How We Learn

IQ: What Does It All Mean?

From the book, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher:

Asian students actually achieve much more than their IQs would seem to predict, because they work so hard in school.  Thanks to their culture's stress on academic achievement and not shaming the family, says Nisbett, "A Chinese-American with an IQ of 100 achieves at the level of a white American with an IQ of 120."

I take this to mean that values and focus trump IQ.  I can work harder. Ok, noted.

She goes on to say:

... What you pay attention to shapes your brain and behavior in surprising ways ... The good news is that attention's ability to change your brain and transform your experience isn't limited to childhood but prevails throughout life.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
3 Comments | posted November 9th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

Organizing the Mental Closet

Catherine and I have been going back and forth about "associative interference," since coincidentally we simultaneously wrote blog posts about the issue.

We've decided that not knowing the proper math and grammar terminology adds a layer of difficulty to the process of trying to improve your SAT score.

For example, try getting to the bottom of your errors with explanations like these (from the College Board):

It avoids the comma-splice error of the other options by turning the first independent clause, “This basic document is stating the liberties” into an appositive. An appositive is a subordinate noun phrase that renames a noun. In this revision, “A basic document” is the appositive that renames “Magna Carta,” and the dependent clause “that states the liberties” modifies “a basic document.”

Woof woof woof.

I don't get it.

Ok, I do finally know how to identify a "comma splice" (now, age 45, and 10 months into studying for the SAT), but I'm not sure I could pick out a "dependent clause" from an "independent one," and I would need the Google machine to help me understand the "appositive" portion of this explanation.

How am I supposed to organize my mental closet if I don't know the jargon?

According to Catherine, the terminology -- say "gerund" or "dangling participle" or "noun clause, " keeps reminding you that these are "different grammatical structures."

"Knowledge isn’t just facts and notions," she explained to me, "It’s facts and notions etc. organized inside a SCHEMA."

From Catherine's post about associative interference:

I'm also thinking more attention should be paid to teaching young children the terminology of arithmetic: addends, subtrahends, factors, and the like. I think -- I don't know -- that fluency with the terminology might help reduce associative interference. "All math looks alike": the 5 and the 2 in 5+2 look exactly like the 5 and the 2 in 5x2. But the words addend and factor have nothing in common whatsoever.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
7 Comments | posted October 17th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

Is Motivation Innate? Or Can “Drive” Be Cultivated?

I'm sure I might seem like the kooky "SAT lady" --  but if the truth be told, my obsession actually started out as an attempt to motivate my son (possibly ill conceived, I now realize).  From the get-go though, the question of how to engage a teenager in this universally loathed experience has been my driving force.

Here's what I was thinking:

A) A little competition from mom couldn't hurt.  Ten months in (and incidentally, the evening before his PSAT), I'll confess that I'm not sure the "competition factor" has had any impact whatsoever (though I don't think it hurt).

B) If I stayed a few steps ahead of him on the course, I might spare him some wheel-spinning, which I'd say has held true.

C) And then (I'll admit it), there may have been a hint yearning involved when I cooked up the plan -- i.e. wouldn't the chance to bond over this brief, yet momentous experience be profound.  (Thought bubble: "Before he's launched into the world......F O R E V E R.")

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'm any closer to answering the question of how to motivate a teenager (beyond "good genes") -- though I guess we'll never know if he'd be less enthused by this process had I not stayed one step ahead of him in the trenches.

At the end of Talent is Overrated, Geoff Colvin attempts to answer the "what drives people" question:

"World-class achievers are driven to improve, but most of them didn't start out that way."

"Most significant, we've seen that the passion develops, rather than emerging suddenly and fully formed.  We've also seen hints that childhood may be especially important in how the drive's development gets started.  Anders Ericsson goes so far as to say, "The research frontier is parenting.  Push children too hard and they respond with anger. (Insert From Me: Yup)  You have to develop an independent individual who has chosen to be involved in this activity.  It's how you as a parent can make individuals feel freed to reach these levels and aware that this is going to be a long process."

