Mobile phones for learning – The world in your pocket

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The statistics are striking, there are 5.44 billion mobile phone users in the world, that means that 68% of the world’s population have one. 92.3 % use their phone to go online at least some of the time, and mobile phones now account for more than 56.9 % of our online time.

This is according to Datareportals Digital around the world report 2023. It means that pretty much everyone in the West will have a mobile, as will most people studying over the age of 10. I say 10 because a recent BBC report stated that in the UK smartphone ownership rises from 44% at age 9 to 91% by the age of 11.

This means we have access to the world in our pocket and as a consequence the worlds knowledge.

“Mobile phones are misnamed. They should be called gateways to human knowledge. Ray Kurzweil, computer scientist.

Mobile phones and learning
We might have access to the worlds knowledge but as readers of this blog will know, having knowledge is not the same as learning. To solve this conundrum we need to start thinking of the mobile phone as a domain, a place to go when you want to learn, and less as somewhere that simply stores knowledge. As an analogy, If a book is knowledge, the library is the domain. But as a learning domain the mobile phone has limitations in particular in terms of screen size, the implication being learning has to be designed to be effective on a small screen.

But aren’t mobile phones bad? – Before exploring how we might improve the way we use mobile phones for learning we should probably address some of the concerns many have about them. They can become additive which perhaps unsurprisingly has been proven to result in lower grades. In addition they are a distraction, this study concluded that there was “a significant negative relationship between total time spent using smartphones and academic performance”. However, the researchers went on to say that having a mobile in class was not in itself the problem, it’s how and when it was used. The learning loss is more a result of us not being wired to multi task, and whilst we may think we can check a message on our phone and pay attention, we can’t.

“Smartphone is definitely smarter than us to be able to keep us addicted to it.” Munia Khan, author.

This brings us to one of those often-quoted statements, that technology is neither good or evil, its how people choose to use it. Also, I’m talking here not so much about a mobile devise used in and around the classroom but very much outside of it. Even to the extent where there is no classroom and studying is completely remote and online.

Mobile first learning
Luke Wroblewski who is now a Product Director at Google came up with the idea of mobile first in 2009. The concept is simple, you should design for the mobile platform first and then scale the experience for use elsewhere. It has led to a whole series of instructional design ideas:

  • Keep content short and focused (microlearning) – We have come across the concept of chunking before and it is implicit that if you want content that is short and focused it has to be chunked. The idea is that by keeping each segment short it allows the learner to complete some of the lessons in just a few minutes as well as reducing cognitive load.
  • Design for the small screen – Content layout, graphics, and text should all be imagined in terms of what they will look like on a mobile devise.
  • Build in social features – Mobile is dominant in the social space, very few people use anything other than a mobile to communicate with friends, think Snapchat, What’s App and Instagram. Any learning domain should certainly include a space where learners can share ideas and keep in touch.
  • Gamification/Game Mechanics – One of the problems with online learning in general is maintaining engagement, but games and gamification, the use of points, badges and leader boards are excellent in terms of holding attention and were made for mobile devises.
  • Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR & AR) – In the last three or four years, VR and AR have found their way onto mobile devices and into the wider online learning space. And although VR works best with a headset, AR is a good fit with mobile, allowing us to view the real world through a mobile screen whilst the technology augments what we see, bringing in new information and ideas. Examples would include Pokémon but more recently IKEA have developed IKEA place where you can overlay pictures of furniture into your own home and in education, look directly inside the human body to learn more about the anatomy.

 Learning in the flow of learning…….

“You can’t teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.” Seymour Papert, mathematician, computer scientist, and educator.

Lessons for learners
A mobile phone is an amazing technology, its effectively a wearable devise that you take everywhere. It makes it possible to access huge amounts of knowledge that if structured properly using good instructional design can be a very effective way to learn. There are also so many different ways in which this knowledge can be consumed in addition to a full course for example podcasts, videos, specific apps such as Duolingo, short tests, and quizzes. However not everything works well on a mobile, reading large amounts of text on a small screen is difficult, takes more time, is not especially engaging and there is some evidence to prove it lowers reading comprehension.

Your mobile can be used to learn outside of the classroom ultimately because it makes learning both convenient and accessible, but one word of warning, don’t forget whose in control!

“It is okay to own a technology, what is not okay is to be owned by technology.” – Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan, Neuroscientist and author.

Top Gun: Maverick or a Study With Me Video?

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I like to think I’m reasonably up to date with what’s happening, especially when it comes to studying and learning but I have to confess I have only recently come across what are called “study with me videos”, which have actually been around for more than 5 years. Study with me videos are exactly what they say they are, a type of video in which people prepare for an exam on camera, while others watch and study at the same time, it’s literally a video of someone studying, either live streamed or recorded.

Before we go any further its worth taking a look at some of these videos.

Firstly, Thomas Frank who describes himself as a video creator and writer with a focus on productivity, learning, and personal development. Thomas has a huge following on YouTube with nearly three million subscribers, although he offers far more than just study with me videos, here is one of his, a  25-Minute Pomodoro Session.

Secondly a Korean YouTuber who broadcasts under the name of “the man sitting next to me”. In Korean they call making these video gongbang, which translates to “study broadcast”. Normally the man sitting next to me live streams but here is a recording with a background rain sound effect thrown in for good measure.

