Crispin Rocks Vygotsky, Gardiner and Piaget February 20, 2009

Thursday, 3:30

· The cognitive art of educational technology: Getting what’s on the screen into your students’ long-term memory

· Patrick Crispen

· Patrick Crispen is an educational program designer for the Center for Scholarly Technology at the University of Southern California (USC).

· Pasted from <http://www.netsquirrel.com/crispen/about_crispen.html>

·

Thursday, February 19, 3:30 PM

Room: B110-112

· Can changing a few things in your PowerPoint presentations, web sites, and other technology-based teaching aids really improve your students’ performance and learning? In a word, “yep.” In this fast paced, one hour presentation we’ll discuss, in plain English, how your students process what they see on the screen and what research-based educational technology design and teaching methods either support or inhibit long-term learning.

· Presentation coming soon at www.netsquirrel.com – pending a reference page.

· Pasted from <http://www.ncce.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=660&Itemid=233>

· This is part 2 – part one is tomorrow – Back to School focused on what may not be true and what may not work (at least as well as we hope). This is the session where he will debunk the Multiple Intelligences of Dr. Howard Gardner.

· College is a fountain of knowledge, where everyone goes to drink

· Piaget’s Theory –

· Adaptation

· Assimilation

· Accommodation

· Schema

· Stages

· CONSTRUCTIVISM

· nature of knowledge

· You have goal oriented schemes

· Concept – forms of non goal directed

· Vygotsky

· Nature of Knowledge

· Concepts (spontaneous to scientific) (goed instead of goes or went)

· Functions – language thinking

· Learning and knowledge growth

· Zone on proximal development

· Learn from the expert then become the expert

· Scaffolding

· Two NEW theories

· Information processing theory

· Sensory memory

· We live in a world of stimulus

· Lasts .04 to 4 seconds

· Large capacity

· Content resembles the original sensation

· Perception => Gestalt

· Stimulus is meaningless without attention

· Attention

· A distracted mind can’t translate the stimuli without a reason or at least attention

· To get into the long term memory we have to have the students attention

· Attention Grabbers

· Motion

· Pain

· Intensity

· Novelty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4)

· Activboards

· Incongruity

· Emotion

· Personal Significance

· Social Cues

· Perceptions

· Working memory

· Where most learning takes place

· Storage and work space for thoughts

· 5 – 20 seconds for NEW information

· Infinite duration for prior information

· Capacity is 7 (+/-2) new items at a time for adults, children 4 -5.

· Duration of long term memory is indefinitely long

· The capacity is unlimited

· The content

· Explicit knowledge

· Implicit knowledge

· Declarative knowledge

· Procedural knowledge

· Conceptual knowledge

· Episodic knowledge

· Schema

· Images

· Schema theory

· Building blocks of cognition

· Schemata correspond to the meaning of a concept

· Meanings are encoded in terms of the typical or normal situations

· Six functions (see PowerPoint when posted)

· Attention is KEY

· The more attention the brain pays the more elaborately the information will be encoded and retained (Medina, 2008)

· The messages that grab are connected to memory interest and awareness or to large perceptible differences

· Interest or importance (arousal)

· Eliminate distractions

· The brain cannot multi-task

· We are biologically incapable of processing attention rich inputs simultaneously (see 7+/- 2)

· Studies show a person who is interrupted takes 50% longer to accomplish a task; not only that – he or she makes up to 50% more errors.

· Radio in the background – we block out the radio and the absence becomes a distraction

· Why disstractions distract

· Working memory is limited

· POWERPOINT

· Emotion affects learning

· The way students feel critically affects learning

· Fundamental role in

· Motivation

· Moment to moment problem solving

· Emotion forms the rudder that steers the boat

· Minimize extraneous cognitive load

· Communication is most effective when neither too much or too little information is presented

· Bells and whistles take up some of the 7 items a student can process.

· If you can’t tie your bells and whistles to the content get rid of it.

· "Angel share"

· Communication requires prior knowledge

· The more connections you create the easier it is for a student to retain the information

· Don’t start with vocab… start with what the students already know.

· We construct reality using prior learning, predispositions and context

· People love chunks – People automatically group elements into units which they attend to and remember (Kosslyn, 2007)

· Encoding: ZPD/Mirroring

· Watch one, do one, teach one works

· Mirroring (watching others and inferring their emotions and implicits goal recruits some of the same neural systems involved in planning…

· Physical activity is candy (Medina, 2008, p. 22)

· Plan how you will get attention

· Emotions matters

· Structure your content

· Give the big pic

· Explain why this matters

· Provide a roadmap

· Fill in blanks and define key terms

· Tie content to existing schemata

· Chunk your content

· Four items per chunk?

· WRONG – use what it takes to share the information – even MORE if the kids already know it

· Don’t make the students search for what is important

· Text size, weight, decoration – remember the accessibility piece

· Use images for new information (but be careful about the cognitive load)

· Images in a presentation provides no benefit if students already understand the content

· FONTS – avoid all uppercase, all italics, or all bold – you need them for attention grabbing

· Don’t underline – it cuts off the pesky, quirky descenders (the tails of letters)

· Use different fonts only for emphasis or to specify different classes of information

· Robin Williams font research and guidelines

· Don’t use different colors to impart information

· Re: Color blind students

· Use fonts that are easy to read

· There are no reading speed difference based on serif or sans serif fonts

· There are personal preferences

· Animation

· Use novel animation and transitions to direct
attention

· Use novel sounds for the same reason

· Use both sparingly (for the love of God!)

· Don’t be ashamed to use your content as a memory aid for you

· Know what you can skip

· SLOW DOWN!
Incorporate real world, concrete examples

· Resources and references

· MBE – Mind, brain and education (http://www.gse.harvard.edu/academics/masters/mbe/, http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=1751-2271)

· Clear and to the Point –

· Brain Rules – Medina, J (2008) – 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home and school

· Cognitive Development and Learning – JP Byrnes (2008) big bucks – $92 paperback

·

· http://www.amazon.com/Clear-Point-Psychological-Principles-Presentations/dp/0195320697

· Screen clipping taken: 2/19/2009, 4:26 PM

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