Image: Ross MacDonald
Most teachers would agree that it is important that students remember much of what they read. Yet one of the most common sights on high school and college campuses across the land is that of students poring over textbooks, yellow marker in hand, highlighting pertinent passages—which often end up including most of the page. Later in the semester, to prepare for their exams, students hit the textbooks again, rereading the yellow blocks of text.
Studies have shown that highlighting and rereading text is among the least effective ways for students to remember the content of what they have read. A far better technique is for students to quiz themselves. In one study, students who read a text once and then tried to recall it on three occasions scored 50 percent higher on exams than students who read the text and then reread it three times. And yet many teachers persist in encouraging—or at least not discouraging—the techniques that science has proved to fall short.
This is just one symptom of a general failure to integrate scientific knowledge of the mind into schooling. Many commonly held ideas about education defy scientific principles of thinking and learning. For example, a common misconception is that teaching content is less important than teaching critical thinking skills or problem-solving strategies. Scientists have also long known that kids must be explicitly taught the connections between letters and sounds and that they benefit most when such instruction is planned and explicit. Yet some reading programs, even those used in large school districts, teach this information only if an instructor sees the need.
It is easy to argue that teachers ought to do a better job of keeping up with science, but teaching is already a labor-intensive profession. And it is difficult for the nonspecialist to separate scientific research from the usual flood of quackery and pseudoscience. Peddlers of expensive and supposedly research-based nostrums lobby school districts. Other products that may have scientific validity have not yet been thoroughly tested. For example, theories of mathematical learning suggest that linear (but not circular) board games may boost math preparedness in preschoolers, but the idea needs large-scale testing.
How are educators supposed to know which practices to use? An institution that vets research and summarizes it for educators could solve the problem. Medicine provides a precedent. Practicing physicians do not have the time to keep up with the tens of thousands of research articles published annually that might suggest a change in treatment. Instead they rely on reputable summaries of research, published annually, that draw conclusions as to whether the accumulated evidence merits a change in medical practice. Teachers have nothing like these authoritative reviews. They are on their own.
The U.S. Department of Education has, in the past, tried to bring some scientific rigor to teaching. The What Works Clearinghouse, created in 2002 by the DOE's Institute of Education Sciences, evaluates classroom curricula, programs and materials, but its standards of evidence are overly stringent, and teachers play no role in the vetting process. Teachers also play no role in the evaluation, and their participation is crucial. Researchers can evaluate research, but teachers understand education. The purpose of this institution would be to produce information that can be used to shape teaching and learning.
It is also important that insights provided by a clearinghouse come from basic science. Many teachers, for instance, need to be disabused of the notions children have different “learning styles” and that boys' brains are hardwired to be better at spatial tasks than girls'. This job of bringing accurate scientific information about thinking and learning to teachers might arguably fall to schools of education, states, districts and teachers' professional organizations, but these institutions have shown little interest in the job. A neutral national review board would be the simplest and quickest answer to a problem that is a big obstacle to broad improvement across many schools.
This article was originally published with the title Brain Science in the Classroom.
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22 Comments
Add CommentAs an educator, and one who just completed an Action Research project to better understand an issue related to middle school education, I feel this author's urging for a clearing house of published research in the field of education is just what teachers need. To feel empowered as teachers, you need to be know if your gut instincts along with the empirical evidence in the classroom is backed by research if you want to make a plea to administration for changes or funding. Please continue your work in advocating for such an organization!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought that the following statement was interesting, but does anyone know the research etc used to back this claim?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this" For example, a common misconception is that teaching content is less important than teaching critical thinking skills or problem-solving strategies."
This author has no concept of science. There are no 'trusted sources' outside of the original published research. The very idea of other 'trusted sources' is the antithesis of what science is. Science is not about educated speculation or some 'expert's' interpretation. Science is the specific conclusions in a paper and, if someone uses those conclusions, they are referenced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an educator I feel this article is probably preaching to the choir as it will most likely be read by teachers. Education in the U.S. will not change because it is a political issue. The policies are driven top down by elected officials who have the opportunity to make great sound bites on how they are going to "fix" education, but their solutions never involve classroom teachers - or at least those truely in the trenches, and always involve covering more content supported by more testing. Many of these politicians are the ones who believe climate change is a hoax and that "inteligent design" is a valid topic to be covered in science class.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven the current state frameworks, and the state mandated test that supposedly tests knowledge, it is virtually impossible for students to obtain lasting mastery.
My test scores are among the highest in the state, and my students are of some of the lowest levels. They pass the test with flying colors, but a year later they don't know any biology. That's sad. I want them to love science like I do, but they, and I are judged by a game of trivial pursuit.
Education will not change until the politicians keep their hands off it.
