WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.480 align:middle line:90% [SQUEAKING] 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:04.464 align:middle line:90% [RUSTLING] 00:00:04.464 --> 00:00:05.952 align:middle line:90% [CLICKING] 00:00:05.952 --> 00:00:12.415 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.415 --> 00:00:14.040 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: Why don't we get started? 00:00:14.040 --> 00:00:15.300 align:middle line:90% Nice to see you all. 00:00:15.300 --> 00:00:19.250 align:middle line:84% So the thing I asked you to do in your learning journals 00:00:19.250 --> 00:00:22.310 align:middle line:84% for today was to do a little reflection 00:00:22.310 --> 00:00:24.420 align:middle line:90% on your personal edtech history. 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:29.400 align:middle line:84% So what are tools, experiences, platforms, 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:32.900 align:middle line:84% systems that either had some very positive effect 00:00:32.900 --> 00:00:34.650 align:middle line:84% on your learning trajectory, you, like, 00:00:34.650 --> 00:00:37.400 align:middle line:84% discovered a love of something because you did that, or were 00:00:37.400 --> 00:00:41.580 align:middle line:84% terrible and disastrous, they ruined your learning experience, 00:00:41.580 --> 00:00:44.510 align:middle line:84% they made you feel bad, they inhibited your learning 00:00:44.510 --> 00:00:46.940 align:middle line:84% in some way, or they were just interesting, or engaging, 00:00:46.940 --> 00:00:50.720 align:middle line:84% or useless, or some other way distinctive. 00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:53.563 align:middle line:84% Go ahead and-- now, if you didn't do that assignment, 00:00:53.563 --> 00:00:55.980 align:middle line:84% you can probably still make up an answer to that question. 00:00:55.980 --> 00:00:59.865 align:middle line:84% So you'll be OK for today, but turn to the person or two 00:00:59.865 --> 00:01:01.240 align:middle line:84% next to you, get in small groups, 00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:02.740 align:middle line:84% and just share a little bit with each other 00:01:02.740 --> 00:01:05.180 align:middle line:84% about this little snippet of your personal edtech history. 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:06.920 align:middle line:84% We'll do that for five minutes or so and then share out. 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:07.795 align:middle line:90% Does that make sense? 00:01:07.795 --> 00:01:08.535 align:middle line:90% Ready, go. 00:01:08.535 --> 00:01:14.470 align:middle line:90% 00:01:14.470 --> 00:01:16.000 align:middle line:84% Did anybody happen to be in a group 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:19.330 align:middle line:84% where multiple people in the group mentioned the same thing? 00:01:19.330 --> 00:01:21.130 align:middle line:90% Were they all different? 00:01:21.130 --> 00:01:23.680 align:middle line:90% What were the most similar ones? 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:25.510 align:middle line:90% Anybody? 00:01:25.510 --> 00:01:28.570 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: There was a computer literacy class, like, 00:01:28.570 --> 00:01:29.572 align:middle line:90% similarity. 00:01:29.572 --> 00:01:30.530 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: OK, good. 00:01:30.530 --> 00:01:32.860 align:middle line:84% So there's a class, which is called computer 00:01:32.860 --> 00:01:34.040 align:middle line:90% literacy, digital literacy. 00:01:34.040 --> 00:01:35.832 align:middle line:84% And it's kind of a pretty out, like, here's 00:01:35.832 --> 00:01:37.990 align:middle line:84% how to use PowerPoint, here's how to type, here's 00:01:37.990 --> 00:01:40.760 align:middle line:84% how to do pretty simple things with computers. 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:41.260 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:01:41.260 --> 00:01:44.950 align:middle line:84% Yeah, that's a feature of a lot of different kinds of school 00:01:44.950 --> 00:01:46.000 align:middle line:90% systems. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:48.987 align:middle line:84% And was it successful in your environments or was it a drag? 00:01:48.987 --> 00:01:49.695 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: A drag. 00:01:49.695 --> 00:01:50.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:50.860 --> 00:01:52.160 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, good. 00:01:52.160 --> 00:01:52.750 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:01:52.750 --> 00:01:56.885 align:middle line:84% Yeah, there can be a bias that, oh, man, 00:01:56.885 --> 00:01:58.510 align:middle line:84% we got to put technology in the schools 00:01:58.510 --> 00:01:59.830 align:middle line:84% because the kids are going to be really fired up 00:01:59.830 --> 00:02:01.210 align:middle line:84% about the technology in the school. 00:02:01.210 --> 00:02:03.418 align:middle line:84% No, actually if you do boring things with technology, 00:02:03.418 --> 00:02:07.480 align:middle line:84% they're just as bored, sometimes even more so. 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:09.490 align:middle line:84% Anybody have things that were really 00:02:09.490 --> 00:02:12.400 align:middle line:84% positive experiences for them, that somebody, you or somebody 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:14.080 align:middle line:90% in your group talked about? 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:15.860 align:middle line:84% Things you're like, yeah, that was great. 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:17.210 align:middle line:90% That really made school better. 00:02:17.210 --> 00:02:19.540 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Well, I mean, I talked about the smart board, 00:02:19.540 --> 00:02:22.340 align:middle line:84% and just like the implementation of it in, like, every classroom, 00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:25.720 align:middle line:84% I feel like, especially as our generation was growing up. 00:02:25.720 --> 00:02:28.900 align:middle line:84% And like, I don't know, like, I made a little, like, side story 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:31.810 align:middle line:84% about how that's the first time I felt like the student became 00:02:31.810 --> 00:02:34.270 align:middle line:84% the teacher because the old ladies at our schools 00:02:34.270 --> 00:02:37.785 align:middle line:84% didn't know how to recalibrate it or turn it on. 00:02:37.785 --> 00:02:39.910 align:middle line:84% So it was always the students coming up and showing 00:02:39.910 --> 00:02:41.240 align:middle line:90% the teacher how to use it. 00:02:41.240 --> 00:02:41.440 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah. 00:02:41.440 --> 00:02:41.710 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:02:41.710 --> 00:02:42.210 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:02:42.210 --> 00:02:44.870 align:middle line:84% Good, a sort of inversion of expertise. 00:02:44.870 --> 00:02:48.040 align:middle line:84% How many of you were in schools where smart boards just kind 00:02:48.040 --> 00:02:50.510 align:middle line:84% of appeared in the middle of your educational trajectory? 00:02:50.510 --> 00:02:52.100 align:middle line:84% Yeah, you all are in the sweet spot. 00:02:52.100 --> 00:02:55.845 align:middle line:84% How many of you would say that they were-- 00:02:55.845 --> 00:02:57.220 align:middle line:84% anybody at schools where you felt 00:02:57.220 --> 00:02:59.512 align:middle line:84% like they were very effective, where they substantially 00:02:59.512 --> 00:03:00.510 align:middle line:90% improved learning? 00:03:00.510 --> 00:03:01.330 align:middle line:90% You thought yours? 00:03:01.330 --> 00:03:01.830 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:03:01.830 --> 00:03:02.940 align:middle line:84% How many of you were at schools where 00:03:02.940 --> 00:03:04.930 align:middle line:84% this is like, no one is using these things, 00:03:04.930 --> 00:03:06.570 align:middle line:84% they could have just bought chalkboards or whiteboards 00:03:06.570 --> 00:03:07.450 align:middle line:90% or things like that? 00:03:07.450 --> 00:03:09.520 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so overwhelming majority of that. 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:12.750 align:middle line:84% Yeah, smart boards are like a totally fascinating case study. 00:03:12.750 --> 00:03:19.560 align:middle line:84% A vast amount of money was spent on these tools that 00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:22.680 align:middle line:84% seemed to have essentially no positive impact at all 00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:23.310 align:middle line:90% on learning. 00:03:23.310 --> 00:03:25.560 align:middle line:84% In lots of places, they really weren't used 00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:27.520 align:middle line:90% as interactive whiteboards. 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:30.330 align:middle line:84% They were just like, oh, like, a whiteboard. 00:03:30.330 --> 00:03:33.450 align:middle line:84% Khalil and I were joking that they actually 00:03:33.450 --> 00:03:34.950 align:middle line:84% didn't work very well in his school, 00:03:34.950 --> 00:03:36.408 align:middle line:84% in particular, because they require 00:03:36.408 --> 00:03:38.355 align:middle line:90% slightly different lighting. 00:03:38.355 --> 00:03:40.230 align:middle line:84% Like, you need to dim the lights a little bit 00:03:40.230 --> 00:03:41.200 align:middle line:90% to be able to see them. 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:43.072 align:middle line:84% But the classrooms that were built 00:03:43.072 --> 00:03:44.530 align:middle line:84% were not built for dimmable lights. 00:03:44.530 --> 00:03:46.488 align:middle line:84% They were built for lights that would be shined 00:03:46.488 --> 00:03:47.760 align:middle line:90% on whiteboards or chalkboards. 00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:49.837 align:middle line:84% And so the rest of the-- there's a whole bunch 00:03:49.837 --> 00:03:51.420 align:middle line:84% of the rest of the infrastructure that 00:03:51.420 --> 00:03:52.660 align:middle line:90% didn't make smart boards work. 00:03:52.660 --> 00:03:53.950 align:middle line:84% Like, maybe your classroom didn't work, 00:03:53.950 --> 00:03:55.360 align:middle line:84% maybe there was no training for your teacher, 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:56.820 align:middle line:84% maybe there were no curriculum materials 00:03:56.820 --> 00:03:59.070 align:middle line:84% that were available to integrate with the smart board. 00:03:59.070 --> 00:04:05.015 align:middle line:84% And yet, how is it the case that we 00:04:05.015 --> 00:04:06.390 align:middle line:84% could be in a room full of people 00:04:06.390 --> 00:04:08.050 align:middle line:84% all across the country, all across the world, 00:04:08.050 --> 00:04:09.220 align:middle line:84% you all raised your hand and you're like, 00:04:09.220 --> 00:04:11.880 align:middle line:84% we all bought smart boards and they all didn't work? 00:04:11.880 --> 00:04:12.425 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:04:12.425 --> 00:04:13.800 align:middle line:84% Like, why didn't the first people 00:04:13.800 --> 00:04:16.932 align:middle line:84% who bought smart boards be like, team, this is not a good idea? 00:04:16.932 --> 00:04:18.640 align:middle line:84% Like, spend your money on something else. 00:04:18.640 --> 00:04:22.410 align:middle line:84% Every dollar we spend on education technology 00:04:22.410 --> 00:04:24.840 align:middle line:90% has an opportunity cost. 00:04:24.840 --> 00:04:26.980 align:middle line:84% Every time you spend $1 in a school, 00:04:26.980 --> 00:04:30.060 align:middle line:84% you're trying to make people's learning better. 00:04:30.060 --> 00:04:33.210 align:middle line:84% And there are very few dollars that we 00:04:33.210 --> 00:04:34.510 align:middle line:90% spend that make learning worse. 00:04:34.510 --> 00:04:35.740 align:middle line:84% Does anybody feel like the smart board 00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:38.370 align:middle line:84% actively, like, made you dumber or learn slower or something 00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:38.950 align:middle line:90% like that? 00:04:38.950 --> 00:04:39.550 align:middle line:90% Probably not. 00:04:39.550 --> 00:04:40.590 align:middle line:84% Like, probably you're smart-- like, 00:04:40.590 --> 00:04:42.300 align:middle line:84% it's probably the case that no one, none of you 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:43.540 align:middle line:90% were harmed by smart boards. 00:04:43.540 --> 00:04:44.850 align:middle line:90% I think that's pretty unlikely. 00:04:44.850 --> 00:04:48.750 align:middle line:84% But every dollar your school spent on smart boards 00:04:48.750 --> 00:04:50.950 align:middle line:84% could have been spent on some other technology, 00:04:50.950 --> 00:04:53.260 align:middle line:84% on some other curriculum material, on art supplies, 00:04:53.260 --> 00:04:54.968 align:middle line:84% on professional development for teachers, 00:04:54.968 --> 00:04:56.810 align:middle line:84% on a zillion other things which could 00:04:56.810 --> 00:04:59.030 align:middle line:84% have improved your learning experience 00:04:59.030 --> 00:05:02.600 align:middle line:84% and not just been, like, a very expensive version 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:05.090 align:middle line:84% of a whiteboard or something like that. 00:05:05.090 --> 00:05:07.610 align:middle line:84% So there's a lot in that discussion of smart boards 00:05:07.610 --> 00:05:10.010 align:middle line:84% that I think is helpful for us to think about. 00:05:10.010 --> 00:05:15.350 align:middle line:84% How not just of the efficacy of any particular technology, 00:05:15.350 --> 00:05:17.100 align:middle line:84% the efficacy of any particular technology, 00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:19.238 align:middle line:84% how a particular technology is situated 00:05:19.238 --> 00:05:21.530 align:middle line:84% in different kinds of places, with at least one example 00:05:21.530 --> 00:05:23.600 align:middle line:84% from Dana who's like, no, these things are great. 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:24.762 align:middle line:90% We bought them. 00:05:24.762 --> 00:05:26.220 align:middle line:84% Our teachers got trained with them. 00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:27.410 align:middle line:84% Students were able to help use them. 00:05:27.410 --> 00:05:28.910 align:middle line:84% Like, it worked in that one context, 00:05:28.910 --> 00:05:30.592 align:middle line:84% even if almost universally, it didn't 00:05:30.592 --> 00:05:31.800 align:middle line:90% work in these other contexts. 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:32.840 align:middle line:84% So those are all things we're going to have 00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:33.870 align:middle line:90% to unpack and figure out. 00:05:33.870 --> 00:05:36.162 align:middle line:84% And then we're also going to answer this question like, 00:05:36.162 --> 00:05:38.300 align:middle line:84% if there's this thing which overwhelmingly 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:42.030 align:middle line:84% doesn't work, why did schools spend so much money on it? 00:05:42.030 --> 00:05:44.460 align:middle line:90% What were the incentives? 00:05:44.460 --> 00:05:45.420 align:middle line:90% What was the logic? 00:05:45.420 --> 00:05:47.070 align:middle line:90% Who was spending this money? 00:05:47.070 --> 00:05:50.360 align:middle line:84% All these kinds of things are questions we can keep asking. 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:53.483 align:middle line:84% Anybody have really disastrous stories? 00:05:53.483 --> 00:05:55.900 align:middle line:84% That's kind of like a banal weird, that thing didn't work. 00:05:55.900 --> 00:05:57.775 align:middle line:84% But anybody have, man, this was terrible kind 00:05:57.775 --> 00:05:59.036 align:middle line:90% of experience with technology? 00:05:59.036 --> 00:06:04.380 align:middle line:90% 00:06:04.380 --> 00:06:07.330 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: At our smart boards, in one case, 00:06:07.330 --> 00:06:09.390 align:middle line:84% students were able to install, like-- 00:06:09.390 --> 00:06:11.940 align:middle line:84% so you can customize the brushes. 00:06:11.940 --> 00:06:18.000 align:middle line:84% And the students just chose kind of an awful picture of a teacher 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:19.330 align:middle line:90% to put as a brush. 00:06:19.330 --> 00:06:22.590 align:middle line:84% And they used as a kind of a prank on them, which 00:06:22.590 --> 00:06:27.708 align:middle line:84% is technology allows you to do more creative pranks. 00:06:27.708 --> 00:06:28.500 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Good. 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:29.000 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.540 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so expanding our way of humiliating faculty, 00:06:31.540 --> 00:06:32.808 align:middle line:90% that could be one good way. 00:06:32.808 --> 00:06:34.350 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: In seventh grade, my school 00:06:34.350 --> 00:06:36.118 align:middle line:84% decided to give everyone a Chromebook. 