Diagnosing Study Problems Strengthening Student Success

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Diagnosing Study Problems Strengthening Student
Success

• Richard Baiardo, MS
• Evergreen Valley College

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Im Winston Wolf. I solve problems....
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First Interview

• Surface Learning Problem
• Explain How Learning Memory Work
• Introduce Remediation Steps

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Understand Study Approach

• Three Key Questions

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First Question

• Was all the exam information contained in your
  notes?
• Purpose determine if complete notes?
• (Student is required to bring lecture notes to
  the appointment.)

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Second Question

• If No
• Do you have difficulty deciding when something
  important has been said?
• Listening or note-taking problem

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Third Question

• If Yes
• Describe everything that happens with notes from
  time you walk out of class?
• Study technique problem

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Subjects Requiring Different Approaches and
Techniques

• Some academic disciplines present special study
  technique problems such as
• Mathematics
• Accounting
• Chemistry

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Chemistry

• Subject with symbols, formulas, definitions, and
  laws
• Ideas presented in
• mathematical terms in a sequential and
  hierarchical way
• First task memorizing symbols
• Symbols for elements ? formulas (compounds) ?
  chemical reactions (equations) ? stoichiometry
• Fe (iron), Cl (chlorine) FeCl3
• (i.e., FeCl3 3NaOH ? Fe(OH)3
  3NaCl)
• Foundation topics must be learned early.

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How Learning Memory Work

• Central Problem Every Student Must Solve

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Pavlov of Memory

• Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909)
• Owe fundamental understanding of human memory to
  one man.
• 1885 published On Memory
• Described memory experiments on himself.
• First scientific study of memory.

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Research Method

• Constructed lists 20 nonsense syllables.

CVC DAR FOT BEL MUK LIM KIR
VUZ HUQ PIW RUJ MAF LEV ZAD
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Research Method

• Practiced list by repetition until correct two
  times in row.
• Counted number of times took to master list.
• Varied lengths of time before trying to remember.
  
• Forgot, practiced until remembered list perfectly
  again.

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Ebbinghaus Data

• Delay        Savings                        
• immediate    100                        
• 20 minutes   60                        
• 1 hr           45                       
  
• 9 hr         35                       
   
• 1 day        30                        
  
• 2 days      25                        
  
• 6 days      22                        
  
• 30days 20

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Forgetting

• Most rapidly soon after end of practice.
• Rate slowed as time went on.
• Retention pattern first forgetting curve.

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Retention Curve
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Time Spent Reviewing

• More times practiced list on day 1, fewer
  repetitions required to relearn on day 2.
• Amount remembered depended on
• Time spent on repetition.
• When started rehearsal.

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Ebbinghaus Findings

• Three Principles

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Principle I

• Memory decays as a function of time.
• Rate of forgetting
• Fastest after initial learning
• Slower for more meaningful material

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Principle II

• Amount remembered depends on multiple times spent
  learning.

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Principle III

• Effect of overlearning
• Information practiced beyond mastery more
  resistant to disruption or loss.

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What Does Not Work!

• Pseudo Learning Strategies

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Strategies With Limited Value

• Listening in class.
• Taking notes.
• Only taking notes using the lecture outline.
• Rote rehearsal (memorizing facts and
  conclusions).
• Examples rereading and repeating.
• Shallow processing.

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Shallow Processing

• Recopying or retyping your notes.
• Waiting until after lecture to read textbook
  assignment.
• Waiting until last minute to review.

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Why Do They Not Work?

• ISSUE IS NOT TIME SPENT ON TASK
• NOR EFFORT SPENT TO REMEMER

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Graph of Forgetting Curve
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Brain Basics

• Brain
• Learning
• Memory

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Human Brain

• About 3 pounds
• 78 water, 10 fat, 8 protein
• Less than 2.5 of bodys weight
• Uses 20 of bodys energy at rest

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Brain Numbers

• 100 billion neurons
• Each neuron has 10,000 connections
• 1,000 trillion synaptic connection points
• 280 quintillion memories

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The nerve cell, or neuron resembles a miniature
tree (p. 21)
Diamond Hopson, 1998
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How does Brain Lay Down and Retrieve Memories?