The American Association of Physics Teachers has been investigating how students learn physics for several decades. Physics Education Research has become its own discipline where anyone is allowed to contribute and the conclusions are presented for everyone to review. Getting the science correct and discovering how students learn are important and not always easy to accomplish. I encourage others to check out a local AAPT section and ask for the latest research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm trying to find the studies Mr. Willingham alludes to that shows how quizzes are more effective than highlighting. Anyone know what these might be?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe lack of evidence-based teaching, in some subjects, is so glaring that it actually looks like a flight from the very idea that the evidence on a teaching technique could matter.Â
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this   For instance, consider handwriting (a subject which may regain importance in the Age of the Tablet).Â
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Students are customarily trained to write first with absolutely no joins ("manuscript" or "print-writing"), but then with absolutely all lower-case letters joining one another (a form called "cursive" that also involves numerous letter-shape transformations, some of which are applied merely in order to create the mandated 100% joining).Â
   Despite that — and despite recent moves to abolish the "cursive" stage entirely — research shows that the fastest and most legible handwriters avoid cursive. Such writers typically join only some letters, not all of them: making the easiest joins, skipping the rest, and using print-like shapes for those letters whose cursive and printed shapes disagree. (Citation: Steve Graham, Virginia Berninger, and Naomi Weintraub. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HANDWRITING STYLE AND SPEED AND LEGIBILITY. 2001: on-line at http://www.sbac.edu/~werned/DATA/Brain%20research%20class/handwriting%20speed%20style%20legibility%20berninger.pdf ). Nevertheless, teachers continue to misinform their students that "cursive is faster." To my personal knowledge, students in have even been penalized for proposing or performing experiments to test that claim.Â
At least one middle school student was told that even considering this topic for a Science Fair project was "inappropriate" because — said the teacher — "everyone already knows the right answer."  (What lesson about scientific thinking did the students learn from that response?)
Yours for better letters,
Kate Gladstone — CEO, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works
Director, the World Handwriting Contest
Co-Designer, BETTER LETTERS handwriting trainer app for iPhone/iPad
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
Although not precisely on point, this will get you started: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6018/772.abstract - also, look up research by Bjork at UCLA. There's also been a couple of NY Times articles summarizing Bjork's research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like help, in the form of respectable journal articles, in being "disabused of the notions children have different learning styles". I see so many reports recommending the identification of visual vs auditory vs tactile learning styles. In a briel search of the usual internet databases I haven't found the debunking side.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI cannot speak to the research behind the statement, but I believe the business community looks for problem solvers. Being able to recall information is important, but having lots of facts isn't useful without the ability to figure out what to do with it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI cannot speak to the research behind the statement, but I believe the business community looks for problem solvers. Being able to recall information is important, but having lots of facts isn't useful without the ability to figure out what to do with it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe a clearinghouse of scientific evidence for teachers could also be used to teach students how to critically review data presented as fact on the Internet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReferences? It seems to me that we are going to evaluate the claims you are making, we should be able to see the research that supports your claims.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with dcscience that teachers themselves should be more involved in deciding what and how they teach. Several years ago I was part of an effort to set up a institute based on the "Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools" and the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. The Yale model invites teachers to be integrally involved in the design of their curriculum by attending summer workshops where they collaborate with Yale faculty to create truly innovative curriculum units that their principals commit to allowing them to teach in the following school year. But the local school administrators did not like this model. One of them, who had been a high school principal, told me that teachers needed to be told how to teach. Until that "top-down is right" attitude changes, I wouldn't look for any great improvements in education in the US.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConcerning ecbrowne's request for the research supporting the claim that teaching content is not less important than teaching critical thinking skills, certainly learning how to think critically will not by itself teach you the content of some subject. But thinking critically is applicable to every subject, and should be incorporated into every subject. Moreover, critical thinking is absolutely essential if a person is going to be an intelligent and effective citizen once their formal education is over. So I hope that whatever the research is, it doesn't suggest that content should be taught at the expense of critical thinking.
Willingham's book is quite excellent and a solid articulate discussion of basic evidence and good science, even outside of the narrow area of education.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn addition, I would highly recommend "How Learning Works" by Susan Ambrose, et al. Heavily researched based with citations to the research. This book came highly recommended by Carl Wieman, 2001 Physics Nobel Prize, and currently serving on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as Associate Director of Science.
If you don't have time for anything else, master these two excellent works.
The idea of a clearing house to improve educators' access to the most recent -- and all -- "scientific" studies of education is a good one. My doctor, a specialist, just showed me how he manages the barrage of new papers in his specialty: he uses a federal agency standard-setting website, and independent websites which compile and in at least one instance summarize (and thus, to a limited extent, evaluate) published papers. But he concedes that it is not always apparent which papers are really valuable or highly accurate, even if carried by name journals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThus, the use of medical research by practitioners is still an art, even when intermediaries make finding something that might be interesting and relevant easier. I strongly suspect that the comparable task for educators looking to use educational research is even more demanding, since there are inherently so many non-objective elements in any kind of "scientific" research in education, whether it be developmental theory (rote more important inherently than critical thinking or vice versa) or comparable value of educational methodologies (often proprietary in the lead researchers or responsible institution).
So another sorely needed element is scientific research into what can affect the outcomes of research in education. For example, consider the considerable research into particular methodologies. The raft of questions which should be raised by the valuable sceptic seem obvious, including the minimum time for a useful "experiment," the consequences of teachers silently buying into or rejecting the methodology, the feasibility of setting up genuine control groups, the input from inherent qualities and circumstances of a particular classroom or school as compared to another, and the consequences of different student characteristics from year to year, class to class.