00:06:36.118 --> 00:06:38.160 align:middle line:84% But in seventh grade, I feel like everyone is not 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:39.537 align:middle line:90% really mature. 00:06:39.537 --> 00:06:41.620 align:middle line:84% So in class, everyone would find a different game. 00:06:41.620 --> 00:06:44.220 align:middle line:84% It was like the snake I/O game, or the paint I/O. 00:06:44.220 --> 00:06:46.260 align:middle line:84% And the entire class would be on the game, 00:06:46.260 --> 00:06:48.010 align:middle line:84% like, while the teacher was teaching. 00:06:48.010 --> 00:06:50.410 align:middle line:84% So then they would have to block different websites, 00:06:50.410 --> 00:06:52.210 align:middle line:84% but a new website would appear every week, 00:06:52.210 --> 00:06:53.750 align:middle line:84% so they just had to keep blocking more and more. 00:06:53.750 --> 00:06:53.890 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah. 00:06:53.890 --> 00:06:54.040 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:54.040 --> 00:06:54.550 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:54.550 --> 00:06:57.100 align:middle line:84% Yeah, blocking websites is a good way 00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:58.683 align:middle line:84% to teach young people how to use VPNs. 00:06:58.683 --> 00:07:00.600 align:middle line:84% If you were like, I want to teach young people 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:02.960 align:middle line:84% how to use VPNs, then blocking websites is pretty good. 00:07:02.960 --> 00:07:07.930 align:middle line:84% But I wrote an op-Ed once years and years ago. 00:07:07.930 --> 00:07:10.310 align:middle line:84% Probably like just after I was teaching, probably 2006, 00:07:10.310 --> 00:07:12.700 align:middle line:90% or '07, or something like that. 00:07:12.700 --> 00:07:14.440 align:middle line:84% Where I describe them as knee-high fences 00:07:14.440 --> 00:07:17.590 align:middle line:84% around the internet that adults trip over and young people just 00:07:17.590 --> 00:07:18.470 align:middle line:90% jump over. 00:07:18.470 --> 00:07:20.162 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:20.162 --> 00:07:20.990 align:middle line:90% 00:07:20.990 --> 00:07:21.490 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:07:21.490 --> 00:07:22.130 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:07:22.130 --> 00:07:23.755 align:middle line:84% So here's this tool, which actually now 00:07:23.755 --> 00:07:26.603 align:middle line:84% is like Chromebooks are pretty ubiquitous in schools. 00:07:26.603 --> 00:07:28.270 align:middle line:84% There are plenty of places where there's 00:07:28.270 --> 00:07:30.490 align:middle line:84% pushback against these kinds of technology 00:07:30.490 --> 00:07:34.150 align:middle line:84% for people telling just the story that you described, 00:07:34.150 --> 00:07:36.760 align:middle line:84% our devices are canonically designed 00:07:36.760 --> 00:07:39.310 align:middle line:84% to capture our attention as much as possible, 00:07:39.310 --> 00:07:41.800 align:middle line:84% and to particularly capture our attention in ways that 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:44.453 align:middle line:84% have us look at advertisements for people who are designing 00:07:44.453 --> 00:07:46.870 align:middle line:84% phones, and computers, and websites, and things like that, 00:07:46.870 --> 00:07:48.370 align:middle line:90% is like a central focus. 00:07:48.370 --> 00:07:50.870 align:middle line:84% How do we get you looking at this thing as much as possible? 00:07:50.870 --> 00:07:52.000 align:middle line:84% And in particular, how do we then 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.170 align:middle line:84% get advertisements to slide in front of these things 00:07:54.170 --> 00:07:55.460 align:middle line:84% so that people will pay you to look at it? 00:07:55.460 --> 00:07:57.160 align:middle line:84% That is not a set of characteristics 00:07:57.160 --> 00:07:58.930 align:middle line:84% that are good for a learning environment. 00:07:58.930 --> 00:07:59.930 align:middle line:84% But on the other hand, we could-- 00:07:59.930 --> 00:08:01.805 align:middle line:84% I'm sure some of you may have mentioned them, 00:08:01.805 --> 00:08:04.570 align:middle line:84% but we can go to schools where Chromebooks are implemented 00:08:04.570 --> 00:08:06.550 align:middle line:84% and the kids are not playing snake I/O all day 00:08:06.550 --> 00:08:08.620 align:middle line:84% because they're doing, like, interesting learning 00:08:08.620 --> 00:08:10.750 align:middle line:84% activities that are well supervised that would not 00:08:10.750 --> 00:08:12.958 align:middle line:84% be possible without the Chromebook, without the apps, 00:08:12.958 --> 00:08:15.292 align:middle line:84% without the access to the internet and things like that. 00:08:15.292 --> 00:08:16.900 align:middle line:84% So we could also think about what 00:08:16.900 --> 00:08:21.230 align:middle line:84% happened in your school that had this kind of purchase, 00:08:21.230 --> 00:08:24.910 align:middle line:84% and then there was clearly not the rest of the infrastructure 00:08:24.910 --> 00:08:27.140 align:middle line:84% in place to have that purchase be meaningful, 00:08:27.140 --> 00:08:29.170 align:middle line:84% whereas the exact same purpose in other places 00:08:29.170 --> 00:08:31.490 align:middle line:84% was supported by professional learning, and curriculum, 00:08:31.490 --> 00:08:32.948 align:middle line:84% and like, all the other things that 00:08:32.948 --> 00:08:36.968 align:middle line:84% might have potentially made that a valuable learning experience. 00:08:36.968 --> 00:08:38.510 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So I was talking to Herman, 00:08:38.510 --> 00:08:40.593 align:middle line:84% and I think we had a bit of a different experience 00:08:40.593 --> 00:08:42.640 align:middle line:84% from most of the people in the class, 00:08:42.640 --> 00:08:45.980 align:middle line:84% because we didn't do our basic learning in the US. 00:08:45.980 --> 00:08:46.930 align:middle line:90% So [INAUDIBLE]. 00:08:46.930 --> 00:08:47.780 align:middle line:90% I'm from Brazil. 00:08:47.780 --> 00:08:52.590 align:middle line:84% I think we use technology to a much lesser extent than here. 00:08:52.590 --> 00:08:55.380 align:middle line:84% So I remember there was, like, one significant experience 00:08:55.380 --> 00:08:57.640 align:middle line:84% for me in terms of using technology growing up, 00:08:57.640 --> 00:09:01.740 align:middle line:84% which is going to a media lab to do English classes. 00:09:01.740 --> 00:09:04.350 align:middle line:84% And I think it comes to your point of having 00:09:04.350 --> 00:09:06.370 align:middle line:90% a purpose to having technology. 00:09:06.370 --> 00:09:07.570 align:middle line:90% And that was very clear. 00:09:07.570 --> 00:09:11.190 align:middle line:84% You can't really do listening and speaking exercises 00:09:11.190 --> 00:09:13.710 align:middle line:84% unless you actually have something to listen 00:09:13.710 --> 00:09:15.010 align:middle line:90% to and something to repeat. 00:09:15.010 --> 00:09:17.070 align:middle line:84% And like, each person would have their booth 00:09:17.070 --> 00:09:18.900 align:middle line:84% where they could practice by themselves. 00:09:18.900 --> 00:09:21.600 align:middle line:84% So I think the fact that it was very purposeful, 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:23.940 align:middle line:84% and that it changed from day to day, because I think 00:09:23.940 --> 00:09:25.603 align:middle line:90% also there's an aspect of-- 00:09:25.603 --> 00:09:27.520 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: We're going to the computer lab. 00:09:27.520 --> 00:09:28.480 align:middle line:90% We're doing something different. 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:29.230 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Exactly. 00:09:29.230 --> 00:09:30.180 align:middle line:90% You change floors. 00:09:30.180 --> 00:09:31.650 align:middle line:84% It was a different scene changes. 00:09:31.650 --> 00:09:32.500 align:middle line:90% Like, lighting. 00:09:32.500 --> 00:09:34.410 align:middle line:84% Like, the fact that it's different 00:09:34.410 --> 00:09:35.950 align:middle line:90% made it much more interesting. 00:09:35.950 --> 00:09:39.100 align:middle line:84% And when technology gets to this very common place, 00:09:39.100 --> 00:09:41.560 align:middle line:90% you take it for granted. 00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:45.040 align:middle line:84% You don't really value all that it can bring. 00:09:45.040 --> 00:09:46.153 align:middle line:90% So yeah, we discussed it. 00:09:46.153 --> 00:09:48.570 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, I mean, those kind of language classes 00:09:48.570 --> 00:09:49.540 align:middle line:90% are a great example of this. 00:09:49.540 --> 00:09:51.950 align:middle line:84% I know you probably all have taken language classes where 00:09:51.950 --> 00:09:53.510 align:middle line:84% the teacher goes around and you like 00:09:53.510 --> 00:09:56.060 align:middle line:84% each say hello to the teacher in the foreign language. 00:09:56.060 --> 00:09:58.730 align:middle line:84% And it takes like 10 minutes to let everyone say hello once. 00:09:58.730 --> 00:10:00.560 align:middle line:84% You all went to your individual booths 00:10:00.560 --> 00:10:02.330 align:middle line:84% and you could imagine designing technology 00:10:02.330 --> 00:10:04.455 align:middle line:84% where every person simultaneously says hello, 00:10:04.455 --> 00:10:06.830 align:middle line:84% and some algorithm evaluates whether or not you say hello 00:10:06.830 --> 00:10:08.810 align:middle line:84% correctly, and then it says something back to you 00:10:08.810 --> 00:10:09.570 align:middle line:90% and other kinds of things. 00:10:09.570 --> 00:10:10.487 align:middle line:90% You're like, wow, wow. 00:10:10.487 --> 00:10:12.548 align:middle line:84% We each are getting our own teacher that 00:10:12.548 --> 00:10:14.840 align:middle line:84% maybe isn't as good as the human teacher, but all of us 00:10:14.840 --> 00:10:16.170 align:middle line:90% get one at the same time. 00:10:16.170 --> 00:10:17.420 align:middle line:90% That's pretty cool. 00:10:17.420 --> 00:10:19.470 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I would say, like, adding, I think, 00:10:19.470 --> 00:10:22.790 align:middle line:84% to what you said with purpose is also like, you went there 00:10:22.790 --> 00:10:25.290 align:middle line:90% to do that English practice. 00:10:25.290 --> 00:10:27.510 align:middle line:84% It wasn't used for any extraneous reasons. 00:10:27.510 --> 00:10:29.850 align:middle line:84% Something like this, like Chromebooks, 00:10:29.850 --> 00:10:32.400 align:middle line:84% I have a younger sister who's in high school right now. 00:10:32.400 --> 00:10:34.430 align:middle line:84% And all her homework has to be submitted 00:10:34.430 --> 00:10:35.880 align:middle line:90% on Canvas or something. 00:10:35.880 --> 00:10:38.780 align:middle line:84% And then she also just loves, like, 00:10:38.780 --> 00:10:40.050 align:middle line:90% watching YouTube and stuff. 00:10:40.050 --> 00:10:41.930 align:middle line:84% And then my mom's problem is like, I 00:10:41.930 --> 00:10:44.060 align:middle line:84% can't remove her technology or limit 00:10:44.060 --> 00:10:46.170 align:middle line:84% her technology because that limits her schoolwork. 00:10:46.170 --> 00:10:47.070 align:middle line:90% So what do you do? 00:10:47.070 --> 00:10:50.540 align:middle line:84% Like, you can't control her, like, what she's doing. 00:10:50.540 --> 00:10:52.940 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: Not only that, but the vast majority 00:10:52.940 --> 00:10:57.740 align:middle line:84% of how we learn to be parents is by observing our own parents. 00:10:57.740 --> 00:11:02.420 align:middle line:84% And this generation, parents of roughly my age, a little bit 00:11:02.420 --> 00:11:06.140 align:middle line:84% younger, certainly the next generation coming along, 00:11:06.140 --> 00:11:09.500 align:middle line:84% we can't turn to our own childhood examples 00:11:09.500 --> 00:11:11.630 align:middle line:84% to figure out how to navigate something like this. 00:11:11.630 --> 00:11:14.630 align:middle line:84% It's very difficult to come up with good parenting strategies 00:11:14.630 --> 00:11:15.870 align:middle line:90% from first principles. 00:11:15.870 --> 00:11:18.020 align:middle line:84% A professional parent or a professional caregiver 00:11:18.020 --> 00:11:19.410 align:middle line:84% getting training and other things like that. 00:11:19.410 --> 00:11:21.020 align:middle line:90% What are you supposed to do? 00:11:21.020 --> 00:11:22.820 align:middle line:90% And no, it's a-- 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:27.110 align:middle line:84% I think a lot of school-wide infrastructure 00:11:27.110 --> 00:11:30.920 align:middle line:84% has a bunch of unintended consequences. 00:11:30.920 --> 00:11:33.350 align:middle line:84% The idea that at night we're going to lock kids 00:11:33.350 --> 00:11:36.680 align:middle line:90% into their devices like that. 00:11:36.680 --> 00:11:39.420 align:middle line:90% And it can also differ by kids. 00:11:39.420 --> 00:11:41.712 align:middle line:84% So for kids who have really good executive function who 00:11:41.712 --> 00:11:43.545 align:middle line:84% can be like, I'm going to do all my homework 00:11:43.545 --> 00:11:44.970 align:middle line:84% and then watch the YouTube videos. 00:11:44.970 --> 00:11:46.130 align:middle line:84% Like, maybe there's cool different things 00:11:46.130 --> 00:11:47.630 align:middle line:84% that we could do with the computers. 00:11:47.630 --> 00:11:49.216 align:middle line:90% But for kids who are-- 00:11:49.216 --> 00:11:50.080 align:middle line:90% yeah, it's weird. 00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:51.920 align:middle line:84% Like, do homework on the machine, 00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:53.480 align:middle line:90% which always has YouTube on it. 00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:56.110 align:middle line:84% Like, literally you're one click away from really fun things 00:11:56.110 --> 00:11:56.690 align:middle line:90% all the time. 00:11:56.690 --> 00:12:00.190 align:middle line:84% But do your quadratic equations, really. 00:12:00.190 --> 00:12:01.040 align:middle line:90% It's nuts, right? 00:12:01.040 --> 00:12:03.670 align:middle line:84% Like, there must be millions of kids who cannot, 00:12:03.670 --> 00:12:05.470 align:middle line:90% are not good at that. 00:12:05.470 --> 00:12:07.640 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, I think to add on to that fact. 00:12:07.640 --> 00:12:09.950 align:middle line:84% I also went to an international school in Ethiopia. 00:12:09.950 --> 00:12:12.820 align:middle line:84% And it was a really interesting experience 00:12:12.820 --> 00:12:15.610 align:middle line:84% of how rules around technology would change almost 00:12:15.610 --> 00:12:17.300 align:middle line:90% like on a weekly basis. 00:12:17.300 --> 00:12:19.318 align:middle line:84% At some point, it was like, at some point, 00:12:19.318 --> 00:12:20.860 align:middle line:84% like, you can't use any social media. 00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:21.910 align:middle line:84% And then, like, phones were banned. 00:12:21.910 --> 00:12:24.350 align:middle line:84% And then they're like, oh, I think it's call your parents, 00:12:24.350 --> 00:12:25.517 align:middle line:90% though, you can't call them. 00:12:25.517 --> 00:12:27.130 align:middle line:84% And then it was like limited time. 00:12:27.130 --> 00:12:28.600 align:middle line:90% And then like VPNs came. 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:30.070 align:middle line:84% And then it was like-- it's always 00:12:30.070 --> 00:12:32.980 align:middle line:84% so interesting of how teachers and faculty would always 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:34.420 align:middle line:90% try to make, like, new rules. 00:12:34.420 --> 00:12:37.810 align:middle line:84% And each time, they would have to get broken or something would 00:12:37.810 --> 00:12:38.660 align:middle line:90% have to change. 00:12:38.660 --> 00:12:41.050 align:middle line:84% And I think it was always, like, almost 00:12:41.050 --> 00:12:46.156 align:middle line:84% like a comedy show of how much it changed throughout the time. 00:12:46.156 --> 00:12:48.100 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: When internet filters were first 00:12:48.100 --> 00:12:50.440 align:middle line:84% widely introduced in schools, one of the problems came up 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:51.857 align:middle line:84% was the vice president at the time 00:12:51.857 --> 00:12:53.800 align:middle line:90% was a guy named Dick Cheney. 00:12:53.800 --> 00:12:58.450 align:middle line:84% And there are a lot of searches that were filtering out "Dick." 00:12:58.450 --> 00:13:00.550 align:middle line:84% But you need to figure out about Dick Cheney. 