Atch (8)_RRLGM 22-0001 PALS_13May22.pdf

NETC-N7

13 May 22

READY RELEVANT LEARNING GUIDANCE MEMORANDUM (RRLGM) #22-0001

Subj: IMPLEMENTATION OF PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF LEARNING SCIENCE (PALS)

Encl: (!) Practical Applications of Leaming Science-A Handbook for Naval Instructors, version I dated November 2021

I. Purpose. This RRLGM provides guidelines for implementing the learning science topics found in encl (1).

2. Background. The Practical Applications of Learning Science (PALS) handbook (encl (I)) is a product of work completed by Dr. Van Schaack. The handbook describes six best practices for instructional strategies that are "recommended as the foundation for education and training in the United States Navy". (Van Schaack, 2021) The six best practices, as listed in encl(!), are as follows:

• Retrieval Practice - using low stakes oral or written quizzes to encourage students to retrieve information from memory

• Spaced Practice - conducting multiple short study sessions rather than cramming all reviews into one longer period

• Interleaving - mixing multiple subjects, topics, or problem types into study periods or homework to improve the transfer of knowledge and skills

• Dual Coding - use multimedia that has a picture along with bulleted information that the instructor describes rather than having students see what the instructor will say; students will process the information both visually and verbally

• Concrete Examples - provide specific, real-world examples to highlight essential features

• Elaboration - have instructors use review questions that start with How, Why, and What ifto make the information more memorable by relating new information to something they already know

Incorporating these strategies into training will help students increase long-term retention through the transfer of knowledge and skills.

3. Action.

a. Learning Centers will have their training and instructional staff read encl (1 ).

b. The instructional strategies found in the PALS handbook will be incorporated into all NETC training courses. These practices will be incorporated by training and instructional staff subject matter experts during new course design and development or during a revision to a course, such as those occurring through the Ready Relevant Leaming training modernization workshops. Many of these practices can be incorporated through pen and ink changes to lesson plans. Others may require updating slides or knowledge checks.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

OF LEARNING SCIENCE

A HANDBOOK FOR NAVAL INSTRUCTORS

VERSION 1.0

NOVEMBER 2021

In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military.

- Douglas MacArthur, 1933

Introduction

Retrieval Practice

Spaced Practice

Evidence for Practice Strategies

Optimal Practice Strategies

Interleaving

Dual Coding

Evidence for Interleaving

Principles of Multimedia Design

Concrete Examples

Elaboration

Evidence for Elaboration

Elaboration Strategies

Desirable Difficulties

Conclusion

References

Notes

Table of ContentS

1. Retrieval Practice The act of recalling information from long-term memory is what makes it more memorable in the future. Instructors should use a number of low-stakes quizzes (oral and written) throughout their lessons to encourage stu-dents to retrieve information from memory.

2. Spaced Practice Distributing study time over sev-eral short sessions produces better long-term memory than a single, long study session. Ra-ther than cramming four hours the night before a test, students should study for one hour on each of the four days leading up to the test.

3. Interleaving Switching between related prob-lem types while studying, and varying the conditions of prac-tice during training, improves transfer of knowledge and skills.

Instructors should include old and new problem types in home-work; trainees should rotate through several stations.

Medicine and engineering, as professional disciplines, adopted an approach to research and development founded on theory building paired with experimental validation. The products of medical research are seen in pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals as well as research laboratories and medical schools. The same can be said for engineering.

All the tools and processes used in transportation, telecommunications, energy production, computing, agriculture, manufacturing, and construction are the result of scientific research followed by engineering and product develop-ment.

In contrast, instructional strategies used in the field of education and training are based on ideology, intuition, or preference; often couched under the term “best practices.” At best, unproven instructional strategies are simply hypotheses waiting for scientific validation through experimental studies. At worst, they are ineffective, or even counterproductive, while producing the illusion of learning.

The solution to this problem is not yet another innovative approach to teaching and learning, but rather to insist that all solutions be developed and evaluated using experimental research similar to other professional disciplines.

INTRODUCTION

4. Dual Coding Because people process infor-mation through two separate channels (verbal and visual), combining words with pictures leads to better learning than from words alone. Images on a screen should be described by an instructor with spoken, rather than written, words.

5. Concrete Examples Using specific, real-world exam-ples to explain abstract ideas makes those ideas easier to un-derstand, remember, and use. In-structors should introduce con-cepts in abstract form first and then provide a range of concrete examples to highlight the essen-tial features.

6. Elaboration The process of relating new in-formation to material already known, as well as organizing and expanding on ideas, makes in-formation more memorable. In-structors should ask their stu-dents to provide answers for question that start with How, Why, and What if.

From a thorough a review of the scientific literature on teaching and learning, six psychological principles were identified that are strongly recommended as the foundation for education and training in the United States Navy.

