hinder

create a solution that applies not simply to a single problem, but to a whole class of related problems.

Schemata

Providing students with time to learn also includes providing enough time for them to process information.

Learners of all ages are more motivated when they can see the usefulness of what they are learning and when they can use that information to do something that has an impact on others

Providing students with opportunities to first grapple with specific information relevant to a topic has been shown to create a “time for telling” that enables them to learn much more from an organizing lecture

Knowledge must be “conditionalized” in order to be retrieved when it is needed

Several of the students outscored several of the historians on the factual test. The study then compared how the historians and students made sense of historical documents; the result revealed dramatic differences on virtually any criterion

America

two problems that share the same objects and look very similar may actually be solved by entirely different approaches.

significant learning takes major investments of time.

Transfer is affected by the degree to which people learn with understanding rather than merely memorize sets of facts or follow a fixed set of procedures

Processes of learning and the transfer of learning are central to understanding how people develop important competencies.

Instead, experts have acquired extensive knowledge that affects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environment. This, in turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, and solve problems.

The biggest problem I have with teaching by far is trying to get into the mind-set of a ninth grader…”

feedback

The norms established in the classroom have strong effects on students’ achievement.

what competence or mastery looks like

they want to look good rather than risk making mistakes while learning

a teacher constructs an instructional program

Measuring depth of understanding can pose challenges for objectivity.

In order for learners to gain insight into their learning and their understanding, frequent feedback is critical: students need to monitor their learning and actively evaluate their strategies and their current levels of understanding.

the most effective transfer may come from a balance of specific examples and general principles, not from either one alone.

revealed

A third contrast between schools and everyday environments is that abstract reasoning is often emphasized in school, whereas contextualized reasoning is often used in everyday settings

Without specific guidance from teachers, students may fail to connect everyday knowledge to subjects taught in school.

A second major contrast between schools and everyday settings is the heavy use of tools to solve problems in everyday settings, compared with “mental work” in school settings

conceptual framework

Sometimes, however, prompting is necessary. With prompting, transfer can improve quite dramatically

One major contrast between everyday settings and school environments is that the latter place much more emphasis on individual work than most other environments (

In the mind of a child, all of these questions can become more of the focus than the subject of fractions that the teacher is attempting to teach.

thinking visible

explain their blueprints to a group of outside experts who held them to very high standards

connect everyday knowledge to subjects taught in school.

self-assessment

helping people take control of their own learning

The recapitulations highlight the generalizable features of the critical decisions and actions and focus on strategic levels rather than on the specific solutions

Although many people believe that “talent” plays a role in who becomes an expert in a particular area, even seemingly talented individuals require a great deal of practice in order to develop their expertise

The teacher also models these procedures. Thus, the program involves modeling, scaffolding, and taking turns which are designed to help students externalize mental events in a collaborative context.

Some learners can transfer after receiving a general prompt such as “Can you think of something you did earlier that might be relevant?” Other learners need prompts that are much more specific.

It is important to be realistic about the amount of time it takes to learn complex subject matter.

Studies show that abstracted representations do not remain as isolated instances of events but become components of larger, related events, schemata

Research has indicated that transfer across contexts is especially difficult when a subject is taught only in a single context rather than in multiple contexts

For example, young learners are highly motivated to write stories and draw pictures that they can share with others.

e.g., a person may be performance oriented in mathematics but learning oriented in science and social studies or vice versa

Challenges, however, must be at the proper level of difficulty in order to be and to remain motivating: tasks that are too easy become boring; tasks that are too difficult cause frustration.

Monitoring involves attempts to seek and use feedback about one’s progress. Feedback has long been identified as important for successful learning

world they enter

The implication is that learning cannot be rushed; the complex cognitive activity of information integration requires time.

Although many people believe that “talent” plays a role in who becomes an expert in a particular area, even seemingly talented individuals require a great deal of practice in order to develop their expertise

transfer (to other contexts)

curricula have emphasized memory rather than under- Page 9 Share Cite Suggested Citation: "1 Learning: From Speculation to Science." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853. × Save Cancel standing.

Students who only memorize facts have little basis for approaching this kind of problem-solving task

People’s mental models of what it means to be an expert can affect the degree to which they learn throughout their lifetimes. A model that assumes that experts know all the answers is very different from a model of the accomplished novice, who is proud of his or her achievements and yet also realizes that there is much more to learn.

the meaning of “knowing” has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it

Accomplished novices are skilled in many areas and proud of their accomplishments, but they realize that what they know is minuscule compared to all that is potentially knowable. This model helps free people to continue to learn even though they may have spent 10 to 20 years as an “expert” in their field.

to train people to think and read critically, to express themselves clearly and persuasively, to solve complex problems in science and mathematics

Pedagogical content knowledge is an extremely important part of what teachers need to learn to be more effective.

In each case, expertise in a domain helps people develop a sensitivity to patterns of meaningful information that are not available to novices. F

Steven then asked students to think about the circumstances that might drive them so mad that they would contemplate murdering another human being

cultural and social norms and expectations and that these settings influence learning and transfer in powerful ways

Learning to drive a car provides a good example of fluency and automaticity. When first learning, novices cannot drive and simultaneously carry on a conversation. With experience, it becomes easy to do so.