• Grow and develop, neurons are 'wired up' to each
  other.
• Communicate through thousands of connections -
  synapses.
• Memories formed when
• certain connections are
• strengthened.

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Synaptic Density

• Natural pruning process
• Pruning of unused connections
• Most of pruning occurs between
  10-16 years
• Synaptic density reduced

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Connections

• To maintain connections, cells must stay active
• Strengthening means
• Neuron grows more dendrites
• Adds more receptors on dendrites/cell body
• Disintegrate/disappear if cell doesnt use

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Brain Modified by Environment

• Dendrites can grow at any age
• Synaptic connections occur at any age easier
  earlier in life
• Brain is adaptable
• Plasticity
• Use it or Lose it

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The Only Way We Learn
is by MAKING CONNECTIONS
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Memory is Associative

• Memory of new information is increased if
• Associated with previously acquired knowledge
• Meaningful association effectively remembered.
•  

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Closely Studied Memory Factors

• Intention
• Repetition
• Emotion
• Deep Processing

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Four Closely Studied Memory Factors

• Intention - how much effort you expend.
• Repetition - how often material is repeated.
• Emotion - whether material brings emotional
  response.
• Depth of processing - whether related to known
  material.

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Shallow vs. Deep Processing

• Simple rehearsal
• Definition Repeating information
• Elaborative rehearsal
• Definition Actively reviewing and connecting to
  knowledge already stored.

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Remediation Steps

• How to Take Notes
• Review How When

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How to Take Notes

• Cornell note-taking system.
• Important features
• Red line
• Position on the page indicates importance.
• Only a major point touches
• Everything else is indented
• Further from red line, less important.
• Cue column
• Key words phrases
• Permits review by recall

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Cues Students Use to Decide They Know Something

• Cognitive science two cues important in guiding
  judgments of what we know
• (1) our familiarity with a given body of
  Information.
• (2) our partial access to that information.

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Getting a Complete Set of Notes

• Start a Study Group
• Advantages
• Get a complete set of lecture notes.
• Immediately after class, meet with your group to
  fill in any gaps in your lecture notes.
• Wont matter how hard you study if you missed an
  important point in the lecture.
• Opportunity for review and exam preparation.
• You can ask questions.
• Explain to others what you know.
• Gain emotional support.

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Review by Recall

• When
• How

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Multiple Reviews Are Essential

• 1st review within minutes
• 2nd review within 24 hours
• 3rd review within the week
• 4th review within the month (before the test)
• 5th review within the semester (before final
  exam)

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Graph of Forgetting Curve and Effect of Review
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Deeper Level Processing

• Review by recall not by recognition
• Establishing more connections with LTMs
• Making associations.
• Attaching meaning.
• Forming relationships.
• Creating hierarchies.

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Deep Processing Techniques

• Techniques
• Writing outlines.
• Self-examination during learning.
• Review questions.
• Previews.
• Encourage integration of material and thereby
  process (i.e., think about) meaning.

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Second Interview

• Feedback
• Modeling

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Review Recent Set of Notes

• Student brings recent set of lecture notes
• (taken within 24 hours)
• What worked what did not?
• Review notes together
• Additional Suggestions

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Sleep and Stress

• Effect on Memory
• Deprivation
• Stress

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Role of Sleep

• Brain uses to process the days experiences
• Compensates for inadequate sleep with
• Shorter attention span
• Lowered creativity
• Reduced memory capacity
• Rigid viewpoints
• Irritability
• Increased appetite
• In both animals and humans
• Increase in rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep during
  night following learning experience.

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Sleep Deprivation

• Sleep deprivation adversely effects learning.
• Low-frequency sleep - mainly at start of night
• Plays a role in memory consolidation
• REM sleep - mainly at the end of a nights sleep
• Plays role in problem solving

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Interference and Sleep
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Stress and Memory
Performance
Low
Moderate
High
Stress
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Final Thoughts

• Adult Learning
• Characteristic of A Students

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Graph of Learning
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A Students

• What is the single behavior that distinguishes an
  A student from a B or C student?
• A students start early!

