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Expert - Achieving Mastery - How Important is Practice in Learning?

Achieving Mastery – How Important is Practice in Learning?

August 19, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Learning a new skill can often feel daunting, especially if it’s one that doesn’t particularly spark interest or enthusiasm – we’ve all been there right? You can feel bombarded by information and overwhelmed with the task of learning and feel like giving up before you’ve even begun! 

So, how can we overcome this? How can we find the opportunity to put our learning into practice and how can practice lead to success?

Knowledge Vs Practice

When we think of learning we think of gaining knowledge:

Learning /ˈləːnɪŋ/ - the acquisition of knowledge through study, experience, or being taught.

Learning /ˈləːnɪŋ/ – the acquisition of knowledge through study, experience, or being taught.

However, as Anton Chekhov once said: ‘knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice’. This is true, we can study and gain years of knowledge, however if we don’t put the information we’ve acquired into practice then it’s meaningless and often forgotten over time. I’m sure we’ve all attended a workshop or studied a course that we later haven’t put into practice and our learning has been lost. I studied French and Spanish at GCSE and A-level, however without speaking the languages on a daily basis, I wouldn’t say I was particularly fluent in them now – I expect, if we all think back to our school subjects, how many of us can remember and are actually using those skills now? I doubt many of us are.

Gaining knowledge in learning is only half the battle won, the other half comes from practice and of course feedback – as otherwise how do you know if you are doing something right? And most importantly how can you improve if you don’t know where to begin? So how can we improve practice in our students’ learning?

Can deliberate practice aid learning?

Deliberate practice involves attention, interest and motivation, this is the important bit and how we, as educators, can help our students understand the benefit of practice in the long run by making our learning materials fun and interesting!

It’s important because practice can help improve skills. If you practice a new skill on a regular basis then you will get good at it, learning to ride a bike, drive a car, play a musical instrument, these are all skills that take time, commitment and practice and this is exactly the same for studying too. Practice helps you implement what you have learnt and get better at it.

Practice can also boost self-confidence. When you practice something and see results, it makes you feel happy and confident; when you’ve finally learnt to ride your bike, passed your driving test, play a music instrument – you’ve done it! You feel a sense of achievement as all that hard work has paid off! 

As instructional design expert Barbara Seels (1997) says: 

“Practice is the most important ingredient of effective instruction; it speeds up learning, aids long-term retention, and facilitates recall.  Instruction is less effective when there is no opportunity to perform the task or when practice is delayed . . . . Unfortunately, much of the instruction in our classrooms provides little or no opportunity for practice.”  

Learning will most likely occur with the opportunity for practice and feedback. Creating an environment or providing opportunity for our students to practice what they’ve learnt is paramount in the learning process. Whether this be on an online platform i.e taking part in a chatroom or taking a quiz. Giving feedback is also crucial. Providing students with feedback or vice versa, students giving their course leaders feedback on their learning experience, helps to confirm their knowledge and also provides ways in which future students’ experiences can be improved.

Retrieval Practice

One way we can help our students put their knowledge into practice is through retrieval practice. Retrieval practice focuses on bringing information to the mind, retrieving knowledge and then putting it into practice, by doing this students can strengthen their learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO8abw3DHxs

Are there any ways you can use retrieval practice in your learning materials?

The Mastery Approach – how can we achieve this?

There are lots of ways deliberate practice can lead to mastering a skill, which is primarily what the mastery approach to learning is. 

