their own. Yet, classmates often can be good resources. Other people in their lives may have insights and ideas. Even experts in the community and beyond may be helpful resources. In life, success is less often determined by how intelligent we are and more by the intelligence we’re willing to tap. Of course, we need to place our questions in a coaching context, so that students understand our purpose is to build their learning skills and flexibility, not torment them. Our questions can provide valuable opportunities to remind students that the work they’re doing and the support we’re providing are intended to prepare them for future learning success, not only to complete today’s assignment or this week’s project.

March 02, 2023

What Priority for Recess?

Each minute in a school day is precious. We need students to catch up and be on track with their learning. Meanwhile, we feel pressure to add activities, elements, and aspects to their day, without always identifying what’ll be removed to create time. At the same time, some argue that academically focused time is likely to pay better dividends than allowing students to run and play with friends and classmates. Without question, these are worthy considerations. However, robbing students of recess may have longer term consequences than we think. Giving students breaks from learning and time to shift their focus to activities that aren’t planned and structured by adults can offer some surprising learning and life benefits. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises there are several important outcomes associated with what we’ve traditionally called recess. First, children, and even adolescents, are best able to focus on learning when they’ve periodic mental breaks to focus on non-academic topics and activities. Other countries and cultures have long embraced schedules with intense focus followed by frequent mental and physical breaks. For example, young students in Japanese schools typically are given ten-to-fifteen-minute breaks each hour. Simply shifting focus from one activity to another can be advantageous to learning, but the most significant benefits appear to come from breaks allowing students to choose and be free from tight structure. Research and experience hold that following breaks students are better ready to re-engage and focus on academic learning. Importantly, even though recess isn’t typically a part of school schedules for adolescents, they still need and benefit from mental and physical breaks. The same is true for adults. Beyond academic learning, unstructured but safe and supervised recesses provide students with opportunities to develop important interpersonal skills, such as resolving conflicts, negotiating priorities, forming relationships, developing perseverance, and sharing resources. These skills are important building blocks for social success that can often get bypassed when adults are immediately available to enforce rules, render judgments, and direct behavior. We might think of these experiences as opportunities for students to develop and apply social and emotional learning and skills. A study by professors at the University of Colorado and University of Denver further reinforces the benefits of less structured and unstructured activities in yet another aspect of student development. Researchers found that students who spent more time in free play appeared to develop greater executive functioning: the ability to plan, make decisions, use information with purpose, successfully switch between tasks, and manage thoughts and feelings. Of course, there’s a strong connection between executive functioning and academic success. Students with well-developed executive functioning tend to be less dependent on adults to manage their behavior and are better able to focus on important tasks. Additionally, time spent running, chasing, and active play during recess also contributes to the recommended sixty minutes of physical activity each day. As a result, recess helps to combat obesity and sedentary lifestyles that contribute to health problems later in life. It can also take the edge off energy that leads some students to fidget, squirm, and engage in off-task behavior. Importantly, recess shouldn’t be confused with or seen as interchangeable with physical education. Physical education is intended to be a more formal environment in which students learn skills and activities that help them to make good life choices and develop a healthy, active lifestyle. Physical education is an important part of the education of young people. It can also contribute to the total minutes of activity in which students engage daily, but recess and physical education have different purposes and play separate roles in learning. The American Academy of Pediatrics offers several recommendations regarding recess including: Consider recess students’ free time. Resist over-structuring the time or withholding recess for academic or punitive reasons. Schedule breaks of sufficient length for students to mentally decompress and be ready to re-engage. Treat recess as a complement to physical education, not an alternative or replacement. Provide adequate supervision during recess but avoid unnecessary structuring of activities. Finally, opportunities to decompress and refocus aren't just for young people. We, too, need to make breaks and exercise part of our routines if we hope to do our best work and be fully present and ready to support students as they learn.

