Author Archives: Stuart Pedley-Smith

Solving crimes using Concept Mapping

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Have you ever wondered why in pretty much every crime drama the “hero” stares at a wall, with names, locations and pictures pinned to it. He’s trying to solve a crime but there’s no logic, nothing makes sense, he has more questions than answers. The phone rings, it’s his daughter asking when he will be home, the dog is barking in the background, then suddenly he puts down the phone and says “that’s it, why didn’t I see that connection before” “why did the dog not bark that night?” The connection is made and the crime solved.

What was on the wall was effectively a concept map, a visual tool used to organise and represent knowledge or ideas in a hierarchical manner, showing the relationships between them to help develop a better understanding, clarify relationship and in some instances solve problems.

Concept mapping
Although a concept map and a mind map are both visualisation tools, they are not the same. A concept map differs in that as the name suggests its focus is on the relationship between concepts rather than on a single theme placed at the centre of a blank page as is the case with a mind map. Another way of thinking about them is that concept maps are more suited to planning and organising, they have a structured hierarchy and highlight relationships. On the other hand, mind maps are “free spirits”, used more spontaneously, encouraging creativity.

A concept map typically consists of nodes, representing concepts or ideas, connected by labelled lines or arrows to indicate the relationships between them.

Why concept maps work
Concept maps are effective because they mirror the way our brains naturally categorise and store information. When we create one it activates various regions of the brain involved in memory, comprehension, and critical thinking. This process helps to reinforce learning and deepen understanding by facilitating the formation of neural connections. Additionally, the visual nature of concept maps appeals to the brain’s preference for processing information in a spatial and interconnected manner, making it easier to grasp complex relationships and retain information over time.

Concept mapping as a technique was developed by Dr. Joseph D. Novak at Cornell University in the 1960s and is based on the theories of Dr. David Ausubel, who emphasised the importance of prior knowledge in learning new information. It stems from the ‘constructivism‘ approach to learning which suggests that individuals construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, based on their own unique experiences.

“The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach accordingly.” David Ausubel. (1968).

Research also supports their use with studies showing that they improve learning outcomes, promote critical thinking, and increase retention of information. For example, a meta study published in 2024 concluded that “concept maps are highly effective in enhancing the academic achievement of students and must be used in the education process”.

The ultimate crime board from Minority Report

How to design a concept map
Designing a concept map involves visually organising information to illustrate the relationships between concepts. Here’s a brief introduction to the process:

  1. Identify Key Concepts: Start by identifying the main concepts relevant to your topic. Think of them as the building blocks of your map.
  2. Determine Sub-Concepts: Branch out to list related sub-concepts, organising them from general to specific. Then start thinking about the relationship between the concepts, is there for example a cause-and-effect.
  3. Connect the Dots: Draw lines to connect related concepts, and label the lines to explain the relationships and organise in a hierarchy if not already done so.
  4. Refine and Expand: As you study, add more concepts and links, perhaps using colour to clarify different groupings, continually refining the map as your understanding develops.

Although you can use pen and paper there are lots of digital tools available, you can find some here – 10 Top Free Concept Map Makers & Software in 2024.

And finally – the best way to learn how to produce a concept map is to watch someone building one – here is a short 8-minute video that explains all.  How to Make a Concept Map.

Roger Federer the Master – Mastery learning

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Roger Federer is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time and often referred to as a master of tennis. His extraordinary talent, remarkable achievements, consistency, and longevity in the sport have solidified his status as a tennis legend. He also seems to be a very nice bloke!

Relevance to learning?
To improve your position in the tennis rankings, you must first prove yourself at the lower levels before you move to the higher ones, which seems like a pretty solid idea, and yet that’s not how it works in education. If you think back to your school days, although there were different recognised levels of ability within a year, everyone progressed to the next stage of learning based on age. This could mean that you were studying something at a higher level having not mastered the basics at the lower one.

What is Mastery
Mastery learning is an educational approach where learners are expected to achieve a high level of proficiency or mastery in a particular subject or skill before progressing to more advanced material or a higher level. In other words, you must demonstrate mastery of the current material before moving on. For example, in a math’s lesson learners may be required to demonstrate proficiency in solving algebraic equations before moving on to more advanced topics such as calculus. Similarly, in English, learners must demonstrate their proficiency in grammar and punctuation before progressing to writing essays.

Benjamin Bloom, remember him, is often credited with pioneering the concept of mastery learning. In the 1960s. Bloom proposed the idea as a response to the limitations of traditional instructional methods, which often resulted in some learners falling behind while others moved ahead without mastering the material. He emphasised the importance of ensuring that all learners achieve a solid understanding of core concepts before progressing to more advanced topics. This approach required personalised instruction, continuous assessment, and opportunities for remediation to support every learner in reaching mastery. An example of this type of mastery teaching can be found in the personal tutor market, where parents pay an expert to coach and mentor their children so that they will be able to ace high stake tests.

There is also substantial evidence supporting the effectiveness of mastery learning. Several studies have highlighted the advantages, indicating that learners taught using mastery typically exhibit superior academic performance, greater retention of information, and deeper comprehension compared to those instructed using traditional methods. For instance, a meta-analysis published in the “Review of Educational Research” in 1984, analysed 108 studies on mastery learning and concluded that learners consistently outperformed their counterparts on standardised tests and other metrics of academic attainment. 

Mastery grade – Although the emphasis in mastery is on ensuring that learners understand and can apply the material, rather than achieving a specific grade, if the assessment method includes questions, then there has to be a “pass mark”. Although the exact percentage may vary, I saw 80% – 85% mentioned, the consensus seems to be 90% or higher.

“Ah, mastery… what a profoundly satisfying feeling when one finally gets on top of a new set of skills… and then sees the light under the new door those skills can open, even as another door is closing.” Gail Sheehy

The impact of technology
While we have seen that the effectiveness of mastery learning has been proven it is not without its challenges. One issue is the increased time needed, the result of personalised tuition, and additional resources e.g. more questions and course materials. This can put a significant strain on any organisation that might result in them cutting corners in practice. However, this is where technology can really help, we are now in the age of AI and adaptive learning which has the potential to offer the high levels of personalisation required to deliver at scale on the mastery promise. Which could mean that mastery and all its benefits becomes well within the reach of everyone rather than a privileged few.

But, but, but the devils in the detail
In practice there are of course other problems, what role if any will teachers play, will there need to be significant retraining? Who will pay for all of this, and what of the social stigma that may result for those held back because they are not “bright enough”?

Three bigger questions:

  • Firstly, there is the argument that by focusing on mastering the component parts of a subject, the wider learning is lost, for example the cultivation of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In addition, attaining genuine mastery for all learners within a given timeframe poses challenges where the demographic is more diversified in terms of learning styles, backgrounds, and abilities.
  • Secondly, how do we really know if a subject has been learned, let alone mastered. Although someone might have moved to the next topic having scored 92% 3 months earlier, what if the test itself wasn’t sufficiently robust for the level of understanding required at the higher level?
  • And lastly, we know that as we progress our tendency to forget increases, unless of course that original information is revisited, think here about the forgetting curve. While the speed at which we forget varies greatly, the consistent observation from decades of research is that, with time, we inevitably lose access to much of the information once retained.