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The End
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References

• Bloom, Benjamin S. Developing Talent in Young
  People, 1985, Ballantine Books
• Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., Tesch-Romer, C.
  (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the
  acquisition of expert performance. Psychological
  Review, 100, 363-406.
• Pauk, Walter. How to Study in College. 2005,
  Houghton Mifflin
• Ross, Philip E. The Expert Mind Scientific
  American, August 2006
• Willingham, Daniel T., Inflexible Knowledge The
  First Step to Expertise,American Educator,
  Winter 2002
• Willingham, Daniel T., How Knowledge Helps It
  Speeds and Strengthens Reading Comprehension,
  Learningand Thinking, Am. Educator,Spring 2006
• Willingham, Daniel T., Why Students Think They
  UnderstandWhen They Dont, American Educator,
  Winter 2003-2004
• Willingham, Daniel T., Practice Makes Perfect,
  But Only If you Practice Beyond the Point of
  Perfection, American Educator, Spring 2004
• Willingham, Daniel T., Students Remember...What
  They Think About, American Educator, Summer 2003
  

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Supplementary Material
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Types of Knowledge

• Rote
• Shallow
• Inflexible
• Flexible

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Rote Knowledge

• Memorizing form in absence of meaning.
• Knowledge devoid of meaning.
• Memorizing something you do not understand.

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Shallow Knowledge

• Meaning - understand each isolated part.
• Unlike rote knowledge
• Lacks deeper meaning that comes from
  understanding relationship among parts.

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Inflexible Knowledge

• It may appear as rote, but its not.
• Knowledge - meaningful but narrow.
• Doesnt translate to other relevant situations.
• Example classical conditioning.
• Knowing particulars of an example
• Meant to illustrate a principle not the
  principle.

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New Knowledge

• Tends to be shallow and inflexible when it is
  first learned.
• Normal
• Usefulness is limited.

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Flexible Knowledge

• As continue to work with knowledge, you gain
  expertise.
• Knowledge no longer organized around examples
• Organized around principles.

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Where Knowledge Seems Flexible

• Suppose know how to find the area of a rectangle.
• That knowledge is probably generalizable
• Can apply it to any rectangle.
• Formula not tied to specific examples in which
  learned.
• Can use formula in novel situations determining
  total square footage of a
• hallway
• kitchen
• dining room

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Testing for Flexible Knowledge

• Multiple Choice Questions

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Types of Multiple Choice

• A blood pressure reading of 200/96 mmHg is
  considered
• Hypotension
• Hypertension
• Cardiac hypertrophy
• Renal hypertension

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Types of Multiple Choice

• A newly admitted client has a blood
  pressure of 200/96mmHg. The client has a family
  history of diabetes mellitus. Which nursing
  action is most appropriate at this time?
• Call the doctor
• Retake the blood pressure
• Assess for other signs and symptoms
• Ask the client if he/she is taking
  antihypertensives.

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Whats the Difference?

• First question - recalling factual information
• Second question - clinical decision using
  critical thinking skills.
• Clinical scenario-type questions are commonly
  used in nursing exams.

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Testing for Factual Knowledge and Critical
Thinking

• You are the nurse on a med-surg. unit who has
  just received report. Which patient should you
  assess first?
• a. A 35 yo admitted 3 hours ago with a gunshot
  wound 1.5cm area of dark drainage noted on the
  dressing
• b. A 43 yo s/p mastectomy 2 days ago with 23cc
  of serosanguinous fluid noted in the drain.
• c. 59 yo with a collapsed lung due to an
  accident no drainage in the chest tube over the
  previous shift.
• d. A 62 yo s/p abd-peritoneal resection 3 days
  ago pt now with complaints of chills.

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Background Knowledge Needed

• Medical terminology
• yo
• S/p
• Pt
• Abd
• Vocabulary
• serosanguinous
• Peritoneal
• Nature of the four surgeries

• What is normal and expected?
• What do you not expect to see?
• d. - huge surgery - big, deep-bowl cancer.
• Chills
• Internal bleeding
• infection

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Effective Strategies

• Spacing Effect
• Sustained Practice
• Expertise
• Overlearning

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Spacing Effect

• Cognitive research evidence
• Distributing study time over several sessions
• better long-term retention than a single study
  session.
• Short periods of practice daily are better than
  cramming.
• mass vs. distributed practice

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Sustained Practice

• Regular, ongoing review or use.
• Practice beyond one perfect recitation.
• Practice past point of mastery is necessary to
  develop expertise.
• Useful for developing automaticity.