To satisfy the requirements for inclusion in this handbook, each principle needed to meet the following criteria:

• There is strong consensus within the learning science community, based on the results of experimental research studies, that its effects on acquisition, long-term retention, and transfer are consistently positive and significant.

• It is universally effective, independent of learner characteristics, subject matter, and instructional modality.

• It can be readily measured, leading to improved observations with feedback in new instructor training programs.

• It is easy to implement, even by a novice instructor.

• It is inexpensive to implement.

• It is not dependent upon technology, but it can be implemented through technology.

Each of these principles is defined and described in this handbook using representative experimental research studies. Actionable recommendations for instructors and students on how to implement the principles in class-rooms and other training environments are also be provided.

In education and training settings, learning and testing are often viewed as two separate activities. A well-estab-lished finding from psychological science is that the act of retrieving information during a test strengthens memory for the tested material (Karpicke, 2017; Roediger et al., 2011). Accordingly, instructors should think of testing as a memory-strengthening activity. And since many students are extrinsically motivated by test scores, it may actually be one of the most powerful strategies to support student learning an instructor has in their repertoire.

Retrieval practice, in the form of self-tests, is also a very effective strategy for students to use while studying. Self-tests are far more effective for building memory strength than common study methods that are passive, such as rereading highlighted passages of text or listening to an instructor repeat previously taught material during a review session (Ariel & Karpicke, 2018). In fact, research consistently demonstrates that students recall approximately 50% more information after they test themselves compared to when they study using other methods that do not include self-testing (Dunlosky et al., 2013; Karpicke & Roediger, 2008).

The act of recalling information from long-term memory is what makes it more memo-rable in the future.

Application example: An instructor uses frequent low-stakes quizzes (oral and written) throughout his lessons to encourage students to actively recall information from memory.

1. Retrieval Practice

1. Make retrieval practice a normal part of instruc-tion, not a stressful event that determines a stu-dent’s grade, by using low- or no-stakes quizzes throughout a lesson. (You can call a quiz at the beginning of a class a “review” to make it less stressful to students.)

2. Use fill-in-the-blank questions to promote recall rather than multiple choice questions that only re-quire recognition (Glover, 1989). Even though ini-tial performance is not as high with recall tests as it is with recognition tests, long-term retention will be much better (Carpenter & DeLosh, 2006).

3. Use closed-book tests that require retrieval prac-tice rather than open-book tests that do not (Agarwal et al., 2008). Searching for the correct answers and copying them down, as in open book tests, does not increase memory strength.

4. Start lessons with a short, student-led review ses-sion. The student(s) leading the session benefit from selecting, organizing, and presenting the in-formation; the other students benefit by strength-ening memories through the retrieval practice that occurs during the session (Stavnezer & Lom, 2019).

5. Encourage your students to frequently test them-selves during self-regulated study sessions to de-termine what they know and don’t know. Testing requires retrieval practice, which is beneficial in and of itself, and the result of each test will help them to understand how to allocate their remain-ing study time most effectively (Ariel & Karpicke, 2018; Broeren et al., 2021).

Recommendations for Instructors Recommendations for Students

1. Retrieving information through self-testing is what strengthens it in memory. Highlighting and rereading information is relatively ineffective since no retrieval is required. Using highlighting to identify important information can be useful if you practice retrieving the information, with quiz-zes, several times (Dunlosky et al., 2013).

2. Quiz yourself frequently while you’re studying.

Put away your books and notes and then write down everything you know. Compare what you’ve written with your class materials to make sure you’re recalling everything correctly.

3. Take as many practice tests as you can. If there aren’t any available, make your own tests and trade them with your fellow students.

4. Use flashcards to memorize important facts.

Don’t simply read the front of the card and then the back, though; read what’s on the front and then try to recall what’s on the back. Once you have an answer in mind, or you’ve given up, turn the card over to read the correct response.

5. Also, when you use flashcards, don’t drop a card the first time you recall the answer correctly.

Keep it in the study pile until you recall the correct answer at least three times—although five or six is better (Driskell et al., 1992; Kornell & Bjork, 2008a).

The effect that spacing out practice has on long-term retention of knowledge and skills has been systematically investigated by scientists for well over a century (Ebbinghaus, 1885). The results are clear and consistent: Spacing out practice over time is far more effective for building long-term memory than the opposite strategy of combining all practice activities into a single session (called “massed practice,” or more commonly, “cramming”) (Carpenter et al. 2012).

Very simply, if a student has four hours to devote to learning some material, their time would be far better spent studying for one hour on four different days than for four hours on one day. And during a single study session, they should break up the material being studied into chunks and then review (using retrieval practice) each chunk several times separated by as much time as possible, rather than going over each chunk several times in a row.