Now there are answers for most of these, however there is the potential for well-meaning organisations to promote so called “mastery courses” when in reality they are fundamentally flawed.

What does this all mean
For learners – Mastery is compelling and should be kept in mind when studying. Going back over something to make sure you understand it will not only reinforce what you already know but builds a solid base from which to move forward. However, there will be times when you don’t fully grasp something and time runs out, leaving you no alternative but to move on. The secret here is not to worry, it might be that this particular piece of knowledge or skill is not required in the future and if it is, you can always go back and learn it, again!

For educators – Mastery is certainly something worth pursuing but be careful, it’s very easy to get caught up in the ideal and create something that looks like it’s working but it’s not because of a lack of attention to the detail required to make this work in practice.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything about mastery from Roger Federer, but I’m sure he would wholeheartedly endorse this by a master with a different skill.

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” Michelangelo

Educational side effects – better decision making

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Having a robust education system and well-educated citizens is a key objective for most governments. (World best education systems ) One reason for this is that an educated population is linked to economic growth, partly the result of higher levels of productivity and innovation. And this makes for a very compelling argument as to why governments believe education is important and worthy of investment. The UK spends between 4% – 5% of GDP on education.

But what about the individual, is it worth them investing both time and money in their own education and what of the benefits, do they outweigh the costs? To put this more bluntly, is it worth getting a so-called good education?

In terms of costs, in the UK between the ages of 5 to 18 attending school is compulsory but perhaps more importantly its free. Although not everyone wants something for nothing, the national absence rate for 2022 was 7.6%, well above the 4%-5% pre Covid figure. I am going to side step the question around the value of higher education, partly because its complicated and most people seem to agree that is worth the money, just about! But what are the benefits of a good education, this feels a little bit like asking what did the Romans do for us? How about it improves your social mobility, opens the door to new job opportunities and advancements in your career, improves levels of confidence and helps with the development of new skills. And I nearly forgot, highly educated people earn more money and actually live longer.

A good education   

Of course, education is good for you, but I want to pick out one benefit that might not be so obvious – a good education helps you make better decisions. This is a skill that is not only valuable in the workplace but also in life. Everyday people make lots of “micro decisions”, in themselves none are especially important but when combined they can dictate your future. We all need to be better at making decisions.

In 2018 Hyuncheol Bryant Kim, an associate professor at Columbia University set out to answer the question, does education improve economic rationality? Kim’s research proved that it did, he said “While we know that schooling has been shown in previous work to have positive effects on a wide range of outcomes, such as income and health, our work provides evidence of potentially additional benefits of education coming from improvements in people’s decision-making abilities.”

Just to be clear this doesn’t mean that all the decisions you make will be good ones, often this can only be judged with hindsight. It’s that a well-informed person is more likely to make a better decision than an ill-informed one.

Bad decisions (The Cobra effect) – During British rule in India, a bounty was placed on cobras to reduce their population. However, as a result people started breeding them for the reward, leading to an increase in the cobra population. Eventually the bounty was withdrawn which meant cobras had no value and were released into the wild.  

Decision making

Decision-making is the process of selecting a course of action from different alternatives to achieve a specific goal or solve a problem. We are talking here about a cognitive process, meaning it requires conscious thought and involves, gathering relevant information, evaluating available options, and choosing the most appropriate action. It worth saying that people are not inherently born as good or bad decision-makers. Instead, decision-making skills are developed and refined over time through a combination of educational, environmental, and experiential factors.

Bad decisions (ignorance) – The operators and decision-makers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine were unaware of the potential risks and lacked a comprehensive understanding of the reactor’s design. During a safety test, a series of poor decisions, coupled with a lack of knowledge about the reactor’s vulnerabilities, led to a catastrophic explosion that resulted in one of the most significant nuclear disasters in history.

There are a number of reasons that someone with a good education is more likely to make better decisions:

  • High levels of knowledge and skills – Having facts, data, knowledge, and skills that you can draw upon is going to help you make better decisions. Ignorance on the other hand can only lead to the exact opposite.
  • Developed critical thinking – Education, especially at higher levels, is associated with the development of critical thinking. The ability to analyse information, consider different perspectives, and make informed decisions is often enhanced through educational experiences.
  • Improved process skills – It provides individuals with the tools to process and analyse information effectively. This includes skills such as information literacy, research abilities, and the capacity to evaluate the reliability and relevance of data.
  • Understanding of risk – People with higher levels of education tend to be more adept at evaluating potential risks and benefits associated with different options.
  • Able to consider implications – Individuals with a solid educational foundation often have a better understanding of the consequences of their decisions and are more likely to consider future implications.

The side effects  

Please don’t think that this means well educated people are in some way better than less educated ones, they are not. Many of the world’s most dangerous and powerful people have had a world class education and yet make bad decisions. For example, President Richard Nixon’s cover up in the Watergate scandal or Dominic Cummings decision to take a drive with his family to “test his eyesight”, when he knew it was against the covid rules!

The point is that many people believe they succeed because of what they know, when in fact it is also because of the decisions they make, and that skill was learned, a side effect of a good education.

In simple terms – want to make good decisions “Go to school”.

Bad decisions (killing sparrows). As part of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s Chinas Mao Zedong launched a campaign to eliminate pests (including sparrows) that were believed to threaten crops. The decline in sparrows led to an ecological imbalance as they were natural predators of insects, including crop-eating pests and a significant decrease in agricultural output.

Want to make better decisions…here are a few interesting videos about how to do that.


The world of Pure Imagination

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“There is no life I know, to compare with pure imagination, living there, you’ll be free, if you truly wish to be.  If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it, anything you want to, do it, want to change the world? There’s nothing to it”

These are a few lines from the song “Pure Imagination” performed by Gene wilder in the original 1971 Willy Wonka movie, always a good watch at Christmas. It was remade with Johnny Depp in 2005 and a prequel called Wonka was released this December to much acclaim, staring Timothée Chalamet. The original story tells of a poor boy named Charlie Bucket who wins a golden ticket to tour the magical chocolate factory of the eccentric Willy Wonka.  Although the story still has a contemporary feel, its appeal has more to do with the magical world Wonka creates, the morality of greed, and recognising that actions have consequences.

The point however is, to create such a fantastical, spectacular, stupendous chocolate factory, Wonka required a very special quality – Imagination!

Imagination
Imagination is tricky to define, with many linking it to creativity and contrasting it with knowledge, but I like this explanation provided by Chat GPT, checked of course.

Imagination is the cognitive ability to form mental images, ideas, or concepts that are not directly perceived through the senses. It involves the capacity to create, manipulate, and combine mental representations, allowing individuals to explore possibilities, envision scenarios, and generate novel ideas.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.  Albert Einstein

There is a strong visual element to imagination but it’s not driven by our senses, we are not looking at an object in the real world (external) and creating something new as a consequence. When you use your imagination, its coming from your internal world, often unconsciously influenced by your memories and feelings. In fact, when you imagine something, you don’t have to have experienced it before at all.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. Albert Einstein

Imagination, creativity, and knowledge are intricately connected in the process of thinking, especially at the higher levels. Knowledge is the foundation, providing the raw material for imaginative exploration and creative synthesis. Imagination draws upon knowledge, resulting in mental representations and visual possibilities. Creativity transforms these imaginative ideas into valuable outcomes, for example solving a problem or developing a new product.

