Category: Design Thinking

  • Tweet: The issue with student-led instruction/practice

    I had my Sophomores read a science-based article about how rereading doesn’t work, and half of them disagreed with it. Half ody class are science-deniers.

    — Jeffery E. Frieden (@SurthrivEDU) October 6, 2018

     

    Few Choice & Behavioral economics bookmarks

    Choice Architecture by Richard H. Thaler et al
    EENEE Analytical Report No. 29: The use of nudges and other behavioural approaches in education
    How to Nudge Students Toward Academic Success 
    Nudging in Education
    Reshaping the square — Classroom choice architecture
     
     
  • Tweet: What drives students to want to work hard ? How Choice become effective in student learning ?

     

    This article answers following 4 questions.

    Does offering students a choice in assignments lead to greater engagement?
     
    How do we allow for inquiry while still ensuring learning (the proficiency of standards)?
     
    What are the most effective practices for facilitating diverse youth leadership in schools?
     
    Do digital learning materials improve student achievement or motivation?

    Following are some videos which i bookmarked and  like to share about the first question in this article about CHOICE. ie Does offering students a choice in assignments lead to greater engagement ?  

    Book Choice

     

    Science of Choice

     

    The paradox of choice | Barry Schwartz

     

     

  • Tweet: Showing what success looks like.

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    • Students who know what success looks like have a goal and know how to achieve it.
     
    • But using learning objectives as a way to create goals of learning in each cases are not effective. Its because,”Objectives rely on concrete descriptors – slippery words like ‘persuasive’ and ‘methodical’. But knowing that an argument should be ‘persuasive’ does not show students how to make it persuasive: persuasiveness is the kind of idea “which cannot be specified in detail” and so “cannot be transmitted by prescription, since no prescription for it exists (Polanyi, 1962, p.53).
     
    • Show Me, Don’t Tell: Instead use concrete examples to demonstrate how success or end result looks like. Thus using an arsenal of exemplars instead of learning objectives. A sense of what success looks like “can be passed on only by example from master to apprentice (Polanyi, 1962, p.53.).” Examples “set the standards for what I and my students aspire to achieve (2003, p.29-30).” He offers students “a taste of excellence (p.31)”:
     
    • An ‘arsenal of exemplars’ lets us to show what success looks like, rather than tell. Cognitive science suggests that providing worked examples – models broken into steps – can help students learn better and more efficiently (Zhu and Simon, 1987).
     
  • Tweet: Behavioral Economics and workplace learning

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    While the above article focus on application of Behavioral economics in workplace there are also interesting developments in the field of academic learning and policy.
     
    Behavioral economics principles are becoming a powerful design stack for creating human-centered education practice and policy.
     
    It can be used in a variety of educational decision-making contexts like:
    • Student engagement.
    • Instructional Design.
    • Physical Activities.
    • Math and Science Learning.
    • Optimizing student learning and collaboration.
    • The architecture of school cafeterias encourages children to select healthier eating options.
    • Parents Engagement
    • etc etc
    In a 2016 research “The Behavioralist Goes to School: Leveraging Behavioral Economics to Improve Educational Performance” researchers Steven D. Levitt, John A. List, Susanne Neckermann, and Sally Sadoff conducted a series of field experiments involving thousands of primary and secondary school students.
     
    They explored the power of behavioral economics to
    influence the level of effort exerted by students in a low stakes testing environment, in which the following insights emerged:
     
    Firstly, they found a substantial impact on test scores
    from both financial and non-financial incentives when the rewards are delivered immediately.
     
    Secondly, they found suggestive evidence that rewards framed as losses outperform those framed as gains.
     
    Thirdly, they found that non-financial incentives
    can be considerably more cost-effective than financial incentives for younger students, but are less effective with older students.
     
    Finally, they found that all of the motivating power of incentives vanishes when rewards are handed out with a delay.
     
     
  • Tweet: Hyper-correction of high-confidence errors.

    The hypercorrection effect is the idea that high-confidence errors are more likely to be corrected after feedback than are low-confidence errors (Butterfield & Metcalfe, 2001)

    This idea seems to me as a very good reason why we need to design learning environment which encourages trying failing and correcting mistakes without any punishment associated with it.(Eg, Lowstakes testing).

    This is the idea behind low stake testing. It involves the frequent use of evaluation instruments that have little impact on a student’s course grade.

    There are no down side to failing in same environments. 

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    I first heard about hyper correction effect from @UlrichBoser @google talks. Watch this video

  • Tweet: Design Crushes willpower and this is why Learning design matters

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    According to Stanford Behavioral Scientist BJ Fogg, Design Crushes Willpower has 2 meanings.

    1st (the good one) is that design wins. If U can design your life & behaviors well, U don’t need to rely on willpower.

    2nd is dark: Others design things that overwhelm your willpower. (You take back control via design).

     
    Fogg in his tiny habit design model points out that, doing something you don’t enjoy and failing to make it habitual is actually more detrimental to a mission for change than doing nothing at all.
     
    According to him to create a lifelong habit, the focus should be on training your brain to succeed at small adjustments, then gaining confidence from that success.
     
    To do that, one needs to design behavior changes that are both easy to do and can be positioned into the existing routine.
    (more powerful if it’s biological routine).
     
    BJ Fogg design method is comprised of three key steps.
     
    1) Identifying your specific desired outcome: Eg Lose 10% of your body weight?
     
    2) Identify the easy-win behaviors “tiny habits” that will put you on the path to that goal.
    Finally,
    3) Find a trigger, something that you already do as a habit and graft the new habit onto it.
     
    That might mean putting out a salad on the counter every time you start the coffeemaker in the morning,
     
    Or sleep in Gym cloths.
     
    Tiny Habits works by design. Its made to avoid the trap of willpower-based decisions which are  huge psychological toll if failed.
     
    Motivational levels come and go with the wind, but flossing a single tooth is achievable no matter the emotional weather.

     

    Fogg’s design perspective of habit change can be further expanded( or supplemented) by using another powerful model i recently came across, ie “Six Sources of Influence model by Al Switzler ( TED Video )”.

    In this perspective Al Switzler added new levels of analysis by bringing the macro Social and Structural elements in the design to habits and behaviors.

    He argues against the sole dependence on willpower as a reliable source of behavioral change or creating powerful persistent habits.

    According to him there are Six Sources of Influence.( watch ted video for explanation) 

    Source 1 – Personal Motivation – whether you want to do it.
    Source 2 – Personal Ability – whether you can do it.
    Source 3 – Social Motivation – whether other people encourage the right behaviors.
    Source 4 – Social Ability – whether other people provide help, information or resources.
    Source 5 – Structural Motivation – whether the environment encourages the right behaviors.
    Source 6 – Structural Ability – whether the environment supports the right behaviors.

    Each of which are complimented by other power sources. 

    Watch the video here:  

     

     

    Extra Sources For Reference.

     

    Behavioral Approach to habit change

     

    Mindfulness Approach to Habit change