Uncommon Sense Teaching — Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky, Terry Sejnowski

 

 ★★★★½

Summary: Uncommon Sense Teaching provides a framework for teaching based on rigorous research. It delves into techniques that can help make learning stick, like recall, alternating between focused and diffuse modes, and understanding the  interplay between the neocortex, the hippocampus, and working memory.

The book also outlines two distinct learning systems: the declarative pathway and the procedural pathway. The declarative pathway is deliberate, conscious, and explanatory. You use it when you describe a concept in stages, or solve a difficult math problem while talking through each step. The procedural pathway learns much more slowly, but is reflexive, and gives you much greater fluency in terms of knowledge or skill. Uttering a sentence in your native language or riding a bike are illustrative of the procedural pathway.

​Teaching that involves both pathways, or bounces back and forth between them, leads to better long-term learning. 

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Source: Uncommon Sense Teaching

​You can watch the webinar based on the book here.

Continue reading below to see some of my additional notes on the book. ​

How We Learn & Remember

Learning is the process of building connections between neurons. Long-term learning involves strengthening those connections. However, when students cram for a test or learn something the night before, knowledge enters into working memory and is promptly forgotten. It is only when students learn material actively across multiple sessions that strong neural links are built. 

Memory storage capacity in the brain is not a problem. We each have billions of neurons, which can form an outrageous number (1014) of connections. The problem for students is forming effective links in long-term memory (the neocortex), which is more of a challenge than developing temporary understanding in working memory.

One of the best tools for building durable neural connections is retrieval practice. It is not so much what you can cram into a student’s head as what you can have them produce and get out of their heads.

Source: Uncommon Sense Teaching

Teaching students how to use recall can pay off handsomely. They can jot down notes, draw sketches, or reproduce the concepts verbally with a friend to show that they’ve grasped the material.


Working Memory

Some students have incredible working memory capacities (race car brains), while others have below average ones (hiker brains). Race car brains can reach answers and conclusions rapidly, but fail to take in nuances along the way. Hiker brains arrive at the finish line more slowly, but perceive more detail. In this way, hiker brains often pick up on parts of a problem that race car brains miss.

Working memory is like an octopus juggling pieces of information (or “chunks”). Stronger working memories are like octopuses with more arms, while those with weaker working memories are like octopuses with fewer arms.  Trying to hold on to too many ideas at one time leads to dropping many, of not all, of the balls. 

In order to cater to students with diverse working memories, it helps to deliver instructions one at a time, pause between sets of instructions, and write down the information on a whiteboard.

The expertise reversal effect is this: as students gain more knowledge and proficiency, they are able to effectively consolidate more information into a single chunk, and can hold more relevant information in working memory. 

Differentiation is key to effective teaching. By catering instruction, assignments, and classroom work to each particular student’s ability and working memory capacity, you can help them progress at their own pace. 

At the heart of differentiation is scaffolding. By building supports for learners with limited working memories, you can help them develop proficiency that they can then use to reach more general learning goals.


Active Learning — Declarative vs. Procedural Pathways

Learning through the declarative pathway occurs faster, but is deliberate and methodical. When learning a language, it involves a structured approach that covers grammar, sentence patterns, and theory. When you are a beginner, this pathway is  useful for building an excellent foundation. 

The procedural pathway, on the other hand, is more reflexive, but is extremely slow to crystallize. When you produce a sentence in your native language or ride a bike as an experienced rider, you will often default to the procedural pathway. If you have ever driven home without consciously guiding yourself there, than you have experienced this procedural pathway at work. 

Source: Uncommon Sense Teaching

​You can learn through both pathways simultaneously. Once you are able to perform skills and manipulate concepts with fluency and automaticity, you have successfully transferred learning from declarative to procedural. 

A general rule: declarative memory develops through explanations, and procedural systems develop through practice.


Direct Learning 

Direct learning involves breaking larger subjects into bit sized chunks, and teaching them using an “I do/we do/you do” framework. Active learning opportunities are often interspersed throughout direct learning sessions.
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Source: Uncommon Sense Teaching

Interleaving 

Blocked practice isn’t the most effective strategy for learning. Studying a lot of the same—or similar—problems doesn’t develop strong, durable neural connections. Instead, you can vary student practice by giving them a range of different math problems to work on, have them hunt down many different literary devices throughout a text, or examine paintings—each one from a different artist. This type of learning may feel like more of a struggle to students, but it improves both the amount of progress and retention. This is an example of a desirable difficulty.

Concept attainment is linked to interleaving.

Meaningful hand gestures can help to encode the acquisition of new vocabulary words.

“Schemas are frameworks for learning, and the bigger they are, the easier it is to make them even bigger.”

“A schema is a set of neural shelves that holds together the different sets of links that a student is learning about a subject. Pre-existing schemas allow students to learn about a subject more easily.”

Habits for Learning

Engraining positive classroom habits lies largely in the domain of procedural memory. Setting up clear classroom expectations, assigning seats, and implementing other important procedures from day one can promote positive behaviour and enhance learning outcomes. 

Recognizing and reinforcing positive behaviours encourages motivation, and sends signals to those who aren’t complying with instructions.

Dopamine plays an important role in solidifying synaptic connections between neurons. Not only does it make you feel good, but it also gets produced in the brain when confronted with an unexpected reward (a phenomenon known as “reward prediction error”). You can use stretch breaks, praise, and other surprises to stimulate dopamine and promote new learning.

Brainstorming in groups leads to a reduction in newly generated ideas. A better way to brainstorm involves having students come up with ideas independently, and then working on together to augment them.