Materials on teaching

Bruce Hayes
UCLA

Science-based learning in general

The world is changing and increasingly people do their work in ways guided by systematic research (e.g., baseball managers, stockbrokers, candidates for public office).  Why not study this way? For instance, the book Make it Stick, by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel, offers advice based on research in experimental psychology.  In brief, it says:  don't read the text over and over, do try to restate and resynthesize the material for yourself.  Don't study all at once, but at intervals.  Strive for "effortful retrieval", which is resynthesis of the course material, coming from within your own mind (consulting the text where necessary), and carried out with a bit of delay after initial exposure, to make it (usefully) harder.   

Topics covered:

• Does testing help you learn?
• Is it better to take notes by hand than on a laptop?
• Does everyone have their own "learning style"?
• What is the best medium in which to read -- paper or screen?
• Daylight in classrooms

Does testing help you learn?

A couple of papers in which research by psychologists suggests that testing produces more effective learning than just studying -- part of the "effortful retrieval" mentioned above.  This is my main rationale for beginning every class with a short quiz.

• Roediger, Henry L. III, and Jeffrey D. Karpicke (2006) The power of testing memory:  basic research and implications for educational practice.  Perspectives on Psychological Science 1 (3): 181-210.
• Karpicke, Jeffrey D. and Henry L. Roediger III (2008) The critical importance of retrieval for learning.  Science 319: 966-968.

Is it better to take notes by hand than on a laptop?

My main reason for discouraging laptops in intro class is that you just can't keep up with all the phonetic symbols and trees I use. But it's encouraging to note some experimental evidence that taking notes by hand helps you learn better.

• Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer (2014) The pen is mightier than the keyboard:  Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking.  Psychological Science  25: 1159–1168.

Does everyone have their own best individual "learning style"?

People tend to believe this but according to these researchers there is no evidence to support this view:

• Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork (2008) Learning Styles:  Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 9:105-119.

See here for a quick summary (look under "Myth #4").

What is the best medium in which to read -- paper or screen?

There's now quite a bit of research that supports paper as the best choice.

• Jabr, Ferris (2013) Why the brain prefers paper. Scientific American. 309:48-53.

I don't know about  the effect of reading tiny font sizes (from printing two-up) but it's hard to imagine that this is a helpful practice.

Daylight in classrooms

I have always intuitively raised the blinds when I use a classroom; there is at least some research (on elementary school teaching) that suggests that this is a good idea.

• Heshong Mahone Group (1999) Daylighting in schools:  an investigation into the relationship between daylighting and human performance. Prepared for the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and posted on line at http://h-m-g.com/downloads/Daylighting/schoolc.pdf

Last updated February 17, 2016