metacognition and students' learning process

This article from the Teaching Professor website discusses how active learning - engaged learning - needs to go hand-in-hand with students' meta-cognition of their own learning process. This is why I have been advocating the use of ePortfolios (or a learning portfolio) to enable students to think about how they learn in addition to why and what they learn. How did they come to a particular decision? How did they solve a particular problem? Why did a particular concept in the course give them difficulties and how did they overcome it? These are some of the issues that students need to consider in order to become actively engaged in their own learning and which, I believe, will produce deeper learning in students. Another way to think about this, is that students need to be supported in developing their own learning philosophy.

Resource

Weimer M. 2013. Three ways to help students become more metacognitively aware. Faculty Focus, Oct 10. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/three-ways-to-help-students-become-more-metacognitively-aware/

evidence that learning is better in smaller classes

So this is something that most of us intuitively know: class size impacts learning. Yet, I have never been able to find a peer-reviewed paper that explicitly states that better student learning outcomes occur with smaller classes. I finally found a review that does a meta-analysis of a number of published studies and comes to the conclusion that small class size produces a demonstrably better learning environment for our students (Cuseo 2007).

So what is the sweet spot for student learning? On this issue Joe Cuseo is carefully vague invoking the disparity of study methods. However, he goes out on a limb to state that his reading of the literature indicates that an enrolment of 15 students is probably as big as a class can get before student learning outcomes are adversely affected. Having stated that, he goes on to explain that this needs further study.

The major findings of Cuseo's meta-analysis are (these are the sub-headings in the first section of his paper):

1. Large class size increases faculty reliance on the lecture method of instruction.
2. Large classes reduce students’ level of active involvement in the learning process (and both Weimer 2013 and Ambrose et al 2010 have argued that active learning is key to improving student learning outcomes).
3. Large class size reduces the frequency and quality of instructor interaction with and feedback to students.
4. Large-class settings reduce students’ depth of thinking inside the classroom.
5. Large class size limits the breadth and depth of course objectives, course assignments, and course-related learning outside the classroom.
6. Students’ academic achievement (learning) and academic performance (grades) are lowered in courses with large class size.
7. Students report less course satisfaction in large-sized classes.
8. Students give lower overall ratings (evaluations) for course instruction delivered in large classes.

The problem with finding #1 is that it has been shown that didactic lectures are not really good for anything else other than information transfer (Bligh 1998). Finding #2 is a problem because there is much evidence indicating that increased student engagement and active learning positively impacts student learning outcomes (Weimer 2013, Amborse et al 2010). Granted, there are methods of active learning that can be employed with large classes to ameliorate these problems (see the resources below by Weimer 2013, Ambrose et al 2010, Bain 2004, and Bligh 1998). Finding #3 above is corroborated by another meta-analysis of the literature showing that instructor-student relationships impact student learning outcomes in a manner characterized as person-centered teaching (Cornelius-White 2007). Attending to the the relationship with their students is something that has been observed to be the practice of the best instructors (Bain 2004). Relatedly, I also wonder how the size of a class impacts the ability of an instructor to motivate their students. Christensen and Menzel (1998) found that both verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviours of instructors impacts students' perceived learning.

So for those of us who have experienced the joy of the seminar and the pain of the lecture theater, you now have a review of the published literature that shows that seminar sized classes are the better learning environment for students.

Resources

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Bain, K. (2004). What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bligh, D. A. (1998). What’s the Use of Lectures? 5th ed. Exeter: Intellect.

Christensen, L. J., & Menzel, K. E. (1998). The linear relationship between student reports of teacher immediacy behaviors and perceptions of state motivation, and of cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning. Communication Education, 47(1), 82–90.

Cornelius-White, J. (2007). Learner-centered teacher-student relationships are effective: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 113–143.

Cuseo, J. (2007). The empirical case against large class size: Adverse effects on the teaching, learning, and retention of first-year students. The Journal of Faculty Development, 21(1), 5–21. 

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice, 2nd ed.. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

to provide instructor's notes to students or not: that is the question.

Today is a guest post about whether or not to provide students with the instructor's notes. I have had student requests for this in the past but have always resisted on the grounds that it is the process not the product that promotes student learning. Giving students my set of notes does nothing to encourage the construction of their own knowledge structure. However, similar to Jeffery Stowell at  Eastern Illinois University, I do provide students with copies of the slideshows that I use during class because they are incomplete - I develop them during the course of the class. Students have indicated that this allows them to to stay on course during the class while still needing to be engaged with the flow of the conversation.

Below is what Jeffrey provides his students at the beginning of the courses he teaches. It provides a scholarly rationale for why he does not give students a complete set of notes. This was posted on the PSYCHTEACHER@list.kennesaw.edu discussion forum and was forwarded to me by a Psychology colleague . When I read it I contacted Dr. Stowell requesting permission to repost it here. He gladly gave his blessing.