00:13:00.550 --> 00:13:02.750 align:middle line:84% So then like, someone sets a rule. 00:13:02.750 --> 00:13:04.690 align:middle line:84% The rule isn't right for the context. 00:13:04.690 --> 00:13:06.422 align:middle line:84% GPT is another set of things right now 00:13:06.422 --> 00:13:08.380 align:middle line:84% that people are doing with tons of rules about. 00:13:08.380 --> 00:13:09.410 align:middle line:90% These are good things. 00:13:09.410 --> 00:13:10.340 align:middle line:84% We're going to keep talking about them. 00:13:10.340 --> 00:13:11.120 align:middle line:90% I'll take a break here. 00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:13.130 align:middle line:84% So that we can move on to some other things. 00:13:13.130 --> 00:13:16.395 align:middle line:84% But you all have valuable case study experiences 00:13:16.395 --> 00:13:17.770 align:middle line:84% from your time in schools that we 00:13:17.770 --> 00:13:19.780 align:middle line:84% can bring into our conversations together 00:13:19.780 --> 00:13:24.490 align:middle line:84% to think about how new technologies operate. 00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:29.493 align:middle line:84% To do a good job of making sense of technologies, 00:13:29.493 --> 00:13:31.910 align:middle line:84% we need to understand a little bit about how people learn. 00:13:31.910 --> 00:13:33.702 align:middle line:84% So we're going to spend two classes looking 00:13:33.702 --> 00:13:38.410 align:middle line:84% at two pretty well established contemporary philosophies, 00:13:38.410 --> 00:13:40.630 align:middle line:84% pedagogy, sciences about learning. 00:13:40.630 --> 00:13:44.230 align:middle line:84% Today you read a bunch about cognitive load theory. 00:13:44.230 --> 00:13:46.480 align:middle line:84% I'm going to ask you to do another exercise, actually, 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:48.563 align:middle line:84% in the same groups that you were in would probably 00:13:48.563 --> 00:13:50.130 align:middle line:90% be fine for this one. 00:13:50.130 --> 00:13:56.490 align:middle line:84% I want you to draw a visual representation of what 00:13:56.490 --> 00:13:58.470 align:middle line:84% the authors of the cognitive learning-- 00:13:58.470 --> 00:14:00.510 align:middle line:84% of the cognitive learning theory, articles 00:14:00.510 --> 00:14:03.360 align:middle line:84% you read in other things, called human cognitive architecture. 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:06.600 align:middle line:84% What are the key components of the brain 00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:12.180 align:middle line:84% of thinking of memory in order to have learning happen? 00:14:12.180 --> 00:14:13.950 align:middle line:84% Another thing that you could draw 00:14:13.950 --> 00:14:18.120 align:middle line:84% in this visual representation is based on this human cognitive 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:20.910 align:middle line:84% architecture, there follows a series 00:14:20.910 --> 00:14:22.300 align:middle line:90% of instructional principles. 00:14:22.300 --> 00:14:26.170 align:middle line:84% There follows a series of better and worse ways to teach people. 00:14:26.170 --> 00:14:28.020 align:middle line:84% And so you could also try to illustrate 00:14:28.020 --> 00:14:32.520 align:middle line:84% how this human cognitive architecture leads 00:14:32.520 --> 00:14:34.540 align:middle line:84% to different kinds of instructional principles. 00:14:34.540 --> 00:14:38.100 align:middle line:84% So groups can either go and take a chunk of whiteboard 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:40.000 align:middle line:84% and use some of those whiteboard markers. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.090 align:middle line:84% Or part of why I'm doing this is just, I really like this paper, 00:14:43.090 --> 00:14:44.520 align:middle line:90% but it kind of got folded. 00:14:44.520 --> 00:14:46.440 align:middle line:90% So I just want to get rid of it. 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:48.630 align:middle line:84% But you can take one of these and huddle around 00:14:48.630 --> 00:14:50.740 align:middle line:90% on one of the tables and draw. 00:14:50.740 --> 00:14:52.843 align:middle line:84% So if you're a paper person, you can draw on these 00:14:52.843 --> 00:14:54.760 align:middle line:84% and then stick them up there in a few minutes. 00:14:54.760 --> 00:14:56.950 align:middle line:84% If you're a whiteboard person, you can do that. 00:14:56.950 --> 00:14:58.800 align:middle line:84% We still have all these markers here. 00:14:58.800 --> 00:15:02.358 align:middle line:84% I haven't given you totally clear instructions, 00:15:02.358 --> 00:15:03.900 align:middle line:84% in part because what I want you to do 00:15:03.900 --> 00:15:06.360 align:middle line:84% is to figure out how to think through some 00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:07.467 align:middle line:90% of this on your own a bit. 00:15:07.467 --> 00:15:09.300 align:middle line:84% But get in your groups, talk with each other 00:15:09.300 --> 00:15:11.790 align:middle line:84% about what you think are the key components 00:15:11.790 --> 00:15:14.910 align:middle line:84% of cognitive load theory and the human cognitive architecture 00:15:14.910 --> 00:15:17.620 align:middle line:84% that leads to cognitive load theory. 00:15:17.620 --> 00:15:19.410 align:middle line:84% And don't go more than like two minutes 00:15:19.410 --> 00:15:21.798 align:middle line:84% before starting to put pen to paper. 00:15:21.798 --> 00:15:24.340 align:middle line:84% You're not going to be graded on whether or not you're right. 00:15:24.340 --> 00:15:25.840 align:middle line:84% But let's see if we can get a couple 00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:29.160 align:middle line:84% of different representations of what these folks are talking 00:15:29.160 --> 00:15:31.800 align:middle line:84% about, how people learn and based on how people learn 00:15:31.800 --> 00:15:33.100 align:middle line:90% how should we instruct them. 00:15:33.100 --> 00:15:34.590 align:middle line:84% Does that give you enough to start messing around 00:15:34.590 --> 00:15:35.410 align:middle line:90% for a little bit? 00:15:35.410 --> 00:15:36.290 align:middle line:90% Ready, go. 00:15:36.290 --> 00:15:39.900 align:middle line:90% 00:15:39.900 --> 00:15:40.433 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:15:40.433 --> 00:15:41.850 align:middle line:84% You've seen a couple of these now. 00:15:41.850 --> 00:15:45.870 align:middle line:84% What are the main building blocks of this model of a brain? 00:15:45.870 --> 00:15:49.557 align:middle line:84% What are the key features of human cognitive architecture? 00:15:49.557 --> 00:15:51.890 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I feel like almost everyone has working memory 00:15:51.890 --> 00:15:52.770 align:middle line:90% and long-term memory. 00:15:52.770 --> 00:15:54.590 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: OK, two big pieces here that 00:15:54.590 --> 00:15:57.050 align:middle line:84% are important, working memory and long-term memory. 00:15:57.050 --> 00:15:58.550 align:middle line:84% What are some of the characteristics 00:15:58.550 --> 00:15:59.470 align:middle line:90% of long-term memory? 00:15:59.470 --> 00:16:02.630 align:middle line:90% 00:16:02.630 --> 00:16:03.783 align:middle line:90% It's cool. 00:16:03.783 --> 00:16:05.450 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Different schema stored inside 00:16:05.450 --> 00:16:06.540 align:middle line:90% of long-term memory. 00:16:06.540 --> 00:16:09.900 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: OK, so we store stuff in blocks. 00:16:09.900 --> 00:16:12.240 align:middle line:84% We want to talk some more about what these schemas are. 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:14.195 align:middle line:90% That seems important. 00:16:14.195 --> 00:16:15.570 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: It's kind of limitless. 00:16:15.570 --> 00:16:17.040 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: It's limitless. 00:16:17.040 --> 00:16:18.630 align:middle line:90% That is bonkers. 00:16:18.630 --> 00:16:21.620 align:middle line:84% No one has discovered the boundaries 00:16:21.620 --> 00:16:25.110 align:middle line:84% of the amount of stuff you can store in the human brain. 00:16:25.110 --> 00:16:27.510 align:middle line:84% You have a finite amount of space, 00:16:27.510 --> 00:16:29.010 align:middle line:84% you have a finite number of ounces, 00:16:29.010 --> 00:16:30.510 align:middle line:84% you have a finite number of neurons. 00:16:30.510 --> 00:16:32.370 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of them, but a finite number. 00:16:32.370 --> 00:16:34.700 align:middle line:84% And as far as we can tell, there are no known limits 00:16:34.700 --> 00:16:37.260 align:middle line:84% to how much stuff you can store inside your brain. 00:16:37.260 --> 00:16:38.580 align:middle line:90% That's amazing. 00:16:38.580 --> 00:16:41.233 align:middle line:84% That is an amazing feature of your brain. 00:16:41.233 --> 00:16:42.650 align:middle line:84% Anything else that seems important 00:16:42.650 --> 00:16:44.250 align:middle line:90% about long-term memory? 00:16:44.250 --> 00:16:45.390 align:middle line:90% All the stuff can be there. 00:16:45.390 --> 00:16:45.940 align:middle line:90% How cool. 00:16:45.940 --> 00:16:48.890 align:middle line:90% 00:16:48.890 --> 00:16:50.600 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: It's also unconscious. 00:16:50.600 --> 00:16:53.750 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, you cannot think about all those things 00:16:53.750 --> 00:16:54.900 align:middle line:90% at the same time. 00:16:54.900 --> 00:16:57.650 align:middle line:90% It is unconscious. 00:16:57.650 --> 00:16:59.260 align:middle line:84% How long does stuff stay in there? 00:16:59.260 --> 00:17:04.520 align:middle line:90% 00:17:04.520 --> 00:17:05.910 align:middle line:90% It falls out, right? 00:17:05.910 --> 00:17:07.565 align:middle line:90% You forget stuff. 00:17:07.565 --> 00:17:08.940 align:middle line:84% If you're interested in learning, 00:17:08.940 --> 00:17:11.420 align:middle line:84% the fact that you forget things is really important. 00:17:11.420 --> 00:17:13.380 align:middle line:84% So stuff goes in the long-term memory, 00:17:13.380 --> 00:17:15.008 align:middle line:84% it leaks out into long-term memory. 00:17:15.008 --> 00:17:16.550 align:middle line:84% Some of the very earliest experiments 00:17:16.550 --> 00:17:18.050 align:middle line:84% in psychology done by a guy named 00:17:18.050 --> 00:17:20.810 align:middle line:84% Ebbinghaus were about the forgetting curve. 00:17:20.810 --> 00:17:22.310 align:middle line:84% It was a psychology experiments that 00:17:22.310 --> 00:17:24.660 align:middle line:84% were mostly, as I understand, he mostly did by himself. 00:17:24.660 --> 00:17:26.827 align:middle line:84% He basically, like, tried to remember stuff. 00:17:26.827 --> 00:17:28.369 align:middle line:84% And then tested himself, and then saw 00:17:28.369 --> 00:17:30.050 align:middle line:84% how often he forgot things, and noticed 00:17:30.050 --> 00:17:32.480 align:middle line:84% that they were mathematical properties, the forgetting curve 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:33.360 align:middle line:90% and things like that. 00:17:33.360 --> 00:17:35.030 align:middle line:90% All right, long-term memory. 00:17:35.030 --> 00:17:38.990 align:middle line:90% It's functionally limitless. 00:17:38.990 --> 00:17:41.660 align:middle line:84% It's unconscious, so we can't directly access it. 00:17:41.660 --> 00:17:45.340 align:middle line:84% We can put things of different levels of complexity in there. 00:17:45.340 --> 00:17:51.310 align:middle line:84% What schemas do is allow us to aggregate information elements 00:17:51.310 --> 00:17:53.080 align:middle line:84% into more and more complex kind of things. 00:17:53.080 --> 00:17:55.247 align:middle line:84% What are some of the key features of working memory? 00:17:55.247 --> 00:17:57.892 align:middle line:90% 00:17:57.892 --> 00:17:58.850 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Very limited. 00:17:58.850 --> 00:17:59.720 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Very limited. 00:17:59.720 --> 00:18:01.137 align:middle line:84% About how many things can you hold 00:18:01.137 --> 00:18:04.395 align:middle line:84% in your working memory at any given time, give or take? 00:18:04.395 --> 00:18:06.020 align:middle line:84% Maybe this article didn't emphasize it. 00:18:06.020 --> 00:18:06.937 align:middle line:90% Most people know this. 00:18:06.937 --> 00:18:09.320 align:middle line:84% It's kind of like a fact that is out there in the world. 00:18:09.320 --> 00:18:10.280 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Like, seven? 00:18:10.280 --> 00:18:11.780 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, for a long time, 00:18:11.780 --> 00:18:12.947 align:middle line:90% people thought it was seven. 00:18:12.947 --> 00:18:15.860 align:middle line:84% A better guess seems to be even less than that, three to five. 00:18:15.860 --> 00:18:17.125 align:middle line:90% But somewhere in the very-- 00:18:17.125 --> 00:18:19.000 align:middle line:84% so here's another beautiful thing about-- you 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.020 align:middle line:84% all come from all different parts of the world, 00:18:21.020 --> 00:18:22.210 align:middle line:84% you can look around this room and you 00:18:22.210 --> 00:18:24.500 align:middle line:84% can see that you're different in all kinds of ways. 00:18:24.500 --> 00:18:25.310 align:middle line:90% You're different genders. 00:18:25.310 --> 00:18:26.870 align:middle line:84% You have different skin color, different hair color, 00:18:26.870 --> 00:18:28.703 align:middle line:84% different eye color, all that kind of thing. 00:18:28.703 --> 00:18:31.520 align:middle line:84% All of you have essentially the exact same working memory. 00:18:31.520 --> 00:18:34.600 align:middle line:84% All of you can hold three to five things in your head. 00:18:34.600 --> 00:18:37.353 align:middle line:84% It doesn't seem to decline as you age. 00:18:37.353 --> 00:18:39.770 align:middle line:84% Like, there's other problems with aging, things like that. 00:18:39.770 --> 00:18:40.820 align:middle line:84% But people of all different ages, 00:18:40.820 --> 00:18:42.490 align:middle line:84% everyone, every human you'll ever meet, 00:18:42.490 --> 00:18:44.157 align:middle line:84% the eight billion people on this planet, 00:18:44.157 --> 00:18:47.790 align:middle line:84% they can all hold three to five things in their working memory 00:18:47.790 --> 00:18:48.790 align:middle line:90% at any given time. 00:18:48.790 --> 00:18:52.360 align:middle line:84% It is like a beautiful thing that unites all people on Earth 00:18:52.360 --> 00:18:57.630 align:middle line:84% is this common feature of cognitive architecture. 00:18:57.630 --> 00:19:03.760 align:middle line:84% How do you get or what are the things in working memory? 00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:06.780 align:middle line:84% How do you get them, or access them, or do something with them? 00:19:06.780 --> 00:19:08.738 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Well, I was going to say like as much 00:19:08.738 --> 00:19:11.080 align:middle line:84% as we can only hold like three to five things, 00:19:11.080 --> 00:19:14.640 align:middle line:84% like, those things you can say, like, are like schemas. 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:17.320 align:middle line:90% And they can be super complex. 00:19:17.320 --> 00:19:21.040 align:middle line:84% And that's how you're able to solve really hard problems. 00:19:21.040 --> 00:19:23.560 align:middle line:84% So as much as the-- like, the example of the restaurant, 00:19:23.560 --> 00:19:25.930 align:middle line:84% you have the chairs and the tables, 00:19:25.930 --> 00:19:27.262 align:middle line:90% that's like the basic things. 00:19:27.262 --> 00:19:29.220 align:middle line:84% And then the food that you eat and the workers, 00:19:29.220 --> 00:19:31.220 align:middle line:84% and like, all these things make up a restaurant, 00:19:31.220 --> 00:19:32.650 align:middle line:90% which are super confusing. 00:19:32.650 --> 00:19:34.590 align:middle line:84% But your working memory just knows it 00:19:34.590 --> 00:19:37.150 align:middle line:84% as this really large, like, one object. 00:19:37.150 --> 00:19:40.420 align:middle line:84% And so in your working memory's mind, that's only one thing, 00:19:40.420 --> 00:19:42.918 align:middle line:84% but it's really a compilation of hundreds of things. 00:19:42.918 --> 00:19:43.960 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, good. 00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:46.730 align:middle line:84% So we can organize some things into larger things. 00:19:46.730 --> 00:19:49.230 align:middle line:84% And the reason why we're using imprecise words, I would say, 00:19:49.230 --> 00:19:55.530 align:middle line:84% is in part like, this is not the revealed word of the creator 00:19:55.530 --> 00:19:57.460 align:middle line:90% about your brain. 00:19:57.460 --> 00:20:00.250 align:middle line:84% This is like the best models we can come up with. 00:20:00.250 --> 00:20:01.570 align:middle line:90% And our models are imperfect. 