St. Cloud State University~ 2013 Stephen Carroll, PhD

Summary Reflections: ASAP – before sleeping What’s worth reviewing & remembering? For Best Results: Review Summary within 24 hours Notes on what’s being presented Thoughts & feelings that arise Summary: Date, Course, Topic This makes sense! Q: How does this connect with … ?

Students arrive in our classrooms knowing very little about the kinds of learning they are expected to do in college Much of what they do “know” is wrong Using the habits of learning they developed in high school leads to inefficient and ineffective learning Reduced performance caused by the inaptness of their learning habits creates motivation and engagement problems that further reduce their academic performance—and learning.

Teach students how to learn Metalearning Flight School is based on current research in cognitive science, the neurobiology of learning and learning theory Seven years worth of data and experience show that it makes a significant difference in students’ learning It’s especially effective in making students more self-motivated and more self-directed learners

This is not a miracle cure and it will be difficult at first. It will take you and your students a while to unlearn old habits and to develop new ones. (It takes ~21 days to break in a new habit.) What I can promise you is that if you teach your students how to learn, they will learn more, learn faster and retain what they learn longer—thus, your performance as faculty will increase as well. Start with one day—the first day of class, perhaps.

Motivate you to try metalearning techniques with your students to help them become more effective learners Provide you with theories, resources, tools and inspiration to help you develop your own metalearning lessons Provide you with tools to prove it works

1.Help students discover self-motivations for learning 2.Align their definitions of learning with ours (redefine learning) 3.Teach students how learning works and derive principles they can use to guide themselves 4.Derive strategies and tactics from principles (application) 5.Practice often to develop effective learning habits 6.Maintain those habits

Overcoming unhelpful beliefs about learning: Carol Dweck’s work on mindset Students who believe in innate talents and aptitudes don’t learn as well as those who believe improvement is possible So we need to prove to them improvement is always possible Overcoming unhelpful learning habits: Especially in the wake of NCLB, students are used to simply doing as they are told. They don’t expect to be responsible for or to direct their own learning. We need to break this habit quickly and forcefully. Part 1: Building Self-Motivated Learners

Start with the foundation and the goal Videos online through metalearninghabits.org learninghabits.wordpress.com and on our YouTube Youtube.com/user/learninghabits/videos Part 1: Building Self-Motivated Learners

Key Take-Aways: Get students to recognize that they have goals of their own and that these goals will require them to change who they are and how they think Get students to commit publically to their own learning goals for your course so that these goals can be used to guide and regulate classroom activities and behavior Show students how their current learning habits prevent them from attaining their goals

Places the burden of responsibility for learning on the student Connects students’ learning to their goals Helps them develop a practice of self-reflection and self- regulation in relation to metalearning Herbert Simon: “Learning takes place in the mind of the student and nowhere else, and the effectiveness of teachers lies in what they can induce students to do. -”What we Know about Learning, Journal of Engineering Education

What is learning? What does it mean to learn something? How can you tell when you’ve learned something? Part 2: Defining Learning

Knowing something Understanding something Being able to teach something Getting it Eureka! Making a connection to something new Insight Discovery Enlightenment Knowing that (vs. knowing how) Memorizing Being able to recall Remembering something Understanding the principles Seeing the logic Being able to extrapolate Seeing how it works Epiphany Part 2: Defining Learning

Being able to do something Knowing how Facility Doing it Mastering a procedure or process Increasing level of proficiency Following correct procedures Being able to use what I know Being able to apply something in a new situation Acquiring the knack of something Gains in craftsmanship Getting better at something Part 2: Defining Learning

Learning to like something Getting engaged Being inspired Being motivated Finding joy Wanting to do more Wanting to practice Looking for chances to use what I know Learning to love something Learning to see the beauty or complexity or artistry in something Learning to appreciate something Gaining confidence Becoming more interested in something Part 2: Defining Learning

Being able to do something without paying a lot of attention Doing things automatically Integrating what I know into my life Using what I know as a matter of course Knowing when to use what I've learned Ability to improvise based on what I already know Part 2: Defining Learning

How we define learning affects how we teach and shapes how students learn in our classes. Part 2: Defining Learning

Fueled by attitudes and desires (emotion) Supported by skills and understanding Part 2: Defining Learning

Teaching ≠ We want to move away from the learning-as- acquisition-of-facts and teaching-as-Sherwin- Williams model toward defining learning as durable habit formation and teaching as developing and mentoring self-directed learners.

Cross-lateral activity opens up the corpus callosum Gets more of your brain involved Balances the load Aids memory Makes learning easier

3-5 sentences in 3 minutes

Acquire new material Retain new material Transfer use of new material Acquire Retain Transfer

The A in ART is for Acquisition Mnemonic: Actively Build Connections Part 3: How Learning Works

2 pyramidal neurons forming a synapse Part 3: How Learning Works

Ideas are patterns of neural firing Part 3: How Learning Works

More complex ideas are more complex patterns—made up of smaller patterns Part 3: How Learning Works

Learning has the physical and metaphorical structure of an analogy. Therefore we must teach analogically, not de novo. “Nothing we learn can stand in isolation; we can sustain new learning only to the degree we can relate it to what we already know.” (Sci Am Mind, July 2010.)