Note: Spaced practice only refers to the schedule itself, not to what the student does during the practice session.

For example, spaced rereading is far less effective than spaced retrieval practice.

Distributing study time over several short sessions produces better long-term memory than a single, long study session.

Application example: A student budgets four hours of study time to prepare for an important test. Rather than cramming for four hours the night before the test, they decide to study for one hour on each of the four days leading up to the test.

2. Spaced Practice

1. Conduct a review session at the beginning of each class period to provide students the oppor-tunity to retrieve previously learned material. This will strengthen long-term memory through spaced practice and ensure that students have the prerequisite knowledge for the current les-son.

2. Break up long lessons into several smaller les-sons and distribute them over several days. For example, teach your students foundational con-cepts on the first day. On subsequent days, ask them to retrieve that information during a review session in preparation for learning new infor-mation that builds on it.

3. Include a break in the middle of a lesson to refer back to information covered in previous lessons by asking questions about it and then asking stu-dents to make connections to the current lesson.

(Don’t simply retell them what you covered previ-ously.) This strategy takes advantage of retrieval practice, spaced review, and other strategies cov-ered later in this report including interleaving and elaboration.

4. Conduct several cumulative review sessions to efficiently practice material learned at different times in the course. This supports retrieval prac-tice and spaced review and it supports the pro-cess of elaboration by making connections be-tween several topics.

5. Develop homework sets that include new and old material. A rule of thumb is that two-thirds of the problems should come from the current unit and one-third should come from previous units. (It’s just as important to retain what has been learned as it is to learn something new.)

1. Plan for tests early and set aside time to study a little bit during several sessions rather than all at once the night before. Four, 30-minute study ses-sions spread over a week is much more effective than one two-hour study session. Another benefit of this strategy is that you won’t feel the pressure of a marathon study session on the night before a big test.

2. Spend a few minutes reviewing what you learned in class each day. Don’t do this immediately after class, though, wait at least a few hours. Quiz your-self rather than simply rereading the material.

This will help to reinforce the information in memory, reducing the amount of time you will need to spend studying (or relearning) the infor-mation later.

3. Be sure to include information from older lessons in your review sessions. It helps if you create re-view sheets with questions on the front and an-swers on the back. Treat them like quizzes. This will help to make sure you are retrieving infor-mation from memory rather than simply reread-ing what you wrote.

4. If you believe that writing down facts helps you to learn them, here’s how to do it more effectively:

Don’t write out a fact you want to remember over and over—it won’t build memory strength. Write them out once, study some other material, then on a blank piece of paper, write them down again from memory. Repeat this as many times as you like, spaced out over time.

5. Increasing the time between practice sessions— called expanding retrieval review—is the most ef-ficient approach to building long-term memory (Cull et al., 1996).

Karpicke and Bauernschmidt (2011) conducted an experiment to determine the differential effects of “studying” foreign vocabulary words by reading them side-by-side (e.g., malkia – queen), and “recalling” them—using retrieval practice—by typing in the Eng-lish translations of a Swahili words presented to them (e.g., malkia – _____ ). They also combined these two approaches with massed and spaced practice to see if the effects would be amplified. Students were ran-domly assigned to four groups as follows:

Group 1: Students studied the words one time without trying to recall them—they simply read each of the Swahili-English word pairs once.

Group 2: In the first round, students studied all the words in the list once, like Group 1. In the second round, they tried to recall all the English words by typ-ing in the translation for each Swahili word shown to them. The first time a translation was recalled cor-rectly, it was dropped. The students repeated re-calling all of the words remaining in the list until none were left.

Group 3: Like Group 2, students studied the word list once and then recalled them all in the second round.

The first time an English translation was recalled cor-rectly, however, it was immediately presented for re-call three more times in a row (massed practice).

Group 4: Like Group 3, students studied the word list once and then recalled them all in the second round.

Once they recalled an English translation correctly, they were asked to recall and type it in three more times. Rather than presenting the prompt immedi-ately, however, the three recall trials were spaced throughout the study session (spaced practice).

Although it may not be surprising to see that test per-formance of Group 1—who only read through the list of words once—was so low, the reader should reflect on the fact that much of what is presented to stu-dents in lectures and through readings is only experi-enced by them once, passively. Presenting infor-mation isn’t teaching if an instructor doesn’t encour-age their students to process information deeply.

Less intuitive is the fact that repeated massed prac-tice of information (Group 3) was no more effective in strengthening memory than recalling information one time (Group 2). It’s as though the first attempt to recall the information produces all of the benefit and further, immediate recall attempts add no value.

