Motivation: Have we got the cart before the horse? - Växjökonferensen 28 januari 2019 - Växjökonferensen

Motivation: Have
“

 we got the cart
before the horse?

    Växjökonferensen
     28 januari 2019   @DavidDidau

The problems with certainty

We can’t see when we’re
         wrong

We can’t see when we’re
         wrong

Shepard’s ‘Turning the tables’

Shepard’s ‘Turning the tables’

If it looks like a duck…

The Necker Cube

How can we motivate students…
• … to work harder … take on
  challenges … take risks?

• By making them more successful.

• Learning requires motivation, but
  motivation does not necessarily lead
  to learning.

‘Poor proxies’ for learning
• Students are busy: lots of work is done
  (especially written work)
• Students are engaged, interested, motivated
• Students are getting attention: feedback,
  explanations
• Classroom is ordered, calm, under control
• Curriculum has been ‘covered’ (i.e. presented
  to students in some form)
• (At least some) students have supplied correct
  answers (whether or not they really understood
  them or could reproduce them independently)

   Robert Coe, Improving Education: a triumph of hope
                                     over experience

Effects and causes?

We can’t see causality

Is motivation an effect or a cause?

A definition of learning
• Learning is the long-term retention of
  knowledge and the ability to transfer it
  to new contexts.

• Retention = durability
• Transfer = flexibility

Performance

Learning

Warszawa

The illusion of knowledge
• Can you draw a bicycle?

                      Lawson (2006)

A simple model of memory

                              Environment
                              n
                          it o
                      n
            A   tte

                                   Learning

                                  Remembering

 Working memory                                 Long-term memory

We can only process about 4 ‘chunks’ of
information at once. Cowan 2001

How knowledge organises in
        memory

Is it better to be told or to
      discover it for yourself?
• Novices learn best with explicit
  instruction and worked examples (the
  worked example effect)

• Experts learn best when direction is
  minimised (the imagination effect)

The problem with problem solving
“Solving a problem requires problem-solving
search and search must occur using our
limited working memory… Thus, problem-
solving search overburdens limited working
memory and requires working memory
resources to be used for activities that are
unrelated to learning. As a consequence,
learners can engage in problem-solving
activities for extended periods and learn
almost nothing.” Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006) p. 80

The expert
   Rapid retrieval helps
   deal with complexity

                                                Lots of
                                            relevant facts,
               Working
                                                similar
               memory           Long-term   examples and
                                 memory      experiences
Complex
problem,
 minimal
guidance             Learned
                     concepts

The novice
  Little useful to retrieve

                 Working
                 memory                            Few relevant
                                       Long-term
                                                      facts,
                                        memory
                                                   examples or
Complex                                            experiences
problem,
 minimal
guidance                 Learning
                         stops or is
                         negative

              Cognitive overload

The novice
    Little useful to retrieve

                   Working
                   memory                         Few relevant
                                      Long-term
                                                     facts,
                                       memory
                                                  examples or
  Guided                                          experiences
instruction

                           Learned
                           concepts

The curse of knowledge
• Try explaining how to do something you
  are skilled at to someone who is not
• ‘Tappers’ and ‘listeners’
• Listeners guessed correctly 3 out 120
  times.
• Tappers estimated listeners got over 50%
  right.
 Newton, E. (1990) “Overconfidence in the Communication
 of Intent: Heard and Unheard Melodies.”

Building motivation

Beginning of a
                                                 End of a
   course
                                                  course

Encode success              Promote             Independence
 Cognitive load          internalisation
 theory; Explicit     Desirable difficulties;
   instruction;      spacing, interleaving,
   modelling,         retrieval; Purposeful
   scaffolding              practice

Summary
1. Learning and performance are not the same
   thing; the goals of education are long-term

2. Working memory limits what can be learned;
   knowledge stored in long-term memory helps
   overcome the limits of working memory

3. We can be intensively engaged in something
   with little or no resulting change in long-term
   memory

4. If we want to motivate students success must
   precede struggle

There’s nothing good or bad
  but thinking makes it so.

          @DavidDidau
        learningspy.co.uk
       ddidau@gmail.com