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"Practice makes perfect"

• Obvious that practice is important.
• Unexpected finding
• practice does not make perfect.
• Practice until perfect perfect only briefly.
• STM or LTM requires ongoing practice.

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Developing Expertise

• Practice involves more than repetition.
• Experts engage in deliberate practice
• Setting specific goals
• Obtaining immediate feedback of results
• Concentrating on technique more than outcome
• Exerting effort to improve performance

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Experts Attitude

• Approaches everything with need to learn more.
• Never loses intensity of a beginner.
• Never feels finished or satisfied.
• Engages in ongoing effortful study
• Continually tackling challenges that lie just
  beyond one's competence.

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Overlearning

• Overlearning
• Studying material one already knows.
• For a new skill to become automatic or for new
  knowledge to become long lasting, sustained
  practice, beyond the point of mastery, is
  necessary.

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Developing Automaticity

• Permits higher levels of competence.
• Become more skillful in mental tasks.
• Effective writer knows
• Rules of grammar and usage
• To begin a paragraph with a topic sentence
• Include relevant detail automatically

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Developing Automaticity

• When cognitive processes automatic, demand very
  little space in working memory.
• In any field certain procedures used again and
  again.
• Procedures must be learned to point of
  automaticity so they no longer consume working
  memory space.

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Major Point

• Will only remember what extensively practiced.
• Only remember long term what practiced in a
  sustained way over many years.

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Concentration

• Essential for learning problem-solving
• Most people
• Brief moments intense concentration between
• Longer periods of divided and variable attention
• Improve performance by increasing concentration
• Key is eliminating distractions.

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Background Knowledge

• Comprehension

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Take In New Information

• Comprehension of new information depends on what
  you already know that can be connected.
• More basic knowledge easier to build new
  knowledge
• Easier to fix in memory when have knowledge about
  topic.
• Deeper processing, comprehension, and listening
  all depend on background knowledge.

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Think About New Information

• Language is full of semantic breaks where
  knowledge is assumed.
• Making correct inferences demands background
  knowledge.

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Information Stated vs. Implied

• Johns face fell as he looked down at his
  protruding belly. The invitation specified black
  tieand he had not worn his tux since his own
  wedding 20 years earlier.
• What is John concerned about?

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Reference

• He was a real Benedict Arnold about it

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Short Term Memory

• Place in the mind where thought happens.
• Limited capacity duration
• 7 2
• 20-30 seconds
• Thinking limited if there were not ways to
  overcome space constraint.
• Affected by concentration.

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Thinking About New Information

• Read through one time, then look away and recall
  letters

CN NFB ICB SCI ANC AA
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Chunking

• Most people get about 7 correct.
• Demands background knowledge

CNN FBI CBS CIA NCAA
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General Education Prerequisites

• Purpose is to create a larger body of general
  knowledge.
• Some researchers maintain prior knowledge
  actually makes up or replaces aptitude.

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Motivation

• Motivation is a more important factor than
  innate ability.
• The preponderance of psychological evidence
  indicates that experts are made, not born.
• - Philip E. Ross

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A Common Student Mistake

• Thinking We Know Something
• Feeling of Knowing
• Familiarity Partial Access

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How Do We Know That We Know Something?

• Psychologists distinguish between
• Familiarity - knowledge of having seen or
  otherwise experienced some stimulus before, but
  having little information associated with it.
• Recollection - characterized by richer
  associations.

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Feeling of Knowing

• If believe know material, likely to divert
  attention elsewhere.
• You will stop
• Listening
• Reading
• Working
• Participating
• Mentally checking out is never a good choice.

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Feeling of Knowing

• Some common causes
• Rereading.
• Shallow processing.
• Recalling related information.
• Feeling of knowing becomes a problem if have
  feeling without knowing.

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Rereading

• Prepare for exam by rereading class notes
  textbook.
• Encounter familiar terms
• know youve heard these terms before
• become even more familiar to you as you reread
• Yes, Ive seen this, I know this, I understand
  this.
• Feeling you understand material as it is
  presented not same as being able to recount it
  yourself.