Finally, and most importantly, the power of spaced practice is revealed by comparing the test results of Group 3 and Group 4. Even though both groups ac-tively recalled the information the same number of times, the schedule of their recall attempts made a significant difference. More than three times the num-ber of items were correctly recalled during the test by those who studied using spaced practice than those who studied using massed practice.

Evidence for Practice Strategies

Development of basic knowledge and skills to the necessary levels of automatic and errorless perfor-mance requires a great deal of drill and practice…drill and practice activities should not be slighted as “low level.” Carried out properly, they appear to be just as essential to complex and creative intellectual perfor-mance as they are to the performance of a virtuoso violinist (Brophy,1986, p. 1076).

Fortunately, there is an extensive body of scientific lit-erature that describes strategies that promote flu-ency—“the fluid combination of accuracy plus speed that characterizes competent performance” (Binder, 1996, p. 164). One such approach that combines re-trieval practice, spaced practice, and interleaving is called “incremental rehearsal” (Tucker & Burns, 2016). It is specifically designed for the initial acqui-sition of basic knowledge and skills.

Lessons are typically comprised of 8 to 12 items and are sequenced within a practice session as follows:

Ui K1 U1 K1 K2 U2 K1 K2 K3 U3 K1 K2 K3 K4 U4…

Where U sub-i is the initial presentation (using re-trieval practice) of the unknown item, U sub-n is the nth presentation of the unknown item being learned, and the K sub-ns are the previously learned (Known) items. Once the new (Unknown) item has been pre-sented nine times, the sequence is repeated, but with a new item as the Unknown and the just learned item entering the pool of Known items. By carefully exam-ining this sequence, the reader will see that new items are introduced slowly and are recalled (using retrieval practice) many times, separated by previously learned items (interleaving), according to a schedule where those attempts are further and further apart in time (spaced practice).

Increasing the time between practice sessions— called expanding retrieval review—is the most effi-cient approach to building long-term memory (Cull et al., 1996). The simplest approach to implementing this strategy is to schedule review sessions using a geometric series. Information or a skill learned in the morning should be retrieved or practiced in the after-noon. The next retrieval or practice session should occur the very next day, then another two days after that, and another four days after that, and another eight days after that, and so on. The graph below pre-sents the changes in memory strength through initial learning, forgetting, and review sessions. Ultimately, knowledge is permanently stored in memory.

Optimal Practice Strategies

Because individual memories and skills decay at dif-ferent rates, however, the optimal schedule for review varies for each piece of information. There are sev-eral paper-based flashcard systems that implement expanding retrieval review including the Leitner card-box (Leitner, 1974) and SAFMEDS (Quigley et al., 2018). Software-based systems such as Supermemo (Wozniak, 2018) and Cerego (Van Schaack et al., 2000) create an optimal schedule of retrieval practice for each student on an item-by-item basis.

Interleaving is an approach to the design of instruction where different, but related, problems are mixed in a single learning session. One benefit of this approach is that students cannot simply apply the same approach to solving each problem, but instead must first determine which of several approaches is appropriate based on characteristics of the problem itself (Brown et al., 2014). A second benefit of interleaving relates to the spacing of practice. When problems of a different type from previous practice sets are reintroduced into the current practice activity, students must retrieve information from long-term memory to solve the older problem type. Thus, interleaving can be used as the means to create the spacing required for spaced practice. Accordingly, the combined benefits of retrieval practice and spaced practice can be accomplished through the interleaving of different problem types within prac-tice sets, review sessions, and comprehensive examinations (Hughes & Lee, 2019).

Despite the instructional benefits and relative ease of organizing instructional activities using interleaving, blocked practice—where specific problem types are clustered and practiced together before moving on to the next type—is the standard approach used in most mathematics textbooks. In a review of 13,000-plus practice problems drawn from six representative mathematics textbooks, Rohrer et al. (2020) found that less than 10 percent of the problems were interleaved. Accordingly, instructors will most likely need to create their own problem sets if they want their students to realize the benefits of interleaving.

Switching between related problem types while studying and varying the conditions of practice during training improves transfer of knowledge and skills.

Application examples: An instructor designs an in-class activity where his students alternate between studying worked solutions and solving problems. A trainer enhances skill retention and transfer by requiring her trainees to switch between different tasks while she varies the conditions under which they are practicing.

3. Interleaving

1. Interleaving improves test scores only when tests are cumulative (i.e., they include a variety of prob-lems from several units). If a test consists of only one problem type, then blocked practice of that type will produce the best scores. A test that is not cumulative is not ideal, however, if the ulti-mate goal is for your students to be able to rec-ognize and solve a variety of problems types.

2. After initial blocked practice with a new problem type, interleave worked examples with problems students must solve on their own. As students develop proficiency, reduce the percentage of worked examples in problem sets.