And thirdly Jamie Lee, who lives in New York and has a YouTube channel called “The Strive to Fit.” She started her channel when she was in medical school but even though she has now qualified as a doctor she continues to broadcast. Unlike The Man Sitting Next to Me, Jamie’s “study with me” video are pre-recorded. Two clips from Jamie, the first a typical study session, with background music, its already had 1.3 million views, and secondly a get to know me video where Jamie answers questions.

What purpose do they serve?

As you can see from these videos each person has their own individual style with some streaming live whilst others are pre-recorded and slightly more professional with music, the sound of rain or pen on paper etc. As a slight aside if you just want the background noise and a relaxing scene, here are a few more videos, an ancient library with a roaring fire, a cosy library with jazz playing in the background and heavy rain that will apparently help you throw away that stress.

But what’s the point of these videos, why do people find them helpful?

  • Motivational and help with feelings of isolation – the YouTubers who make these videos are all students, they are therefore by definition the same as the people watching, and if they can sit down for two and a half hours and study, I guess you can do the same. Rather than getting in with a “bad crowd” you’re in with the good guys, they are hardworking, studious, and ambitious, their behaviour and attitude can and does rub off. This is consistent with Albert Banduras social learning theory, where he discovered that when people observe others they begin to model and imitate their behaviours. In addition, these are communities, comments are made underneath the videos by the many students that watch them, reminding you that you are not alone, and that others are feeling the same pressures. These YouTubers often connect on a personal level, by explaining why they work so hard and sharing details of their personal lives, successes and failures. To all intents and purpose, they are your study buddy.
  • Excellent for time management – the Pomodoro technique, which was mentioned above is where you break your studying down into short 25-minute sessions, these videos work very much in the same way by helping manage your time.  In fact, as you saw in the Thomas Frank video, he actually studies for exactly 25 minutes. There is also some evidence to show that studying like this in short bursts helps with memory and improved attention.
  • An inspiring learning environment – environment plays an important when it comes to learning, having a physical location where you study can get you into the right mood as soon as you enter it. It’s one of the reasons people go to a library, you know that before you walk through those doors what you are there for and need to do. As a result, when you sit down at your desk open up your laptop and put on your study with me video, it’s time to start work.
  • Good study practice – in addition to producing the study with me videos many YouTubers will offer up study tips such as how to use mind maps, memory skills, effective note taking etc.   
  • But the research shows that silence is the best – it may be that the sound of rain or the scribbles of a pen on paper help you feel less isolated, almost all of the research in this area has shown that problem solving and memory recall tasks are performed better in silence. As a result, there may be a time when you would be best just turning the sound down.
  • They help the YouTuber as well – most of those making these videos acknowledge that because they feel a responsibility to their fellow students it motivates them to study as well.

One final observation about these videos they are not collaborative in the sense that students work together in order to solve a problem, that’s just not what they are trying to achieve.  

But which one is best, Top Gun or study with me videos?

In the interests of balance, here is the trailer for Top Gun: Maverick for you to decide for yourself.  

Let’s chat about ChatGPT – WOW!

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If you have not heard of ChatGPT, where have you been since November 30th when it was launched by OpenAI the company that developed what is fast becoming a groundbreaking technology. Since then, it’s been making waves, everyone is talking about and using it. In the first week alone over 1,000,000 people had subscribed to what is for the time being at least, free. OpenAI was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and Sam Altman, although Musk stepped down from the board in February 2018 to avoid any conflict with Tesla.

Originally a “not for profit”, in 2019 it became a “capped for-profit”, meaning in this instance that investors can’t earn more than 100 times their investment. And just to give some idea of scale, OpenAI expects to generate $200 million in revenue next year and $1 billion by 2024.

Its mission is simple, yet as you might imagine ambitious – to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

In contrast here is Googles mission – to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

But what is ChatGPT? – To find an answer to this question, we can actually ask ChatGPT, however before we do there are some points worth noting. ChatGPT is not a search engine unlike Google, it’s not even connected to the internet, in fact the data sets used to train it haven’t been updated since the end of 2021. You will find this out if you ask anything relatively topical, for example, who won the World Cup this year, it will say….

“I’m sorry, but I am not able to provide information about events that have occurred after my knowledge cut-off in 2021”.

The answers appear in real time in a suitably bot like fashion, but what makes it really interesting is that it uses Generative AI, which enables it to start with existing content but from that produce something new and original, let me clarify, its not simply taking content from somewhere else, its creating new and original stuff.

ChatGPT is a variant of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) language model developed by OpenAI for use in chatbots and conversational systems. It is able to generate human-like text in real-time and understand the context of a conversation, allowing it to generate appropriate responses based on the topic being discussed. ChatGPT is also efficient and fast, making it ideal for use in chatbot applications where fast response times are important. It is able to handle a wide variety of tasks, including answering questions, providing information, and engaging in casual conversation.

The above was the answer provided by ChatGPT when asked for a definition within 90 words. In fact everything in purple and italics in this blog has been taken directly from ChatGPT.

How does it learn?
Once again let’s ask ChatGPT, after all why should I do all the hard work.

ChatGPT uses a type of machine learning called supervised learning. In supervised learning, the model is trained on a labeled dataset, where the correct output is provided for each input. The model is then able to make predictions for new, unseen data based on the patterns it learned during training. too train ChatGPT, a large dataset of text is fed into the model, and the model is then trained to predict the next word in a sequence based on the words that come before it. Through this process, the model learns to recognize patterns in language and generate coherent text. The more data the model is trained on, the better it becomes at generating natural-sounding text and understanding the relationships between words and concepts

In summary, the model is initially trained by humans (The labeller), this is the supervised stage. It is then able to provide multiple answers to a question of which the trainer ranks in terms of quality, this is the reinforcement stage which provides more data for the model. And lastly, reward models are created that automatically reward the model for getting it right, the unsupervised stage.