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Feeling of Knowing

• Some students quit once some facts have been
  memorized, believing already done quite a bit of
  studying.

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Cues Students Use to Decide They Know Something

• Cognitive science two cues important in guiding
  judgments of what we know
• (1) our familiarity with a given body of
  Information.
• (2) our partial access to that information.

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Guarding Against Familiarity

• Insidious effect of familiarity
• Feeling know something when really dont.
• Fools mind think know more than do.

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Guarding Against Partial Access

• Knowing a lot of related information
• Makes feel as though know the target information.
• Mind fooled when know part of material or related
  material.

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The Test!

• Standard of knowing
• ability to explain to others, not
  understanding when explained by others.
•  
• Process information as if preparing to teach it
  to another.
• To teach is to learn twice.
• Source Thinking You Understand When You Dont
  by Daniel T. Willingham

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Predicting Student Success

• What makes an A student?
• Key Factor in Success
• Bloom Study of High Achievers
• Note-taking

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What makes an A student?

• List characteristics of an A student.

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Distinguishing Behavior

• Single behavior distinguishes an A student from
  a B or C student
• A students start early.
• What does it mean to start early?

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Starting Early Examples

• Brought a pencil/pen to class?
• Brought paper to take notes on?
• Filed syllabus in folder or notebook?
• Set up notebook for notes for this class?
• Bought textbook for class?
• Opened book and looked at table of contents?
• Read the preface, introduction and other up front
  material?
• Read assigned chapter for today?
• Bought other materials for this class?
• Reviewed syllabus and did appropriate assignments?

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Blooms Study of High Achievers

• Five-year study
• 120 nations top artists, athletes, scholars
• Research goal - understand keys to high
  achievement.

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Case Studies

• Conducted in-depth anonymous interviews with top
  20 performers in six fields.
• Research hypothesis
• Expected to hear tales of great natural gifts.

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Findings

• Heard accounts of an extraordinary drive and
  dedication not great natural talent.
• Blooms study concluded drive and determination
  are keys.

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Training a Future Expert

• Bloom proposed training involved four stages
• Stage 1
• introduced to area under playful conditions as a
  child
• promise was noted
• Stage II
• Lessons were provided, usually with a teacher or
  coach who worked well with children
• regular practice habits were established.

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Training a Future Expert

• Stage III
• internationally recognized teacher or coach
  engaged
• requires significant commitment of resources from
  parents
• dedicated and likely exclusive study by the
  child.
• Stage IV
• student absorbs all that he or she could from
  teachers
• began to develop his/her personal contribution to
  the field.

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Talent

• Talent is not what most people think it is.
• Ability to focus, concentrate, and try to do the
  best you can at what youre trying to do, and do
  that consistently.
• Robert Rotella, PhD, Sports Psychologist

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Summary

• Start early
• Review new material by recall at least 3X/wk
• Study in shorter spaced periods vs. massed effort
• Increase background knowledge
• Strive for automaticity
• Use overlearning
• Join a study group
• Tutor others
• Get 8-9 hours of sleep per night

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Final Thoughts

• Assume Nothing
• When in Doubt, Always Check it Out!

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Final Thoughts

• Confident ?Cocky ?Lazy ?Dead!
• -Scott Swaby

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References

• Bloom, Benjamin S. Developing Talent in Young
  People, 1985, Ballantine Books
• Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., Tesch-Romer, C.
  (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the
  acquisition of expert performance. Psychological
  Review, 100, 363-406.
• Ross, Philip E. The Expert Mind Scientific
  American, August 2006
• Willingham, Daniel T., Inflexible Knowledge The
  First Step to Expertise,American Educator,
  Winter 2002
• Willingham, Daniel T., How Knowledge Helps It
  Speeds and Strengthens Reading Comprehension,
  Learningand Thinking, American Educator,Spring
  2006
• Willingham, Daniel T., Why Students Think They
  UnderstandWhen They Dont, American Educator,
  Winter 2003-2004
• Willingham, Daniel T., Practice Makes Perfect,
  But Only If you Practice Beyond the Point of
  Perfection, American Educator, Spring 2004

121
References

• Willingham, Daniel T., Ask the Cognitive
  Scientist Students Remember...What They Think
  About, American Educator, Summer 2003