March 02, 2023

Six Keys to Designing Life-Changing Learning

Recall, if you can, a time when you had a powerful learning experience, an experience in which the way you thought, assumptions you made, and perspectives you held were challenged and changed, or became more nuanced. You may recall problems you confronted, struggles in which you engaged, and new learning that emerged. If you can recall experiences such as these, you’re a fortunate learner. These special learning experiences can have a life-long impact. They can ignite life passions, define driving missions, and create new clarity and commitment for learning and life. Unfortunately, too few of these learning experiences happen within the context of the school curriculum. When they occur, they often emerge by coincidence, or they may happen in response to an incident or experience that cannot be ignored or set aside. Yet it seems the mission and context of school should be the place where life-changing learning happens often and with intent. An important recent research review at the University of Pennsylvania distilled five decades of research involving over 7000 studies on learning to define a set of characteristics associated with learning that has a lasting impact. The defining characteristics of life-changing learning are more closely related to the experience than to its duration or even its specific content. In fact, life-changing learning experiences can be the result of a project, extended engagement over the course of weeks and months, or in some cases the experience may span the course of a full year and beyond. Interestingly, for students to experience a profound, life-changing learning experience, not all these characteristics must be present. Depending on the situation, as few as two or three can be enough to drive the learning experience to new depth and breadth and create a life-long memory. Let’s explore these characteristics and how we might use them to design learning experiences that can have a life-changing impact. The first is a supportive environment in which mistakes are accepted, even expected. Students need to be free to explore, examine, experiment, and take risks. Learners need to experience a level of trust and autonomy that invites them to take ownership and invest in their learning. Second, life-changing learning experiences often result from learning that involves service to others, especially people who have a particular need. Teaching, tutoring, mentoring of others who need support are examples. The key is for the learning activity to extend beyond oneself and provide a meaningful benefit to others. Third, these learning experiences may include exposure to ideas, beliefs, or perspectives that are different from those held by the student. However, the experience must be more than something minor that might be ignored or something so overwhelming that it may be rejected. The key is to open the door to a broader perspective and deeper understanding. The goal is for the student to gain a more complex understanding of something significant and the ability to differentiate among things that previously may have seemed indistinguishable. Third, profound learning comes from active engagement, giving energy, and making a commitment. Life-changing learning requires an investment, features a level of learning risk, and presents a meaningful challenge. The greater the commitment and involvement, the greater the return in learning. Fourth, life-changing learning almost always involves real problems, or at least simulations that are sophisticated enough for students to take them seriously and engage authentically. These learning experiences often come without clear answers and existing solutions. As a result, the experience promotes critical thinking, evidence examination, generation of novel ideas, and tolerance for ambiguity. Fifth, powerful learning experiences typically benefit from collaboration with peers, educators, mentors, or others. Profound learning experiences can occur in isolation and with the engagement of a single student. But more often, the thinking, assumptions, approaches, questions, and perspectives of others add richness and depth to the experience. The dialogue, support, and even conflict can move learning forward and generate new insights. Sixth, life-changing learning experiences benefit from opportunities for reflection and meaning making. Reflection can support examination, testing of insights, and adjustment of thinking. Reflection opportunities during these learning experiences can help students to clarify and assign meaning to what they’re thinking and feeling. Discussion, debate, and dialogue with others can provide opportunities to test new assumptions, try out new perspectives, and explore new beliefs. The range of topics, issues, and phenomena that might be the focus of life-changing learning is almost limitless. Of course, we must take into consideration the maturity and readiness of our students and the extent to which we're prepared to support the learning experiences we design. However, the opportunity to make a life-long impact on the learning of our students is a special privilege and shouldn't be ignored.

February 22, 2023

Share Your Tips & Stories

Share your story and the tips you have for getting through this challenging time. It can remind a fellow school leader of something they forgot, or your example can make a difficult task much easier and allow them to get more done in less time. We may publish your comments.

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A Dozen Ways to Motivate Lazy Students