00:20:01.570 --> 00:20:03.880 align:middle line:84% What exactly is a thing in working memory? 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:05.700 align:middle line:84% I think it's a little bit sketchy how much 00:20:05.700 --> 00:20:06.908 align:middle line:90% our understanding of that is. 00:20:06.908 --> 00:20:08.575 align:middle line:84% However, even with sketchy models, like, 00:20:08.575 --> 00:20:10.033 align:middle line:84% we can still do useful things with. 00:20:10.033 --> 00:20:11.770 align:middle line:84% Let's do a quick working memory exercise. 00:20:11.770 --> 00:20:14.460 align:middle line:90% Do any of you speak Sanskrit? 00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:16.525 align:middle line:84% Oh wait, I can't show you this just yet. 00:20:16.525 --> 00:20:18.400 align:middle line:84% Well, here's-- actually, I'll do these first, 00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:20.025 align:middle line:84% and then I'll show you this next thing. 00:20:20.025 --> 00:20:21.610 align:middle line:90% Grab a piece of paper and a pen. 00:20:21.610 --> 00:20:23.485 align:middle line:84% If you don't have a piece of paper and a pen, 00:20:23.485 --> 00:20:25.080 align:middle line:90% you can pass that around. 00:20:25.080 --> 00:20:26.975 align:middle line:90% Here are two that I really like. 00:20:26.975 --> 00:20:30.780 align:middle line:90% 00:20:30.780 --> 00:20:34.530 align:middle line:84% This one, I think, illustrates really nicely the idea 00:20:34.530 --> 00:20:37.090 align:middle line:84% that the working memory is the bottleneck. 00:20:37.090 --> 00:20:40.250 align:middle line:84% If you are an educator, one of the main things 00:20:40.250 --> 00:20:44.280 align:middle line:84% you're working against is people's limited working memory. 00:20:44.280 --> 00:20:46.290 align:middle line:84% If people had huge working memories, 00:20:46.290 --> 00:20:48.933 align:middle line:84% you could tell them all kinds of complex things. 00:20:48.933 --> 00:20:50.850 align:middle line:84% You'd be like, let me just explain everything. 00:20:50.850 --> 00:20:52.267 align:middle line:84% And they would be like, great, now 00:20:52.267 --> 00:20:53.690 align:middle line:90% it's all in my long-term memory. 00:20:53.690 --> 00:20:55.170 align:middle line:90% But you actually can't do that. 00:20:55.170 --> 00:20:58.220 align:middle line:84% People can only attend to a small number of things 00:20:58.220 --> 00:20:59.178 align:middle line:90% at any given time. 00:20:59.178 --> 00:21:01.220 align:middle line:84% And for novices, those things that they attend to 00:21:01.220 --> 00:21:02.722 align:middle line:84% are necessarily going to be simpler 00:21:02.722 --> 00:21:03.930 align:middle line:90% than for more complex people. 00:21:03.930 --> 00:21:06.890 align:middle line:84% So for the people in cognitive load theory, 00:21:06.890 --> 00:21:09.840 align:middle line:84% as they think about instructional environments, 00:21:09.840 --> 00:21:13.340 align:middle line:84% the bottleneck of those instructional environments 00:21:13.340 --> 00:21:15.980 align:middle line:84% is the limits of your working memory. 00:21:15.980 --> 00:21:17.820 align:middle line:84% Anybody read the Sweller article? 00:21:17.820 --> 00:21:22.190 align:middle line:84% Anybody remember how cognitive load theory 00:21:22.190 --> 00:21:23.700 align:middle line:90% got started to begin with? 00:21:23.700 --> 00:21:25.850 align:middle line:84% What was the canonical experiment 00:21:25.850 --> 00:21:29.298 align:middle line:84% that got John Sweller kicked off onto cognitive load theory? 00:21:29.298 --> 00:21:31.340 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Wasn't he, like, making his students do 00:21:31.340 --> 00:21:34.740 align:middle line:84% some kind of weird math, like, adding and subtracting, 00:21:34.740 --> 00:21:36.150 align:middle line:90% and multiplying multiple things? 00:21:36.150 --> 00:21:37.192 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, yeah. 00:21:37.192 --> 00:21:40.100 align:middle line:84% So you solve a math problem, you're given number A and number 00:21:40.100 --> 00:21:42.420 align:middle line:84% B, and there's only two operations you can do. 00:21:42.420 --> 00:21:44.982 align:middle line:84% It's something like you can multiply by 3 or subtract 69. 00:21:44.982 --> 00:21:46.440 align:middle line:84% Those numbers aren't exactly right. 00:21:46.440 --> 00:21:48.240 align:middle line:84% But those are the only two operations you can do. 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:50.390 align:middle line:84% And somehow you have to get from the first number he gives you 00:21:50.390 --> 00:21:51.807 align:middle line:84% to the second number he gives you. 00:21:51.807 --> 00:21:53.730 align:middle line:84% People do multiple forms of this problem. 00:21:53.730 --> 00:21:58.640 align:middle line:84% It turns out that solution is always alternating 00:21:58.640 --> 00:22:00.120 align:middle line:90% between these two things. 00:22:00.120 --> 00:22:02.340 align:middle line:90% Add 69, multiplied by 3. 00:22:02.340 --> 00:22:03.510 align:middle line:90% Add 69, multiplied by 3. 00:22:03.510 --> 00:22:04.680 align:middle line:90% Add 69, multiplied by 3. 00:22:04.680 --> 00:22:07.040 align:middle line:90% Nobody notices this. 00:22:07.040 --> 00:22:08.510 align:middle line:90% None of the people. 00:22:08.510 --> 00:22:09.210 align:middle line:90% Maybe not none. 00:22:09.210 --> 00:22:12.960 align:middle line:84% Very few people in the experiments notice this pattern. 00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:17.220 align:middle line:84% This is deeply troubling for John Sweller, 00:22:17.220 --> 00:22:20.030 align:middle line:84% because John Sweller is in a moment in math education 00:22:20.030 --> 00:22:22.920 align:middle line:84% where people are really big on problem solving, 00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:25.470 align:middle line:84% really big on discovery, really big on intuition. 00:22:25.470 --> 00:22:29.390 align:middle line:84% And he's like, my guys, people are not-- 00:22:29.390 --> 00:22:32.370 align:middle line:84% they're not inducing the key principle that's here. 00:22:32.370 --> 00:22:34.740 align:middle line:84% Like, they're doing a kind of mathematical operation, 00:22:34.740 --> 00:22:37.160 align:middle line:84% but they're not figuring out the important thing here. 00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:38.800 align:middle line:84% Like, think about how much consequences 00:22:38.800 --> 00:22:40.790 align:middle line:90% that has for math instruction. 00:22:40.790 --> 00:22:43.480 align:middle line:84% They're solving the problems correctly 00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:47.010 align:middle line:84% without understanding some key feature about how you solve them 00:22:47.010 --> 00:22:47.510 align:middle line:90% correctly. 00:22:47.510 --> 00:22:50.560 align:middle line:84% That's bad for mathematics instruction. 00:22:50.560 --> 00:22:52.220 align:middle line:84% And then he comes up with this theory. 00:22:52.220 --> 00:22:54.550 align:middle line:84% Like, why weren't they able to do that? 00:22:54.550 --> 00:22:58.150 align:middle line:84% And he describes it as that people do this thing he calls 00:22:58.150 --> 00:22:59.232 align:middle line:90% means end analysis. 00:22:59.232 --> 00:23:00.940 align:middle line:84% They're constantly looking where they are 00:23:00.940 --> 00:23:03.500 align:middle line:84% and thinking about what would get them to the next step. 00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:04.960 align:middle line:84% If you're constantly thinking about where 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:07.585 align:middle line:84% you are, where you want to be, and what might the next step is, 00:23:07.585 --> 00:23:10.250 align:middle line:84% those are like three things to block up your working memory. 00:23:10.250 --> 00:23:11.380 align:middle line:84% And so now you don't have a whole lot 00:23:11.380 --> 00:23:12.560 align:middle line:90% of working memory left. 00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:14.800 align:middle line:84% And his theory was that people, like, essentially 00:23:14.800 --> 00:23:16.967 align:middle line:84% filled up their working memory, their working memory 00:23:16.967 --> 00:23:17.900 align:middle line:90% was at capacity. 00:23:17.900 --> 00:23:18.860 align:middle line:90% It had overwhelmed. 00:23:18.860 --> 00:23:22.300 align:middle line:84% There was too much cognitive load, too much cognitive load 00:23:22.300 --> 00:23:23.330 align:middle line:90% on the working memory. 00:23:23.330 --> 00:23:27.040 align:middle line:84% And so they couldn't figure out this underlying principle. 00:23:27.040 --> 00:23:29.950 align:middle line:84% And so Sweller-- and then he just 00:23:29.950 --> 00:23:31.720 align:middle line:84% gets fascinated for the rest of his life 00:23:31.720 --> 00:23:34.303 align:middle line:84% about thinking about what is the human cognitive architecture? 00:23:34.303 --> 00:23:36.080 align:middle line:84% Like, where is the cognitive load? 00:23:36.080 --> 00:23:37.520 align:middle line:90% Where are we overburdened? 00:23:37.520 --> 00:23:38.720 align:middle line:90% Where are there bottlenecks? 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:40.990 align:middle line:84% And what would be instructional designs that 00:23:40.990 --> 00:23:43.220 align:middle line:84% would help us relieve those bottlenecks, 00:23:43.220 --> 00:23:45.970 align:middle line:90% work around those bottlenecks? 00:23:45.970 --> 00:23:51.040 align:middle line:84% In particular, really skeptical of this idea that you just 00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:53.560 align:middle line:84% give a bunch of novices stuff and they can figure it out 00:23:53.560 --> 00:23:56.690 align:middle line:84% on their own, with enough time and enough exploration, 00:23:56.690 --> 00:23:57.940 align:middle line:90% things like that. 00:23:57.940 --> 00:23:59.982 align:middle line:84% So that's the bottleneck here that I really like. 00:23:59.982 --> 00:24:01.607 align:middle line:84% And I really like this picture that has 00:24:01.607 --> 00:24:02.815 align:middle line:90% of infinite long-term memory. 00:24:02.815 --> 00:24:04.857 align:middle line:84% I mean, in theory, you should just go up forever, 00:24:04.857 --> 00:24:05.750 align:middle line:90% but it's big enough. 00:24:05.750 --> 00:24:06.610 align:middle line:90% That works. 00:24:06.610 --> 00:24:09.370 align:middle line:84% A nice thing about this one on the side 00:24:09.370 --> 00:24:14.130 align:middle line:84% is it notes that where does stuff get into working memory? 00:24:14.130 --> 00:24:15.130 align:middle line:90% Kind of from two places. 00:24:15.130 --> 00:24:17.755 align:middle line:84% You can pull it out of long-term memory, you can remember stuff 00:24:17.755 --> 00:24:19.213 align:middle line:84% and then you can put it temporarily 00:24:19.213 --> 00:24:21.740 align:middle line:84% in your long-term memory, or you can attend to it. 00:24:21.740 --> 00:24:23.840 align:middle line:84% You can see things in your environment. 00:24:23.840 --> 00:24:24.830 align:middle line:90% You can watch stuff. 00:24:24.830 --> 00:24:25.760 align:middle line:90% You can read things. 00:24:25.760 --> 00:24:27.593 align:middle line:84% You can listen to people and talk to people. 00:24:27.593 --> 00:24:29.150 align:middle line:84% As I'm explaining things to you now, 00:24:29.150 --> 00:24:30.970 align:middle line:84% you're taking these constructs, and to the extent 00:24:30.970 --> 00:24:32.360 align:middle line:84% that you're listening and attending to them, 00:24:32.360 --> 00:24:34.410 align:middle line:84% you're putting them in your working memory. 00:24:34.410 --> 00:24:36.542 align:middle line:84% If we mess around with them enough, 00:24:36.542 --> 00:24:39.000 align:middle line:84% if we get you to apply them, think about them, if you write 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:40.583 align:middle line:84% them down, some other stuff like that, 00:24:40.583 --> 00:24:43.170 align:middle line:84% it will eventually get stored in your long-term memory. 00:24:43.170 --> 00:24:46.860 align:middle line:84% And then there's this nice piece here that stuff sort of not only 00:24:46.860 --> 00:24:48.820 align:middle line:84% goes from working memory to long-term memory, 00:24:48.820 --> 00:24:51.370 align:middle line:84% but things kind fall out and get forgotten. 00:24:51.370 --> 00:24:55.080 align:middle line:84% And yeah, I think pairing these words together, 00:24:55.080 --> 00:24:56.970 align:middle line:84% when stuff in working memory gets 00:24:56.970 --> 00:24:59.620 align:middle line:84% stored in your long-term memory, they call that learning. 00:24:59.620 --> 00:25:01.417 align:middle line:84% When stuff in long-term memory gets 00:25:01.417 --> 00:25:04.000 align:middle line:84% put into your working memory, when you become conscious of it, 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:05.140 align:middle line:90% we call that remembering. 00:25:05.140 --> 00:25:07.890 align:middle line:84% That's kind of a nice way of summarizing that. 00:25:07.890 --> 00:25:13.530 align:middle line:84% There are, in this model, everything 00:25:13.530 --> 00:25:16.140 align:middle line:84% that you learn essentially is kind of a fact 00:25:16.140 --> 00:25:17.910 align:middle line:90% that you remember. 00:25:17.910 --> 00:25:19.810 align:middle line:84% There's a great quote by Daniel Willingham, 00:25:19.810 --> 00:25:21.852 align:middle line:84% who's a psychologist, that "memory is the residue 00:25:21.852 --> 00:25:22.675 align:middle line:90% of thought." 00:25:22.675 --> 00:25:24.550 align:middle line:84% When you think about stuff that you remember. 00:25:24.550 --> 00:25:27.150 align:middle line:84% And in this model, people tend to think of the things 00:25:27.150 --> 00:25:29.340 align:middle line:90% you remember as discrete facts. 00:25:29.340 --> 00:25:31.740 align:middle line:90% You can probably think about-- 00:25:31.740 --> 00:25:34.430 align:middle line:84% and the accumulation of those discrete facts 00:25:34.430 --> 00:25:36.660 align:middle line:90% is what leads to expertise. 00:25:36.660 --> 00:25:39.930 align:middle line:84% That understanding is, in a sense, 00:25:39.930 --> 00:25:41.913 align:middle line:84% the accumulation of lots of these facts. 00:25:41.913 --> 00:25:43.580 align:middle line:84% There are probably some domains that you 00:25:43.580 --> 00:25:47.000 align:middle line:84% could think about where that model feels really good 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:47.690 align:middle line:90% and makes sense. 00:25:47.690 --> 00:25:50.630 align:middle line:84% Oh, man, that person is a really good economist 00:25:50.630 --> 00:25:53.390 align:middle line:84% because they just, like, know a ton of stuff about economies, 00:25:53.390 --> 00:25:55.470 align:middle line:84% and they know a ton of facts about economics, 00:25:55.470 --> 00:25:58.796 align:middle line:84% and they remember lots of different calculations. 00:25:58.796 --> 00:26:02.540 align:middle line:84% Would you say that Maya Angelou was a great poet 00:26:02.540 --> 00:26:05.490 align:middle line:84% because she had way more facts than other poets do? 00:26:05.490 --> 00:26:07.670 align:middle line:84% That seems like a unsatisfying description 00:26:07.670 --> 00:26:09.045 align:middle line:84% of how people become great poets, 00:26:09.045 --> 00:26:11.503 align:middle line:84% but something to wrestle with and think about a little bit. 00:26:11.503 --> 00:26:13.280 align:middle line:84% OK, you have your piece of paper with you? 00:26:13.280 --> 00:26:16.310 align:middle line:90% I'm going to show you a phrase. 00:26:16.310 --> 00:26:18.810 align:middle line:90% And I want you to copy down-- 00:26:18.810 --> 00:26:21.080 align:middle line:84% I'm going to show it to you for about 10 seconds. 00:26:21.080 --> 00:26:22.517 align:middle line:90% So hold your pens up in the air. 00:26:22.517 --> 00:26:24.600 align:middle line:84% You're going to look at this thing for 10 seconds, 00:26:24.600 --> 00:26:26.160 align:middle line:84% and then I'm going to take it off the screen, 00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:27.452 align:middle line:90% and I want you to copy it down. 00:26:27.452 --> 00:26:30.050 align:middle line:90% OK, ready? 00:26:30.050 --> 00:26:31.770 align:middle line:90% I want you to copy this down. 00:26:31.770 --> 00:26:32.670 align:middle line:90% Look at it. 00:26:32.670 --> 00:26:34.550 align:middle line:90% Memorize it. 00:26:34.550 --> 00:26:35.330 align:middle line:90% Look at it. 00:26:35.330 --> 00:26:38.530 align:middle line:90% 5, 4, 3, just this row. 00:26:38.530 --> 00:26:39.780 align:middle line:90% You don't have to do that one. 00:26:39.780 --> 00:26:40.947 align:middle line:90% Just this row in the middle. 00:26:40.947 --> 00:26:41.890 align:middle line:90% 2, 1. 00:26:41.890 --> 00:26:42.390 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:26:42.390 --> 00:26:43.932 align:middle line:84% Copy down as much of that as you can. 00:26:43.932 --> 00:26:56.540 align:middle line:90% 00:26:56.540 --> 00:26:57.480 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:01.550 align:middle line:90% And 3, 2, 1. 00:27:01.550 --> 00:27:03.120 align:middle line:84% Now, everybody hold up what you did. 00:27:03.120 --> 00:27:04.080 align:middle line:90% Show it to each other. 