Finally, much educational research is built around statistical methods which can be confusing, misleading, or opaque; and some researchers may utilize sophisticated statistical software to produce graphs and charts that make results appear more concrete and certain without understanding the inherent pitfalls and assumptions hiding in the software algorithms.
Lastly, quality research in education can't move fast enough for a public which cries out for educational miracles and quick-fixes, but which doesn't want to learn (these are adults who are done with school), doesn't accept the fact that science is a slow and error-prone application of reason, and isn't sure whether to trust educators.
Re:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"the notions [that]children have different learning styles".
When a child is classified as "an auditory learner," and you ask him "What color is this piece of chalk?", does he get the answer from his ears or from his eyes?
I heartily agree with Professor Willingham's idea of an on-going publication of reputable summaries of research that draw conclusions as to whether the accumulated evidence merits a change in medical practice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, from my thirty years as an educator and trainer, including working with universities, DOEs, and hundreds of schools, Willingham's article demonstrates why such summaries haven't happened and won't in the forseeable future.
1. Such summaries are written by medical professionals for medical professionals and include how to apply such research in practical ways, not by experts outside the medical field. As he points out "Researchers [read university scientists, pyschologists and sociologists, often NOT in the education department] can evaluate research, but teachers understand education." In the medcial field medical researchers, often medical doctors evaluation, and medical physicians understand medicine."
2. This gap is demonstrated by his observations about 'teaching' highlighting as a study practice. k-12 teachers rarely teach this. Text books are reused, so you don't have students marking them up. And teaching 'study skills', while in the curriculum standards doesn't include highlighting. Teachers seldom have time to teach such things anyway.
3. Again, his observation about the research and how students will remember better if they think about the information three times is another good example of the distance between research and practical application. When would you do this in class? How? How much time do you have for all the things you want them to remember? Teachers can't really expect students to do it on their own as 'homework'... or can you? And do many of the things teachers now do in class provide this already?
4. His swipe at 'learning styles' is also a classic example of this gap. In his many arguments against learning styles, particularly the sensory preferences, Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic and Tactual [and their variations], he describes the theory where it 'must', 'have to' and 'always' produce certain results in studies... results I have never heard advocates ever suggest. Willingham is not alone in this academic dislike of 'learning styles'. It is a general bias among university professors. I say bias, because of 1. this lack of understanding in the few actual studies that are carried out, 2. the total disregard for the forty years of it's use in schools, 3. The theory began among university educators, 4. Teachers continue to find the 'theory' useful in teaching.
Like ecbrowne, I am very interest to see the reference for the statement, "a common misconception is that teaching content is less important than teaching critical thinking skills or problem-solving strategies".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDaniel Willingham has failed the test for real understanding and comprehension of the problems that those with learning difficulties have. What this author has advocated in this article is a return to the dark ages when all education was designed to reward learners who are talented because they are left brain dominant, visually dominant, and intellectually dominant. Having been forced through that medieval educational style myself back in the 1950's through the 1970's I can report, as one who is not so talented because I am right brain dominant, audio dominant and attitudinally dominant, that that archaic attitude, which Mr. Willingham holds, will continue to punish all children who are not talented at what is for them a torture chamber style of learning. Stop abusing children with such trumped up nonsense about the improvements that can be made in teaching using "research" that only works for those who are talented at learning using only the style Mr. Willingham advocates.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a lifelong dyslexic I was forced to learn how to read entirely on my own because no one was bright enough back in the 1950's to recognize that brain style. I solved that problem myself by memorizing the shapes of the outlines of every word...and still I thought of myself as stupid because I was never fast enough to process ever increasing numbers of words the shapes of which I was required to memorize.
If Mr. Willingham succeeds in creating a self-serving "clearinghouse" for scientific advances that reward only those who are already being rewarded because they have the required learning style, then millions of children from now until doomsday will be condemned to living as misfits in a left brain, visual, intellectual dominant school system. Frankly, if that happens the educational realm will be more impoverished than it already is.
One of the most vexing problems that scientists face is the peer review system that allows only the acceptable notions of what is to prevail because the ones who do the reviewing are rarely ever the ones doing real science. That is because most left brain dominant people haven't the attitudinal chops to imagine past their training, so they end up on the sidelines acting as judges, like Spanish Inquisitors, condemning all heretics for teaching doctrines contrary to the known scriptures.
Learn to teach from great teachers, not from folks who don't themselves actually know how to teach but think they do. Pick the brains of the teachers who assume personal responsibility for the success of every mind in their care.
Yes, try the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, the learning styles people have to prove their assertion that people have separate learning styles: auditory, visual, etc. I don't have to prove a negative. That being said, if a soldier learns the difference between the sound of an oncoming enemy tank or armored car, it isn't because he is an auditory learner, it is because he doesn't want to die. A look at memory specialists indicates that senses should not be separated into distinct domains, but as many as possible should be use to acquire knowledge.
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