The unsatisfying end of this story is that the work on the "parenting research frontier" apparently hasn't been done yet.  Colvin concludes that it really comes down to "What do you really want? And what do you really believe?"

I'm not sure I know too many teenagers who could answer these two questions with the necessary conviction and comittment. Honestly, I'm not sure I even started asking myself those questions until I hit my 40s.

Live Market Research: My son is taking the PSAT tomorrow, and I just yelled to him from the next room, "Do you believe?,"  to which he responded, without an iota of hesitation, or for that matter, without even looking up from Facebook, "Yes Mom."

If Geoff Colvin is even a little bit right about "what it takes," I'll take it!

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
15 Comments | posted October 11th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

Deliberate Practice ISN’T What Most of Us Do When We’re “Practicing”

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post asking for someone to please enlighten me:

What specficially is "deliberate practice?"  Like, down-and-dirty, roll up your sleeves, step-by-step, What Is It?

This much I know:  "Deliberate Practice" feels much different from the trenches than it does when you're just hearing about it as a concept.

I hit the "Publish" button on that post, and then I picked up Geoff Colvin's book, Talent is Overrated, in which he describes in precise detail, What Deliberate Practice Is and Isn't:

"For starters, it isn't what most of us do when we're practicing."

(figures)

It's an excellent book that I highly recommend for anyone trying improve at almost anything (i.e. school, sports, music, and even corporate America).

For now, I'll leave you with a few quotes from the book that describe "deliberate practice" in the kind of detail I was looking for:

"...deliberate practice requires that one identify certain sharply defined elements of performance that need to be improved, and then work intently on them."

"High repetition is the most important difference between deliberate practice of a task of performing and the task for real, when it counts."

"Top performers repeat their practice activities to stultifying extent."

Feedback is essential: "...practicing without feedback is like bowling through a curtain that hangs down to knee level."

"It's highly demanding mentally.  Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration."

"The work is so great that it seems no one can sustain it for very long. A finding that is remarkably consistent across disciplines is that four or five hours seems to be the upper limit of deliberate practice, and this is frequently accomplished in sessions lasting no more than an hour to ninety minutes."

"It isn't much fun.....Deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable."

"...great performers never allow themselves to reach the automatic, arrested-development state in their chosen field. ...The essence of practice, which is constantly trying to do the things one can not do comfortably, makes automatic behavior impossible."

 

There's a lot more to say about this.  To be continued.....

For now, I'm off to write more SAT questions.  After reading the book, I'm further convinced that SAT question writing falls squarely in "deliberate practice" territory.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 

 
7 Comments | posted October 7th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

What’s Gender Got To Do With It?*

*Apropos of nothing, do you hear Tina Turner when you read that line?

I don't know what gender's got to do with it -- exactly -- but I do know it's got something to do with it, and, I imagine that campaigns like Forever 21's "Allergic to Algebra" are not helping matters.

I know that when I read quotes such as these two from Sian Beilock's book, Choke, they remind me of the day PWNtheSAT taught me how to MacGyver It:

“Girls are more likely to work all the way through a math problem…..boys tend to be more comfortable taking shortcuts than girls….”

"Boys' tendency to rely on more flexible problem-solving approaches doesn't just occur at the high school level; it happens as early as elementary school."

 

I know that girls have lower math SAT scores than do boys -- and if I'm to believe Beilock's book (which I do), this discrepancy is not biological.

And, I know that boys outscored girls 13 to 1 in a "talent identification" program back in the early 1980s that required 13 year olds to take the SAT-M.  This lead researchers to conclude that boys had more innate math ability than girls, which turned out not to be true.

I know that when I took IQ and assessment tests last month, Dr. Stein told me afterwards that he was secretly cheering for me to let loose a little.  Apparently I was more precise about those instructions than most, which cost me points in the end. (All I know is that when he'd instruct me to "be sure," I made sure that I was sure.)