It might be easier to think of it in the same way as you would if learning to ride a bike, for example firstly someone shows you how to ride a bike, (supervised) secondly you have a go and are given feedback in order to improve (reinforcement) and finally, if you ride for 5 minutes, you will be rewarded with £5.00, fall off and you get nothing. (Reward model – unsupervised).

Clever… but what are the implications?
We are at one of those “genie out of the bottle” moments, when something that you thought might happen in the future becomes a reality today. As a consequence, we start to ask questions such as, is this technology good or bad, what will it mean for jobs and the future of work? If it can produce high quality answers to questions, how can we tell if it’s the student’s work or simply the result of an exercise in cut and paste? And because it can write poems, stories and news articles, how can you know if anything is truly original, think deep fake but using words. By way of an example, here is a limerick I didn’t write about accountants.

There once was an accountant named Sue
Who loved numbers, they were her clue
She worked with great care
To balance the ledger with great flair
And made sure all the finances were true

Okay it might need a bit of work but hopefully you can see it has potential.

We have however seen this all before when other innovative technologies first appeared, for example, the motor car, the development of computers and more recently mobile phones and the internet. The truth is they did change how we worked and resulted in people losing their jobs, the same is almost certainly going to be the case with ChatGPT. One thing is for sure, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. Melvin Kranzberg’s first law of technology

And for learning
There have already been some suggesting that examinations should no longer be allowed to be sat remotely and that Universities should stop using essays and dissertations to asses performance.

However, ChatGPT is not Deep thought from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy nor Hal from 2001 a Space Odyssey, it has many limitations. The answers are not always correct, the quality of the answer is dependent on the quality of the question and as we have already seen, 2022 doesn’t exist at the moment.

There are also some really interesting ways in which it could be used to help students.

  • Use it as a “critical friend”, paste your answer into ChatGPT and ask for ways it might be improved, for example in terms of grammar and or structure.
  • Similar to the internet, if you have writers block just post a question and see what comes back.
  • Ask it to generate a number of test questions on a specific subject.
  • Have a conversation with it, ask it to explain something you don’t understand.

Clearly it should not be used by a student to pass off an answer as their own, that’s called cheating but it’s a tool and one that has a lot of potential if used properly by both students and teachers.

Once upon a time, sound was new technology. Peter Jackson filmmaker

PS – if you are more interested in pictures than words check out DALL·E 2, which allows anyone to create images by writing a text description. This has also been built by OpenAI.

What the heck is Neurodiversity?

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Firstly a few definitions, Neurodiversity is a term used to describe the spectrum of differences that exist as to the way brains function differently from each other. Neurodivergent refers to an individual who processes information differently to what might be considered standard or typical.

“I am a very slow reader. I have to have things written in a pithy way.” Matt Hancock, Dyslexic.

Most people are classed as Neurotypical, meaning they process information in a manner that would be considered typical. In terms of behaviour, they tend to learn skills and reach developmental milestones around the same time as others. These words are chosen carefully to avoid using ‘normal’ and as a consequence ‘abnormal’. This is not about being politically correct but highlights that the differences can result in both positives and negatives depending on the circumstances.

By way of an example of what processing differently looks like watch this video of Stephen Wiltshire, MBE, the British architectural artist who was diagnosed with autism when he was 3.

Neurodiverse conditions
There are a whole range of different Neurodiverse conditions, they include Dyslexia, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Dyspraxia. In terms of how diverse we are as a nation it is estimated that more that 15% of the UK population are Neurodivergent in some way with the most common being dyslexia at around 10%, followed by ADHD.

“Being dyslexic, I was told that I was an idiot all the time.” David Bailey (Photographer), Dyslexic.

I am going to focus on dyslexia because it’s the one most people have heard of but for completeness here are further details of the Neurodiverse conditions mentioned above.

  • Dyslexia, primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent reading of words and spelling.
  • ADHD is behavioural resulting in people being restless, struggling to concentrate and having a tendency to be impulsive.
  • ASD, as the name suggests is a spectrum, with people experiencing a wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms. The main ones being difficulty with social communication and interaction, and restricted, repetitive behaviours or interests.
  • Dyspraxia affects movement and co-ordination.

“I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read.” Tom Cruise, Dyslexic.

What’s happening in the dyslexic brain
Like many other Neurodiverse conditions dyslexia results from the way in which the brain processes information. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has provided us with a unique picture as to what is happening in the dyslexic brain, for example we know that when people who are dyslexic read, a different part of their brain is activated. The main problem with the commonest form of dyslexia, phonological dyslexia is that the brain finds it difficult to recognise phonemes, these are the basic sounds of speech, for example the C in Cat is a phoneme. The impact is that it’s hard for the brain to connect the sound with the letter which in turn makes recognising words problematic. Unfortunately, in the time it takes to make the connection, comprehension is lost and the learner falls behind, creating the impression that they are slow and not very clever!

“Being diagnosed with dyslexia at age 60 was like the last part of the puzzle in a tremendous mystery that I’ve kept to myself all these years. “Steven Spielberg,” Dyslexic.