Creativity is putting your imagination to work, and it’s produced the most extraordinary results in human culture. Ken Robinson

Imagination, original thought and Gen AI
I didn’t think this blog was going to have anything to do with Gen AI, apologies, I was trying to make it Gen AI free. But using it by way of contrast might help with our understanding of imagination and to some extent original thought i.e. ideas, concepts, or perspectives that are unique.

At the time of writing no matter how impressive a Gen AI created poem or picture might be it is not the result of imagination as described above. The AI is simply accessing the huge data sets on which it has been trained and predicting the most likely next word or brush stroke. In other words, it isn’t capable of what we would call “original thought”, that is having new ideas of its own. I should add that when I discussed this point with Chat GPT it disagreed.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Albert Einstein

Genetics – And finally in terms of understanding imagination, being imaginative or creative is not thought to be genetic. While genetic predispositions may create a foundation, the development and expression of imagination is shaped more by external influences. (Nichols 1978, Barron & Parisi 1976, Reznikoff 1973).

The neuroscience of imagination – Watch this if your interested as to what is happening in your brain when you use your imagination.

Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. L. Frank Baum

Does imagination help with learning?
All very interesting, at least I hope so but can using your imagination improve learning, of course it can, below are some of the benefits:

  • Brings into play the imagination effect – A study in 2014 required two different groups to learn the parts of the respiratory system. One group were asked to imagine the parts from a text description but without a picture, the other had both text and picture (control).  Those who had to imagine the picture did better on a test than the control. The conclusion – people learn more deeply when prompted to form images depicting what the words describe. There are a number of reasons for this, but one is thought to be the reduction in cognitive load.
  • Encourages independent learning – The ability to think about a particular problem or situation using your imagination helps develop a more independent approach to learning.
  • Increases engagement – Imagination can make learning more engaging and enjoyable partly because the learning becomes more personal, as new information is related to something already known.
  • Improved memory retention – Creating mental images or scenarios related to the material being learned can improve memory retention. Imagination often requires visualisation, making it easier to recall information later.
  • Facilitates critical thinking – Imagining different scenarios and perspectives encourages critical thinking, allowing the learner to analyse information more deeply and consider various angles, leading to a richer understanding of the subject matter.
  • Stimulation of curiosity – Imagination sparks curiosity, motivating learners to explore topics further. This intrinsic type of motivation can then lead to a lifelong learning mindset.

What happened to Charlie Bucket and friends?
Charlie, (Peter Ostrum) only ever stared in Willy Wonka. He later became a Vet in New York. Veruca, Salt (Julie Cole) continued to act but later became a psychotherapist. Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson) also acted for a short while before getting a job as a receptionist. And Michael Bollner (Augustus Gloop) is a lawyer in Germany.

Want to now more – Imagination: It’s Not What You Think. It’s How You Think – Charles Faulkner.

The last word we will give to Willy Wonka……But what do you think it means?

“We are the music makers; we are the dreamers of dreams.” Willy Wonka

Test, Learn, Test – Pretesting is hard to believe

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What would it be like to get into a car with someone who had never driven before and ask them to take a test.

They might of course have some prior knowledge, perhaps having seen others drive but there has been no formal driving instruction. You have to admit in principle it doesn’t seem a very good idea.

Just to be clear, the test would be similar to the one they will take after the instruction and include reversing, parallel parking, emergency stop etc. 

The idea of testing before learning is hugely counterintuitive and it won’t work or be desirable in every situation, driving a car is a good example, but read the rest of this blog and you might just change your mind.  

The pretesting effect
But first, Pretesting, this involves assessing learners on information related to upcoming material before any formal instruction. There is good reason for this from a learning perspective, the pretesting identifies the baseline level of knowledge of the learner before being taught. The teacher can then work their magic, and when we test again the learner will do much better, leading to the conclusion that learning has taken place.

The pretesting effect is different, this is where the learner who takes the test before any formal instruction performs better on subsequent tests than those who didn’t take the pretest. The implication is that the very process of pretesting improves learning.

In a typical pretesting study, one group of learners would take the pretest and the other group would not (The control). All learners then study a specific topic on which they are tested (The post test). Some questions in the post test are from the pretest but some are new, meaning they have never been seen before by either group. The findings from most studies will show that the learners who did the pretest score higher than the control group, but interestingly this is on both the pretested questions and the new ones.

Let’s just pause at that point, this is pretty strange, why would the pretested group do better? All they have done is attempt some questions that on the whole they didn’t know the answer to, which might be pretty demoralising. And it can’t be because the pretested group remembered the answers because we are told they also did better on the questions they had not seen before.

Why might this work?
There have been a lot of studies in this area in order to try to better understand what is happening, for example does the type of question make a difference, Little, J.L., Bjork, what impact does it have if the learner gets the question wrong Richland LE, Kornell N, Kao LS. Spoiler, even if the learner gets the pretest question wrong, they still perform better as a result of doing it.  A word of warning, pretesting is not better than post testing, its just better than learning the material without a pretest.

Here are a few reasons:
– Activates prior knowledge – one suggestion is that pretesting connects new information to what is already known making it more meaningful and easier to remember.
– Increases difficulty (desirable difficulty) – Introducing challenge during the pretests, recalling information before any formal instruction can improve the durability and transferability of learning.
– Increases attention and identifies importance – Being asked a question on a specific area that is not understood might cue the learner to pay greater attention when they come across it later in their studies. It also makes them more aware of the type of questions that will be asked.
– Feedback helps – As with any learning process the feedback received from the pretest can help clarify what the question was asking and of course offers up the answer.
– The hypercorrection effect – This is really interesting, errors committed with high levels of confidence are more likely to be remembered as long as the feedback is persuasive.
– Improves metacognition – Learners become more aware of what they know and what they need to learn.

When you read through this list, there is a rational and maybe it starts to make sense. The difficulty with pretesting is that it sounds so illogical that you don’t even try, why should you waste your time proving that you don’t know something. And if you take the test and get a low score as you believe you will, it’s easy to lose confidence in both yourself and the process. To get the most from this, you need to believe it’s going to work and that its worth the effort and time. It is also important to appreciate that the feeling of discomfort and not knowing is perfectly normal, and that can be hard to do, but as the evidence shows if you an do this, it will ultimately be worth it.

This is worth a read if you would like to know more. Test first, learn later: The power of pretesting to enhance learning, and watch this short video, it explains the concept really well – Pre-Testing: A Better Way to Learn.

Whose fault is it that you failed? – Attribution theory 

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If you are motivated, learning will be easy and even enjoyable, however motivating people to learn is one of the biggest challenges there is in education. And it’s complicated, what motivates one person does not motivate another.