Note to self for next IQ Test: Ditch that good girl letter-of-the-law rule follower and try to channel my inner MacGyver.

If you want to learn more about the role of gender and the SAT, you must read Choke. It's a fascinating book about how the brain works under pressure, and cites a lot of interesting research, and, has a whole chapter on the role of gender.

 

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
10 Comments | posted September 15th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

Canary in the Coal Mine

I've always identified as part rebel (like it's a census box or something). I get into things on the early side, but, I can also tend to change my mind once everyone gets to the party (nothing intentional, or personal, by the way).

Which brings me to "learning and technology."

I was on that band-wagon early, shaking those online learning pom poms years ago.

But that was before I needed to actually learn something from those online courses. Technology for learning something new and challenging took on a whole new meaning as soon as I needed to make quantified progress.

I found it hard to connect with the material on a computer, and I'd feel distracted and bored.  I even got to the point of feeling dread when it was time to "learn online" - and I never feel that way about the SATs. I couldn't find that "Oh My God 7 Letter Scrabble Word" sensation, which is how my whole obsession with the SAT began.

I kept wondering, is it "me?" Or is it "online learning?"

I waxed on about my skepticism, and people wrote back that maybe I'm "too old" (thanks), or that I'd taken the wrong courses.

Ok, maybe.

But then came a story on the front page of the New York Times last Sunday, "The Class Room of the Future," that made me want find a New York City rooftop so I could stand on top and shout loudly: "I told you soooooo....."

I could pull-quote the whole darn article because it's as if the writer went inside my head and took dictation, but I'll just pull a few choice quotes:

"There's a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page," she said.  "It's intimate."

There are times in Kyrene when the technology seems to allow students to disengage from the learning: They are left at computers to perform a task but wind up playing around, suggesting , as some researchers have found, that computers can distract and not instruct.

I'll end with this thought:

I do believe that technology will have a legitimate role in the process of learning in the future -- but I haven't experienced it personally, yet, and I was not surprised to read that there's no proof in the pudding for all those billions of dollars that have been spent so far.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
6 Comments | posted September 10th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

How Long Till The Polynomials?

Last Saturday morning I stopped by the Kumon office for supplies.  It was teeming with little munchkins. A young male employee greeted me at the door, looking around for my little tykes.  I didn't have the heart to explain that they're big and rebellious now, and I'm here for myself.

I asked for Jennifer, the owner, who immediately ran over to greet me.  We had our awkward little munchkin moment, and then we moved on to a conversation about what supplies I need based on how I'm scoring.

Go ahead, laugh......but I'm telling you, this s**t works.

I've been doing Kumon for about 3 weeks now (or is it 4?).  I started with simple addition for 3 minutes per day.  I told the Kumon woman that I can handle more, so now I get a double dose.  I'm working my way through subtraction and have even seen a smattering of addition sprinkled in (just a hint, and only recently).

I keep asking the Kumon lady, "when are we getting to those polynomials?" and she smiles, and says back to me, "not for a long time."

Ok, this is a painstakingly slow process, BUT,

A) I'm enjoying it enormously

and

B) I am in the midst of I.Q. and achievement tests with a psychologist, and one part of the neuropsych evaluation today was Kumon style worksheets (but all mixed up), and he said that I had 3 minutes to do the sheets, and from the way he said it, it didn't sound like I was supposed to finish.

And when he hit that stop watch, I ran like the wind.  The only thing stopping me was how fast my hand could write.  I was a Kumon Ninja.

It made me realize (what I already knew in my bones), that there is a method to their madness (i.e. Kumon), and it may seem absurdly slow, but I'm telling you, I finished that part of the I.Q. test early, and there was NO WAY that that would have happened a month ago.  I would have hesitated, and hemmed and hawed about how to carry over the multiple numbers in subtraction, etc.