What causes Dyslexia
Knowing what is actually happening inside the brain of someone with dyslexia is interesting but there is perhaps a more pressing question, why do some people have it and others do not? Most of the evidence points to a genetic connection with some suggesting that if a parent has dyslexia there is a 40% to 60% chance of their children also being dyslexic. The risk is increased if the condition is known to exist in the wider family. That said the degree to which anyone is impacted is less well known and it may be relatively mild and as a result will go undetected. Environmental factors are also believed to play a part, these include the mother’s health during pregnancy and poor diet.

“Both my sons are dyslexic, and so, too, in a much milder form, is one of my daughters.” Theo Paphitis, Dyslexic.

At this point I did intend to add that dyslexia is two to three times more prevalent in males, however this is not universally accepted and there seems to be some contradictory research so I will leave that one for now.

“I suffer from severe dyslexia. I was the only child on my block on Halloween to go ‘trick or trout’ … Here comes that young William’s boy. Better get some fish. ” Robin Williams, Dyslexic.

What can you do?
Should you get a formal diagnosis, well maybe and it could be necessary especially if you want to get extra time in an exam. A diagnostic assessment for dyslexia is carried out by experienced specialist teachers and psychologists across the UK. The British Dyslexic Association (BDA) quotes an average fee for a specialist teacher of £515 and for a Psychologist £670 although there are cheaper options available. But if you just want to know a little more there are many free checklists or screening options, here is one from the BDA.

However, if you are a slow reader, have difficulty spelling, need to re-read paragraphs to better understand them and confuse similar words such as dog and dug then maybe you have enough information. Whatever route you choose for diagnosis, below are some positive steps that can help improve how you learn.

  • Do not use dyslexia as an excuse, it’s not who you are, nor a reason as to why you can’t succeed.
  • Recognise that dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence, it’s a processing of information problem.
  • You may find that podcasts and other forms of audio recordings are an easier way of taking in information. You can also listen to them several times.
  • Ask for and use dyslexic friendly fonts. In a classic study, fonts that were found easier to read were Sans Serif fonts, such as Arial and Comic Sans with a font size of 12-14 point, another key takeaway was that italicising words severely decreases its readability.
  • Make lists and produce notes in a bullet style format. Also consider using more visual techniques such as mind maps and diagrams.
  • Allow for the fact that it will take you more time, tell yourself that slow is better.
  • Consider dyslexic tools such as coloured overlays, there are also many great apps out there that can help such as Voice Dream Reader which lets you listen to any document and ebook using text-to-speech.

The overall message is that we all process information in different ways, but a traditional school environment does not favour those with Neurodivergent traits. However, take full advantage of all the support and remember school may not be your best event in the “decathlon of life” but there will be other events at which you can and will excel.

I would like to thank two of my Kaplan colleagues Abbi Nolan and Kirsty Gibson for sharing their expertise and inspiring me to find out more about this fascinating subject.

The Metaverse and Learning – Blue or Red pill?

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Getting to grips with the Metaverse is one thing, attempting to figure out if you should take the blue or red pill and enter it as either a learner or educator is another. Which is my way of saying, this is a big, complicated gnarly subject and getting a definitive answer highly unlikely, partly because the Metaverse doesn’t exist just yet and as a result we have little or no evidence to prove its effectiveness either way.

However, maybe we could get some insight by looking at the component parts and imagining its potential.

A Virtual world
Although we need to define the Metaverse, to help better understand it let’s start with what a virtual world is. Here is what Stanford University have to say “A virtual world is a computer-simulated representation of a world with specific spatial and physical characteristics, and users of virtual worlds interact with each other via representations of themselves called avatars.” In 1994 Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino explained how you get from a real environment (world) to a virtual one in four stages, firstly, the real one followed by Augmented (AR) then Virtual (VR), finally ending up in the virtual environment.

Reality may not be the best of all possible worlds, but it’s still the only place where you can get a decent steak. Woody Allen

The Metaverse is a virtual world that has transitioned from the real one using technologies like AR and VR but has as a result become something more. *The Metaverse does not simply combine the physical and virtual worlds, instead it is a continuity of the physical world in the virtual one, to create an ecosystem that merges both (Physical and virtual). In other words, it is a brand-new world that is as engaging and important as the real one. Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) says that it is a world of endless and interconnected virtual communities, where people can meet each other, work together, play games and more. He sees it as the successor to the internet, an invention that changed all lives by allowing people to be online (in a virtual world) from anywhere and for as long as they would like.

“In simplest terms, the Metaverse is the internet, but in 3D” – Ed Greig, Chief Disruptor, Deloitte Digital

Take a look at how Meta see education in the Metaverse and check out the original promotional video in which Mark Zuckerberg “appears” in order to introduce the world to his new creation.

Changes in the environment change behaviour
There is of course another aspect to being in a virtual world, it is a different environment, and because of that it can have an impact on what you do and how you feel. It is well recognised that spending time in nature, a different environment to the one I am in just now as I write this blog, helps with mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. We also know that in some instances the brain finds it difficult to differentiate between what is reality and what is imagined. When these two ideas are combined it becomes possible to understand how a realistic virtual immersive environment could change levels of motivation, confidence and even beliefs. After all, don’t people behave differently online when using social media tools such as Twitter, being unknown in a virtual world is like a cloak of invisibility, you can be whoever you want and say and do whatever you like without any consequence!

Learning in the Metaverse
In terms of learning, the Metaverse like many technologies or learning environments, is neither good nor bad. Whilst some are sceptical and express concerns about loss of identity, hate and cybercrime, security, and privacy, others are excited and want to take advantage of the learning opportunities, here are a few.