One area that is worth exploring in order to get a better understanding of motivation is called attribution theory. Could it be that what you believe about the causes of your successes and failures play a part (Weiner 1995), If for example you believe that your success was as a result of hard work would you be motivated to work even harder?

“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”. Thomas Jefferson

Attribution theory
Attribution theory was developed by Fritz Heider an Austrian psychologist in the late 1950s. It’s a concept about how people explain the causes of an event or behaviour. The individual’s conclusion will have a significant influence on their emotions, attitudes, and future behaviours. It’s important to note that this is how individuals explain causality to themselves, they are perceptions and interpretations rather than concrete objective realities. Working harder may well be the answer, and yes it was unlucky to be ill on the day of the exam, those are the realities, but attribution theory is about perception. It’s how the individual makes sense of such events that sit comfortably with their view of the world.

“I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?” Yogi Berra (baseball player)

Internal and external – Heider’s basic theory suggested that causes could be internal, something under your control or external, something outside of your control. For example, if you scored highly in an exam, you might conclude that this was because you are very smart and worked hard, these are internal attributions. Conversely, if you did badly in the exam, an external attribution would be that the exam was unfair, and the questions unclear. There is a certain positivity about this perspective, but what if you thought the reason you failed was because you are not bright enough, and the only reason you have been successful in the past was pure luck?  The first more positive perspective would build self-esteem, the second erode it.

There is one other aspect of the theory that is worth highlighting, it relates to the perception the individual has in terms of the stability of the attribution. If its stable then it’s thought difficult to change, unstable, easier to change. For example, if you believe that you passed the exam because of your innate intelligence, which is stable, you are more likely to stay the course and overcome setbacks and failures. But if you believe that your intelligence is not fixed, and can get worse, maybe with age, then when faced with a challenge, you may well give up.

“In short, Luck’s always to blame”. Jean de La Fontaine (French Poet)

Why does this matter?
Attribution theory explains how “your perception” of events such as exam success and failure can impact your behaviour and levels of motivation. If you are aware of it you will develop a greater sense of self-awareness and an ability to be able to frame these events in a more positive and helpful way. Remember all that your doing is changing your perception of the event, not the event itself.

Below are a few more observations:

Embrace an attribution style that fosters a growth mindset. Attribute your successes to effort and strategies, and your failures to factors you can change. This mindset promotes a belief that you can develop your abilities over time through hard work.

Use attribution theory to fuel your motivation. When you attribute success to your efforts, it encourages you to work harder in your studies. Likewise, attributing failure to controllable factors can motivate you to adjust your strategies and try again. In order to help maintain your self-esteem and resilience, recognising that sometimes, external circumstances play a role, and it’s not always about your abilities or efforts.

When receiving feedback on your academic performance, ask for specific information about what contributed to your success or failure. This can help you make more accurate attributions and guide your future actions.

This blog is not really about attribution theory, its purpose it to provide you with an understanding of yourself so that you are better prepared for the challenges you will face both inside and outside the exam room.

Attribution or truth…..

“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed”. Michael Jordan

Arnold Schwarzenegger new book– Arni has just brought out a new book called “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life” and two of his seven tools are “Overcome Your Limitations.” and “Learn from Failure.” Both of which would require some aspect of changes in attribution. 

Does learning make you happy?

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This is going to be a difficult question to answer, not in terms of learning but in defining what happiness actually means, which is surprising given its probably the single most important objective most of us have and wish for others.

Happiness has also caught the attention of government with some considering its growth more important than GDP.

And did you know that there is a World Happiness Report and a World Happiness Day – it’s the 20th of March.

But as difficult as it is to define, we will need to try in order to figure out if learning can help make us happy.

Happiness is….

A complex emotional state characterised by feelings of pleasure, joy, contentment, and overall wellbeing. It often involves a sense of satisfaction with life and its circumstances.

Sorry about this but I think we need to explore a few of these terms in a little more detail. Feelings are conscious, subjective experiences that result from emotions. Pleasure is an enjoyable sensation or activity that brings immediate satisfaction, think eating something really tasty. Contentment is often a longer lasting sense of peace and acceptance of your circumstances, and satisfaction is the fulfilment of desires, needs, or expectations which lead to a sense of achievement.

It might also be worth adding that you can’t be happy all of the time, happiness is a transient state that fluctuates over time and throughout life.

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln

But that just gives us a better understanding of the words, wouldn’t it be nice to know how you can increase your happiness? And for this we need to look into the work of Martin Seligman, known as the father of positive psychology. Seligman identified that happiness is not entirely down to you, he says that if happiness was measured on a scale of 1 to 100, the first 50% would be outside of your control, its genetic, you are effectively born a glass half-full, half-empty kind of person. Another 10% is affected by circumstance, such as getting a promotion or failing an exam. Only the remaining 40% is determined by your choices, what are called “voluntary variables,” these include how we perceive the world, expanding perspective and finding meaning to our lives and work.

He also developed a framework for understanding and promoting well-being and happiness. His model is known by the initials PERMA and identifies five essential elements:

  • Positive Emotions (P): Positive emotions, such as joy, gratitude, and love, are a fundamental part of wellbeing. They contribute to happiness and enhance overall life satisfaction.
  • Engagement (E): Engagement refers to the state of being fully absorbed and immersed in activities that align with your strengths and interests. It’s often associated with the concept of “flow,” where individuals lose track of time because they are so engrossed in what they’re doing.
  • Relationships (R): Positive and meaningful relationships with others are crucial for wellbeing. Connecting with others, offering and receiving support significantly contributes to happiness and satisfaction with life.
  • Meaning (M): Finding a sense of purpose, meaning, or direction in life is an important component for happiness. This involves understanding why one’s life matters and how it contributes to a greater purpose.
  • Accomplishment (A): Another factor to consider is achieving goals, setting and meeting challenges, learning new skills and competencies, all of which can lead to a sense of accomplishment.

PERMA should not be thought of as a formula for happiness, it’s a framework that has been helpful in guiding research and directing interventions aimed at improving the quality of life. Although the definition of happiness is useful, this framework provides some insight into the building blocks of happiness which will be used in the next section. Click here to watch Martin Seligman explain PERMA in more detail.

In summary, happiness is a positive emotional experience that results from how you feel about events and often involves the fulfilling of needs and ambitions. The PERMA model provides insight into the areas we can work on to become happier.

I appreciate this has been relatively detailed and you may need to read it a couple of times but I hope that it will provide a useful way of thinking about how learning might or might not help us feel happy.

“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.” Eleanor Roosevelt

But what about the money

“Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has, the more one wants.” Benjamin Franklin

You may have noticed that we have not mentioned money, largely because according to Seligman and others it’s not a key determinant of happiness. It might be a way in which you measure your accomplishments, “when I am earning £80,000 a year or have enough money to buy that new car, I will be successful”. Equally you may become incredibly engaged in earning lots of money, but that pile of paper in the corner will do little to put a smile on your face.

“Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable.” Claire Luce

Learning and happiness  

In terms of the bigger picture there is a general consensus that education enhances life satisfaction and as a result some degree of happiness, at least indirectly via gaining key determinants of happiness such as better occupations, monetary rewards (see above) and improved health. But let’s consider a few specifics.

The neurological impact – What’s happening inside your brain when learning? Research using brain imaging techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has shown that learning something new can result in an increase in Dopamine which is associated with feelings of pleasure, reward and motivation. Also, if the learning is engaging and the task completed on time, it can provide a sense of achievement, which can release Serotonin, the “feel-good” neurotransmitter which contributes to positive emotions and mental stability.

If PERMA leads to happiness, it should be a useful exercise to use it to evaluate the benefits of learning.

  • Positive Emotions (P): Positive emotions such as curiosity, interest, and enthusiasm can naturally emerge when learning, although you may need to foster a positive “I can do attitude” first.
  • Engagement (E): Engagement in learning is a natural outcome of a positive and enjoyable learning experience. When learning is engaging, individuals become fully absorbed in the subject, you can get into the “flow,” which makes it easier to grasp and retain new information.
  • Relationships (R): Something that can easily be overlooked is that learning often results in valuable relationships that develop when collaborating with peers, teachers and mentors. Positive relationships provide opportunities for feedback, support, and different perspectives, all of which help you to learn more effectively.  
  • Meaning (M): Finding meaning in the subject matter or the learning process is a powerful motivator. When you understand the significance of what you’re learning and how it will help you achieve your personal goals, there will be a greater sense of satisfaction that your efforts are worthwhile.
  • Accomplishment (A): Setting and achieving learning goals can be highly rewarding. As you make progress in your learning journey there can be a great sense of accomplishment as well as the development of mastery. This sense of achievement boosts confidence and self-efficacy, which only adds to a feeling of satisfaction and ultimately happiness.

Well, what do you think, does learning make you happy? I think so……but remember happiness is not a constant, so don’t expect to be smiling all the time, especially when you have decided not to go out, prioritising a night in with the text book instead!!

“He who laughs most, learns best.” John Cleese

Are you an imposter? – Imposter Syndrome

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Imposter Syndrome is said to be more prevalent in families that value success above all else

Have you ever looked around the room, maybe in the exam and everyone is writing or typing incredibly fast, answering every question perfectly, and it looks so easy. For you however, its hard work, you’re not sure if your answers are correct, in fact they are probably wrong. True you did score really well on your last test, and were one of the top three students, but you know for a fact that was more luck than ability.

Imposter syndrome
If when you are reading this, it sounds familiar then it’s possible you have something called Imposter Syndrome. But dont worry you’re not alone, a YouGov survey in 2022 found that around half of Britons identify with at least two out of five impostor syndrome characteristics. These include, thinking your peers are more intelligent, finding it difficult accepting compliments and praise and having high expectations of yourself. Now on their own some of these would be considered qualities, and are in fact desirable, but when combined with the others, it tells a slightly different story.

“You think, ‘Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don’t know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this? ” Meryl Streep. Often described as the best actress of her generation. She has 3 Academy Awards and 21 nominations, as well as 8 Golden Globe awards and 32 nominations.

The term Imposter Syndrome (Impostor Phenomenon) first appeared in a 1978 research paper by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes. Their work looked at high achieving women who despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments still had self-doubts in terms of their ability.
Although some believe that gender is not an issue, there is evidence showing that women tend to suffer from Imposter Syndrome more than men, but fear not it’s not a big difference and there is something arguably far worse – the Dunning Krugar effect. The opposite of Imposter Syndrome. Dunning Krugar is a cognitive bias where individuals with low ability in a particular domain tend to overestimate their ability, and men seem to have the advantage with this one.

Clance and Imes identified three critical attributes:

  • Thinking that people have an exaggerated view of your abilities
  • The fear of being exposed as a fraud
  • The continuous tendency to downplay your achievements

But what causes it? – Firstly, it’s important to say that although it’s referred to as a syndrome, there is no official diagnosis listed in the physiologist Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Clance and Imes simply stated that it was merely a common set of feelings experienced by high achieving women. In addition, it’s not binary, think of it more as on a scale, rather than having it or not. It can also be more prevalent in certain domains than others, for example you may be different at work than at home. As to its cause, its most likely the result of multiple factors, including personality traits (see below) and family background, for example some believe it to be more prevalent in families that value achievement above all else, have you seen Succession?

The Five Types of Impostor Syndrome
In the years that followed several other research papers were produced, which inspired a book written in 2011, by Dr. Valerie Young “The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women”. In the book she identified five types of imposter. These could easily be the profiles of students; can you spot yourself?

  • The Perfectionist – sets unrealistically high standards for themselves, maybe passing your exams faster than anyone else, they also believe that anything less than perfection is failure. Perfectionists often focus on minor mistakes and feel like frauds when they don’t meet their own high expectations. Over prepare and afraid to fail.
  • The Expert – believes they must know everything before considering themselves competent. They constantly seek more knowledge and fear being exposed for not knowing something. Never satisfied they know enough.
  • The Natural Genius – tend to measure their worth by how easily and quickly they grasp new concepts or skills. They become discouraged when faced with challenges that require effort, as they fear it’s a sign of inadequacy and lack of intelligence. Ashamed of struggling.
  • The Soloist – believe they must accomplish tasks on their own without seeking help, and they view asking as a sign of weakness. They feel they should learn everything independently, leading to isolation and reluctance to collaborate. Rejects help, works alone.
  • The Superwoman/Superman – feel they need to excel in all areas of life, in the classroom, at work, home, and personal relationships. They juggle multiple roles but often feel overwhelmed by the pressure to meet all these expectations, leading to self-doubt. Workaholic can burn out.

These types are not rigid categories, and it’s possible to exhibit a mix of different ones. One important step towards addressing imposter syndrome is firstly to acknowledge that you might have some of these.

“I still have a little impostor syndrome… It doesn’t go away, that feeling that you shouldn’t take me that seriously. What do I know? I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is.” Michelle Obama, graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Former first lady of the USA, 2009 to 2017.

How to overcome imposter syndrome?
Imposter syndrome is experienced by many people and in different ways, for some it’s a minor concern, for others however in can be a significant challenge. For example, in terms of learning it can take the fun out of studying and its hardly motivational, thinking that it’s just a matter of time before you fail something and are found out. These feelings of self-doubt can also stir up a lot of fear, anxiety and stress which in turn can lead to ineffective study, poor performance and a feeling that you should just give up. The good news is it can be managed and the feelings changed. Below are some ways to do this.

  • Self-Awareness – The first step is to recognise and acknowledge your imposter feelings. Appreciating that they are relatively common and not necessarily reflective of your competence.
  • Positive self-talk – Listen to what you’re saying to yourself and if its negative, replace it with more realistic and positive statements about your abilities and accomplishments.
  • Celebrate achievements – Think back to a time when you achieved something, acknowledge your successes and give yourself credit for your accomplishments. It might be worth actually writing them down and putting them on your wall.
  • Talk about it – Often, sharing your feelings with others can help, its partly about externalising how you feel but you might find they have similar concerns, reducing the feeling of isolation.
  • Set realistic goals – Break down your goals into smaller, achievable steps. This can help you build confidence as you make progress.
  • Embrace learning – Learning is a continuous process in gaining new skills and knowledge, it will not result in perfection, just progress.
  • Visualise Success – Imagine yourself succeeding in challenging situations, coming out of the exam room and feeling confident or getting your exam results, and it’s a pass.