3. Once students can solve a particular problem type on their own, interleave problems of various types from current and previous lessons in both guided and independent practice. A good rule of thumb is that two-thirds of the problems should come from the current lesson and one-third should come from previous lessons.

4. For subjects where content is organized by theme—for example, vocabulary lists in foreign language courses—question sets should include vocabulary from a variety of lists rather than just one.

5. Blocked problems sets are relatively easy since students can apply the same approach to every problem. Interleaved problems sets, on the other hand, are more challenging since the student must select the correct approach as well as solve the problem using it. Accordingly, fewer problems should be included in interleaved practice sets and high-quality feedback is essential.

Recommendations for Instructors Recommendations for Students

1. When practicing anything, whether it’s a sport like basketball or an academic subject like mathe-matics, you should mix up the types of skills you are practicing or problems you are solving—not only will you get good at solving each type of problem, you’ll also improve your ability to recog-nize each problem type so you can use the cor-rect method.

2. Be careful: Interleaving is not simply jumping from one subject to another while studying. Inter-leaving works within subject areas when practice problems are arranged so that any two problems in a row cannot be solved using the same strat-egy.

3. When you’re studying using flashcards, don’t study the cards in one order; mix them up. Keep cards you know in the deck and shuffle it after each round. Better yet, when you miss a card, move it lower in the deck so you see it again soon.

Keep doing this until you know them all.

4. If you are studying a foreign language, practice listening to different native speakers say the words and phrases you are learning. Barcroft and Sommers (2005) found that students who lis-tened to foreign vocabulary words from different speakers scored 41% higher on a test than stu-dents who only listened to one speaker.

5. When studying for a test that covers a number of different topics, create a study plan where you quiz yourself on different problem types or mate-rial in random order. Don’t simply study the mate-rial in the order that it was presented by your in-structor in class.

According to Paivio (1986), people process information primarily through verbal associations (words) and visual imagery (images). His dual coding theory states that verbal and visual information is perceived and processed in parallel through two separate channels. People are limited, however, by the amount of information that each chan-nel can process at a given time. Optimal instruction maximizes the information processing resources of each chan-nel without overloading either one of them.

Even though words projected onto a screen are perceived with the eyes, they are processed as auditory information similar to spoken words. Therefore, students cannot read text on the screen and comprehend what their instructors are saying at the same time; they can only do one or the other without overloading the auditory processing channel.

Similarly, when words are projected onto a screen at the same time that images are (e.g., photographs and dia-grams), both compete for the limited resources of the visual processing channel. Research on multimedia learning consistently demonstrates that providing spoken descriptions of images being displayed makes the presented in-formation easier to process. It is important, however, for instructors to give students enough time to integrate the two representations (LeFevre & Dixon, 1986; Mayer & Gallini, 1990).

Note: Dual coding is frequently referred to as “multimedia learning” because the information is presented using multiple media types (words and images).

Because people process information through two separate channels (verbal and visual), combining words with pictures leads to better learning than from words alone.

Application examples: Images on a screen are described by an instructor with spoken words rather than written words. The instructor also carefully avoids speaking at the same time as her students are reading text on the screen.

4. Dual Coding

1. Describe images presented on-screen with spo-ken words rather than written words.

2. Avoid speaking at the same time that students are reading text on the screen. Pause for the amount of time it takes you to quickly read through it twice. If the text is too small for stu-dents to read, read the text out loud to them or make it larger and divide it between two slides.

3. Make it easy for students to make connections between what you are saying and the image on-screen. You can do this by pointing to specific ar-eas of the image and explicitly describing them.

You can say, for example “As you see in the upper right-hand corner…”, “Notice that the green arrow indicates the direction of…”, and “The cells high-lighted in red represent…”.

4. Exclude non-essential sound effects, music, ani-mations, and decorative images (including clip art). All of these make use of cognitive resources students need to process information. Unless a resource is essential to understanding a key con-cept, remove it.

5. Do not modify your instruction based on learning styles. Although most educators and students believe that every person has a style most effec-tive for learning (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic), it’s not true (Pashler et al., 2008). What is true is that specific types of information or skills are best taught using a particular modality, e.g., mu-sic appreciation–auditory; art history–visual; and throwing a ball–kinesthetic. Most subject matter requires at least two presentation modalities which highlights the importance of effective mul-timedia instruction.

Recommendations for Instructors Recommendations for Students

1. When studying your class materials, find dia-grams in your notes or textbook and describe them in your own words. Next, compare your ex-planations with those provided by your instructor or the textbook.

2. Draw pictures of the things you are learning about. They could be flow charts of processes, timelines of events, tables to compare features of two or more things, or diagrams where you label the parts.

3. Place labels for elements in a diagram close to the associated element rather than in a legend on the side or the bottom of the diagram. It’s easier to study a labeled diagram when you don’t have to search for the name of a part you are looking at.