High levels of engagement – Much is made of the term “immersive” when talking about the Metaverse, it means that you are surrounded by and become part of the environment. This can be incredibly powerful when it comes to learning resulting in high levels of excitement, motivation and engagement.

Real life skill development – The metaverse provides a safe environment in which you can practice skill development. This is particularly valuable where mistakes can be made that might be upsetting or result in significant cost and even death. Here are a few examples from an article by the World Bank. Note this is not the Metaverse but examples of VR and games-based simulations that would be part of its ecosystem.

High risk – Pharmaceutical industry leader Novartis had to quickly train 100’s of people on best practice production and procedures for a new leukaemia treatment. They had limited physical training labs and subject matter experts to train people in skills where mistakes have life and death consequences.

Not so much life and death but perception, how to see the organisation through your customers eyes. This was the challenge facing Fortune 200 healthcare leader DaVita.

Developing soft skills – Practising communication, decision making and emotional intelligence.

A virtual University campus – A virtual campus has the potential to make a university experience available for everyone around the world. Meet likeminded people in the virtual world, discuss ideas and share ambitions, just like you would in the real world. Virbela have developed a Virtual campus that can be used for both education and or work-based interactions. The pandemic has shown that people can easily work from home, the Metaverse may have a significant role to play in the future of work as well as learning.   

Takes the learner into the world – I was going to say that the Metaverse has the ability to bring the world to the classroom when in fact it’s the opposite. Although human imagination is a powerful tool think how impactful it would be if you could begin by explaining in a classroom that T Rex roamed the planet during the late Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago and that they could be up to 12m long and 6m tall, but then ask your learners to come and meet one, made possible by VR – Click here to see how the American Museum of Natural History has brought T Rex to life.

The social dimension – Social media allows people to interact, transact, and share interests with others virtually (pun intended) regardless of where they live. The metaverse is social media but in 3D, for better or for worse.

Conclusions
The Metaverse could end up being the biggest white elephant of all time. Reality Labs, the division building the metaverse, lost £3.16bn between July and September this year. Mark Zuckerberg has said that he would invest $10 billion to $15 billion per year, but that it may take 10 years before it yields results. That’s an estimated $100B+ investment into an unknown future.

BUT it might be as Zuckerberg predicts become the next iteration of the internet, personally I would like to give it a chance because it has the potential to contribute to a new and exciting next chapter as to how we help people learn.

That said, I don’t think I would be putting any money into it just yet.

And for a more in-depth explanation, Donald Clark in discussion with John Helmer   VR & Metaverse with Donald Clark

The picture is obviously From the matrix – the blue pill will allow the subject to remain in the fabricated reality of the Matrix; the red serves as a “location device” to locate the subject’s body in the real world and to prepare them to be “unplugged” from the Matrix. Once one chooses the red or blue pill, the choice is irrevocable.

*Is Metaverse in education a blessing or a curse: a combined content and bibliometric analysis

Beam me up Kirkpatrick – evaluating learning

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One of the most difficult questions to answer for both the learner and teacher is, “how do you know you or they are learning”?

On the face of it, the answer might seem simple, you are learning if you think you are, if what has been said makes sense and that you are happy with the way it’s being taught. But what does “make sense” actually mean? Presumably the process was logical and you understand it, you might even have found it interesting. However just to make sure you understood it, maybe we should ask some questions in the form of a test, and if you pass the test then that must mean you have learned it? But passing a test doesn’t mean you could apply it in a practical situation, isn’t that the best way to decide if it has been learned?

Each of these questions is doing something different, they are evaluating learning from a different perspective and if that seems the right approach you will probably very much like the Kirkpatrick model.  

The Kirkpatrick Model
In the 1950’s Donald Kirkpatrick developed the model that carries his name when he used it as the basis for his Ph.D. dissertation entitled, “Evaluating Human Relations Programs for Industrial Foremen and Supervisors.” But don’t let that put you off, the main point is, it’s a practical model designed to evaluate training not necessarily learning in a wider context or education. However as discussed in a previous blog, “Training V Education”, may not always be that far apart.

The model has four levels.

Level 1: Reaction – this measures the degree to which participants find the training useful, engaging, and relevant. Its focus is on the learner’s perception and as such is an opinion, which leads to the criticism that people may be happy but have learned nothing or vice versa. It is commonly evaluated using so called “happy sheets”, offering a range of smiley faces for the participant to indicate which one they think best captures how they feel, but they can be more sophisticated, with detailed questionnaires pre and post learning. This is the most popular method of measuring learning, with some suggesting around 80% of organisations use them.

Level 2: Learning – this is about the degree to which learners acquire the intended knowledge and skills and is most often evaluated using exams or tests. Critics will argue these only measure short term memory and not the longer-term deep learning that is required. Also, in practice the actual assessments are not always well written, partly because the expertise is not available to question the reliability and validity of the test.  

Level 3: Behaviour – this relates directly to how much the learners can apply in practice what they have learned. In the workplace this would be the application of what was learned reflected in improvements as to how the individual does their job. But it can also be assessed using assignments, case studies and real-world projects.

Level 4: Results – the last level is a measurement of the impact the training has had on the learning outcomes. Has the training achieved what it was originally designed to do. This is the least measured largely because of the difficulty and costs involved. Which is unfortunate because in many ways its the most important measure of success.