Remember that overcoming imposter syndrome is a gradual process and might involve trying various strategies to find what works best for you. With determination, self-reflection, and support, you can effectively manage and diminish the impact Imposter Syndrome can have.

We will leave the last word to this guy……

“I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.” Neil Armstrong the first man on the moon!

Chatting with a Chat Bot – Prompting

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In December last year I wrote about what was then a relatively new technology, Generative AI (GAI). Seven months later it has become one of the most exciting and scary developments we have seen in recent years, it has the potential to create transformative change that will affect our very way of life, how we work and the area I am most interested in, how we learn. Initially it was all about a particular type of GAI called ChatGPT 3.5, a large language model funded by Microsoft. But the market reacted quickly and there are now many more models, including Bard from Google, Llama 2 from Meta and a pay for version of ChatGPT imaginatively entitled ChatGPT 4. And just to make this a little more complicated, in early February, Microsoft unveiled a new version of Bing (Microsoft’s search engine that competes with Google) that includes an AI chatbot powered by the same technology as ChatGPT.

One of the reasons for its rapid adoption is it’s so easy to use, you can literally chat with it as you might a human. However as with people, to have a meaningful conversation you need to plan what you want to say, be clear in how you say it whilst providing sufficient context to avoid misunderstanding.

“A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.” The Turing Test – Alan Turing

Prompting – rubbish in rubbish out

Prompting is how we talk with these GAI models. The quality and specificity of the prompt can significantly influence the response you get. A well-crafted prompt can lead to a coherent and relevant answer, whilst a poorly formulated one offers up ambiguity and irrelevant information. If only people thought as deeply about how they communicate with each other, we might avoid a lot of problems!

How to prompt
• Be clear, use specific and unambiguous language.
• Provide context as to why you are asking the question or who are, and write in complete sentences. For example, “would William Shakespeare be considered a great writer if he were to be published today?”
• Ask open ended questions, you will get more detailed and creative responses.
• Set rules such as the tone required or length of an answer, limiting it to so many words, sentence or paragraphs. For example, “in a sentence could you provide a motivational response as to why learning is important?”
• Ask a follow up question if you don’t get the answer you want. GAI is conversational and will remember what you asked last. For example, if you don’t think the answer goes into sufficient detail, say “could you provide more detail as to why this particular event was considered so important?”.
• Provide examples of what you want will result in far more accurate answers. For example, why not copy in the report you wrote last time and ask GAI to update it with new information but keeping the same style and within 10% of the word count.

……And although there is no need to be polite, I have to admit to saying please and thank you.

Types of questions

ChatGPT is very flexible when it comes to answering question, the secret is in getting the prompt right. Here are just a few examples with responses from ChatGPT.

• General knowledge, Q When was Winston Churchill born? A Winston Churchill was born on November 30, 1874.
• Explainer questions, Q Can you explain in 5 words why Churchill was considered a great prime minister? A Inspiring leadership during wartime victory.
• Comparison questions, Q In a sentence can you compare Winston Churchill with Boris Johnson? A. Winston Churchill was a historical wartime leader known for his inspirational leadership during World War II, while Boris Johnson is a contemporary British politician who served as Prime Minister from 2019 to 2022.
• Others, ask…. How to do something e.g. bake a lemon drizzle cake, Can you define apprentice, Tell me a joke, Write me a poem in Japanese. You are limited only by your imagination.

Using it to learn

There are many ways in which this new technology can help with learning but it comes with a couple of health warnings, firstly – GenAI can be a great teacher but it cannot learn for you. It is an excellent resource, able to provide answers 24/7, clarify, summarise etc but ultimately you are the one that has to do the learning. Secondly – All GenAI bots suffer from something called hallucination, they make stuff up. The problem with this is as a learner you might not be able to tell because the answer will sound so authentic. In terms of how common this is, ChatGPT estimates around 20% of answers given might have something wrong with them, but they are working on reducing this to less than 10%.

Here are a few ways you can use GAI
• Summarise large amounts of text – copy a whole section of text into the model and ask it to summarise the most important points. Remember the more detail you give, the more relevant the response, e.g. Produce me a timeline of key events or identify the theories used in the answer.
• Question practice and marking – copy a question in and ask for the answer in 100 words. Paste your answer in and ask it to give you some feedback against the answer it has just produced. This can be further refined if you put in the examiners answer and if you have it, the marking guide.
• Ask for improvement – put into the model your answer with the examiners answer and ask how you might improve the writing style, making it more concise or highlighting the most important points.
• Produce flip cards – ask the model to write you 5 questions with answers in the style of a flip card.
• Produce an answer for a specific qualification – ask if it could produce an answer that is possible to complete in one hour, that would pass the AQA, GCSE exam in biology.
• Explain something – ask can you explain, for example Photosynthesis in simple terms or as an analogy or metaphor.
• Coach me – Ask it to review your answer against the examiners answer but rather than correct it ask it to coach you through the process so that you develop a better understanding.

There is little doubt as to the potential of GenAI in learning, its biggest impact may be in developing countries where there is limited access to teachers and few resources. Although most would agree that an educated world is a better one, there will need to be some safeguards. It cant be left to the open market, education is simply too important.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”
Nelson Mandela

And If you want to see some of these tools in action as well as hear Sal Khan talk about Khanmigo, his version of a teacher chatbot, see below.
• Sal Khan talks about Khanmigo
• ChatGPT in action for studying and exams
• Revise SMARTER, not harder: How to use ChatGPT to ace your exams

Reading underwater – Context dependant memory

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This month…..perhaps something you could practice on holiday when your in the pool – Context dependant memory.

Context-dependent memory refers to the phenomenon where the retrieval of information is influenced by the context or environment in which it was encoded or learned. In other words, people tend to recall information more effectively when they are in the same or similar context as the one in which the information was initially learned.

Let me give you an example, have you ever lost your keys and no matter how hard you try to remember where you put them, you can’t. Then someone says the magic words, “when did you last remember seeing them?”. This forces you to revisit the context, effectively the circumstances, background information or setting in which you last saw your keys. You may even find it helpful to physically go to the last location when you saw them, from which you are able to recreate the chain of events that followed sufficiently well that your keys will simply appear. This proves we are storing information often unconsciously as to what is around us when a particular memory is created. It’s a very similar process used in the Roman Room (Loci method) memory technique that involves associating information with specific locations or rooms within a familiar building, such as a house. The idea is to mentally visualise the information you want to remember being stored in each room, making it easier to recall later.

There are three primary processes involved in memory, encoding, storage, and retrieval. The context or environment provides powerful cues that help encode the information, making it far easier to store and ultimately retrieve at a later date. The secret for a better memory is to improve the process of encoding and to use techniques that are effective in terms of retrieval. Retrieval failure on the other hand occurs when the memory is available to us, but the necessary cues to access and recall are not.