Part 3: How Learning Works New Brain Cells Forming

Part 3: How Learning Works

Therefore, we must teach our students to seek challenge Always prefer the difficult over the routine or the easy Optimal learning occurs in “flow state”—midway between boredom and anxiety Analogy: crosswords and sudokus

Based on Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2002)

Habits of Acquisition (Making Connections) Note-Taking Reading strategies Paying attention/active learning Not multitasking Part 3: How Learning Works

R is RETAIN (Acronym) REview, Test, Analyze, INtegrate. Part 3: How Learning Works

Retention is controlled by Repetition and Chemistry

The importance of review within certain windows How to make review happen in the classroom Daily review at start of class Daily summaries at end of class Review summaries offline on a regular basis Repeated review is necessary for habit formation and transfer Frequent low-stakes quizzes Classroom mantras

Emotions How much and what kind of sleep you’re getting How much and what kind of exercise you’re getting Hydration and nutrition (including caffeine and alcohol) Physical cycles and rhythms Part 3: How Learning Works

Amygdalas Part 3: How Learning Works

Repetition and reinforcement Strong emotion Sleep (then review) Exercise Hydration and nutrition Richness of the learning and studying environments Part 3: How Learning Works

T is for Transfer (Bus transfer) Part 3: How Learning Works Transfer is taking what you know and applying it to what you don’t know. You can’t get there from here.

Transfer is about pattern recognition and Changing set It is the most difficult part of learning … and the least practiced! Students need to practice as much as possible Part 3: How Learning Works

1)Learning ONLY works when it is active and conscious. 2)Learning actively connects new ideas to old information. 3)Learning IS making connections/patterns. 4)Involving multiple senses enhances learning Part 3: How Learning Works

5)Learning works best if it requires real effort (if it is difficult). 6)Learning depends on managing emotions well. Positive emotions (especially self-motivation) accelerate learning by reducing resistance (electrically and metaphorically). Negative emotions (esp. fear and stress) block learning and recall. Part 3: How Learning Works

7)Varying your modes of learning (rich learning environment) increases activity, helps reinforce neural pathway development and moves what was learned to long-term memory. 8)Active repetition is the best way to create durable learning. (Moving things from short-term to long-term memory requires reinforcement within 24 hours.) Part 3: How Learning Works

3-5 sentences in 3 minutes

Exercise regularly— Moving blood and oxygen to your brain helps it work more effectively. (Making new brain cells is a huge metabolic load on the body.) The chemicals your body makes when you exercise help you make connections more easily. And taking your mind off of the mental work you’re doing helps you solve the problems you’re working on. (Eureka!) Part 4: Application

Make sure you are properly hydrated and nourished. If what you eat comes through a car window or if the label lists ingredients with numbers, it isn’t food. Hard mental work is equally taxing to the body as hard physical work—you have to nourish it to sustain peak performance. Water is key. Even a modest amount of dehydration decreases your reasoning ability by 20%. (Don’t overdo it—over-hydration also adversely affects cognition.) Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol Part 4: Application

Pay attention to your daily cycles and rhythms— you’re more awake and better able to learn at certain times than at others. Arrange your day so that you study during these times. Attention Cycle: Take breaks every 20 minutes so that you remain active and don’t go on autopilot. Do something physical and bilateral on your break. Study Cycle: Take a major break every 2 hours. Spend ten minutes on a different kind of task. Make sure you get up and move around. (Put an alarm on your phone to help you remember.) Part 4: Application

Get enough sleep— New research shows that mental performance drops off quite sharply if you don’t get at least six hours of sleep per night regularly. You cannot learn some things without this amount of sleep: long-chain reasoning problems, persistence, etc. Teenagers need 9-10 hours of sleep for optimum brain performance. You’ll perform better on the test if you are well-rested than if you have stayed up most of the night reviewing the material one more time. Part 4: Application

Sleep Cycle: 90 minutes. Minimum of 6 hours for optimum performance. (9- 10 hours for teenagers.) If you must do with less, you want to wake in the REM period at the end of the cycle, not a deep part of the cycle. The less sleep you get, the more important it is when you wake up. Part 4: Application

Sleep cycles: ~ 90 minutes/cycle Chart shows 7 hours of sleep 1273 REM If you wake up in these troughs, you’ll be tired and groggy all day. You’ll perform significantly less well on cognitive tasks. If you wake up in one of these peaks, you’ll feel rested and perform well. Part 4: Application

Sleep Cycles Plot your cycle so that you know how it works. Your period of maximum fatigue will fall 12 hours after the deepest period of sleep. Use the information-sorting function of sleep to help you solve problems. Focus on the problem you want to solve repeatedly as you fall asleep. Review in the morning. (Keep paper by the bed.) Lucid dreaming can also help you study. Adjust bedtime to the type of test you’re taking. Part 4: Application

Note-taking Reading strategies Finding analogies Seeking difficulty Classroom mantras Part 5: Practice

Part 6: Maintain

1.Dean’s List (Top 10% of each class) Juniors: ~40% of my students make this list Seniors: ~45% 2.Elected to honor societies: More than 3 times the rate of the general population. 3.Campus Leadership Positions: Significantly over-represented in peer tutoring, EMT group, editor of Santa Clara Review, etc. The quality of the work my students do now is better in every way than the work my students did before I started using these methods. Evidence that MetaLearning Works

The Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) Free Tools at

What Teachers Make