There appears to be a consensus that today’s students are lazier than students in the past. Certainly, it may seem that there are more students who are unmotivated and less committed to learning than in the past. It’s also true that almost every generation in history has claimed that the generation coming after them is lazier than they were. Regardless, many students aren’t making the effort or showing the persistence we’d like to see from them. The question is, what can we do about it? Let’s start with what we mean when we say “lazy.” Generally, researchers and experts describe lazy students as learners capable of learning what’s asked, but for one or more reasons don’t consistently give the effort necessary for success. However, there are many reasons why a student may demonstrate this type of behavior. Laziness in most cases is about motivation. When a student isn’t motivated, laziness is a predictable choice. However, motivation can be complicated, and lack of motivation can be the result of many factors: Fear of failure: “I want to avoid the pain and embarrassment of failing.” Lack of confidence: “I don’t believe that I can do it.” Discouragement: “My past attempts haven’t been successful.” Overwhelmed: “I don’t know where to start. The number and scope of what must be done is too great.” Absence of relevance: “I don’t see a connection between the task or learning and what’s important to me.” Self-concept: “I don’t deserve to be successful.” Hopelessness: “Why bother?” Each of these factors and others suggest differing approaches to motivating students who appear lazy. However, we can’t know what to do unless we get to know them. Before we can intervene, we need to know what interests them, what excites them, what troubles them, and how they think about the tasks and challenges they face. One thing is certain, punishing a student for laziness almost never works. Similarly, attempting to shame a student into not being lazy more likely backfires than succeeds. The best choice is to focus on what'll motivate the student. Our first step in motivating this type of student is taking time to know them. Engaging them in conversation, listening carefully, and watching them are good places to start. The better we know the student and what matters to them, the better we're able to design an approach to help them change their behavior and become more engaged and successful. In many ways, laziness involves making choices. Our goal is to create conditions that’ll lead the student to make a different, more productive set of choices they can sustain over time. When we have information about and understand a student engaged in "lazy" behavior, we have several actions to take. However, we need to be careful and choose steps that respond to the student, not what would motivate us or other students. Here are a dozen strategies to consider: Reassure the student of our belief in and commitment to them. Convey appreciation and valuing of the student. Give students responsibility and allow them to feel needed and important. Notice and positively reinforce effort and progress. Help students set reasonable goals, set progress markers, and take ownership of their learning. Connect what students are asked to learn with things that are important, interesting, and meaningful to them. Celebrate small wins. Make frequent check-ins to understand their current mindset and to encourage their effort. Be persistent with reminders, steps to take, and strategies to try. Maintain high, but realistic expectations. Encourage friendships with students who are motivated or who have struggled with and overcome motivational challenges. Find ways to make learning enjoyable through games, activities, and challenges the student finds motivating. Of course, some strategies will work with some students and not others. And some things we think will work won’t, so we need to adjust. Some students can tell us what's blocking their motivation; others may be confused or oblivious to the reasons. We need to remain curious, flexible, and creative. Above all, we must resolve never to give up on the student. Helping a student to uncover and leverage what motivates them can be their key to lifelong success.

February 16, 2023

Why We Need to Help Students Develop Their Academic Identity

We know the importance and influence of our students’ social identity. Their social confidence determines how they interact with others in a variety of settings. Their social skills influence their success in developing and maintaining relationships. Their social status often is driven by the social identity they project. Students also develop and behave consistently with their academic identities. Academic identity might be thought of as a combination of students’ experiences as learners and how they interpret and make meaning from what they experience. Academic identity is how students perceive their ability to learn. It influences how students interpret what happens in their academic lives. It can be a driver of or impediment to success. For example, some students possess high levels of academic confidence and take learning risks. Other students replay past struggles and are reluctant to take risks. They give up easily, believing they’re not capable. Most students have a sense of who they are as learners. However, students may not pay much attention to what skills and characteristics make up their identity, how they can change and build their identity, and how it determines their current and future success. Like social identity, academic identity includes these elements: Learning skills. Some students see learning skills as their strength and are quick to engage in developing them further. Others believe their capacity is limited and won’t invest much time and energy in gaining new learning skills. Learning risks. Some students are willing to try, even when they’re not confident of success. Other students prefer to focus on aspects of learning in which they’re confident and believe success is likely. Learning persistence. Some students continue to strive and struggle even when success isn’t readily apparent. Other students more readily give up when success is slow in coming. How students respond to mistakes. Some students are quick to recognize mistakes and leverage them to build new insights and learning. Others take great care to avoid, ignore, and discount the occurrence and value of their mistakes. Value of their ideas and perspectives. Some students are quick to present and defend their ideas. Other students are reluctant to share and lack confidence in the worthiness of their thoughts. Of course, we can influence the academic identities our students develop. Our daily interactions, coaching, nudging, and feedback are part of students’ learning experiences and influence how they see themselves as learners. Here are six actions we can take: We can support students to reflect on their academic identity. Through dialogue, self-assessments, and reflection, we can coach students to become more aware of their current learning strengths, identify opportunities for growth, discover passions, and build aspirations. We can focus our attention and instruction on development of learning skills over emphasis on intellectual abilities. Students have control over the skills they develop. As their skills grow, their intellectual abilities also grow. We can celebrate academic risk-taking. We know new learning is richest when it includes an element of risk and promise of reward. As students learn the value of taking learning risks, their confidence and abilities grow. We can design and present challenges that require students to struggle then reward their learning persistence. One of the best ways to develop a commitment to persist is to have our efforts pay off. We can treat mistakes as valuable opportunities to build understanding and create conditions for success. When students see mistakes as valuable learning experiences, their openness to try, learn, and succeed increase. We can exercise care with the ideas and perspectives students present. Students are keenly aware of whether we accept and respect what they share. When we ignore, discount, or reject their thoughts without consideration, we risk sending a message that students’ ideas and thoughts aren’t valuable. As a result, students may come to doubt the worthiness of their thinking and are less likely to share in the future. Academic identity determines whether our students will invest and succeed in their learning today. How they see themselves as learners will also influence their choice of careers, the learning circumstances within which they’ll place themselves, and the learning trajectory of their lives. Our work with students today to build strong, confident academic identities pays rich dividends that will last a lifetime.