The underwater memory

One of the most famous studies that identified the power of context dependent memory was conducted by Godden and Baddeley in 1975. In their research, they explored how the external context in which information is learned affects the ability to recall that information accurately. The study involved divers who were taught lists of words either on land or underwater. The participants were then asked to recall the words in either the same or a different environment from where they learned them. The four conditions tested were land-land, land-water, water-land, and water-water. The results of the study showed that participants had better recall when the environment of recall matched the environment of learning. In other words, those who learned the words underwater had better memory recall when they were tested underwater, while those who learned on land had better memory recall when they were tested on land.

The experiment proved that the context in which information is initially encoded becomes an important cue for memory retrieval.

Studying and testing in the same environment

Perhaps a more relevant example was conducted by Grant et al in 1998 which showed that there was a significant improvement in learners performance when the studying and testing environments were consistent or the same. It highlighted the importance of considering the environmental context when learning, for example most exams are taken in silence, sat at a desk using a computer. The rationale behind context dependent memory would suggest that the best way to study would be similar. The silence acting as an auditory cue to focus and concentrate and the sound of the keyboard helping the brain recreate thoughts and ideas in a similar way as to when they were first created.

Mood and emotions are also context

But context-dependent memory is not limited to environmental cues but can also extend to other contextual factors, such as emotional state or mood. Mood-dependent memory proposes that memory retrieval is generally more effective when the emotional state experienced during encoding aligns with the emotional state present during retrieval. This is one reason why sitting a mock exam is so effective, not only does it help prepare you mentally in terms of coping with uncertainty, but anything learned where anxiety and concentration levels are high, as is the case for a mock exam will be retained, only to be rediscovered when you enter that same state in the real exam. You may have already experienced this when taking an exam and a similar question is asked, the result, you are able to recall the answer with great clarity.

Criticism

As with most theories there are of course critics, some suggesting that the controlled laboratory experiments may not adequately replicate the complex and dynamic contexts people encounter in the real world. In addition memory effects may vary depending on individual differences, such as cognitive processes and personality traits.

However…….There is little doubt that the way information is encoded is a significant factor in determining how well you are able to remember something later. So why not give it a go when your next underwater.

Listen to DR Robert Byork discuss this in more detail, well worth 8.5 minutes of your time.

Revising Revision – and exam proximity

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Several years ago, I was asked a very interesting question, why do students’ revise just before the exam. At the time I thought it odd that anyone would even ask, but I realised I hadn’t thought much about it, partly because that’s the way it had always been.

The alternative approach was, rather than having one big revision session at the end of the course, we should have two or three shorter ones at appropriate points during the course. This would avoid the need to revise so much all at once and as a consequence reduce the effort required. It was a good question…….

What is revision?
Lets start with a definition, the word revision can be traced back to the Latin “reviser” which means to look at again, visit again, look back on.

In learning it can be thought of as the process of reviewing and re-examining previously learned material to reinforce understanding, improve retention, identify gaps in knowledge and be well prepared for the test, exam or assessment.

To better understand what revision is, let’s take a closer look at some of those objectives.

  • Reinforcing understanding – people tend to think of understating in binary terms, that is you either understand or you don’t. But understanding has several different levels, starting with the most basic, can you explain something? For example, I can explain to some degree, how a combustion engine works but could I apply that knowledge to how it might work in F1, I don’t t think so. Being able to apply your knowledge in different ways is a higher level of understanding. At the opposite end of the spectrum to being able to explain something is what is called self-knowledge. This is the highest level of understanding and is where you are so good, you can challenge your own thinking by asking, what are the limits of my understanding, identify prejudices and ultimately become aware of what you don’t really understand, which is kind of ironical when you think about it! The point being that when you look back and reflect on what you have already studied there may be an element of reinforcing or reconfirming your understanding of a particular topic but you will also be deepening your understanding, effectively moving it to another level.  

“I know only one thing: that I know nothing”. Socrates

  • Improving retention – we have to be careful with this one, although the act of looking back improves retention, the secret lies in how you do it. For example, re-reading notes, even with the use of a highlighter may feel that its helping but this is a well-researched area and the evidence tells us in terms of retention, it doesn’t really work. This is in contrast to retrieval practice, a study method that I have written about in several previous blogs. Here the learner is forced to engage with the material in an active way rather than a passive one, most often by asking them to complete a test or answer a question, in fact it’s often referred to as the testing effect. The very process of making the learner think about what they know, strengthens the connection with the material they are trying to learn, and moves it from short term memory into long term memory, which is how learning happens.
  • Identify knowledge gaps – this is perhaps the most obvious one, looking back on a subject will reveal areas that you might not even remember studying at all. The implication is that there will be a certain amount of learning taking place for the first time. Of course, gaps in knowledge should be kept to a minimum by ensuring that the subject coverage is as comprehensive as possible, or at the very least focused on the most important areas. However, do not expect to have a complete grasp of everything, this is especially true as you move up that academic ladder, even experts have gaps in their knowledge.
  • Preparation for the test – this is not really about learning, its preparation for the challenge ahead, effectively making sure you are match fit.  One of the best things you can do in the revision period is practice past questions, including the completion of a mock exam. Not only will you be benefiting from retrieval practice, you will also be developing what researchers in 2016 called “question literacy”, the ability to know what the examiner is asking because you have seen similar questions before. Attempting a mock under exam conditions can also help you better manage time and be prepared for the way you feel under pressure. It’s no good having worked hard to understand the subject matter if you can’t answer the questions in the time available. Equally you need to practice leaving questions you want to answer in favour of those that you don’t, remember its always easier to get the marks at the start of a question than at the end.   And finally, when the exam is just around the corner, although you may feel more anxious your levels of motivation, concentration and work ethic will almost certainly rise.  

Preparing for the test doesn’t help you pass; it stops you failing. SPS

Why revision should be just before the exam
Whilst it’s possible to improve retention and identify knowledge gaps during your studies, you can’t effectively prepare for the exam until its close enough that the reality of how little time you have left is clear. Why do people suddenly become motivated, well its partly because the challenge is no longer distant, it’s no longer at some point in the future, its next week. It’s a variation on something called myopic discounting. For example, it’s very difficult to motivate yourself to work over a weekend in September if you know the exam is in June the following year. Also, the way you are learning changes when the exam is very close, you are no longer sitting in lectures or reading books but practicing past questions, improving your question literacy whilst building up your levels of resilience and learning new exam skills such as time management.

And one final thought, although some of what is memorised, rather than understood in the revision period may be forgotten, it can still help you pass on the day. Poor learning perhaps but good exam technique.

I Do, We Do, You Do – The importance of Scaffolding

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It’s not a bad analogy to think of learning as if you were building a house.

Although you’re going to need help, when the house is finished it will all be yours. Firstly, it’s important that the foundations are strong, if not what follows may be unstable and at worst collapse. Then slowly but surely, you place one brick on top of another. The whole process requires planning, time, motivation and a significant amount of effort. But when the roof is finally on and you move in, you should feel rightly proud of what you have achieved and hopefully believe it’s all been worth it.

