Babies are born knowing physics. They express surprise when an object appears to be suspended in mid-air or pass through walls (nice article here). These are the primitive physics schemas we are all born with. Onto these, we add experiences from our lives: metals are cold; batteries run out of charge; the sun moves. Then in physics lessons we try to supplant this knowledge with formalised knowledge. With mixed results.
A metal cup to keep drinks cold.
Reading is a physics problem that doesn’t receive much attention in class. I think it should. Science professionals read a lot:
How many hours of professional STEM reading per week?
It turns out that the people who responded to the survey read a lot. Almost 85% of them read professional texts for more than 5 hours per week and 20% of them read for more than 15 hours per week. And they read to learn…
Why STEM professionals read
But most weren’t taught to do it at school.
Who teaches scientists and engineers to read professional texts?
This last chart troubles me. I know STEM texts (exams, textbooks, papers) are different to other texts. They use different vocabulary; follow different conventions and have a different purpose. Either learning to read these texts is so easy, it doesn’t require teaching, or it is hard and we are letting learners down.
How many capable young scientists and engineers are dropping out because they can’t access the information in texts? I worry about this a lot.
Cognitive Load Theory explains why reading is difficult and tells us how to make it easier. All three memories are in use:
Comprehension depends most on what you already know. The two most important things for reading are in your long term memory (or they need to be). They are vocabulary and knowledge. Readers who are equipped with these are equipped to understand texts.
Science teachers are good at teaching science vocabulary. We explain clearly; we use example sentences; we revisit; we match words to diagrams. We use every trick we know.
But we ignore key non-specialist vocabulary. Words like: determine, suggest, establish and system (I took these from a couple of recent GCSE papers).
These words should be taken as seriously as technical vocabulary. It is hard to choose words to focus on. I tend to teach words as I come across them in textbooks and exam papers (especially if I think they could come up again).
Along with vocabulary, the most important part of understanding is what you already know: your schemata. As we read, the information in the text is held in your working memory to be presented to knowledge from your long-term memory like a debutante or a novice speed-dater. If sense can be made, great. If not, the reader has work to do.
Skills get tough press – but there are a few reading skills (or habits) which make a difference. These are the four that expert science readers (like us) use most often.
If these activities can be practiced enough (several times over a few weeks, with occasional top-ups) they quickly become part of a reader’s reading schema, increasing your students’ ability to learn from texts.
This blog is a development of the blog I wrote in 2015 for the Royal Society of Chemistry – here. I am reassured to find that I still agree with most of what I wrote then. Thank you if you’ve stuck with me all this time!
Ben
I think this will be the last of my problem-solving blogs for a while – it’s a little one about reducing the split-attention-effect.
In this series of blogs, I have suggested strategies to reduce the cognitive load of problems, so that novices can focus attention on the elements you want. This one is about text and diagrams.
From AQA 2016
from Cognitive Load Theory – Sweller, Ayrea, Kalyuga 2011 (art by @@olivercavigliol – https://teachinghow2s.com/docs/CLT_chapter_summaries.pdf)
Learning how to solve problems is the key to becoming a physicist (here and here). The problem with problem solving is that you need to be pretty knowledgeable before you can make a good go at it. And we tend to teach new information and then put it into a problem in the same lesson. This doesn’t work for most learners.
The science of learning – cognitive load theory – has found the best way to to teach problem solving: worked examples. Hattie puts the effect size of worked examples at 0.57 – 7 months extra progress per year.
from Story of a Research Program by John Sweller
When a teacher models how to solve a problem, she is giving the guidance that novice physicists need. She will make the hidden process of solving the problem visible. It is a way in.
But then what? The jump from seeing someone do it to being able to do it yourself is still big.: “novice learners reach apoint of working memory overloadvery quickly” Hattie, Yates. 2014). Learners need a bridge.
One method is to give learners partially completed problems – this method is called problem completion. This reduces the cognitive load, allowing the learner to focus his working memory on fewer aspects of the problem.
Here is an example:
AQA June 2016
Imagine you are standing at the board – ideally the question is projected adjacent to where you are explaining and making notes for the class:
Going straight from worked example to whole questions is very challenging for most learners. Sentence starters reduce the cognitive load:
| On 14 October 2012, Felix Baumgartner created a new world record when he jumped from a stationary balloon at a height of 39km. Above the Earth’s surface. 42s after jumping, her reached a terminal velocity of 373 m/s. Explain in terms of weight and drag how terminal velocity is reached. |
One completion problem will not be enough. You will need lots. There are plenty available in past papers, however, there is a cognitive advantage in including individuals in the class:
| When his balloon experiment began to go wrong, Mr Rogers knew he had to jump. He was 5km high. Explain in terms of weight and drag why he reached terminal velocity as he fell. |
Other insights from cognitative psychology include spacing out the practice and interleaving. I suggest revisiting these problems regularly and mixing them up with other questions. Aim for success – there are benefits for students getting it right. Optimum challenge is great, but getting answers wrong makes it more challening next time.
In my next blog, I will describe another strategy for reducing the cognitive load for novice physicists – cooperative learning.
I found @olivercavigiol teachinghow2s.com helpful in writing this blog.
Back in 1994, I began by PGCE at Oxford University. I was lucky to have a brilliant tutor, Brian Woolnough. He was an important academic: with Terry Allsop he wrote the key text Practical Work in Science. We respected him enormously.
The book was a review and analysis of science teacher’ practice – why we use practical work in science. My super-short summary is that we use practical work to:
It was obvious that Brian was excellent in the classroom too. He was a showman and had an irreverant, maverick touch. In a full lecture hall, he solomnly picked up a copy of the National Curriculum and tossed it on the floor.
I also remember we caught him cheating demonstrating a physics practical that wasn’t working. He gave us a cheeky grin and said, “Well, it doesn’t matter if they learn it, does it?”
It is noticible that the summary list does not include “learn science knowledge” – practical work is pretty poor at helping learners master exam content. But it does support the learning of knowledge, by providing a concrete structure to build a schema around.
The more abstract and theoretical the concept, the more we need something concrete to attach the learning to. A practical activity provides a concrete experience that a skilled science teacher can build upon.
But it doesn’t happen automatically. The leap from concrete to abstract is generally too far for most learners to make solo. The gap needs to be bridged.
Recently, I have used Lemov’s Write/Rewrite to help my students link abstract concepts to concrete, practical work. I refer to the same practical experiences over and over again, spaced over weeks, to help my students make permanent memories, linking to abstract ideas. If the practical can’t be set up repeatedly, I bring in a key piece of equipment and photos to remind them and I set writing tasks (in a carefuly written sentence, explain….).
Write/Rewrite
When I am confident that the have made a reliable connection between the abstract and concrete idea, I go about building on it. I ask them to make novel comparisons using a worksheet like the one below (see The Learning Scientists on Elaboration).
Elaboration (making inflexible knowlegde flexible)
As Brian said back in 1994 -“Well, it doesn’t matter if they learn it, does it?”