00:27:04.080 --> 00:27:05.630 align:middle line:90% How'd you do? 00:27:05.630 --> 00:27:06.708 align:middle line:90% Oh, man. 00:27:06.708 --> 00:27:08.250 align:middle line:84% These are a little bit disappointing. 00:27:08.250 --> 00:27:08.490 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:27:08.490 --> 00:27:09.600 align:middle line:90% Let's do a second one. 00:27:09.600 --> 00:27:10.290 align:middle line:90% Let's do a second one. 00:27:10.290 --> 00:27:12.165 align:middle line:84% Let's see if you can do any better than this. 00:27:12.165 --> 00:27:13.350 align:middle line:90% All right, I'll help you. 00:27:13.350 --> 00:27:14.970 align:middle line:84% You might feel better about this one. 00:27:14.970 --> 00:27:17.690 align:middle line:84% I'm going to give you a set of writing now 00:27:17.690 --> 00:27:19.757 align:middle line:84% that has roughly the same number of marks in it. 00:27:19.757 --> 00:27:22.340 align:middle line:84% It's not the exact same number of marks, but one of the things 00:27:22.340 --> 00:27:24.260 align:middle line:84% we could do to calculate how difficult this 00:27:24.260 --> 00:27:26.763 align:middle line:84% is to just count the number of marks on the screen. 00:27:26.763 --> 00:27:29.180 align:middle line:84% I'm going to give you another thing like this with roughly 00:27:29.180 --> 00:27:30.222 align:middle line:90% the same number of marks. 00:27:30.222 --> 00:27:32.210 align:middle line:84% Let's see if you can do any better. 00:27:32.210 --> 00:27:35.690 align:middle line:84% I want you to look at this and then get ready to copy it down. 00:27:35.690 --> 00:27:37.440 align:middle line:84% This English phrase in the middle. 00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:38.270 align:middle line:90% Ready? 00:27:38.270 --> 00:27:43.260 align:middle line:90% 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 00:27:43.260 --> 00:27:44.200 align:middle line:90% OK, copy it down. 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:54.290 align:middle line:90% 00:27:54.290 --> 00:27:56.900 align:middle line:90% Oh, you're finished already? 00:27:56.900 --> 00:27:58.260 align:middle line:90% You're really good at that. 00:27:58.260 --> 00:27:58.970 align:middle line:90% Nice. 00:27:58.970 --> 00:27:59.470 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:27:59.470 --> 00:28:01.850 align:middle line:90% 00:28:01.850 --> 00:28:06.380 align:middle line:84% Why were you so much better at this one? 00:28:06.380 --> 00:28:07.400 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:10.620 align:middle line:84% You have those squiggles are organized into schema. 00:28:10.620 --> 00:28:13.610 align:middle line:84% When you were very, very young, you 00:28:13.610 --> 00:28:15.380 align:middle line:90% observed these English letters. 00:28:15.380 --> 00:28:17.880 align:middle line:84% Actually, if you learned English in the middle of your life, 00:28:17.880 --> 00:28:19.463 align:middle line:84% whenever you started learning English, 00:28:19.463 --> 00:28:22.288 align:middle line:84% like just now you observed these Sanskrit letters. 00:28:22.288 --> 00:28:24.330 align:middle line:84% For those of you who are native English speakers, 00:28:24.330 --> 00:28:26.660 align:middle line:84% you can't remember the time, probably, 00:28:26.660 --> 00:28:29.005 align:middle line:84% in which there would be no distinction 00:28:29.005 --> 00:28:30.880 align:middle line:84% between English letters and Sanskrit letters. 00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:33.802 align:middle line:84% So when you were copying down Sanskrit, none of this 00:28:33.802 --> 00:28:34.760 align:middle line:90% has any meaning to you. 00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:37.540 align:middle line:84% So you're like, literally memorizing the order 00:28:37.540 --> 00:28:39.430 align:middle line:90% in which these lines appear. 00:28:39.430 --> 00:28:42.245 align:middle line:84% Which is really hard because there are lots of those lines. 00:28:42.245 --> 00:28:43.870 align:middle line:84% There's about the same number of lines, 00:28:43.870 --> 00:28:45.380 align:middle line:84% I haven't actually measured this, but it's close. 00:28:45.380 --> 00:28:47.110 align:middle line:84% Take for granted that it's close. 00:28:47.110 --> 00:28:52.300 align:middle line:84% But you know that that two combinations of line is an L. 00:28:52.300 --> 00:28:56.220 align:middle line:84% And you know that an L, an E, and a T is a word, "let," 00:28:56.220 --> 00:28:57.470 align:middle line:90% that has some kind of meaning. 00:28:57.470 --> 00:28:59.780 align:middle line:84% And you can actually, "let the entire world be happy," 00:28:59.780 --> 00:29:02.508 align:middle line:84% even bundle that into a phrase that you can memorize 00:29:02.508 --> 00:29:03.050 align:middle line:90% in your head. 00:29:03.050 --> 00:29:05.770 align:middle line:84% And so copying down that number of things 00:29:05.770 --> 00:29:07.810 align:middle line:84% is trivial because this is organized 00:29:07.810 --> 00:29:12.070 align:middle line:84% in your head in, like, a tightly bundled schema in a way 00:29:12.070 --> 00:29:13.870 align:middle line:84% that you have no schema for understanding 00:29:13.870 --> 00:29:14.570 align:middle line:90% these kinds of things. 00:29:14.570 --> 00:29:15.490 align:middle line:84% Probably like the first thing you 00:29:15.490 --> 00:29:17.030 align:middle line:84% started putting in your schema was like, well, 00:29:17.030 --> 00:29:18.380 align:middle line:84% there's a line that goes across there, 00:29:18.380 --> 00:29:20.120 align:middle line:84% and then a bunch of things that drop down after that. 00:29:20.120 --> 00:29:21.080 align:middle line:84% I don't know anything about Sanskrit, 00:29:21.080 --> 00:29:21.800 align:middle line:84% so I don't know anything about it. 00:29:21.800 --> 00:29:24.175 align:middle line:84% Does that give you, is that an illustration of how schema 00:29:24.175 --> 00:29:25.660 align:middle line:90% operates in your mind? 00:29:25.660 --> 00:29:28.920 align:middle line:84% This completely overwhelms your working memory efforts 00:29:28.920 --> 00:29:31.860 align:middle line:84% because you have to recall the orientation 00:29:31.860 --> 00:29:34.650 align:middle line:84% of each individual line to be able to copy it. 00:29:34.650 --> 00:29:37.770 align:middle line:84% This does not at all do that because you've already bundled 00:29:37.770 --> 00:29:39.390 align:middle line:90% those lines into schema. 00:29:39.390 --> 00:29:41.940 align:middle line:84% Another famous example, which I think is written about, 00:29:41.940 --> 00:29:44.040 align:middle line:90% is that chess masters. 00:29:44.040 --> 00:29:47.520 align:middle line:84% When chess masters look at a chess board, 00:29:47.520 --> 00:29:50.280 align:middle line:84% like, all of the pieces, they can remember easily 00:29:50.280 --> 00:29:52.330 align:middle line:84% all of the pieces in their arrangements. 00:29:52.330 --> 00:29:54.430 align:middle line:84% Because if you know nothing about chess, like me, 00:29:54.430 --> 00:29:56.550 align:middle line:84% you have to be like, OK, the pawn 00:29:56.550 --> 00:30:00.360 align:middle line:84% is in the second row, black square. 00:30:00.360 --> 00:30:03.280 align:middle line:84% And the king is in the first row, white square. 00:30:03.280 --> 00:30:05.287 align:middle line:84% And the bishop kind of moved over here. 00:30:05.287 --> 00:30:07.120 align:middle line:84% But that's not what chess masters are doing. 00:30:07.120 --> 00:30:11.310 align:middle line:84% Chess masters are going like, oh, that's the Turkish Armada 00:30:11.310 --> 00:30:12.670 align:middle line:90% Gambit or something like that. 00:30:12.670 --> 00:30:14.640 align:middle line:84% And they've bundled all of those positions 00:30:14.640 --> 00:30:16.000 align:middle line:90% together into one thing. 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:19.020 align:middle line:84% So even though we can only attend to three to five things 00:30:19.020 --> 00:30:21.630 align:middle line:84% at any given time, those three to five things 00:30:21.630 --> 00:30:23.305 align:middle line:90% can be enormously complex. 00:30:23.305 --> 00:30:25.680 align:middle line:84% And that's what lets us think about complex and difficult 00:30:25.680 --> 00:30:26.290 align:middle line:90% things. 00:30:26.290 --> 00:30:30.710 align:middle line:84% OK, that piece of schema makes sense for you? 00:30:30.710 --> 00:30:31.210 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:30:31.210 --> 00:30:35.010 align:middle line:84% So these are some pretty good fundamental models 00:30:35.010 --> 00:30:37.270 align:middle line:84% of human cognitive architecture kinds of things. 00:30:37.270 --> 00:30:39.240 align:middle line:84% Anybody want to ask any questions 00:30:39.240 --> 00:30:42.490 align:middle line:84% or make any observations about some of these key elements? 00:30:42.490 --> 00:30:44.280 align:middle line:90% How our brains work? 00:30:44.280 --> 00:30:46.410 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I have a similar thought to that. 00:30:46.410 --> 00:30:48.840 align:middle line:84% There's a weird alphabet that's just, like, 00:30:48.840 --> 00:30:51.760 align:middle line:84% alternative to writing in Latin, in English. 00:30:51.760 --> 00:30:55.230 align:middle line:84% So it's just one-to-one mapping between English or Latin 00:30:55.230 --> 00:30:57.460 align:middle line:90% characters to that alphabet. 00:30:57.460 --> 00:31:00.130 align:middle line:84% And as a fun thing, I just wanted to learn it. 00:31:00.130 --> 00:31:02.770 align:middle line:84% So I did all of that, like, remember the mapping? 00:31:02.770 --> 00:31:04.350 align:middle line:84% And even though, hey, if you show me 00:31:04.350 --> 00:31:06.820 align:middle line:84% just like a glimpse of it, yes, I can tell you. 00:31:06.820 --> 00:31:09.360 align:middle line:84% So it's not, like, a process of how long 00:31:09.360 --> 00:31:11.250 align:middle line:84% will it take me to remember, but it 00:31:11.250 --> 00:31:13.530 align:middle line:84% was very hard to actually transcribe things 00:31:13.530 --> 00:31:16.240 align:middle line:84% fast from one thing to what I know it is. 00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:19.790 align:middle line:84% But also, as I did that more, I started to-- 00:31:19.790 --> 00:31:23.490 align:middle line:84% I started kind of like to remember how I learned English 00:31:23.490 --> 00:31:26.920 align:middle line:84% as well with some of the squiggles, for example, 00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:29.240 align:middle line:84% at the end like that says I-N-G, I 00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:31.590 align:middle line:84% started kind of internalizing that. 00:31:31.590 --> 00:31:35.090 align:middle line:84% So whenever I saw like that kind of structure of whatever 00:31:35.090 --> 00:31:37.740 align:middle line:84% shape these characters, I kind of, oh, yeah, 00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:40.790 align:middle line:84% I know that's I-N-G. I didn't have to think individually 00:31:40.790 --> 00:31:41.790 align:middle line:90% about each character. 00:31:41.790 --> 00:31:44.420 align:middle line:84% I started to chunk them more and more 00:31:44.420 --> 00:31:48.710 align:middle line:84% into specific components that made transcribing things much 00:31:48.710 --> 00:31:49.230 align:middle line:90% easier. 00:31:49.230 --> 00:31:49.760 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, yeah. 00:31:49.760 --> 00:31:51.770 align:middle line:84% I-N-G is a great example of what it probably 00:31:51.770 --> 00:31:55.670 align:middle line:84% requires five different line strokes or something like that. 00:31:55.670 --> 00:31:58.382 align:middle line:84% Line, dot, 1-N-G, something like that. 00:31:58.382 --> 00:32:00.215 align:middle line:84% And then eventually you bundle it as an ING, 00:32:00.215 --> 00:32:02.153 align:middle line:84% and just memorize those characters together. 00:32:02.153 --> 00:32:04.070 align:middle line:84% And then eventually you realize it's a gerund. 00:32:04.070 --> 00:32:05.810 align:middle line:84% And it has a particular kind of modification 00:32:05.810 --> 00:32:07.020 align:middle line:90% to verbs and things like that. 00:32:07.020 --> 00:32:08.810 align:middle line:84% And you're not even thinking about it now when you look 00:32:08.810 --> 00:32:11.480 align:middle line:84% at the word "jumping," but you went through a process 00:32:11.480 --> 00:32:13.890 align:middle line:84% of learning all of those kinds of things. 00:32:13.890 --> 00:32:15.170 align:middle line:90% OK, good. 00:32:15.170 --> 00:32:19.620 align:middle line:84% So based on these models of human cognitive architecture, 00:32:19.620 --> 00:32:23.900 align:middle line:84% what are some of the key instructional consequences 00:32:23.900 --> 00:32:25.180 align:middle line:90% that come out of this model? 00:32:25.180 --> 00:32:31.120 align:middle line:90% 00:32:31.120 --> 00:32:33.440 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: If you overload the working memory, 00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:35.530 align:middle line:84% students can't store the necessary information 00:32:35.530 --> 00:32:36.620 align:middle line:90% in the long-term memory. 00:32:36.620 --> 00:32:37.420 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Good. 00:32:37.420 --> 00:32:40.000 align:middle line:84% So what teachers should be thinking about, 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:42.530 align:middle line:84% in this model, which is thinking about all the time, 00:32:42.530 --> 00:32:47.290 align:middle line:84% is how much cognitive load, how much stuff is in people is, 00:32:47.290 --> 00:32:50.170 align:middle line:84% like, could potentially be overwhelming people's working 00:32:50.170 --> 00:32:51.340 align:middle line:90% memory? 00:32:51.340 --> 00:32:54.880 align:middle line:84% What are some ways to conduct instruction 00:32:54.880 --> 00:32:58.953 align:middle line:84% that respects this bottleneck of working memory? 00:32:58.953 --> 00:33:00.370 align:middle line:84% What are some effective strategies 00:33:00.370 --> 00:33:01.583 align:middle line:90% for dealing with that? 00:33:01.583 --> 00:33:03.250 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Guided practice is one of them 00:33:03.250 --> 00:33:06.070 align:middle line:84% that I saw, where it's like a completion exercise. 00:33:06.070 --> 00:33:11.110 align:middle line:84% Because then it's not completely novel to you and you have more-- 00:33:11.110 --> 00:33:14.710 align:middle line:84% you can basically abstract more ideas 00:33:14.710 --> 00:33:16.720 align:middle line:84% into schemas that are kind of bigger 00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:18.800 align:middle line:84% and then execute them much faster, 00:33:18.800 --> 00:33:21.598 align:middle line:84% instead of just focusing on the smaller aspects of that problem. 00:33:21.598 --> 00:33:22.390 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Good. 00:33:22.390 --> 00:33:25.840 align:middle line:84% So, guided, one version of guided practice. 00:33:25.840 --> 00:33:29.200 align:middle line:84% Probably one of the most well-known phenomenon 00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:31.960 align:middle line:84% in education psychology is called the worked example 00:33:31.960 --> 00:33:33.310 align:middle line:90% effect. 00:33:33.310 --> 00:33:36.850 align:middle line:84% And the idea is if you show people 00:33:36.850 --> 00:33:39.830 align:middle line:84% how to solve a problem, for novices, 00:33:39.830 --> 00:33:42.280 align:middle line:84% that is a more effective way to learn it, than have them 00:33:42.280 --> 00:33:44.260 align:middle line:90% just try to solve the problem. 00:33:44.260 --> 00:33:46.720 align:middle line:84% That a pretty typical instructional sequence 00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:49.400 align:middle line:84% that works pretty well is first you do a worked example. 00:33:49.400 --> 00:33:52.130 align:middle line:84% You say, this is how you solve this kind of problem. 00:33:52.130 --> 00:33:55.960 align:middle line:84% Then you would take parts of a problem 00:33:55.960 --> 00:33:59.020 align:middle line:84% and have students just do those parts. 00:33:59.020 --> 00:34:01.270 align:middle line:84% That might be a kind of guided practice kind of thing. 00:34:01.270 --> 00:34:03.880 align:middle line:84% OK, you just factored this polynomial 00:34:03.880 --> 00:34:06.073 align:middle line:90% and it took you four steps. 00:34:06.073 --> 00:34:07.990 align:middle line:84% And the first thing I did is I just showed you 00:34:07.990 --> 00:34:08.840 align:middle line:90% those four steps. 00:34:08.840 --> 00:34:10.000 align:middle line:84% The next thing I'm going to do is 00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:11.750 align:middle line:84% I'm going to show you three of those steps 00:34:11.750 --> 00:34:13.510 align:middle line:90% and have you do one of them. 00:34:13.510 --> 00:34:15.310 align:middle line:84% I just showed you a canonical way 00:34:15.310 --> 00:34:17.330 align:middle line:84% to write an introduction paragraph. 00:34:17.330 --> 00:34:20.360 align:middle line:84% Here is an introduction paragraph that's 3/4 written. 