4. Avoid listening to music while you are studying.

The lyrics will compete with the words you are reading and make it difficult to comprehend them. The only exception to this rule is when there is distracting background noise—in this case, instrumental music (i.e., music without lyr-ics) can help to block out the noise (Dobbs et al., 2011).

5. Although many instructors and students believe every person has a style most effective for learn-ing (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic), it’s not true.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing you can’t learn something because the way it is being taught doesn’t match what you think is your best learn-ing style. Instead, use the strategies described in this document—they’ve been proven to be very ef-fective for students just like you.

Hall et al. (1994) investigated the benefits of inter-leaved practice on skilled athletic performance. The researchers scheduled biweekly extra batting prac-tice where collegiate baseball players practiced hit-ting 15 fastballs, 15 curveballs, and 15 change-up pitches. Players were randomly assigned to two groups with the only difference being the order in which the pitches were thrown to them. In the Ran-dom condition, the pitches were thrown in random or-der. In the Blocked condition, all of the fastballs were thrown first, followed by the curve balls, and finally, the change-up pitches. After six weeks of practice (12 sessions), the players were tested under two different conditions. In the random transfer test, 45 pitches were thrown to the batters in random order. In the blocked transfer test, 45 pitches were thrown to the batters in blocked order. Although there was no sta-tistically significant difference between the two groups at the beginning of the experiment, there were large differences in performance at the end of the training period.

When comparing the performance of the pretest to the random posttest—the condition that most closely matches what happens in a real game—the Random group improved 56.7% from baseline whereas the Blocked group improved only 24.8%. A Control group that received no extra batting practice improved by 6.2%. Players who were thrown pitches in random or-der during practice improved their batting perfor-mance on the test by more than twice as much as those who practiced with a blocked order of pitches.

The improvement of the Control group between the pretest and posttest can be explained by the fact that all players in the experiment participated in regular batting practice during the experiment.

Random practice is particularly appropriate when de-cision-making regarding the type of skill to apply is required (Birnbaum et al., 2012). During a game, a bat-ter must (very quickly) identify the type of pitch thrown to determine when and how to swing the bat.

This is an example of “discrimination learning.” Ran-dom practice not only provides players with opportu-nities to practice their swing, but also to identify the type of pitch thrown—an essential skill to develop if they are to have any hope of getting a base hit during a game.

Evidence for Interleaving

Principles of Multimedia Design

Principle Description Recommendation

Coherence Principle

People learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and sounds are excluded from presentations.

Remove nonessential images or words or images. Weed out the clutter.

Signaling Principle

People learn better when cues that high-light the organization of the essential ma-terial are added.

Chunk information into categories. Use ordered lists. Highlight essential parts by calling attention to them.

Redundancy Principle

People learn better from graphics and nar-ration than from graphics, narration, and on-screen text.

Do not initially speak words that are dif-ferent than those that are presented on the screen at the same time.

Spatial Contiguity Principle

People learn better when pictures with corresponding words are presented close each other.

Place diagram labels next to what they are labeling rather than in a separate, num-bered table.

Temporal Contiguity Principle

People learn better when animations and narration are presented at the same time rather than successively.

Synchronize narration to the images that appear on the screen.

Segmenting Principle

People learn better when instruction is presented in user-paced, short segments rather than one long unit.

In computer-based training, provide “next” and “replay” buttons. Break down instruc-tion into” bite-sized” segments.

Pre-Training Principle

People learn better from a multimedia les-son when they know the names and char-acteristics of the main concepts.

Ask students to study essential vocabu-lary, definitions, or concepts in advance of classroom instruction.

Modality Principle

People learn better from images and spo-ken narration than from images and on-screen text.

Don’t overload the visual channel with im-ages and printed words, or the auditory channel with printed and spoken words.

Multimedia Principle

People learn better from words and pic-tures than from words alone.

Reduce the number of words on screen.

Narrate the images you present.

Personalization Principle

People learn better when words are spo-ken in a conversational tone rather than a formal one.

Speak to the learner not at them. Use per-sonal pronounces (I, you) to make learn-ers feel involved.

Voice Principle

People learn better when multimedia nar-ration is spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice.

In computer-based training, use recorded human voices instead of computer-gener-ated ones.

Image Principle

People do not necessarily learn better from a multimedia lesson when the speaker’s image is added to the screen.

Avoid using a static or video image of the instructor in computer-based training (ex-cept at the beginning).

Mayer, R. E. (2006). Multimedia learning. Cambridge University Press.

Declarative concepts are key terms within a subject area usually defined using one or two sentences. For example, physics students learn about buoyancy and refraction while psychology students learn about memory and motiva-tion. In athletics, soccer players learn about the offside penalty and free kicks, and in the culinary arts, aspiring chefs learn about roasting meat and sautéing vegetables.