Kirkpatrick is far from perfect but the biggest criticism is probably in its application, with most organisations stopping at level 2 because 3 and 4 are too difficult. There are other models of assessment that some consider to be superior for example, the Philips model (ROI Methodology), the Kaufman model and Rob Brinkerhoff’s success case methodology, but obviously they are have critics as well.

Why does this matter?
Learning evaluation is clearly hugely valuable for educators, given the amount of time, energy and money that goes into training, it’s essential you know how effective it is. In addition, the Kirkpatrick model serves another purpose by helping with course design, just spin it around and ask the following questions. Starting with level 4, what do you want the training to achieve, what is the learning outcome? Then moving to level 3 ask, what behaviour will you see if learners are doing what is needed? Level 2, what knowledge and skills do learners need to do this? And lastly level 1, how do I want learners to feel, to help make the experience as effective as possible.

But it also has some value for learners, enjoying a course is important because it helps with concentration and to a certain extent motivation but the evidence shows, learners are not very good judges as to the effectiveness of learning. That’s not to say if something doesn’t’ make sense you shouldn’t challenge, just that sometimes you might find a particular exercise difficult, begin to question your level of intelligence and worry you’re not learning, when in fact the difficulty is a necessary prerequisite to embed the learning in the first place.

Lastly – What the Kirkpatrick model does is shift the perspective from measuring learning in terms of an emotion and the ability to answer a question, towards creating new improved behaviours and ultimately getting the results you want.

Footnote – the famous quote “Beam me up Scotty” is of course Captain or latterly Admiral Kirk speaking to Scotty his Chief Engineer. But Montgomery Scott to give him his full fictional name may have been a wizard with the Enterprise but unfortunately, he didn’t come up with a framework for evaluating learning.

Flash Ah, Ahhhh……..Cards

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I can’t believe I have not written about flashcards before. They are an incredibly popular learning tool and have moved relatively seamlessly to digital in recent years. Research published earlier this year found that 78% of students said they had used digital flashcards and of those who used both the digital and paper version, 60% preferred digital, largely because of their convenience and ease of use.

What is a flashcard? – essentially its a card with a question on one side and the corresponding answer on the other. You pick up the card and read the question, maybe it says, who was the 77th Prime minister in the UK? you then attempt to recall the answer in your head before flipping the card over to reveal the name “Boris Johnson”. Interestingly, in that same survey only 53 % of learners turn the card over to check if they were right, something we will discover later is not a particularly good idea. Which highlights another problem that might be happening, students are using flashcards, just not correctly.

Why do they work?
Of course, it doesn’t follow that just because lots of students use flashcards, they are good, but in this instance they are. Flashcards force students into doing things that we know are good for learning. For example, they are excellent for retrieval practice, spaced practice and interleaving, in fact, they support most of the evidenced based learning techniques. Let’s take a look at some of these in more detail.

Retrieval practice – The process of reflecting back and having to retrieve a memory of something previously learned is very powerful. When you look at the card and attempt to recall the answer the brain is working hard, this will result in the reinforcement of neural pathways, in simple terms you are learning. And of course, it requires effort, that’s the reason it works, don’t do as it would appear 47% of all learners and not check if you were right or flip the card over too soon.

Spaced practice – Spaced practice is the exact opposite of cramming, you effectively take the same amount of time to study, just do it over a longer period. The evidence shows that if you revisit what you have studied over time it boosts what is called retrieval and storage strength but if you study in a short period of time, your retrieval strength improves but your storage strength reduces. Flashcards can be used intermittently, effectively spacing out you’re learning, a good way to do this is to use something called the *Leitner system. Let’s assume there are three envelopes and on the first is written, “every day”, on the second, “every other day” and on the third, “once a week”. All flashcards initially start in envelope one, if you answer a flashcard correctly it moves into envelope two, if incorrectly it stays in envelope one. Each time you get a card correct, you move it to the next envelope but if you get it wrong, you move it back to the previous one. Eventually, in theory at least, all cards will end up in envelope three. Here is a video that shows exactly how it works.

*The Leitner system was developed by the German science journalist Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s.

Interleaving – Interleaving is simply studying different topics as opposed to studying one topic very thoroughly, this latter process is called blocking. Repetition is one of the main benefits of using flashcards, the process takes place naturally as you go through the pack several times, however that same repetition can make the process easier, because the brain will begin to remember cards by association with each other. This is not the same as remembering the information on the card, because if you change the order then the association is broken and you will forget. A simple technique is to shuffle the deck each time you go through it.

Paper based or digital
The evidence to support using paper-based flashcards or the digital version is mixed with some suggesting that digital is better, Azabdaftari & Mozaheb, 2012 and others Gilbert Dizon and Daniel Tang concluding that there is no significant difference. Although they do acknowledge as our earlier research did that students prefer digital when asked.

The arguments are that digital is more convenient, for example everyone carries a mobile and they easier to create and use due to the sophistication of some of the Apps available. However, in contrast producing your own papers-based cards, deciding what to put on them or how they should look, together with their tactile nature makes the learning more effective.

My advice, do whatever works best for you. Perhaps using an app such as Quizlet, Brainscape or the very popular AnkiApp for one subject and produce your own paper based cards for another.

Conclusions
I should have written about flashcards before, they are a hugely effective tool that utilise many of the best evidenced based strategies. Don’t worry about the, “should I use digital or paper” debate, it really doesn’t matter, try both.