00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:22.449 align:middle line:84% It doesn't really have a good hook. 00:34:22.449 --> 00:34:25.290 align:middle line:84% Write a sentence that would fit in this paragraph that would be 00:34:25.290 --> 00:34:26.590 align:middle line:90% a hook that engaged the reader. 00:34:26.590 --> 00:34:27.420 align:middle line:84% You don't have to do everything else 00:34:27.420 --> 00:34:28.510 align:middle line:90% that an introduction has to do. 00:34:28.510 --> 00:34:30.900 align:middle line:84% You don't have to introduce the topic because we've already 00:34:30.900 --> 00:34:31.420 align:middle line:90% done that. 00:34:31.420 --> 00:34:33.018 align:middle line:84% You don't have to lay out an argument. 00:34:33.018 --> 00:34:34.810 align:middle line:84% You don't have to establish your expertise. 00:34:34.810 --> 00:34:36.280 align:middle line:90% Just do this one thing. 00:34:36.280 --> 00:34:38.440 align:middle line:84% And then you can imagine, all right, 00:34:38.440 --> 00:34:40.497 align:middle line:84% instead of if it's a four step process, 00:34:40.497 --> 00:34:42.330 align:middle line:84% then you'll do two of the steps, then you'll 00:34:42.330 --> 00:34:44.205 align:middle line:84% do three of the steps, then eventually you'll 00:34:44.205 --> 00:34:45.150 align:middle line:90% do all of the steps. 00:34:45.150 --> 00:34:47.520 align:middle line:84% And you might alternate which of those steps, 00:34:47.520 --> 00:34:50.460 align:middle line:84% do a bunch of one step, missing problems where 00:34:50.460 --> 00:34:53.040 align:middle line:84% the one step that's missing is different phases in there. 00:34:53.040 --> 00:34:55.179 align:middle line:84% But we're going to decrease the scaffolding. 00:34:55.179 --> 00:34:59.130 align:middle line:84% And the idea is that you can get people in their working memory 00:34:59.130 --> 00:35:01.290 align:middle line:84% just to attend to that particular thing they're 00:35:01.290 --> 00:35:04.960 align:middle line:84% trying to solve, to store that thing in the long-term memory. 00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:07.200 align:middle line:84% And as they have that more in their long-term memory 00:35:07.200 --> 00:35:08.658 align:middle line:84% and access it, as they start seeing 00:35:08.658 --> 00:35:11.280 align:middle line:84% the relationship between different steps, 00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:13.740 align:middle line:84% as their schema for an introduction is not, 00:35:13.740 --> 00:35:14.530 align:middle line:90% like, wait, what? 00:35:14.530 --> 00:35:18.480 align:middle line:84% It's the hook and then the thesis, and then my expertise? 00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:20.910 align:middle line:84% Is that you start, like, recognizing those things 00:35:20.910 --> 00:35:21.880 align:middle line:90% as an introduction. 00:35:21.880 --> 00:35:27.660 align:middle line:84% And that takes up less space within your working memory. 00:35:27.660 --> 00:35:29.728 align:middle line:84% So they call this the completion problem effects. 00:35:29.728 --> 00:35:32.020 align:middle line:84% Replace conventional problems with completion problems, 00:35:32.020 --> 00:35:33.840 align:middle line:84% providing a partial solution that must 00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:36.330 align:middle line:90% be completed by the learners. 00:35:36.330 --> 00:35:40.020 align:middle line:84% This list came out of "Sweller, 1998." 00:35:40.020 --> 00:35:44.490 align:middle line:84% All of these things get constantly tested and improved. 00:35:44.490 --> 00:35:47.370 align:middle line:84% So one thing that people realized 00:35:47.370 --> 00:35:49.540 align:middle line:84% is in effect, which I think is not on this list, 00:35:49.540 --> 00:35:51.130 align:middle line:84% called the expert reversal effect, 00:35:51.130 --> 00:35:53.672 align:middle line:84% but I think it shows up in some of the readings that you did, 00:35:53.672 --> 00:35:56.700 align:middle line:84% which is that for novices, the worked example 00:35:56.700 --> 00:35:58.740 align:middle line:84% effect seems, to generally speaking, hold true. 00:35:58.740 --> 00:36:01.920 align:middle line:84% For experts in a domain, open-ended problem solving does 00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:06.520 align:middle line:84% seem to work better than just going through worked examples. 00:36:06.520 --> 00:36:08.790 align:middle line:84% So once people get good enough at a thing, 00:36:08.790 --> 00:36:11.680 align:middle line:84% it's a good idea to let them solve open-ended problems, 00:36:11.680 --> 00:36:14.840 align:middle line:84% presumably because their working memory is not overwhelmed. 00:36:14.840 --> 00:36:16.590 align:middle line:84% They're not overwhelmed by cognitive load, 00:36:16.590 --> 00:36:18.100 align:middle line:84% figuring out what they're supposed to do next. 00:36:18.100 --> 00:36:20.468 align:middle line:84% And so it's a chance for them to refine their ability 00:36:20.468 --> 00:36:22.010 align:middle line:84% to apply things in different domains, 00:36:22.010 --> 00:36:23.843 align:middle line:84% to get better particular portions of things, 00:36:23.843 --> 00:36:24.530 align:middle line:90% stuff like that. 00:36:24.530 --> 00:36:26.630 align:middle line:84% Now, what is a novice and what is an expert? 00:36:26.630 --> 00:36:28.765 align:middle line:84% Like, that is different in every domain. 00:36:28.765 --> 00:36:30.140 align:middle line:84% And you'd have to-- it would have 00:36:30.140 --> 00:36:32.090 align:middle line:84% to be-- it'll be different in nuclear engineering 00:36:32.090 --> 00:36:33.923 align:middle line:84% than it is in poetry or whatever else it is. 00:36:33.923 --> 00:36:37.700 align:middle line:84% But generally speaking, these are things that seem to hold. 00:36:37.700 --> 00:36:41.180 align:middle line:84% How do these cognitive load theorists 00:36:41.180 --> 00:36:43.970 align:middle line:90% conduct their research? 00:36:43.970 --> 00:36:46.050 align:middle line:84% If you're a cognitive load theorist, 00:36:46.050 --> 00:36:50.390 align:middle line:84% how do you establish that an effect like this is true? 00:36:50.390 --> 00:36:53.712 align:middle line:84% What kind of research methods would you use? 00:36:53.712 --> 00:36:55.670 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Well, you could do one where you just 00:36:55.670 --> 00:36:57.390 align:middle line:90% directly ask the person. 00:36:57.390 --> 00:37:00.740 align:middle line:84% So they have their own, just, understanding 00:37:00.740 --> 00:37:03.140 align:middle line:90% of what they're able to handle. 00:37:03.140 --> 00:37:06.170 align:middle line:84% Or you could set up the problem so 00:37:06.170 --> 00:37:08.240 align:middle line:84% that you can just see directly from the work 00:37:08.240 --> 00:37:11.390 align:middle line:84% that they're able to do, like, how well they're 00:37:11.390 --> 00:37:13.298 align:middle line:90% cognitive load is being held. 00:37:13.298 --> 00:37:14.090 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Good. 00:37:14.090 --> 00:37:16.250 align:middle line:84% So one question that cognitive load theorists 00:37:16.250 --> 00:37:17.960 align:middle line:84% will be interested in is like, when 00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:19.878 align:middle line:84% do you feel overburdened by cognitive load? 00:37:19.878 --> 00:37:21.920 align:middle line:84% It's kind of interesting that people are actually 00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:25.070 align:middle line:84% quite lousy at self-assessing their learning 00:37:25.070 --> 00:37:26.427 align:middle line:90% in all kinds of ways. 00:37:26.427 --> 00:37:28.010 align:middle line:84% There's a classic study, I don't think 00:37:28.010 --> 00:37:31.490 align:middle line:84% we'll read about it, where people assess their baseball 00:37:31.490 --> 00:37:34.340 align:middle line:84% knowledge and then take a test about baseball. 00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:37.940 align:middle line:84% And the results are, like, the most perfectly spread scatter 00:37:37.940 --> 00:37:38.910 align:middle line:90% plot you've ever seen. 00:37:38.910 --> 00:37:40.400 align:middle line:84% There's basically no relationship 00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:41.900 align:middle line:84% at all between your self-assessment 00:37:41.900 --> 00:37:44.150 align:middle line:84% of your knowledge and your actual knowledge of things. 00:37:44.150 --> 00:37:46.850 align:middle line:84% So this is one of the real challenges in cognitive load 00:37:46.850 --> 00:37:50.190 align:middle line:84% theory is that we're not really aware of our own cognitive load. 00:37:50.190 --> 00:37:51.620 align:middle line:84% We're not really aware when we're 00:37:51.620 --> 00:37:54.680 align:middle line:84% encountering desirable difficulty, which is giving us 00:37:54.680 --> 00:37:58.340 align:middle line:84% a good amount of challenge, versus undesirable, where 00:37:58.340 --> 00:38:00.897 align:middle line:84% our cognitive load is-- our working memory is overwhelmed 00:38:00.897 --> 00:38:01.980 align:middle line:90% and we can't feel a thing. 00:38:01.980 --> 00:38:05.240 align:middle line:84% So people have tried to do work along those lines. 00:38:05.240 --> 00:38:07.460 align:middle line:84% What are some other ways of assessing whether or not 00:38:07.460 --> 00:38:08.960 align:middle line:84% an instructional effect is better 00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:12.180 align:middle line:84% than another instructional effect? 00:38:12.180 --> 00:38:12.680 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:38:12.680 --> 00:38:15.860 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I think in one of the papers that 00:38:15.860 --> 00:38:19.610 align:middle line:84% talked about physiologically measuring 00:38:19.610 --> 00:38:22.580 align:middle line:84% the cognitive load just by using heart rate and things like that. 00:38:22.580 --> 00:38:24.830 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: Skin conductance, other kinds of things. 00:38:24.830 --> 00:38:26.470 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: It also said that this was 00:38:26.470 --> 00:38:29.488 align:middle line:84% very unreliable as a measure of cognitive load as well. 00:38:29.488 --> 00:38:30.280 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah. 00:38:30.280 --> 00:38:30.780 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:38:30.780 --> 00:38:32.290 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:38:32.290 --> 00:38:34.007 align:middle line:84% Knowing when people are working memory-- 00:38:34.007 --> 00:38:35.090 align:middle line:90% it's kind of funny, right? 00:38:35.090 --> 00:38:36.632 align:middle line:84% This is like the heart of the theory. 00:38:36.632 --> 00:38:39.740 align:middle line:84% How do we tell when you're working memory is overwhelmed. 00:38:39.740 --> 00:38:42.040 align:middle line:84% And it's pretty hard actually to tell. 00:38:42.040 --> 00:38:44.235 align:middle line:84% We don't have a great grasp of how many-- 00:38:44.235 --> 00:38:45.610 align:middle line:84% there are some kinds of exercises 00:38:45.610 --> 00:38:49.120 align:middle line:84% we do, which especially really simple problem solving 00:38:49.120 --> 00:38:51.873 align:middle line:84% or puzzle kinds of things, where you can really tightly control 00:38:51.873 --> 00:38:53.540 align:middle line:84% how many elements are in working memory. 00:38:53.540 --> 00:38:55.700 align:middle line:84% But if you're like, actually trying to teach something, 00:38:55.700 --> 00:38:58.200 align:middle line:84% someone in the real world, like the Krebs cycle or something 00:38:58.200 --> 00:39:00.770 align:middle line:84% like that, how many things are in working memory at a time. 00:39:00.770 --> 00:39:02.540 align:middle line:90% It's a lot harder to check. 00:39:02.540 --> 00:39:05.080 align:middle line:84% So a pretty common set of methods that they'll use 00:39:05.080 --> 00:39:07.750 align:middle line:84% are experimental designs in which 00:39:07.750 --> 00:39:09.890 align:middle line:84% you have one group be a control group, 00:39:09.890 --> 00:39:12.730 align:middle line:84% and then you have another group be an experimental group. 00:39:12.730 --> 00:39:15.600 align:middle line:84% You measure people's skill at some-- 00:39:15.600 --> 00:39:17.350 align:middle line:84% in both groups, you measure people's skill 00:39:17.350 --> 00:39:19.030 align:middle line:90% in some kind of baseline. 00:39:19.030 --> 00:39:23.260 align:middle line:84% So you say, we're going to design-- 00:39:23.260 --> 00:39:26.950 align:middle line:84% we're going to go into a math, a school where they typically 00:39:26.950 --> 00:39:28.670 align:middle line:84% use a lot of open-ended problem solving. 00:39:28.670 --> 00:39:32.560 align:middle line:84% And we're going to instead have the teacher just do stuff 00:39:32.560 --> 00:39:33.938 align:middle line:90% using worked examples. 00:39:33.938 --> 00:39:35.980 align:middle line:84% And we're going to see whether the worked example 00:39:35.980 --> 00:39:38.420 align:middle line:84% condition is better than the business as usual condition. 00:39:38.420 --> 00:39:41.230 align:middle line:84% And in fact, to make sure that there's 00:39:41.230 --> 00:39:43.450 align:middle line:84% no difference between the kids who 00:39:43.450 --> 00:39:46.580 align:middle line:84% get the regular condition, the business as usual condition, 00:39:46.580 --> 00:39:48.470 align:middle line:84% the kids who get the work example condition, 00:39:48.470 --> 00:39:50.360 align:middle line:84% we're going to randomly assign the teachers. 00:39:50.360 --> 00:39:52.870 align:middle line:84% We'll get 20, or 30, or 40, or 50 teachers 00:39:52.870 --> 00:39:53.930 align:middle line:90% sign up for the study. 00:39:53.930 --> 00:39:55.690 align:middle line:84% Half of them will do the old thing, half of them 00:39:55.690 --> 00:39:56.607 align:middle line:90% will do the new thing. 00:39:56.607 --> 00:39:59.270 align:middle line:84% We'll measure all the kids' skill at baseline, 00:39:59.270 --> 00:40:03.690 align:middle line:84% and then we will measure the skill from the groups 00:40:03.690 --> 00:40:04.190 align:middle line:90% afterwards. 00:40:04.190 --> 00:40:11.050 align:middle line:84% So if this kind of model works, like, the two groups 00:40:11.050 --> 00:40:12.895 align:middle line:84% at baseline, in any group there's 00:40:12.895 --> 00:40:14.020 align:middle line:90% going to be a distribution. 00:40:14.020 --> 00:40:16.750 align:middle line:84% We're going to teach you how to factor polynomials, or add 00:40:16.750 --> 00:40:19.480 align:middle line:84% single digits, or conjugate Spanish verbs, 00:40:19.480 --> 00:40:20.230 align:middle line:90% or whatever it is. 00:40:20.230 --> 00:40:21.762 align:middle line:84% But in any given classroom, there 00:40:21.762 --> 00:40:23.470 align:middle line:84% should be a distribution of skill, right? 00:40:23.470 --> 00:40:24.730 align:middle line:84% Some people are having a hard time with it, 00:40:24.730 --> 00:40:25.980 align:middle line:84% most people are doing fine, and some people 00:40:25.980 --> 00:40:27.330 align:middle line:90% are doing really good. 00:40:27.330 --> 00:40:29.740 align:middle line:84% At baseline, these two groups should be identical, right? 00:40:29.740 --> 00:40:31.490 align:middle line:84% Because we randomly assigned your teachers 00:40:31.490 --> 00:40:34.240 align:middle line:84% to two different groups, and random assignment is magical. 00:40:34.240 --> 00:40:36.520 align:middle line:84% And like every once in a while, it doesn't work, 00:40:36.520 --> 00:40:39.145 align:middle line:84% but for the most part, like, the two groups should be the same. 00:40:39.145 --> 00:40:42.480 align:middle line:84% What should happen afterwards is that-- 00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:45.690 align:middle line:84% now here's something that makes learning research really hard. 00:40:45.690 --> 00:40:47.230 align:middle line:84% What kind of learning will-- like, 00:40:47.230 --> 00:40:50.680 align:middle line:84% learning will happen in both conditions, right? 00:40:50.680 --> 00:40:54.360 align:middle line:84% Almost everything we do makes people learn somewhat. 00:40:54.360 --> 00:40:56.830 align:middle line:84% Like, there are very few things that we do that we're like, 00:40:56.830 --> 00:40:58.390 align:middle line:84% boy, that was completely ineffective. 00:40:58.390 --> 00:41:00.910 align:middle line:84% Even if we're not using the most optimal techniques, 00:41:00.910 --> 00:41:02.200 align:middle line:90% students still learn stuff. 00:41:02.200 --> 00:41:05.160 align:middle line:84% So in the control condition, let's call orange control, 00:41:05.160 --> 00:41:09.732 align:middle line:84% they're still at Time 2 going to be improvement, T1, T2. 00:41:09.732 --> 00:41:11.440 align:middle line:84% You're going to see of distribution move. 00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:14.290 align:middle line:84% What we want to see, though, is something like this. 00:41:14.290 --> 00:41:20.360 align:middle line:84% Like, oh, we learned more in the experimental condition, 00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:22.490 align:middle line:90% when we went from T1 to T2. 