Instructors spend a great deal of time teaching their students about declarative concepts. Textbooks contain doz-ens, if not hundreds, of concepts throughout. Time devoted to teaching concepts is well-spent since they form the foundation for everything learned within a subject area.

A common approach in textbooks and classroom instruction is to introduce a declarative concept with its definition followed by several concrete (illustrative) examples. The goal is for students to be able to apply their knowledge of the concept to identifying new examples or to create examples of their own. This is one of the hallmarks of con-ceptual learning.

Using specific, real-world examples to explain abstract ideas makes those ideas easier to understand, remember, and use.

Application example: An instructor introduces a new concept to her students in abstract form first (using a simple diagram) and then provides a range of concrete examples (using photographs) highlighting the relevant features across all forms.

1 PALS Handbook

5. Concrete Examples

1. It’s important to immediately connect and inte-grate abstract and concrete representations of a concept. It’s easiest for students to gain an initial understanding of a concept by presenting a con-crete example. The risk, however, is that their un-derstanding of the concept is limited to superfi-cial characteristics of the example provided. (If you teach the concept of “dog” using a German Shepherd, for example, some students may think that all dogs look like German Shepherds.)* Ac-cordingly, multiple concrete examples should be provided that vary in their qualities while remain-ing true to the concept.

2. A common mistake is attempting to teach a con-cept using only accurate examples of it; it’s criti-cal that you interleave non-examples as well.

(“This [poodle image] is a dog.” “This [wolf image] is not a dog.” “This [fox image] is not a dog.”) Ex-amples and non-examples should be presented side-by-side to enable your students to easily identify the essential features.

3. After the initial presentation of an abstract con-cept with several concrete examples, students should be encouraged to create their own ab-stract representation (e.g., simplified drawing) to improve their ability to recognize the concept in different contexts. Their drawings should include all of the essential features.

4. Ask a student to explain how two different exam-ples represent an abstract concept by identifying the essential features. Ask other students to use the first student’s description of the essential fea-tures to generate new examples to see if it’s an accurate description.

* Notice how this concrete example was helpful?

Recommendations for Instructors Recommendations for Students

1. When an abstract concept is presented by your teacher or appears in a book, try to think of sev-eral concrete examples of it. If given one or more concrete examples, see if you can determine the abstract concept they all represent (e.g., “Bat, dog, and whale: What do they all have in com-mon? They’re mammals.”). Check with your in-structor to make sure your ideas are correct.

2. Use concrete examples that you know are correct to help you define a set of rules to identify more examples. Test examples you know are not cor-rect to see if your rules are clear-cut and accu-rate. Share your rules with your teacher to see if you understand the abstract concept correctly.

3. When thinking of concrete examples of an ab-stract concept, try to think of some examples that are not correct, but are very close. This will help you to define the boundaries of the concept. Use your examples to quiz your study partners.

4. When thinking of concrete examples of an ab-stract concept, make the examples as different from each other as possible while still including all of the essential features. Don’t simply name three basketball players if you’re thinking of ex-amples of “athlete,” include archers, rock climb-ers, and athletes who use wheelchairs.

5. If you can’t think of many concrete examples or you need help thinking of ones that are different from the ones you already have, search for im-ages on the internet related to the concept. Be careful, though, not all of them will be correct ex-amples. Test them using the definition provided by your teacher.

Learning through elaboration is the process of developing an understanding of information by connecting it to what is already known, expanding upon it, and organizing it in meaningful ways. Accordingly, learning not only depends on how information is presented by the instructor, but more importantly, on how students process the information to make sense of it.

Knowledge isn’t stored in the brain as isolated pieces of information, it’s stored as an interconnected network of information. When a student is presented with new information, their knowledge network is activated as they form connections with what is already stored in long-term memory. The more connections made, the more likely it is that they can retrieve the information in the future since there are more ways for them to access it.

Elaboration and self-explanation are two related learning strategies students can use to make deep and wide con-nections. Students can elaborate on the concepts they are learning by asking themselves “how” and “why” ques-tions and then actively constructing explanations. Self-explanation is a content-independent process where a stu-dent monitors their own learning process and asks themselves questions such as, “How can I put this idea into my own words?”. Students should be encouraged to ask themselves the questions frequently posed to them by their best instructors when they are studying on their own.

A useful way to think about elaboration is by the depth with which information is processed (Craik and Lockhart, 1972). Information that is processed at a surface level is often forgotten immediately. Examples include a student who reads a paragraph or looks at a graph without much thought. They may recognize the information if it is pre-sented to them again in the future, but they couldn’t recall it on their own. Information processed more deeply, but still at a moderately shallow level, is more memorable and useful, but because there is relatively little understanding, it’s likely to be of limited value in novel situations in the future. Information processed deeply, however, is likely to remain memorable for a long time, and when needed, can be used to solve related, but new problems.

