Newswise — Winston-Salem, N.C.--Switching from rigid, linear textbooks to technology such as iPads alone won’t boost student performance – so a team of researchers has turned the classroom upside down, allowing students to tailor each course to their own learning style.
This project, supported by extensive research and emerging technology, puts the power of learning into the hands of students, and snatches traditional textbooks right out of their backpacks.
“Students don’t read textbooks – study after study has shown that,” said Dan Johnson, a senior lecturer at Wake Forest University. “And even if a student completes a reading assignment, the text doesn’t promote deep understanding and long-term retention. It facilitates memorization. So why are we still using them?”
This new way of teaching works for a variety of different learning styles. It also better engages students who have learning difficulties such as dyslexia or other processing disorders, who have long struggled with the traditional lecture-and-reading assignment model. Under this new structure, students can access dozens of pieces of information, from text to videos to quizzes to interviews with experts. That supplemental information ensures better understanding and engagement.
The research team, which includes Johnson, associate professor Jed Macosko, and assistant professor Kristin Redington Bennett, has received a $249,348 grant from Next Generation Learning Challenges, a program run by Educause and financed largely by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Working in close collaboration with their strategic technology partner, Odigia, the team will spend the next several months building out the system it has designed, and the next two years testing it further in the classroom. This is a digital tool – but don’t call it an e-textbook. The team has created an ever-evolving learning space customizable for a variety of students. Information is organized into interconnected nodes that contain all of the baseline information a textbook would include, plus supplemental material and self-assessments to enhance the learning experience.
“Take the example of how mitosis works,” Johnson said. “It’s a fundamental piece of knowledge for anyone taking Intro to Biology, but the average student walks out of college still not understanding it because all they’re expected to do is read about it then take a test.” Under this new system, students have access to 40-50 “learning nodes” that let them explore mitosis from different directions. Each node includes additional materials that deepen learning.
‧ Basic text is reinforced with multimedia: a video showing how the cells split; an interview with a molecular biologist who talks about how mitosis goes astray in cancer; images of the cells.
‧ Embedded quizzes assess comprehension of the topic and a student’s ability to use that knowledge. The system monitors students’ scores as well as overall interaction with the content, so the teacher can monitor progress and suggest help when needed.
‧ Students can ask for help by posting questions to peers or to the teacher. Again, the teacher could review answers given by peers to ensure accuracy.
‧ Students and teachers can write new nodes. In 2010, 19 students in one of Macosko’s freshman seminar courses used the system – and wrote 130 new nodes in one semester.
Macosko said that autonomy kept his students excited about the subject and engaged in learning – a key to success, according to the watershed education study, “How People Learn.” The research says that, to teach students how to understand concepts, courses must accommodate myriad learning styles, should be interactive and should build on previous knowledge, not on arbitrary chapter structures in books.
“Think of a textbook – it’s too long, has lots of text, and gives few opportunities to check your thinking,” Macosko said. “When you read a textbook, you don’t often ask the question, ‘Why should I know this?’ It’s our very nature to learn by questioning.”
Initial testing will involve students taking college biology for non-majors. In the fall, students will use the tool at Wake Forest, a private four-year university; Salem College, a women’s college; Winston-Salem State University, a historically black state university; and Guilford Technical and Community College, an open-admission two-year community college.
For links to supporting research, go to http://go.wfu.edu/t44
Research principles support new learning concept
“How People Learn,” a watershed National Research Council study, sets out six principles of learning that can guide successes in the classroom. A new research project at Wake Forest University uses these principles to create a digital tool that allows students to choose how they learn.
Principle 1: Deep learning physically changes the brain. Learners must actively engage with new information via multiple senses. Passive reading – such as textbooks – focuses on a single sense, so it is unlikely to initiate deep learning.
Principle 2: New information is difficult to learn unless it builds on and connects to prior knowledge. A majority of students are concrete learners who prefer an example or scenario, followed by an explanation – the why. Most textbooks establish theories and principles before providing examples.
Principle 3: Each learner constructs their conceptual understanding by a different path. With print texts, students must follow the logical progression set by the text’s authors.
Principle 4: Frequent informal feedback promotes deeper and more accurate learning.
Principle 5: Conscious awareness of one’s own learning process improves the outcome.
Principle 6: Learning is reinforced when students work and learn collaboratively. For most students reading is solitary; they do not compare what they have learned from reading assignments with their peers.
Why reading alone doesn’t work for learning and retaining new concepts
What the research says about traditional textbooks, print and digital:
‧ A typical textbook has chapters and sections that are too long, overtaxing readers’ attention. Many do little to engage students’ interest; this problem has been reported both for secondary students and at the college level.
‧ Only about 40 percent of physics students read their textbook regularly if they do not have to turn in homework; even when they must submit homework based on assigned readings, only 55 percent of students will read the book.
‧ Students frequently will attempt to learn content by rereading text multiple times. But research has found that re-reading does not significantly increase recall, regardless of general reading comprehension skills.
‧ A “read-recite-review” strategy is the more effective strategy for improving recall. This same strategy also improves long-term retention.
‧ Reading alone is cognitively intensive, which causes students to focus so much on extracting facts that they don’t think about how to apply or link the knowledge to improve retention.
‧ Most students learn more deeply, and retain knowledge longer, if they read shorter passages aimed at answering a specific question or meeting a particular learning goal, rather than long narratives with no defined purpose.
‧ Students who read without testing their knowledge periodically make smaller learning gains than students who stop frequently and assess their understanding of what they have just read.
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