00:41:22.490 --> 00:41:24.842 align:middle line:84% And in particular, we're interested in-- 00:41:24.842 --> 00:41:26.550 align:middle line:84% the way cognitive load theorists do this, 00:41:26.550 --> 00:41:28.383 align:middle line:84% they're particularly interested in averages. 00:41:28.383 --> 00:41:30.372 align:middle line:84% Like, in general, are kids more or less 00:41:30.372 --> 00:41:31.580 align:middle line:90% better off having to do this? 00:41:31.580 --> 00:41:33.840 align:middle line:84% Like, this has 10 teachers, each of whom has 20 kids. 00:41:33.840 --> 00:41:34.590 align:middle line:90% That's 200 kids. 00:41:34.590 --> 00:41:35.660 align:middle line:90% This has 200 kids. 00:41:35.660 --> 00:41:38.960 align:middle line:84% Is one group better than the other? 00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:40.760 align:middle line:84% Sometimes you can do some of this stuff. 00:41:40.760 --> 00:41:42.427 align:middle line:84% Some of this stuff happens in the field. 00:41:42.427 --> 00:41:45.290 align:middle line:84% Some of this stuff happens in laboratory kinds of experiments. 00:41:45.290 --> 00:41:49.100 align:middle line:90% One, let's see if-- 00:41:49.100 --> 00:41:52.070 align:middle line:84% so, this is a modality effect, which is kind of cool. 00:41:52.070 --> 00:41:55.220 align:middle line:84% Replace a written explanatory text and another source 00:41:55.220 --> 00:41:57.290 align:middle line:84% of visual information, such as a diagram, 00:41:57.290 --> 00:42:00.890 align:middle line:84% with a spoken explanatory text and a visual source 00:42:00.890 --> 00:42:01.590 align:middle line:90% of information. 00:42:01.590 --> 00:42:03.470 align:middle line:90% It turns out, again, we don't-- 00:42:03.470 --> 00:42:05.840 align:middle line:84% I would say we don't totally understand this, 00:42:05.840 --> 00:42:08.210 align:middle line:84% that your working memory seems to handle 00:42:08.210 --> 00:42:10.410 align:middle line:84% visual and auditory inputs differently. 00:42:10.410 --> 00:42:12.470 align:middle line:84% And so you have a little bit more working memory 00:42:12.470 --> 00:42:14.480 align:middle line:84% to work with if you're hearing stuff and looking 00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:17.640 align:middle line:84% at stuff than if you're reading stuff and looking at stuff. 00:42:17.640 --> 00:42:18.410 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:42:18.410 --> 00:42:19.710 align:middle line:90% Nobody knows. 00:42:19.710 --> 00:42:20.570 align:middle line:90% Evolution? 00:42:20.570 --> 00:42:21.360 align:middle line:90% Who knows? 00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:22.730 align:middle line:90% But it's kind of cool, right? 00:42:22.730 --> 00:42:25.880 align:middle line:84% So how might you study something like that? 00:42:25.880 --> 00:42:28.610 align:middle line:84% You take a textbook and you bring a bunch of students 00:42:28.610 --> 00:42:29.960 align:middle line:90% into the lab. 00:42:29.960 --> 00:42:32.820 align:middle line:84% And you have them do some kind of textbook learning exercise. 00:42:32.820 --> 00:42:34.533 align:middle line:90% You measure them beforehand. 00:42:34.533 --> 00:42:35.700 align:middle line:90% You measure them afterwards. 00:42:35.700 --> 00:42:37.533 align:middle line:84% For some random half of the students who 00:42:37.533 --> 00:42:39.200 align:middle line:84% are walking into your lab, they probably 00:42:39.200 --> 00:42:40.950 align:middle line:84% are taking a freshman psych class, 00:42:40.950 --> 00:42:43.220 align:middle line:84% and they have to do this for extra credit or something 00:42:43.220 --> 00:42:44.090 align:middle line:90% like that. 00:42:44.090 --> 00:42:47.030 align:middle line:84% And you give them the, like, auditory enhanced version 00:42:47.030 --> 00:42:47.640 align:middle line:90% of this. 00:42:47.640 --> 00:42:49.970 align:middle line:84% And if the people in the auditory enhanced condition 00:42:49.970 --> 00:42:52.730 align:middle line:84% in the modality effect condition do better, 00:42:52.730 --> 00:42:55.440 align:middle line:84% then you didn't have to go all the way into the field. 00:42:55.440 --> 00:42:57.493 align:middle line:84% You didn't have to recruit a bunch of teachers 00:42:57.493 --> 00:42:59.160 align:middle line:84% in real classrooms and things like that. 00:42:59.160 --> 00:43:01.470 align:middle line:84% You could study little bits of this in the lab. 00:43:01.470 --> 00:43:03.020 align:middle line:84% But again, the thing that these folks 00:43:03.020 --> 00:43:08.960 align:middle line:84% are particularly interested in is changes in average effects. 00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:11.510 align:middle line:84% Like, these models tend to assume that we're teaching stuff 00:43:11.510 --> 00:43:13.220 align:middle line:90% that everyone should learn. 00:43:13.220 --> 00:43:15.850 align:middle line:84% It would be good if all the kids in my math class 00:43:15.850 --> 00:43:17.420 align:middle line:90% learned to factor polynomials. 00:43:17.420 --> 00:43:20.157 align:middle line:84% And we want strategies that, on average, have more of those kids 00:43:20.157 --> 00:43:22.490 align:middle line:84% learn more about factoring polynomials and other things. 00:43:22.490 --> 00:43:24.520 align:middle line:84% I'm sort of emphasizing this point, because a bunch of stuff 00:43:24.520 --> 00:43:25.750 align:middle line:84% that you're going to read for next class 00:43:25.750 --> 00:43:27.800 align:middle line:84% doesn't necessarily make those assumptions. 00:43:27.800 --> 00:43:30.438 align:middle line:84% It's still about learning, but thinks 00:43:30.438 --> 00:43:32.230 align:middle line:84% about doing research differently and thinks 00:43:32.230 --> 00:43:35.260 align:middle line:90% about goals differently. 00:43:35.260 --> 00:43:37.190 align:middle line:90% OK, here are-- oh, good. 00:43:37.190 --> 00:43:39.160 align:middle line:84% We just did question number 3 here of things 00:43:39.160 --> 00:43:43.510 align:middle line:84% that I wanted to talk with you about. 00:43:43.510 --> 00:43:46.550 align:middle line:84% Number one, we emphasized, for cognitive load theorists, 00:43:46.550 --> 00:43:50.200 align:middle line:84% what is the bottleneck that they're most concerned with? 00:43:50.200 --> 00:43:51.135 align:middle line:90% Working memory. 00:43:51.135 --> 00:43:52.510 align:middle line:84% There's a limited number of stuff 00:43:52.510 --> 00:43:54.920 align:middle line:84% that you can operate with in working memory. 00:43:54.920 --> 00:43:57.200 align:middle line:84% So you got to think about, especially for novices, 00:43:57.200 --> 00:44:00.560 align:middle line:84% how do you reduce the complexity of a learning environment? 00:44:00.560 --> 00:44:08.830 align:middle line:90% 00:44:08.830 --> 00:44:12.950 align:middle line:84% What are the goals of cognitive load theory? 00:44:12.950 --> 00:44:16.900 align:middle line:84% What are, like, the end states of proficiency? 00:44:16.900 --> 00:44:18.650 align:middle line:84% For cognitive load theorists, what does it 00:44:18.650 --> 00:44:19.740 align:middle line:90% mean to be good at stuff? 00:44:19.740 --> 00:44:22.420 align:middle line:90% 00:44:22.420 --> 00:44:25.850 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Would it be to have built up a bank of schemas, 00:44:25.850 --> 00:44:28.250 align:middle line:84% and then be able to retrieve them at any time, 00:44:28.250 --> 00:44:34.040 align:middle line:84% and use them to work more quickly through a problem? 00:44:34.040 --> 00:44:36.140 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: It could be more quickly. 00:44:36.140 --> 00:44:37.940 align:middle line:84% So definitely, I think the first part, 00:44:37.940 --> 00:44:39.470 align:middle line:84% I would say you're spot on about m 00:44:39.470 --> 00:44:41.090 align:middle line:84% you have memorized a bunch of stuff. 00:44:41.090 --> 00:44:42.507 align:middle line:84% The stuff that you've memorized is 00:44:42.507 --> 00:44:44.870 align:middle line:84% organized into schemas of varying degrees of complexity. 00:44:44.870 --> 00:44:47.370 align:middle line:84% There are some things that don't organize well into schemas, 00:44:47.370 --> 00:44:49.600 align:middle line:84% but we just memorize them anyway. 00:44:49.600 --> 00:44:51.610 align:middle line:84% Famous things that don't fit super well 00:44:51.610 --> 00:44:55.790 align:middle line:84% into more complex schemas are a bunch of Asian languages 00:44:55.790 --> 00:44:58.030 align:middle line:84% have characters that don't, like, have a lot of logic 00:44:58.030 --> 00:44:58.565 align:middle line:90% across them. 00:44:58.565 --> 00:45:00.440 align:middle line:84% Like, you just have to memorize these things. 00:45:00.440 --> 00:45:01.750 align:middle line:90% And there are a lot of them. 00:45:01.750 --> 00:45:06.070 align:middle line:84% And like, schemas will only get you so far. 00:45:06.070 --> 00:45:09.070 align:middle line:84% But an important thing about, there is no relation-- 00:45:09.070 --> 00:45:10.070 align:middle line:90% think about it this way. 00:45:10.070 --> 00:45:13.500 align:middle line:84% There's no relationship between proficiency and the learning 00:45:13.500 --> 00:45:14.350 align:middle line:90% process. 00:45:14.350 --> 00:45:16.860 align:middle line:84% Like, what do cognitive load theorists 00:45:16.860 --> 00:45:18.510 align:middle line:90% think a really good surgeon is? 00:45:18.510 --> 00:45:21.750 align:middle line:84% Like, a really good surgeon is both proficient at certain kinds 00:45:21.750 --> 00:45:26.400 align:middle line:84% of well-established techniques, but also flexible, intuitive. 00:45:26.400 --> 00:45:28.740 align:middle line:84% A patient has cancer and you cut them open, 00:45:28.740 --> 00:45:31.680 align:middle line:84% and it's some set of physical problems 00:45:31.680 --> 00:45:32.920 align:middle line:90% they've never seen before. 00:45:32.920 --> 00:45:34.840 align:middle line:84% They don't want doctors who are like, oh, 00:45:34.840 --> 00:45:37.240 align:middle line:84% I must memorize the procedure and just do what I'm told. 00:45:37.240 --> 00:45:38.698 align:middle line:84% They want doctors who are flexible. 00:45:38.698 --> 00:45:41.010 align:middle line:84% They want poets and playwrights who are creative. 00:45:41.010 --> 00:45:44.350 align:middle line:84% They want teachers who are engaging and effective. 00:45:44.350 --> 00:45:46.110 align:middle line:84% Like, their vision of proficiency 00:45:46.110 --> 00:45:48.750 align:middle line:84% is the same as almost anybody else who 00:45:48.750 --> 00:45:50.370 align:middle line:90% studies teaching and learning. 00:45:50.370 --> 00:45:53.578 align:middle line:84% Just because they have methods that are, like, 00:45:53.578 --> 00:45:55.120 align:middle line:84% it doesn't mean that they want people 00:45:55.120 --> 00:45:56.910 align:middle line:84% the rest of their lives trying to reduce 00:45:56.910 --> 00:46:00.100 align:middle line:84% the amount of working load, load on their working memory. 00:46:00.100 --> 00:46:02.118 align:middle line:84% They want people who can do all of the things 00:46:02.118 --> 00:46:03.910 align:middle line:84% that we think experts should be able to do. 00:46:03.910 --> 00:46:06.780 align:middle line:84% But they say the way you get expertise is not 00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:09.060 align:middle line:84% to take a surgeon and be like, just get in there 00:46:09.060 --> 00:46:11.620 align:middle line:84% and start cutting people up, and like, see what happens. 00:46:11.620 --> 00:46:14.670 align:middle line:84% You want to train them through a particular series of processes 00:46:14.670 --> 00:46:18.205 align:middle line:84% that has them memorize a particular series of facts. 00:46:18.205 --> 00:46:20.580 align:middle line:84% Those facts can be assembled in knowledge, or techniques, 00:46:20.580 --> 00:46:21.622 align:middle line:90% or other kinds of things. 00:46:21.622 --> 00:46:23.400 align:middle line:84% And then flexibly deploy those things they 00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:26.050 align:middle line:84% memorized to do good work in the world. 00:46:26.050 --> 00:46:31.050 align:middle line:84% So don't confuse the way that cognitive load theorists want 00:46:31.050 --> 00:46:36.657 align:middle line:84% people to learn, which can be pretty structured, 00:46:36.657 --> 00:46:37.990 align:middle line:90% have this devolving scaffolding. 00:46:37.990 --> 00:46:39.407 align:middle line:84% That doesn't mean that that's what 00:46:39.407 --> 00:46:42.070 align:middle line:84% expertise looks like when you get to the end of that process. 00:46:42.070 --> 00:46:43.695 align:middle line:84% We might teach people to be really good 00:46:43.695 --> 00:46:46.090 align:middle line:84% computer programmers through a set of worked examples, 00:46:46.090 --> 00:46:48.000 align:middle line:84% but it doesn't mean that we want computer programmers who 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:50.050 align:middle line:84% just copy things that they've seen in the world. 00:46:50.050 --> 00:46:51.467 align:middle line:84% We want those computer programmers 00:46:51.467 --> 00:46:54.108 align:middle line:84% to be flexible, creative, novel, inventive, 00:46:54.108 --> 00:46:55.400 align:middle line:90% all those kinds of good things. 00:46:55.400 --> 00:46:58.290 align:middle line:90% 00:46:58.290 --> 00:47:02.860 align:middle line:84% You read two other pieces that I didn't talk as much about, 00:47:02.860 --> 00:47:04.960 align:middle line:84% but we talked a little bit about Sweller, 00:47:04.960 --> 00:47:07.020 align:middle line:84% "The Story of a Research Program," 00:47:07.020 --> 00:47:12.560 align:middle line:84% that this research comes out of a particular historical context, 00:47:12.560 --> 00:47:15.900 align:middle line:84% which is people in math pretty fired up about problem solving. 00:47:15.900 --> 00:47:17.620 align:middle line:84% And this guy, John Sweller, being like, 00:47:17.620 --> 00:47:20.120 align:middle line:84% I think there are some real problems with open-ended problem 00:47:20.120 --> 00:47:20.620 align:middle line:90% solving. 00:47:20.620 --> 00:47:22.650 align:middle line:84% I think it doesn't do what we want it to do, 00:47:22.650 --> 00:47:27.320 align:middle line:84% and there might be better approaches to try. 00:47:27.320 --> 00:47:30.010 align:middle line:84% What did you take away from the Michael Person article? 00:47:30.010 --> 00:47:31.760 align:middle line:84% So Michael Person is a teacher in New York 00:47:31.760 --> 00:47:34.685 align:middle line:84% City, just teaches math to a bunch of different grades. 00:47:34.685 --> 00:47:36.810 align:middle line:84% And he's trying to make sense of all this research. 00:47:36.810 --> 00:47:38.120 align:middle line:84% What did you take away from the things 00:47:38.120 --> 00:47:39.412 align:middle line:90% he was trying to make sense of? 00:47:39.412 --> 00:47:58.640 align:middle line:90% 00:47:58.640 --> 00:48:02.420 align:middle line:84% So the title of his piece is, "Not a Theory of Everything." 00:48:02.420 --> 00:48:05.150 align:middle line:90% What did that allude to? 00:48:05.150 --> 00:48:07.610 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I could give a response 00:48:07.610 --> 00:48:10.720 align:middle line:84% to say, applying cognitive learning theory to cognitive 00:48:10.720 --> 00:48:14.330 align:middle line:84% learning theory, and just restricting it to where it is, 00:48:14.330 --> 00:48:17.350 align:middle line:84% putting the boundaries, making sure we understand what it is 00:48:17.350 --> 00:48:21.230 align:middle line:84% and what it's not, to make sure that when we're discussing it, 00:48:21.230 --> 00:48:23.980 align:middle line:84% we're not stepping beyond it and starting, like, 00:48:23.980 --> 00:48:26.020 align:middle line:84% confusing things together and not knowing 00:48:26.020 --> 00:48:27.062 align:middle line:90% what we're talking about. 00:48:27.062 --> 00:48:27.853 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Good. 00:48:27.853 --> 00:48:29.690 align:middle line:84% So some of it is him saying like, all right, 00:48:29.690 --> 00:48:32.660 align:middle line:84% like, what exactly are these terms and how are they used? 00:48:32.660 --> 00:48:33.963 align:middle line:90% How do they mean at a time? 00:48:33.963 --> 00:48:36.380 align:middle line:84% When Michael Person says, it's not a theory of everything, 00:48:36.380 --> 00:48:37.930 align:middle line:84% what are some of the things that prominently it 00:48:37.930 --> 00:48:38.910 align:middle line:90% is not a theory of? 00:48:38.910 --> 00:48:42.077 align:middle line:90% 00:48:42.077 --> 00:48:43.160 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Some motivation. 00:48:43.160 --> 00:48:44.240 align:middle line:90% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah. 00:48:44.240 --> 00:48:47.680 align:middle line:84% Why do you think-- so, Michael teaches math 00:48:47.680 --> 00:48:48.680 align:middle line:90% in a school in New York. 00:48:48.680 --> 00:48:50.055 align:middle line:84% Why do you think motivation would 00:48:50.055 --> 00:48:52.710 align:middle line:84% be something that would be a pretty keen interest to Michael? 00:48:52.710 --> 00:48:56.092 align:middle line:90% 00:48:56.092 --> 00:48:57.550 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I think that could affect 00:48:57.550 --> 00:49:01.420 align:middle line:84% how likely people are to remember the content right 00:49:01.420 --> 00:49:02.030 align:middle line:90% there. 