A305: Week 5 Deep Learning in the Long Run

Goals for Today (+ Section) Understand/analyze/reflect: What conditions or experiences are needed to build deep learning over the long term? Consolidate learning from the first five weeks of the class Synthesize/create: Develop an analysis of our own data on deep learning Integrate existing literature, personal experience, and our research into a theory of deep learning

Plan: Three Parts Part I: How do people become deep learners? An A305 Investigation (1:10 – 3:30) Part II: Consolidation: Integrating the First Five Weeks (3:30 – 4:00) Part III: Section Continue discussion of relationship between expertise, motivation, deep learning, and building healthy human beings!

Deeper Learning: Cognitive Dimensions Knowledge is integrated, connected Learner has a cognitive schema that allows for the incorporation of new knowledge Knowledge can be transferred and applied Learner can develop or create new knowledge Knowledge is fragmented and disconnected New knowledge is not incorporated into a schema Knowledge cannot be transferred or applied Learner can only receive existing knowledge Deeper Learning Not Deeper Learning

Deeper Learning: Affective Dimensions Student as worker; teacher as coach Real world standards of quality applied Authentic problems and questions Engagement and potentially flow Teacher as referee Standards come solely from tests Inauthentic problems and questions Boredom Do Promote Deeper Learning Do Not Promoting Deeper Learning

Deeper Learning: Themes and Questions from Race and Class Discussions Large differences across tracks in degree to which students are asked to question and interrogate Advantaged students being taught to manage the factory; working class students to work at the factory? Delpit: Are we trying to help students acquire the culture of power, but also to code switch? Is asking minority students to do the things we think of as deeper learning bringing them into a space from which they were excluded, or is it imposing values and culture upon them? When do we want to teach, in the more traditional sense, and when do we want to pose questions and problems?

New Inputs This Week Formal and informal learning environments Seminal work on expertise Seminal work on motivation: autonomy, competence, relatedness Bloom: How these things come together in the long run

Redesigning the Ed School How Do People Become Deep Learners? An A305 Investigation

Overview of the Process Begin with our data Goal: Use qualitative research to develop our own theories of deeper learning. Steps: Divide into teams of 5 Look at proposed questions and revise together Each member interviews a member of another team Each member is interviewed by a member of another team Take notes into word doc to capture interview Share notes across your team Code data: Identify themes using post-its Develop theory Share, gallery walk, reflect

Step 1: Developing Your Questions (10 minutes) Two tasks for you: 1. Prioritize the questions. Which 5-6 do you want to be sure to ask? 2: What’s missing? Are there important dimensions that you think might be important in developing deep understanding in the long run, that are not captured here? If so, how could you ask about them? Tips Ask open-ended questions, not yes/no questions Avoid leading questions – don’t make presumptions in the question.

Step 2: Interviewing (15 minutes each) Tips Seek balance between hitting your prioritized questions, and following the interview where it leads Listen, listen, listen – and think in real time, to ask follow ups

Step 3: Coding the Data: Reading and Looking For Themes (20 minutes) 1. Cut and paste the interviews into a google doc 2. Read the data 3. Look for themes/ingredients that were important in these deeper learning trajectories. Write each one on a separate post-it note. Do this individually and silently.

Step 4: Analyzing the Data and Developing a Theory (20 minutes) Analyzing the Data 1. Sort the data into clumps that tie to larger themes 2. Put those larger themes on larger post-its Developing a theory: Put your categories in relations with each other 3. Try to develop one or more theory of deep learning? What leads to what? Put in some arrows. Are these factors necessary? Sufficient? How should we think about whether they will or will not lead to deep learning?

Step 5: Pair – Share (10 minutes) 1. Share your theory with another group 2. Were they similar or different, and in what ways? 3. What accounts for those differences?

Debrief and Reflect (Back in Own Group, 10 minutes) Discuss How did what you came up with support, challenge, or connect to the ideas in the readings? To what degree should developing people who are really good at particular things be the goal of K-12 education? How did your research process affect your results?

Consolidation I: Content 1.Which readings or ideas have been most striking to you, in that they have either confirmed or challenged previously held ideas? Share in the form of: I used to think…, now I think …, and then say why Listening protocol: 2 minutes both reflect/take notes 2 minutes one talks, other listens 2 minutes switch talker and listener 2 minutes -- discuss

Consolidation II: Methods Some of the things we’ve done in this class thus far are: Problem-based learning – Map of why not more deep learning Analysis of primary sources – Videos as text for discussion; examination of Dan’s HTH lessons Creation (as opposed to analysis) – Biology lesson; deep learner investigation Digging deeper on same topic – Same bio lesson, new lens Peer feedback – Bio lessons; deep learner investigation Qualitative research using original interviews – Deep learner investigation Project-based learning – Final project (just started) Learning from real-world experts – Dan Wise Teacher-led discussion – A number of topics Previewing of topics; connecting to previous weeks – Beginning of each week Socratic seminar/Harkness tables – sections Online discussion -- sections Reflection/integration/consolidation – this exercise Which helped your learning most? Least? Why? Was it the pedagogical method or the content, or the fit between the topic and what you were thinking? This time, 3 minutes to take notes, drop briefly into feedback form, and then we’ll do some whole group share outs.