"Why I Provide Partial PowerPoint Notes"

Jeffrey R. Stowell

Eastern Illinois University

1)      Students with partial notes (before the days of PowerPoint) did better on an essay exam than students who received full notes (Annis, 1981). In contrast, students who were provided a text outline of PowerPoint slides did more poorly than a comparable class without the outlines (Weatherly, Grabe, & Arthur, 2003). However, in a study looking at full versus partial PowerPoint notes, there was no difference in quiz or exam scores (Stark-Wroblewski, Kreiner, Clause, Edelbaum, & Ziser, 2006), which was similar to results by Vandehey, Marsh, and Diekhoff (2005) who found no effect of providing full notes on grades or attendance compared to providing partial notes or student-generated notes. Comparing partial PowerPoint notes to no instructor-provided notes, there was no difference in student attendance or grades (Bowman, 2009).  Yet, another study showed that students assigned to receive partial PowerPoint notes did better than those receiving full notes on conceptual exam questions (much like mine) and final grades (Cornelius & Owen-DeSchryver, 2008).  Although students like having PowerPoint notes available (Frank, Shaw, & Wilson, 2009), there appears to be no significant benefit of providing full lecture notes compared to partial notes. In fact, providing full lecture notes may have harmful effects on attendance or grades.  An additional review of the benefits of providing partial notes is found on page 74-75 of the book "Applying Science of Learning in Education" (http://teachpsych.org/Resources/Documents/ebooks/asle2014.pdf).

2)      Partial notes are a nice balance between instructor- and student-generated notes.  Students who come to class can take additional notes on material not included in the PowerPoint outline. Regardless of the detail provided in the notes, attending class will generally result in a higher grade for the course.

3)      Also, please consider that the PowerPoint slides contain copyrighted materials that I may not be authorized to share publicly.

References

Annis, L. F. (1981). Effect of preference for assigned lecture notes on student achievement. Journal of Educational Research, 74(3), 179-182.

Bowman, L. L. (2009). Does posting PowerPoint presentations on WebCT affect class performance or attendance? Journal of Instructional Psychology, 36(2), 104-107.

Cornelius, T. L., & Owen-DeSchryver, J. (2008). Differential effects of full and partial notes on learning outcomes and attendance. Teaching of Psychology, 35(1), 6 - 12.

Frank, J., Shaw, L., & Wilson, E. (2009). The impact of providing web-based PowerPoint slides as study guides in undergraduate business classes. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 37(2), 217-229.

Stark-Wroblewski, K., Kreiner, D. S., Clause, C. B., Edelbaum, J., & Ziser, S. B. (2006). Does the generation effect apply to PowerPoint handouts? Psychology and Education: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 43(2), 28-37.

Vandehey, M. A., Marsh, C. M., & Diekhoff, G. M. (2005). Providing students with instructors' notes: Problems with reading, studying, and attendance. Teaching of Psychology, 32(1), 49-52.

Weatherly, J. N., Grabe, M., & Arthur, E. I. L. (2003). Providing introductory psychology students access to lecture slides via Blackboard 5: A negative impact on performance. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 31(4), 463-474.

changing the learning paradigm

Maryellen Weimer published a great post yesterday on her Teaching Professor Blog: "She didn't teach. We had to learn it ourselves." She discusses the comments that a colleague recently received on her end-of-term student evaluations and suggested that this is a result of student-centered learning or active learning in which students are given more responsibility for their learning. Comments such as this typically arise because students resist shouldering this responsibility. However, Weimer suggests that instructors could do a better job of unpacking the teaching and learning strategy used in the course so that students might better understand why they are shouldering the burden of their own learning - teachers cannot learn the material for students. If students understand the reasons for the implementation of a particular teaching and learning strategy they are more likely to accept responsibility for their own learning and more deeply engage in the learning environment. 

I have also received this sort of comment on my student course evaluations when I have used the teaching strategy Team-Based Learning. Some students felt that I had abdicated my teaching responsibilities when I didn't lecture every class and instead had students doing work (under my guidance) during class. I thought I had explained why I was using the teaching strategy and presented the data suggesting that deeper learning happens with collaborative active learning. What I have read over the past summer, and am reminded of again by Weimer's post is that as instructors we need to constantly be explicit about our teaching strategies and about the metacognitive development that is happening in our students as a result. The objective of every educator, I am sure, is to produce independent self-regulated learners that are no longer reliant on instructors to tell them what is the right and wrong way to do things. But this is something that requires work on the part of both learners and instructors in the sense that teachers must resist the easy way out and not give students the answers they seek instead guiding them to produce their own answers. And for their part students must be patient and understand that learning is hard difficult applied work and is not easy, quick, or simple.

Otherwise we graduate students who are unable to contextualise situations resulting in an inability to think on their feet when conditions change. As instructors we have an obligation to develop students intellectual ability.