February 03, 2023

The Best Questions for Learning May Not Be Ours

As soon as children learn to speak, they begin to ask questions. We can even become frustrated and impatient with the number of questions children ask. Sometimes we may not feel we've the time to respond. At other times we may not know the answers, and we don’t have the energy to pursue them. Yet, questions are a crucial way for children to learn. Our responses can shut the door to asking and learning or open the door to further inquiry and more information. Later as children enter school, they come to understand that the important questions are the questions that adults ask. These questions point the way to where adults want students to give their attention. In fact, student questions often are discounted and treated more as distractions than they’re honored, respected, and used as possibilities to generate learning. Consequently, students learn to explore less of what they don’t know and ask fewer questions. Unfortunately, the messages students receive about their questions risk cutting off key paths to learning that can be generated by questions. When students aren’t encouraged to ask questions, they often discount their curiosity, tolerate their confusion, and default to the thoughts and attention leveraged by adults. In a world that increasingly demands new ideas, thrives on discovery, and rewards novel insights, discouraging questions delivers a serious disservice to our learners. Alternatively, if we reacquaint students with their imagination, honor their curiosity, and encourage their questions, we place in their hands a powerful tool for learning within and beyond what the formal curriculum presents. However, for most students, we need to reteach the role and value of questions to stimulate and support their learning. Let’s explore four ways we empower students to enhance their learning through questions they develop and ask. First, we can teach students to ask questions about their learning as they learn. For example, when students study a concept, reading text, or develop a skill, they can ask themselves questions about the meaning and application of what they’re learning. Their questions help them organize, focus, and absorb new information and strengthen their recall. In fact, creating and asking oneself questions while learning proves a more powerful learning tool than highlighting or underlining text or taking notes. Second when students ask questions that are more significant than seeking clarification and direction, we can resist providing immediate answers and join them in their learning search. We might begin by probing the source and implications of student questions to gain full understanding of what’s driving their questions. Further, we can engage with students to find answers, even when we might have a ready answer we could share. When we learn with students, we honor their interest and curiosity, and we provide them with approaches, options, and modeling they can use to learn independently. Third, we can teach students to frame worthy questions about their learning. For example, we might introduce a taxonomy, such as Bloom’s or Depth of Knowledge (DOK), to help students to understand and utilize multiple levels of thinking and complexity in questions they develop. Then we can coach students to ask deeper, more significant questions in class discussions, probe with deeper questions and thinking in their writing, and practice deeper reflection as they learn. Fourth, we can leverage growing questioning expertise among students by having them create some or all the questions they’ll be asked on a quiz or exam. At first, we might think this approach to be unproductive because students would know the questions in advance. However, if we coach students to create an array of meaningful, complex, relevant questions, their responses will demonstrate learning that may go well beyond what would have been demonstrated by unfamiliar questions at risk of being misunderstood or confusing to students. In fact, the process of developing good questions leads to greater understanding of content and enhanced organization of what has been learned than responding to questions developed by someone else. Asking questions isn't only a great way for young children to learn; questions are powerful drivers of learning regardless of age. Our challenge is to renew the natural tendency for children and young people to ask questions. However, we also can help them to frame, examine, and pursue questions that feature greater complexity, depth, and significance. When we do, we give them one of the most powerful tools for learning they can employ.