And one last tip, don’t leave the use of flashcards until the end of your studies. To maximise their value start using them about a month before the exam, not the night before! Oh, and why not rate yourself in terms of confidence in getting the correct answer before turning the card over, it’s just another way of deepening learning through reflection.

You might find this helpful, it shows 5 ways to use flashcards, although in fairness some are just good note making skills, but then what’s wrong with that.

The most important skill – Critical Thinking

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There seems little doubt that there is a gap between the skills needed to do a particular job and those that are available, the so called “skills gap”, and it’s one of the biggest challenges facing the economy.

The skills Gap
According to the Office for National Statistics, “the number of job vacancies increased sharply to a record 1.2 million in the three months to November 2021, having reached a record low of 340,000 in the three months to June 2020”. As with most real-world problems the reasons as to why this has happened is complex, requiring a good understanding of individual sectors of the employment market. However, we can make a few generalisations, firstly there is a shortage of qualified candidates. This is the results of a number of factors including a lack of specific skills, the right work experience and or educational qualifications. And secondly there are less people in employment. The Institute for Employment Studies estimates there are 600,000 fewer people in work than before the pandemic. This is because there are less migrants, (Brexit), older people (Boomers) are retiring, more younger people are going into further education and the pandemic has resulted in changing lifestyles e.g. the great resignation.

What skills are lacking?
This is another tricky one to navigate but a good way of approaching it is to break it down, splitting the skills between technical (hard) and people (soft). Technical skills in say the Digital sector would include the ability to write code or use a particular type of software, whereas people skills include thinking (critical), communicating, problem solving etc. With regards to people skills the one employers often consider the most important is critical thinking.

As an aside, personally, I think the terms hard and soft skills is misleading, from a learning perspective it’s much easier to teach hard skills than soft ones, and in terms of which is the most valuable or important, they both are.

Critical thinking
Wikipedia tells us that Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. There are however many definitions but they all have the same basic concept – the ability to reason by asking questions in order to from an opinion.

“People can be extremely intelligent, have taken a critical thinking course, and know logic inside and out. Yet they may just become clever debaters, not critical thinkers, because they are unwilling to look at their own biases.” Carol Wade Phycologist.

Everyone thinks, you’re probably doing it right now but the process of thinking is both complex and simple and, in some ways beautiful. Individual neurons sit next to each other in the brain similar to members of an orchestra, when instructed to do so they each perform individually but what emerges is something new, the orchestra create music, the brain a thought. My thanks to Henning Beck from the University of Tübingen for this great analogy, here is the link to his Ted lecture, How we think. Watch out for his example as to how the brain can transfer the outline image of a tree and turn it into a child.

The problem with our orchestra of neurons is that together they are biased, emotional and suffer from prejudice, and left to their own devices will form opinions that although appearing to be true are distortions made to fit prior beliefs and personal values.

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed, the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction.” Bertrand Russell, Philosopher.

An Orchestra of Neurons

They need a conductor – And this is where critical thinking comes in.
Here is an example, imagine a situation where an individual tells a story that resonates with many people, they create sounds bites such as Make America Great Again (MAGA) or Take Back Control. There is something in the simplicity of this, a clarity that resonates, and as a consequence the brain latches on to the storyteller, making them the conductor. However, remember the brain, our collection of neurons is not rational, its often selfish, lazy and emotional, there is no interview process for our conductor, the brain will simply pick one, often without much thought.

But what if we don’t leave the brain to its own devises, what if we insist it follows a few simple protocols before making a decision.

The critical thinking process
Below is how critical thinking might work using the MAGA example.

  1. Formulate the question – what problem(s) are you trying to solve?
    e.g. What do we know about the storyteller, what does MAGA actually mean?
  2. Gather information
    e.g. find out more about the storyteller, what bias might they have, are they qualified to make such comments?
  3. Analyse and Evaluate – ask challenging questions, consider implications and prioritise.
    e.g. what does great mean, was America great in the past, a logical question given that the idea is to do it again, what makes a country great, what are the pros and cons of being great?
  4. Reach a conclusion, form an opinion and reflect.
    e.g. This is what I think and this is the reason why. – let me think about that, does it make sense?

When you put this process in place you will be able to form your OWN opinion as to the credibility of the conductor and their story, this is independent thinking, its what employers value most and its what we need to close the skills gap.

If you accept the argument I have put forward as to the value of critical thinking, and of course you should think critically about it, the next question is probably:
Can you teach critical thinking? – this will have to be the subject of another blog, but by way of a spoiler the answer is maybe not or if you can it’s not easy.

A few more blogs to make you a better thinker – Sensemaking, humility and the humanities – Becoming a better thinker – Edward de Bono learning leader – Lessons from lies – Fake news.

Gagne’s style – Nine steps to delivery

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Robert Gagne was an American educational psychologist who pioneered the science of instruction in the second world war working with the Army Air Corps, training pilots. His focus was on simplifying and explaining what he and others believed to be good instruction.

Like many academics he wrote and published papers on different areas, for example he developed a hierarchy of learning, similar to Bloom with behavioural aspects at the bottom and cognitive ones at the top. But he is probably most well-known for his Nine levels of learning or as it is referred to here, The nine steps of delivery.

Now the only problem with this is that there are nine steps and anyone who has read this blog before will know, nine is just to The answer is simple, chunk it down into smaller sections.

Why is this important?
Gagne’s objective was to provide a systematic process to help teachers and trainers better structure what they do in order to keep students engaged and help them retain knowledge. But the process he created also provides an insight as to how learning works and can be used by students to structure their own learning. Below are the nine steps broken down under three headings. As well as explaining how each step works, I will also add comments as to what it means for a student who might be studying on their own.