Today, there wasn't an iota of hesitation.  None.

I may be on my death bed by the time I get to those polynomials, but who's counting.

No question the spaced repetition works.  Just ask Sheldon the Word-Nerd.

llustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
7 Comments | posted July 19th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

The Learning Part is Easy — It’s Remembering That’s Hard

 

A commenter pointed me to this Wired article by Gary Wolf:  Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to this Algorithm.

These quotes from the article describe how I feel, to a tee:

Learning things is easy. But remembering them — this is where a certain hopelessness sets in.

Wozniak felt that his ability to rationally control his life was slipping away. "There were 80 phone calls per day to handle. There was no time for learning, no time for programming, no time for sleep...."

Our capacity to learn is amazingly large. But optimal learning demands a kind of rational control over ourselves that does not come easily. Even the basic demand for regularity can be daunting.

 

Has anyone tried SuperMemo (described in article)?

 

llustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
11 Comments | posted July 18th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

Walking A Mile In Someone Else’s Shoes

 

The deeper I get into this project, the more I realize that most of the information I learn is ephemeral.  One day, complete understanding of some concept;  two weeks later, barely a fuzzy memory.

Here's what happens: I'll spend a few weeks studying math (or grammar, or reading), then I'll turn my attention to another element that needs tending to, and by the time I go back, the original information is hazy (at best), and certainly not enough to solve the problem at hand.

I can't help thinking about my daughter, who has repeatedly told me "it's really hard to get good grades in every subject at the same time."

She's right!  I really, deeply, get it!

Turns out there's science to verify this frustrating phenomenon and a new study by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) about the brain orchestrating competition between memories:

For the last 100 years, it has been appreciated that trying to learn facts and skills in quick succession can be a frustrating exercise,” explains Edwin Robertson, MD, DPhil, an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and BIDMC. “Because no sooner has a new memory been acquired than its retention is jeopardized by learning another fact or skill.

 

There's a new discovery about a potential solution which I'm not going to attempt to explain, but you can read it on this Science blog.

All I can say is, this is not easy!

 

llustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
11 Comments | posted July 13th, 2011
 

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How We Learn

Practice Does NOT Make Perfect

Or, more precisely, practice makes perfect, but only BRIEFLY.

 

Sustained practice, and then you're in the ballpark of practice makes the kind of perfect I was hoping for.

I was going over my May 2011 SAT the other day and found myself nearly in tears over the fact that I couldn't begin to do the following problem:

Ok, it's a hard (for some of us),  but I'm pretty sure I could have answered that (or come close) a month or two ago. In fact, I even took pleasure in seeing these grizzly looking graph problems because I know they look evil.......and I could solve them (though it turns it was only for a brief moment in time).

Frustrated, I did a little research and discovered this article by Daniel Willingham: Practice Makes Perfect -- But Only If You Practice Beyond the Point of Perfection

The whole thing is worth reading, but here are a few quotes that resonated with me:

It is difficult to overstate the value of practice. For a new skill to become automatic or for new knowledge to become long-lasting, sustained practice, beyond the point of mastery, is necessary.

The unexpected finding from cognitive science is that practice does not make perfect. Practice until you are perfect and you will be perfect only briefly. What's necessary is sustained practice. By sustained practice I mean regular, ongoing review or use of the target material.......This kind of practice past the point of mastery is necessary to meet any of these three important goals of instruction: acquiring facts and knowledge, learning skills, or becoming an expert.

When we refer to "practice," it is important to be clear that it differs from play (which is done purely for one's own pleasure), performance (which is done for the pleasure of others), and work (which is done for compensation). Practice is done for the sake of improvement. Practice, therefore, requires concentration and requires feedback about whether or not progress is being made. Plainly put, practice is not easy. It requires a student's time and effort, and it is, therefore, worth considering when it is appropriate.

 

llustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
31 Comments | posted July 12th, 2011
 

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