Although the house now looks strong and well-built, a short while ago it was covered in scaffolding, which was essential if the house was ever to be finished.

And that’s a nice introduction (hopefully) to this months’ blog, something that helps make learning possible but at the end can no longer be seen – Its name scaffolding!

Scaffolding (background – bear with me)
The term scaffolding first appeared in the work of Jerome Bruner in the 1960s and more formally when he published his ideas in the early 70’s. According to Bruner when a learner first encounters a new concept, they need help from an expert or teacher but as the learner becomes more independent in their thinking and acquires new skills and knowledge, the support can be gradually removed. The implication is that the learner will be able to achieve far more with scaffolding than would have been possible on their own.

Bruner’s ideas were not his alone and were an extension of some of the work of Lev Vygotsky and his thoughts around the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The diagram shows what a learner can achieve on their own compared to what is possible with guidance.

Direct instruction – I do- we do – you do
Its very easy to be underwhelmed by both Bruner and Vygostky, in simple terms all they are saying is that, people can learn more if they are supported and helped by an expert, Wow! But their work underpinned a popular and very practical technique, a form of Direct Instruction, called, I Do – We Do – You Do.

As you might know from previous blogs, I am a big fan of Direct Instruction, largely because there is evidence that proves it works. But sometimes it’s hard to convince others as to its merits because the term “instruction” sounds like you are telling the learner what to do, which some believe in particular Constructivists that this is not the best way to teach. Yet few would argue with this model, partly because it seems sensible, is practical and effective.

In addition, it’s one of the most popular techniques used in Professional Education, this is because of the very tight time constraints, levels of technical detail that have to be learned and the high stakes nature of the exam.

Here’s how it works.

  • I Do – In this phase the teacher should model the new learning having broken the content into small chunks, using worked examples and step by step instruction. The learners should have their pens down (Tablets, PCs closed) so they can focus on what the teacher is doing. Pace is important, the modelling should not be rushed, questions can be taken at the end.
  • We Do – This is when the scaffolding starts to take effect. In this phase the learners have a go on their own or at least attempt part of the task before stopping to check if they are on the right track, maybe confirming their understanding. The teacher needs to remain alert and might have to step in to clarify an area that seems to be holding everyone back. It may prove necessary to stay at this stage for some time, there is little point moving on until everyone is happy to do so.
  • You Do – Finally, once the learners are confident with the steps required, they are ready to have a go completely on their own. The whole process is effectively a gradual release of responsibility, giving the learner more and more control over their own learning until they become independent. There could also be a need for some levels of personalisation because some learners will take longer than others to master the new content.

This is not the only way you can use scaffolding, there are many other techniques but I hope that you can see its one of the most effective.

Video – don’t be put off by the simple nature of this video, it explains it very well.

Podcasting for Learning “Podagogy”

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(Not written by ChatGPT) 

There are over 4 million Podcasts registered worldwide. South Korea boasts the biggest podcast listenership, with the UK sitting just outside the top 10. Over 19.1 million Britons listen to podcasts and 40% of them are aged between 26 and 35.

The most popular podcast in the world is the Joe Rogan Experience, with 11 million listeners and although this show is 2 hours long the average length is between 20 and 40 minutes.

Whatever way you slice or dice the data, podcasting has become hugely popular, but does it have a role to play in helping us learn?

What is a podcast?
Simply put, a podcast is a digital audio file that can be downloaded via the Internet to a computer or mobile device for listening. It’s similar to radio in that it has an auditory modality but that’s where the similarity ends, podcasts are on demand, pre-recorded, broken down into episodes and the subject matter is targeted at niche audiences rather than mass appeal.

The growth in podcasts suggests they must be offering something their audience wants, maybe it’s just the convenience, easily listened to on a mobile device and short enough to be consumed whilst walking the dog or working out at the gym. This is certainly a factor but there is more to it than that.

Impact on Learning
When asked, people provide a whole host of reasons why they listen to podcast, for example, entertainment, to keep up to date, to relax, and for inspiration. But one of the biggest areas often quoted, is to learn something new. But the question is, how good are podcasts in helping people do this?

Let’s look at some research – In 2007 Kurtz, Fenwick, and Ellsworth produced a paper called,” Using podcasts and tablet PCs in Computer Science”, there conclusion, although podcast learners didn’t perform any better in the exam their project grades were substantially higher. But these were video podcasts, effectively recorded lectures with slides which is not really what we are talking about here. A far more relevant and conclusive result came from Abt and Barry (2007), “The Quantitative Effect of Students Using Podcasts”. One group of learners listened to six podcasts over six weeks, while the other group were provided with an exact transcript of the podcasts in printed form to ensure both groups had the same content. After six weeks, the groups were re-examined both taking the same test. The results were the same, the podcast group were no better, leading to the conclusion that podcasts provide little quantitative benefit over and above written text.

However, learners like them and when asked often say, they make content easier to understand and are very engaging. But it’s hard to conclude anything from the empirical evidence other than podcasts have a positive effect on learner satisfaction but little or no impact on performance. Even where some benefits have been shown they are more likely the result of encouraging better study habits than providing something valuable in terms of learning.

Visual and auditory memory
The above is not entirely surprising especially when you consider how memory works. Researchers at the University of Iowa found that when it comes to memory, we don’t remember things we hear nearly as well as what we see or touch.

“As it turns out, there is merit to the Chinese proverb ‘I hear, and I forget; I see, and I remember,” James Bigelow, lead author of the study at UI

The researchers found that although learners memory declined across all modalities when time delays grew longer, the decline was much greater for sounds, and began as early as four to eight seconds after being exposed to them.

Podcast are good for learning!
However this doesn’t mean podcasts have no role to play in learning, they do, but they need to be used alongside evidence-based techniques such as spaced and retrieval practice, interleaving etc as well as good teaching practices, for example using projects and group work. Imagine a 15m podcast in the form of an interview between two people debating the merits of putting jam on the cream or cream on the jam when eating a scone. If at the end of the podcast a task was set, maybe asking the learner to summarise what was discussed or prepare a short presentation of the key points, this would force the learner to listen several times, think more deeply about the task and what was being said, the result of which would be learning.

They can also be beneficial in the revision phase when the exam is just around the corner, for example, you could listen to key definitions supported by proven memory techniques such as visualisation, repetition and the use of rhyme. Talking out loud along with the podcast would also help. Why not produce your own podcasts, perhaps with another learner that can be listened to in the car or ask ChatGPT to write you a podcast script based on what you are trying to learn.

Podcasts do have a role to play in learning, they can help develop critical thinking by listening to a debate with counter arguments, the key is to engage, don’t be passive. However, audio as a modality on its own is not the most effective method of learning, but as another tool in the box, it’s worth having.

Kaplan – Learn better podcast
I have been hosting a podcast for the last two years for Kaplan and we are now in season three, in fact episode 22 was released this week. It is for a relatively niche market as is the case with podcasts but if you work in finance and would like to listen to some inspiring people, click here – enjoy.

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.