Preparation

  1. Gaining attention
    Start the learning experience by gaining the attention of your learners. The change in stimulus tells them that learning will soon take place. For the student this means you need to create a break from what you are doing and get into a mood to start studying. This might involve going to the library or setting an alarm on your phone to create a trigger telling you something different is about to happen.
  1. Informing the learner of the objective
    Share the learning objective with students early on. What should they know at the end of the session that they didn’t before. For the student it’s important you also know what you are trying to learn, what will you be aware of at the end of this session that you don’t know now. It also helps if your aware of why its important e.g. maybe it’s a very popular exam area or is developed in more detail later so you need to learn it now.
  1. Stimulating recall of prior learning
    Relate the new learning back to something learned before or a similar experience your learners have had, this forms a link between the old and new. For the student this is a reflective process, how does this topic relate to what you have learned in the past, how does it fit in?

Instruction and practice

  1. Presenting the content
    Present the new content to the learners. For the student this is where you start reading or listening to the new content.
  1. Providing learning guidance
    Explain to the learners what something means by giving examples, highlight what’s difficult and what’s not. For the student this is where you have to rely on the instruction provided in the learning materials
  1. Eliciting performance
    Here the learner has to practice what they have been taught in order to demonstrate understanding. For the student this is the equivalent to attempting a question or by way of analogy, trying to turn the theory of how to bake a cake into a reality by actually baking one.

Assessment and transfer

  1. Providing feedback
    Provide guidance to the learner as to what the difference was between their answer and the correct one, what do they need to do to close that gap? For the student this is where it is helpful to work with others, perhaps you mark their answer and they mark yours. To follow the cake example, take it out of the oven and look at it, is it the right texture and colour, then taste it. What do you need to do to make it the best cake ever?
  1. Assessing the performance
    Assessing learner performance is usually demonstrated by asking them to take a test. For the student its very similar this time, take the test and see what score you get.
  1. Enhancing retention and transfer
    The learner now needs to demonstrate this by applying it to their job or by teaching others. This last stage often requires continual practice and feedback to become competent. For the student who thinks their objective is to do little more than pass the exam it may not seem important, however in the medium to long term applying learning is the main goal.

And that’s all you have to do, nine steps that break down instruction and in so doing providing a roadmap to effective study. It has been argued that the process doesn’t work so well for more creative subjects, after all it was designed around training airline pilots. However, it can teach you to fly and most importantly land a plane it’s probably good enough for most areas of learning.

Who needs a teacher – the power of self-explanation

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One of the great skills of a teacher is that they explain things you don’t understand, that’s really helpful – right?

Well maybe not, a meta study entitled, Inducing Self-Explanation published back in 2018 concluded that it is better to ask a student to try and explain something to themselves, than for a teacher to do that for them. Although in fairness the teacher’s explanation was better than no explanation, which might seem an obvious point but it shows that the content is important and it’s not just the process. However, the process does help because it forces the student to recognise links between the knowledge or skills they have already learned and identify the gaps in their understanding which need to be bridged. In further defence of teachers, there is some evidence to show that the technique is more effective following an initial explanation, with the student asked to explain it to themselves afterwards.

In simple terms self-explanation requires the learner to try to explain concepts, ideas and processes in their head to themselves prior to answering a question. However there is a little more to it than that.

Self-explanation and elaborative interrogation
Elaborative interrogation is similar to self-exploration but not exactly the same. If you ask someone “why that makes sense” or “why is this true”, this is an example of elaboration, it generally relies on a specific chunk of prior knowledge that you are elaborating on. Self-explanation is more generic in that you could ask “what does this mean to you” or “explain what you have just read”. To answer these questions there is no need for past knowledge as the paragraph may only just have been read. As a result, self-explanation is better suited to knowledge acquisition.

But for all intent and purposes they are both techniques that force reflection, requiring the learner to assemble the component parts of process or argument in their head, challenge the conclusions and ask further questions to narrow the gap in their understanding. One last point, we also know that more effective learners (although you may think they are just really smart) are likely to engage in self-explaining naturally.

Learning requires effort – desirable difficulty
If this process sounds like hard work, it is, learning is not meant to be easy, it can be enjoyable and rewarding but not necessarily easy. Compare, trying to explain something to re-reading the textbook or highlighting key words. My guess is that you would much rather re-read or highlight, but they are both far less effective learning techniques.

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

This is yet another example of what Robert Bjork’s referred to as desirable difficulty (Bjork, 1994; McDaniel & Butler). It is the idea that having certain difficulties in the learning process greatly improves long-term retention. Other examples include, spacing, interleaving and retrieval practice which I have written about before. It’s the effort and reflection that helps transfer the knowledge from short term to long term memory and without that it would be forgotten.

More effective
The key point is not about the difficulty of learning but the effectiveness of the methods used to learn, and developing the confidence that when something is hard it’s probably a good thing. So, the next time you are asked a question that requires an explanation and you can’t give one, don’t jump straight back into the textbook to reread the entire chapter. Think and reflect on what it is you don’t understand, create a sentence that captures that lack of understanding, maybe even saying it out loud, find the answer and then attempt to explain it again.

A little more difficult of course but you will be learning and not just sitting there thinking you are.

My thanks to John Eaton for his observations on this topic and for the fab picture of Less Dawson.