January 27, 2023

Six Learning-Based Strategies to Counter Cheating

It‘s disheartening when we discover that the work students submitted as representative of their learning is not their own. They may have copied the work of others without attribution. They may have had someone else do the work for them. They may have devised a way to secure test questions in advance or otherwise submitted work that wasn't a product of their learning. The list could go on. Of course, many reasons explain why students decide to cheat. Some students have poor time management discipline and run out of time to prepare. Some students believe they need to get a high grade and assume they won’t achieve it on their own. Some students believe others are cheating, and they too must cheat to compete. Other students aren’t interested in what they’re asked to learn, and cheating seems like a workable shortcut. Still others just assume they won’t be caught. The wide range of forces and factors that lead to cheating argue for more than a single strategy to counter the behavior. We need to think beyond threats, punishments, and logistical strategies that may challenge cheating but fail to address the root causes. Our efforts to counter the behavior needs to be multi-part and responsive to what typically motivates students to cheat. Here are six strategies we can consider, adapt, and adopt. We can start by being clear about what constitutes cheating. Students typically are aware of the most blatant forms of cheating, but they may not have thought about other behaviors that fall within its definition. We might provide examples, share stories, and engage students in conversations about what cheating is and what it’s not. We might explain legal considerations related to plagiarism and similar issues, depending on the ages of our students. We need to be clear that cheating is dishonest, unacceptable, or a sign of poor judgement. Most importantly, we need to communicate to students that it violates the trust we place in them, trust which is central to our relationship. For many students, this step alone is enough to have them hesitate and reconsider cheating as an option. A second strategy is to avoid over-emphasizing grades and placing excessive pressure on students to attain them. For example, we need to provide multiple low stakes opportunities for students to demonstrate and measure their learning throughout teaching and learning cycles. We can remind students that grades are intended to reflect their learning; they aren’t the reason for it. Additionally, we need to avoid student-to-student competition that drives status and image, which can leave students feeling pressure to find shortcuts to winning. A third strategy is to make sure learning is meaningful and purposeful for students. When students are interested in what they’re learning, see utility in skills they develop, and feel ownership for their progress, cheating becomes less attractive. The secret for us is to connect what students are asked to learn, to what we know about them, and to what motivates them to learn. For example, we might give choices about how students will approach their learning, what materials they may use, and how they’ll share and display their work. Of course, when we show interest in what students are learning and sincerely engage with them in the learning process, we create a more authentic and engaging experience. A fourth approach is to focus on the process of learning over its product or outcome. We can focus our attention on the learning path students experience. We can offer feedback, praise their efforts and strategies, and engage them in conversations about their learning. Even a short conversation can indicate whether a student is learning and where they might be struggling. Interestingly, the more students know how much we know about their learning progress the more difficult is their decision to cheat. A fifth strategy is to treat cheating as misbehavior and consider teaching over punishment. Cheating, like other misbehavior, is an error in judgement and reflects poor decision-making. We can think about what lesson needs to be learned, not what punishment to exact. Our goal is to have students not repeat the behavior. While there may be consequences, we also need to give students strategies to deal with situations in which they might choose to cheat. As examples, they might come to us for additional assistance, request an extension for submitting a project, or learn better time management strategies. A sixth and final strategy is to provide structures and supports that discourage cheating. We might construct assessments that have students compose responses rather than select from a list or provided options. We can construct assessments that focus on deeper understanding than dates and facts. We also need to be clear about resources students can and cannot access and use during the assessment. Of course, the more our assessments involve learning performances, explanations, and applications, the more difficult it is to cheat. As noted earlier, there’s no one way to prevent students from deciding to cheat. Students look for shortcuts for many reasons. However, we can provide a learning environment and community that makes cheating less necessary and attractive. And when cheating happens, we can use it as an opportunity to teach rather than punish.

January 19, 2023

The Master Teacher Blog