A Discussion of “Beyond the Flipped Class: The Impact of Research-Based Teaching Methods in a Macroeconomics Principle Class”
Over the years I have been increasing my use of active learning, or flipped classroom, methods but apparently I have not gone far enough! Or, really this article is saying I am on the right track but I should look to cognitive science for direction.
Active learning is generally referring to teaching techniques that rely significantly less on using class time for lectures and more on activities, discussions, group work, and clicker quizzes. Flipped classroom generally refers to similar techniques but the lecture is fully moved out of class time.
With either method, lectures can be moved into videos and other materials that help the student learn on their own. I wrote about another study that gave a good description of the type of lecture materials that seem to work best for preparing the students.
How Much Does Classroom Time Matter?
Boyle and Goffe (2018) are taking the next step to decide which teaching innovations to include in the classroom by looking to cognitive science and what has been learned about how people learn.
This is what is meant by “research-based” or “evidenced-based” teaching methods.
They refer to some earlier studies that have successfully applied these ideas in physics classes and are their inspiration to apply them to teaching macroeconomics hoping for similar measured gains in learning.
I love a quote the authors include from Hestenes, Wells, and Swachhamer (1992) who had been upset by the poor performance of their students’ learning as measured by a tool they created called, Force Concept Inventory (FCI).
FCI was a “concept inventory” assessment tool that asked conceptual questions. It compared the expert thinking on these concepts with the typical novice thinking.
Basically, it is checking how well the students have moved from incorrect novice thinking about key physics concepts now that they have completed a class. Boyle and Goffe quote them,
Since the students have evidently not learned the most basic Newtonian concepts, they must have failed to comprehend most of the material in the course. They have been forced to cope with the subject by rote memorization of isolated fragments and by carrying out meaningless tasks…(p. 297)
Yep. That pretty much describes my experience with physics back in high school!
But I also feel like that is how some of my students in my economics classes are feeling, too, which is why I have been seeking out active learning methods and thus am interested in an even more science based set of teaching tools.
Hestenes, Wells, and Swachhamer (1992) do conclude that they do not think their findings are meant to be criticisms of the physics teachers they characterize as “dedicated and competent,” but instead these results show that being dedicated and competent is not enough for student success.
So what does cognitive science have to offer? Specific cognitive science concepts included are below using the authors’ definitions (p. 298)
- Constructivism: students come to the classroom with preconceptions, and it is difficult to dislodge them
- Deliberate practice: expertise is developed by performing challenging tasks with timely and accurate feedback
- Schemas: how humans store knowledge; experts have denser connections between concepts than novices
- Working memory: the ideas and concepts that can be held in short-term memory; it is more limited in novices than experts. (This is why using lectures as primary delivery can be ineffective because working memory is being overloaded.)
- Retrieval practice: how memory is reinforced by recalling a fact or procedure
- Interleaving: studying dissimilar material together
- Spacing: studying similar topics with time gaps between sessions
- Metacognition: thinking about one’s own thinking, reflecting on the learning process
- Desirable difficulty: the idea that the mind stores concepts that took some effort to understand
- Curse of knowledge: an expert literally cannot think like a novice given their different schema and large working memory
Still with me? Told you this was about basing teaching innovations on cognitive science, so I had to science you up.
But now our working memories are all overloaded, given our thin schemas, unless you are an expert in which case you are suffering from a Curse of Knowledge and don’t know what I am whining about.
Boyle and Goffe (2018) are using all of these concepts from cognitive science to determine which teaching methods to include in their classes to see if they can generate some learning gains.
Specifically, they include these teaching innovations.
Lectures
Wait, how is that innovative? Several of the methods included in the class are not themselves innovative but the way they are applied is meant to be innovative.
- Working memory — To deal with the known problem of taxing a novice’s working memory, they provided an outline for the day, posted it where it was visible during the lecture, referred back to it repeatedly, and titled the slides according to the outline.
- Schemas — You are lecturing so it is not the biggest innovation, but breaking the lecture down into parts should lessen the likelihood of students walking out overwhelmed and unable to process what they have heard.
Clicker Questions
Five clicker questions per 50 minute class for a semester total of 200 questions. What is so innovative about the Clicker? The questions were designed to be challenging enough that about half of the students missed them. Many cognitive science concepts can be addressed.
- Constructivism — trying to dislodge misconceptions
- Schemas — making connections between topics
- Retrieval Practice — strengthening recall by practicing remembering information.
- Deliberate Practice — challenging exercises with timely feedback
- Curse of Knowledge — professors are often surprised by what is causing the students issues
Quizzes and Exams
Instead of the traditional 2–3 midterms, they gave 7 quizzes and a comprehensive final exam.
- Deliberate Practice — obviously a quiz meets the challenging part but they also got timely feedback because they would discuss the answers in the second half of the class.
- Metacognition — the students discussed with each other which questions they wanted the professor to explain.
- Spacing — each quiz was cumulative so older material is having to be recalled
Quiz Reflections
A week after each quiz, there is a quiz reflection assignment. The students are asked to write down what quiz question they found most difficult on the previous quiz, if they now understood it, and what they will do now if they still don’t understand it. They were also asked how they studied and how they could improve their study methods.
This one I liked and I think I will need to add!
- Metacognition — as they think about their performance on the quiz and how they studied for it.
- Curse of Knowledge — professors find out where the problems are for the students.
Homework questions
Only 5 assignments of instructor-written questions, covering both new and previously covered material, that required the students to determine the appropriate data to use from a table to make qualitative judgments on the reasonableness of the answers, and identify concepts to be used. Sounds pretty challenging!
- Interleaving — with various concepts being included
- Spacing — with older material being included
Results?
Two sections of macroeconomics belonging to one of the authors, Goffe, in Fall 2015 took the TUCE test before the class begins then again at the end of the semester. They then compare the 2 scores to measure the learning gains.
For a control group, I take it they are using data reported from TUCE for all students who have taken it in this pre and post manner. They do norm the control group to have a similar initial average because the author’s own students started with a higher initial average than those of the general TUCE population.
For those in the author’s classes, they calculate a mean average gain of 0.44. The mean average gain for the control group was 0.22.
They doubled the learning gains! (p. 300) Their results were “statistically and empirically significant.”
On the one hand, there are a lot of methods here that are already part of the repertoire for anyone trying to increase active learning in their teaching methods even if they do not go all the way to flipping the classroom.
But we do gain some scientific justification for why these methods are working and statistical evidence that supports their adoption.
And they show that we can take tried and true methods like lectures and quizzes and improve on them if we understand these cognitive science concepts.
References:
Boyle, Austin and William L. Goffe (2018). “Beyond the Flipped Class: The Impact of Research-Based Teaching Methods in a Macroeconomics Principle Class.” AEA Papers and Proceedings, 108: 297–301.
Hestenes, David, Malcolm Wells, and Gregg Swackhamer (1992). “Force Concept Inventory.” The Physics Teacher, 30(141): 141–158.
By Ellen Clardy, PhD on .
Exported from Medium on December 15, 2022.