Using specific, real-world examples to explain abstract ideas makes those ideas easier to understand, remember, and use.

Application examples: An instructor guides his students to ask “how” and “why” questions about the causes of the American Civil War, to connect what they’re currently learning about this war to what they had previously learned about the Revolutionary War, and to create a table showing similarities and differences between the two.

6. Elaboration

1. Ask students to make connections between new material and what they already know. When re-viewing previously learned material (using re-trieval practice), ask students to make connec-tions between it and material they are currently in the process of learning.

2. Design assignments for your students that re-quire them to explain how or why something hap-pened. A more advanced version is to ask, “What if…?” questions. Since determining relevance re-quires elaboration, ask your students how they could apply their new knowledge or skills in their personal lives or professional careers.

3. Ask students to explain an idea in their own words rather than simply providing a memorized response. Phrase your questions to them like “Ex-plain this in a way your friend would understand.

Assume your friend is intelligent but doesn’t know anything about the subject.” Add that their friend would probably appreciate examples, anal-ogies, or diagrams.

4. Create a standard series of questions for elabo-ration and self-explanation and use them consist-ently with your students. After a while, the ques-tions will become second nature and they will use them when they are studying on their own. “Why is this true?,” “What caused X?,” “What if…?,” “What are the similarities between X and Y?,” “How is X different from Y?,” “Why is X important?,” “Where have you seen an example of X in your everyday life?,” “What is another example of X?,” and “Why is this true for this X but not for that X?”.

1. The most powerful application of elaboration is making connections between the things you are currently learning and the things you already know. The more connections the better. Create analogies to explain how two concepts are simi-lar. For example, “Electricity flowing through a cir-cuit is like water flowing through a pipe be-cause…”

2. Ask yourself questions about how or why things work the way they do and then answer your own questions. Create explanations that you think a friend would understand by using examples, anal-ogies, or diagrams.

3. Organize the information you are learning about using visual representations such as tables, pro-cess diagrams, or troubleshooting flowcharts.

Summarize important ideas in your own words— they will be easier for you to recall in the future than memorized definitions and descriptions.

4. Help other students who are struggling to under-stand the course material. Peer tutoring is as ben-eficial to you as it is to the person you are helping.

Tutoring requires you to organize your ideas and explain them clearly. Organizing your ideas will help you to remember them longer and apply them outside the classroom.

5. Think about how what you are learning could be relevant in your personal life or professional ca-reer. Making these connections is a form of elab-oration that will make the material more memo-rable and you will be more motivated to study it once you realize how useful it can be to you.

Fiorella and Mayer (2014) hypothesized that learning through teaching could significantly improve a stu-dent’s understanding of course content. In the pro-cess of putting the key concepts into their own words, thinking of examples and analogies, and preparing their responses to anticipated questions, they would be engaging in elaboration and self-explanation— methods known to produce deep information pro-cessing. In order to test their hypothesis, they con-ducted an experiment with 104 undergraduates.

Expect Test–No Teach group members were told they would have 15 minutes to study a lesson on the Dop-pler Effect and then answer questions about it.

Expect Teach–No Teach group members were told they would have 15 minutes to study the lesson and an additional five minutes to create a video of them teaching the material. They studied for 15 minutes but didn’t actually create an instructional video.

Expect Test–Teach group members were told they would have 10 minutes to study the lesson and then would answer questions on the material. They stud-ied for 10 minutes and were then given 5 minutes to create a video of them teaching the material.

Expect Teach–Teach group members were told they would have 15 minutes to study the lesson and an ad-ditional 5 minutes to create a video of them teaching the material. They studied for 10 minutes and were then given 5 minutes to create a video of them teach-ing the material.

One week after completing the first part of the exper-iment, students returned for the second part where they took a comprehension test.

Students in the two groups that taught the material through the creation of instructional videos outper-formed students in the other groups who simply stud-ied the material. Most important, the highest compre-hension scores were achieved by the students who prepared to teach the material and created a video.

This contrasts with the students with the lowest scores: those who thought they were going to teach but didn’t. This answers the key question posed by the researchers: For individuals to realize the benefits of elaboration through teaching, is it enough for them to simply prepare a lesson or do they actually need to deliver it? Delivering a lesson, beyond simply prepar-ing it, increases comprehension by over 70%.

The effectiveness of teaching as an instructional ac-tivity is the result of elaboration and retrieval practice.

First, students must develop an organized, coherent structure for the information in their own minds in or-der to create relevant and meaningful explanations for their peers.