The idea that experts recognize features and patterns that are not noticed by novices is potentially important for improving instruction. When viewing instructional texts, slides, and videotapes, for example, the information noticed by novices can be quite different from what is noticed by experts

Similarly, students in a literature class might be asked to explain the meaning of familiar proverbs, such as “he who hesitates is lost” or “too many cooks spoil the broth.” The ability to explain the meaning of each proverb provides no guarantee that students will know the conditions under which either proverb is useful. Such knowledge is important because, when viewed solely as propositions, proverbs often contradict one another. To use them Page 44 Share Cite Suggested Citation: "2 How Experts Differ from Novices." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853. × Save Cancel effectively, people need to know when and why it is appropriate to apply the maxim “too many cooks spoil the broth” versus “many hands make light work” or “he who hesitates is lost” versus “haste makes waste”

novices tend to Page 38 Share Cite Suggested Citation: "2 How Experts Differ from Novices." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853. × Save Cancel perceive problem solving in physics as memorizing, recalling, and manipulating equations to get answers.

It is left largely to students to generate the condition-action pairs required for solving novel problems.

Research on expertise suggests that a superficial coverage of many topics in the domain may be a poor way to help students develop the competencies that will prepare them for future learning and work

Within this picture of expertise, “knowing more” means having more conceptual chunks in memory, more relations or features defining each chunk, more interrelations among the chunks, and efficient methods for retrieving related chunks and procedures for applying these informational units in problem-solving contexts

Expert teachers know the kinds of difficulties that students are likely to face; they know how to tap into students’ existing knowledge in order to make new information meaningful;

One way to help students learn about conditions of applicability is to assign word problems that require students to use appropriate concepts and formulas (Lesgold, 1984, 1988; Simon, 1980). If well designed, these problems can help students learn when, where, and why to use the knowledge they are learning.

Often there is only superficial coverage of facts before moving on to the next topic; there is little time to develop important, organizing ideas.

In mathematics, experts are more likely than novices to first try to understand problems, rather than simply attempt to plug numbers into formulas.

The principles are relevant as well when we consider other groups, such as policy makers and the public, whose learning is also required for educational practice to change.

Superficial coverage of all topics in a subject area must be replaced with in-depth coverage of fewer topics that allows key concepts in that discipline to be understood. The goal of coverage need not be abandoned entirely, of course. But there must be a sufficient number of cases of in-depth study to allow students to grasp the defining concepts in specific domains within a discipline. Moreover, in-depth study in a domain often requires that ideas be carried beyond a single school year before students can make the transition from informal to formal ideas. This will require active coordination of the curriculum across school years.

The model of the child as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge provided by the teacher must be replaced. Instead, the teacher must actively inquire into students’ thinking, creating classroom tasks and conditions under which student thinking can be revealed. Students’ initial conceptions then provide the foundation on which the more formal understanding of the subject matter is built.

A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.

A common misconception regarding “constructivist” theories of knowing (that existing knowledge is used to build new knowledge) is that teachers should never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for themselves.

For example, imagine being asked to design an artificial artery—would it have to be elastic? Why or why not?

trial and error. Thorndike argued that rewards (e.g., food) increased the strength of connections between stimuli and responses.

better at selecting talent than developing it

rather, the goal of education is better conceived as helping students develop the intellectual tools and learning strategies needed to acquire the knowledge that allows people to think productively about history, science and technology, social phenomena, mathematics, and the arts.

Thoughtful participation in the democratic process has also become increasingly complicated as the locus of attention has shifted from local to national and global concerns.

Students’ theories of what it means to be intelligent can affect their performance. Research shows that students who think that intelligence is a fixed entity are more likely to be performance oriented than learning oriented—they want to look good rather than risk making mistakes while learning. These students are especially likely to bail out when tasks become difficult. In contrast, students who think that intelligence is malleable are more willing to struggle with challenging tasks; they are more comfortable with risk

Moreover, in-depth study in a domain often requires that ideas be carried beyond a single school year before students can make the transition from informal to formal ideas. This will require active coordination of the curriculum across school years.

feedback

Further investigation of one college student who participated in the study revealed that she knew the relevant physical properties and formulas, yet, in the context of the game, she fell back on her untrained conception of how the physical world works

Since understanding is viewed as important, people must learn to recognize when they understand and when they need more information

At the same time, students often have limited opportunities to understand or make sense of topics because many curricula have emphasized memory rather than under- Page 9 Share Cite Suggested Citation: "1 Learning: From Speculation to Science." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853. × Save Cancel standing.

the goal of education is better conceived as helping students develop the intellectual tools and learning strategies needed to acquire the knowledge that allows people to think productively about history, science and technology, social phenomena, mathematics, and the arts.

researchers are discovering ways to learn from the “wisdom of practice” that comes from successful teachers who can share their expertise.

conditionalize their knowledge

Mathematics experts

Chess masters perceive chunks of meaningful information, which affects their memory for what they see

Adult

but it is not impossible. The emerging science of learning underscores the importance of rethinking what is taught, how it is taught, and how learning is assessed.

Nevertheless, they provide important glimpses of connections between goals for learning and teaching practices that can affect students’ abilities to accomplish these goal

They come to formal education with a range of prior knowledge, skills, beliefs, and concepts that significantly influence what they notice about the environment and how they organize and interpret it. This, in turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, solve problems, and acquire new knowledge

Thoughtful participation in the democratic process has also become increasingly complicated as the locus of attention has shifted from local to national and global concerns.

It was not the general rule for educational systems to train people to think and read critically, to express themselves clearly and persuasively, to solve complex problems in science and mathematics.

Neuroscience

all learning takes place in settings that have particular sets of cultural and social norms and expectations and that these settings influence learning and transfer in powerful ways.

Today, cognitive researchers are spending more time working with teachers, testing and refining their theories in real classrooms where they can see how different settings and classroom interactions influence applications of their theories.

basic understanding of principles of learning that can assist them in becoming self-sustaining, lifelong learners

learning changes the physical structure of the brain and, with it, the functional organization of the brain

Emerging technologies are leading to the development of many new opportunities to guide and enhance learning that were unimagined even a few years ago