00:49:02.030 --> 00:49:04.072 align:middle line:84% If you're really interested and really motivated, 00:49:04.072 --> 00:49:05.350 align:middle line:90% that could affect. 00:49:05.350 --> 00:49:06.280 align:middle line:84% JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, I think you could 00:49:06.280 --> 00:49:08.072 align:middle line:84% have a subtext of Michael's argument, which 00:49:08.072 --> 00:49:11.327 align:middle line:84% is like, my guy, like, you're clogged working memory 00:49:11.327 --> 00:49:12.410 align:middle line:90% is not the problem I have. 00:49:12.410 --> 00:49:14.710 align:middle line:84% My problem is my kids don't care. 00:49:14.710 --> 00:49:17.200 align:middle line:84% Like, if you're not actually interested, 00:49:17.200 --> 00:49:19.760 align:middle line:84% and engaged, and want to learn these things, 00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:21.520 align:middle line:90% who cares if you're stuck? 00:49:21.520 --> 00:49:23.440 align:middle line:84% It's not a problem to be putting seven or nine 00:49:23.440 --> 00:49:24.530 align:middle line:90% things in their working memory. 00:49:24.530 --> 00:49:26.905 align:middle line:84% The problem is they will put zero things in their working 00:49:26.905 --> 00:49:29.270 align:middle line:90% memory. 00:49:29.270 --> 00:49:32.510 align:middle line:84% The problem is not the bottleneck that appears here. 00:49:32.510 --> 00:49:35.110 align:middle line:84% The problem is you can't get them to do this. 00:49:35.110 --> 00:49:37.630 align:middle line:84% You can't get them to attend to anything. 00:49:37.630 --> 00:49:39.475 align:middle line:90% I think there's part-- 00:49:39.475 --> 00:49:42.430 align:middle line:84% and for him as a teacher, motivation 00:49:42.430 --> 00:49:45.640 align:middle line:84% is just essential, like, a central problem 00:49:45.640 --> 00:49:47.420 align:middle line:90% of what he does every day. 00:49:47.420 --> 00:49:50.170 align:middle line:84% How am I going to convince these fourth graders in front of me 00:49:50.170 --> 00:49:52.960 align:middle line:84% that it's worth learning this math? 00:49:52.960 --> 00:49:55.310 align:middle line:84% And that, I think, reading between the lines, 00:49:55.310 --> 00:49:56.685 align:middle line:84% I think that's part of what feels 00:49:56.685 --> 00:49:57.970 align:middle line:90% really important to Michael. 00:49:57.970 --> 00:50:02.230 align:middle line:84% And John Sweller says, this theory doesn't do that. 00:50:02.230 --> 00:50:05.620 align:middle line:84% This theory doesn't attend to issues of motivation. 00:50:05.620 --> 00:50:08.430 align:middle line:84% Now, the good thing about doing that, 00:50:08.430 --> 00:50:10.470 align:middle line:84% and I think Michael comes to this conclusion 00:50:10.470 --> 00:50:12.242 align:middle line:84% in some respects, is like, yeah, it's 00:50:12.242 --> 00:50:13.950 align:middle line:84% probably not a good idea for every theory 00:50:13.950 --> 00:50:15.220 align:middle line:90% to try to do everything. 00:50:15.220 --> 00:50:17.653 align:middle line:84% It doesn't diminish the contributions of cognitive load 00:50:17.653 --> 00:50:19.570 align:middle line:84% theory to say it doesn't attend to motivation, 00:50:19.570 --> 00:50:22.560 align:middle line:84% but it probably should draw our attention to the fact 00:50:22.560 --> 00:50:26.160 align:middle line:84% that working memory is not like the single bottleneck that 00:50:26.160 --> 00:50:28.273 align:middle line:84% exists in all learning environments everywhere. 00:50:28.273 --> 00:50:29.940 align:middle line:84% There are all kinds of other bottlenecks 00:50:29.940 --> 00:50:30.850 align:middle line:90% that might be around. 00:50:30.850 --> 00:50:32.370 align:middle line:84% Again, some of the stuff that we're 00:50:32.370 --> 00:50:34.110 align:middle line:84% going to read about next week thinks 00:50:34.110 --> 00:50:36.960 align:middle line:84% of motivation as a very central issue, 00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:40.180 align:middle line:84% as maybe like the central issue to teaching and learning, 00:50:40.180 --> 00:50:42.960 align:middle line:84% which doesn't mean that this other theory is better. 00:50:42.960 --> 00:50:45.730 align:middle line:84% But that the theories that we have are just models. 00:50:45.730 --> 00:50:47.260 align:middle line:90% They help us make sense. 00:50:47.260 --> 00:50:49.360 align:middle line:84% Nobody actually understands how the brain works. 00:50:49.360 --> 00:50:51.540 align:middle line:84% Nobody actually understands how people learn. 00:50:51.540 --> 00:50:52.660 align:middle line:90% That is beyond our ken. 00:50:52.660 --> 00:50:54.250 align:middle line:84% But there's a lot that we can know about it. 00:50:54.250 --> 00:50:55.770 align:middle line:84% And we can build these models which 00:50:55.770 --> 00:50:58.320 align:middle line:84% help us make good predictions, but they don't 00:50:58.320 --> 00:51:01.500 align:middle line:90% help us predict everything. 00:51:01.500 --> 00:51:03.660 align:middle line:84% The other thing that I think Michael's article is 00:51:03.660 --> 00:51:06.880 align:middle line:84% really good for highlighting is that these theories change. 00:51:06.880 --> 00:51:08.790 align:middle line:84% How many of you read in the original article 00:51:08.790 --> 00:51:11.640 align:middle line:84% about this thing called germane load? 00:51:11.640 --> 00:51:12.690 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:51:12.690 --> 00:51:14.430 align:middle line:84% Researchers in cognitive load theory 00:51:14.430 --> 00:51:16.510 align:middle line:84% have basically given up on germane load. 00:51:16.510 --> 00:51:18.360 align:middle line:84% It was an idea they had for a while. 00:51:18.360 --> 00:51:19.360 align:middle line:90% They were working on it. 00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:20.620 align:middle line:84% They thought it would predict some stuff. 00:51:20.620 --> 00:51:21.700 align:middle line:84% They thought it would explain some stuff. 00:51:21.700 --> 00:51:22.750 align:middle line:84% And after a while, they were like, yeah, 00:51:22.750 --> 00:51:24.910 align:middle line:84% I don't think this germane load idea is all that useful. 00:51:24.910 --> 00:51:26.743 align:middle line:84% And people have more or less given up on it. 00:51:26.743 --> 00:51:29.370 align:middle line:84% So these theories are constantly changing and evolving too. 00:51:29.370 --> 00:51:32.150 align:middle line:84% The version of cognitive load theory that I might teach 00:51:32.150 --> 00:51:34.650 align:middle line:84% in this class 20 years from now is not going to be the exact 00:51:34.650 --> 00:51:38.370 align:middle line:84% same as I would have in the 1980s when John Sweller was just 00:51:38.370 --> 00:51:39.940 align:middle line:90% putting these things together. 00:51:39.940 --> 00:51:42.940 align:middle line:84% Some parts of it have stood the test of time. 00:51:42.940 --> 00:51:45.720 align:middle line:84% I would say, particularly this idea, 00:51:45.720 --> 00:51:49.273 align:middle line:84% the idea of extraneous load seems to be enormously helpful. 00:51:49.273 --> 00:51:51.190 align:middle line:84% If you put too much stuff in front of novices, 00:51:51.190 --> 00:51:52.817 align:middle line:84% they won't attend to the right things 00:51:52.817 --> 00:51:54.900 align:middle line:84% and they won't remember the things that you really 00:51:54.900 --> 00:51:56.653 align:middle line:84% want them to remember, or they won't 00:51:56.653 --> 00:51:58.570 align:middle line:84% be able to attend to what you want them to do. 00:51:58.570 --> 00:52:00.528 align:middle line:84% But if you reduce some of that extraneous load, 00:52:00.528 --> 00:52:02.970 align:middle line:84% and there are a bunch of very specific strategies 00:52:02.970 --> 00:52:05.510 align:middle line:84% that we can use to reduce that extraneous load, 00:52:05.510 --> 00:52:09.200 align:middle line:84% some of which are very, very fine grained. 00:52:09.200 --> 00:52:11.370 align:middle line:84% If there are multiple sources of information, 00:52:11.370 --> 00:52:13.478 align:middle line:84% frequently pictures and accompanying a text. 00:52:13.478 --> 00:52:16.020 align:middle line:84% Like, don't put the picture over here and the text over here. 00:52:16.020 --> 00:52:18.650 align:middle line:84% Put them in the same place and people will learn better. 00:52:18.650 --> 00:52:20.824 align:middle line:90% That's great. 00:52:20.824 --> 00:52:23.450 align:middle line:84% Think about how many people today in the United States, 00:52:23.450 --> 00:52:26.152 align:middle line:84% there are about 57 million kids in K-12 schools, 00:52:26.152 --> 00:52:28.110 align:middle line:84% and tens of million people in higher education. 00:52:28.110 --> 00:52:30.350 align:middle line:84% Like, if all their textbooks got a little bit better 00:52:30.350 --> 00:52:32.480 align:middle line:84% by adhering to this principle, everyone 00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:34.500 align:middle line:84% would learn a tiny, tiny bit more, 00:52:34.500 --> 00:52:37.280 align:middle line:84% but amortized over 57 million kids going 00:52:37.280 --> 00:52:38.250 align:middle line:90% to school for 13 years. 00:52:38.250 --> 00:52:39.590 align:middle line:90% That could be a lot of learning. 00:52:39.590 --> 00:52:41.270 align:middle line:90% That's pretty cool. 00:52:41.270 --> 00:52:41.820 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:52:41.820 --> 00:52:46.070 align:middle line:84% 2:20, what are the last things that I want to leave you with? 00:52:46.070 --> 00:52:52.520 align:middle line:84% You now have 50% of the ideas that you will 00:52:52.520 --> 00:52:56.540 align:middle line:90% need to do assignment number 1. 00:52:56.540 --> 00:52:58.040 align:middle line:84% So again, assignment number 1, which 00:52:58.040 --> 00:52:59.420 align:middle line:84% you should go to the syllabus and read, is you're 00:52:59.420 --> 00:53:01.410 align:middle line:84% going to pick an educational technology. 00:53:01.410 --> 00:53:05.150 align:middle line:84% You're going to explain if that educational technology is more 00:53:05.150 --> 00:53:07.980 align:middle line:90% inspired by instructionists. 00:53:07.980 --> 00:53:09.440 align:middle line:84% By people who are really fired up 00:53:09.440 --> 00:53:12.860 align:middle line:84% about direct teaching of things, the cognitive load 00:53:12.860 --> 00:53:15.110 align:middle line:90% theorists or instructionists. 00:53:15.110 --> 00:53:18.033 align:middle line:84% The worked example effect is an instructionist kind of idea. 00:53:18.033 --> 00:53:19.700 align:middle line:84% There are lots of education technologies 00:53:19.700 --> 00:53:21.470 align:middle line:84% which are instructionist in nature, which 00:53:21.470 --> 00:53:22.910 align:middle line:84% are like, how are we going to tell people 00:53:22.910 --> 00:53:24.860 align:middle line:84% how to do this thing so they do it better? 00:53:24.860 --> 00:53:30.660 align:middle line:84% There are other pedagogies, education technologies, 00:53:30.660 --> 00:53:32.990 align:middle line:84% which are much more focused on experience, 00:53:32.990 --> 00:53:35.540 align:middle line:84% much more focused on apprenticeship. 00:53:35.540 --> 00:53:38.520 align:middle line:84% How do we get into the world and muck about and do things? 00:53:38.520 --> 00:53:43.358 align:middle line:84% And that is what you will read about for Monday, which is-- 00:53:43.358 --> 00:53:45.060 align:middle line:84% and both of these ideas are ancient. 00:53:45.060 --> 00:53:47.435 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think I mentioned to you before this quote from 00:53:47.435 --> 00:53:50.160 align:middle line:84% Plutarch, that "education is not the filling of a pail, 00:53:50.160 --> 00:53:51.890 align:middle line:90% but the lighting of a fire." 00:53:51.890 --> 00:53:53.960 align:middle line:84% The cognitive load theories are like, no, 00:53:53.960 --> 00:53:55.380 align:middle line:90% pail filling is awesome. 00:53:55.380 --> 00:53:56.700 align:middle line:90% This is like super effective. 00:53:56.700 --> 00:53:58.742 align:middle line:84% We can measure how much stuff goes into the pail. 00:53:58.742 --> 00:54:00.908 align:middle line:84% We can measure how much stuff leaks out of the pail. 00:54:00.908 --> 00:54:03.050 align:middle line:84% We can measure the optimal flow rate into the pail. 00:54:03.050 --> 00:54:04.330 align:middle line:90% Pail filling is cool. 00:54:04.330 --> 00:54:07.120 align:middle line:84% We're now going to find the contemporary versions 00:54:07.120 --> 00:54:09.610 align:middle line:84% of the flame kindlers, people who are trying to really get 00:54:09.610 --> 00:54:11.290 align:middle line:84% their minds around how do you get 00:54:11.290 --> 00:54:14.465 align:middle line:84% people to learn and naturalistic apprenticeship reactions? 00:54:14.465 --> 00:54:16.340 align:middle line:84% So you're going to have to find a technology. 00:54:16.340 --> 00:54:18.820 align:middle line:84% You have to explain whether it's more instructionist 00:54:18.820 --> 00:54:21.550 align:middle line:84% or constructionist, more inspired by cognitive load 00:54:21.550 --> 00:54:23.090 align:middle line:90% theory or situated learning. 00:54:23.090 --> 00:54:25.540 align:middle line:84% Describe how the features of that technology 00:54:25.540 --> 00:54:28.280 align:middle line:84% reflect these pedagogical values. 00:54:28.280 --> 00:54:31.240 align:middle line:84% That's like the first couple pages of the assignment. 00:54:31.240 --> 00:54:33.170 align:middle line:84% You have something like 1,200 words, 00:54:33.170 --> 00:54:35.420 align:middle line:84% but you can include pictures, you can annotate things. 00:54:35.420 --> 00:54:36.820 align:middle line:84% You can be like, look, this is like a little screenshot 00:54:36.820 --> 00:54:39.160 align:middle line:84% of the thing, and like, here's where instructionism 00:54:39.160 --> 00:54:40.420 align:middle line:90% is written all over it. 00:54:40.420 --> 00:54:41.908 align:middle line:84% Then in the last part of the paper, 00:54:41.908 --> 00:54:43.450 align:middle line:84% you have to take this same technology 00:54:43.450 --> 00:54:45.820 align:middle line:84% and imagine that it was redesigned or designed 00:54:45.820 --> 00:54:48.280 align:middle line:84% originally by people from the opposite pedagogical 00:54:48.280 --> 00:54:48.928 align:middle line:90% perspective. 00:54:48.928 --> 00:54:50.470 align:middle line:84% So you might go and find a technology 00:54:50.470 --> 00:54:53.270 align:middle line:84% and be like, man, this is like straight cognitive load theory. 00:54:53.270 --> 00:54:55.690 align:middle line:84% What if the same technology with the same kind of goals 00:54:55.690 --> 00:54:58.180 align:middle line:84% was designed by situated learning 00:54:58.180 --> 00:54:59.630 align:middle line:90% constructionist kind of people? 00:54:59.630 --> 00:55:00.500 align:middle line:90% That is the task. 00:55:00.500 --> 00:55:02.470 align:middle line:84% So you can be thinking, as you're 00:55:02.470 --> 00:55:04.322 align:middle line:84% doing all of these kinds of readings, 00:55:04.322 --> 00:55:06.530 align:middle line:84% what are some of the key principles that I could use? 00:55:06.530 --> 00:55:08.290 align:middle line:84% How would I apply these key principles 00:55:08.290 --> 00:55:09.950 align:middle line:90% to education technologies? 00:55:09.950 --> 00:55:12.200 align:middle line:84% Which education technology am I most interested in? 00:55:12.200 --> 00:55:14.050 align:middle line:84% How am I going to learn about the other pedagogical 00:55:14.050 --> 00:55:16.030 align:middle line:84% philosophies so I could apply in the same way? 00:55:16.030 --> 00:55:17.905 align:middle line:84% That should give you some stuff to work with. 00:55:17.905 --> 00:55:21.650 align:middle line:90% OK, 2:25, we'll meet on Monday. 00:55:21.650 --> 00:55:23.660 align:middle line:84% You'll read stuff about situated learning. 00:55:23.660 --> 00:55:27.010 align:middle line:84% We'll do similar kinds of exercises to make sense of it. 00:55:27.010 --> 00:55:29.477 align:middle line:84% If you have questions, come, swing by. 00:55:29.477 --> 00:55:30.560 align:middle line:90% Take your books with them. 00:55:30.560 --> 00:55:32.710 align:middle line:84% Write your names in them so that you don't get them confused with 00:55:32.710 --> 00:55:33.560 align:middle line:90% other people's. 00:55:33.560 --> 00:55:36.728 align:middle line:84% And you can expect another email from me 00:55:36.728 --> 00:55:38.270 align:middle line:84% hopefully in the next couple of days. 00:55:38.270 --> 00:55:39.400 align:middle line:90% I remember almost every week. 00:55:39.400 --> 00:55:40.610 align:middle line:90% I don't promise it comes out. 00:55:40.610 --> 00:55:42.160 align:middle line:84% It's like a courtesy service, but it's 00:55:42.160 --> 00:55:44.450 align:middle line:84% like a little summary of what you need to do for next week. 00:55:44.450 --> 00:55:46.450 align:middle line:84% OK, I'll stick around if anybody needs anything. 00:55:46.450 --> 00:55:48.220 align:middle line:84% Otherwise, have a wonderful weekend. 00:55:48.220 --> 00:55:50.220 align:middle line:90% And I'll see you on Monday. 00:55:50.220 --> 00:56:02.000 align:middle line:90%