The next time you learn a new skill, whether it be learning a musical instrument or a work-related task, think about the following things:

  1. Establish specific goals – Firstly, what do you want to achieve? How will you know when you’ve achieved it?
  2. Practice plan – break your tasks down into parts – Break your task down into different areas, then make a specific plan of how long you will spend on a specific part and when you will do it.
  3. Give your full attention to each part – You won’t become a master by multi-tasking. You need to be focusing on each part, practice slowly until you have mastered each section then put it all together. This is why breaking down our learning material into bite-size sections is so important, rather than text heavy documents!
  4. Get feedback from a master – No one masters a skill by themselves. An expert outsider can help provide you with feedback and direction. Surely it’s better to have feedback to correct or improve and help aid perfecting the skill.
  5. Move out of the comfort zone – No one becomes a master by doing what they already knew. Stretch your expertise by stepping away from your current ability.
  6. Maintain your motivation – You’ll need to have three things for this, emotional, logical and logistical reasons to continue:
    1. Logistical – finding the most convenient time and place to practice.
    2. Emotion and logic – what drives you? Maybe you want to succeed due to a negative experience you’ve had or maybe it was something positive, someone’s praise and this drives you to work hard – only you will know this.

Here’s the science bit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2O6mQkFiiw

To summarise, knowledge is important in learning. However, unless knowledge is put into practice then it will lack value and in time will be lost. Knowledge, deliberate practice and feedback lead to acquiring and mastering a skill. Practice does make perfect!

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I hope you’ve found it interesting! I would love to hear your experiences on putting new skills into practice, have they been successful – if so how did they become successful and if not, why?

References:

Anton Chekhov: http://www.simplybetterenglish.com/knowledge-no-value-unless-put-practice-anton-chekhov/

Barbara Seels (1997): ps://ctl.byu.edu/tip/effective-learning-through-practice-skill-building-and-feedback)

 

 

Woman standing behind video camera smiling

Video in Higher Education

July 29, 2019 / / 0 Comments

A recent visit to Oxford University for a conference on the use of video in Higher Education provided an excellent opportunity to pick up insights into how video is being used in universities across the country. In the words of conference organiser Dominik Lukes:

“Since the advent of YouTube, video has gained in significance as a medium of instruction. It has become an invaluable resource for informal learning and teaching, professional development, and formal instruction”

The morning session consisted of a series of ‘lightning’ presentations, each no more than around 7 minutes. This allowed for a good number of issues and ideas to be presented from a wide range of universities. In the afternoon we could choose from a variety of topics to discuss in small groups, such as student created videos as assessment, accessibility and inclusion, and how to tell a story.

Among the highlights from the day was a lightning talk covering lecture capture. The presenter (James Youdale, University of York) considered the difficult issue of whether lecture capture was changing how teaching takes place and how students engaged with the video lecture. The thorny issue of whether to have lecturers opt-in to have their lectures captured or an opt-out option with all lectures captured unless the lecturer chooses otherwise was also touched on. Among statistics James’ research had found was that 41% of students watch the whole of the captured lecture, 23% skip to what they regard as the important points and 96% watch on their own. This talk raised, without necessarily answering, a few interesting questions such as

  • Should lecture capture change pedagogical practice?
  • Do students need better guidance/help in note taking?
  • How can lectures be made less passive?

From the work done at York, it would seem students generally do value lecture capture and would like more of it.

Taking lecture capture one step further and actually replacing lectures with video was the theme of a presentation by Chris Evans from UCL. Two studies were carried out to gain insight into what students thought about such a bold move. In this case a 2 hour lecture was replaced with a 1 hour interactive video lecture (Xerte was used to provide the interactivity but H5P could also be used). Student feedback was very positive, and to help ensure engagement with the videos assessments were used every two weeks.

Certainly lecture capture and substituting videos for lectures allow students to learn at their own pace but not sure either are a real replacement for direct human interaction

In the late nineteenth century the Psychologist Ebbinghaus created his now well known forgetting curve illustrating how quickly information is forgotten. More modern studies tend to confirm that students quickly forget what they are told in lectures. However, they also show that going back over materials in short bursts can greatly help information retention, perhaps that is the context in which lecture capture can be viewed. In terms of replacing lectures with videos, personally I am not convinced entire courses over a sustained period of time could be delivered this way.

The afternoon discussions developed some of the themes from the morning, of particular interest were views on overcoming barriers to the greater use of video. These barriers seemed to fall into two broad areas – time and skills. Making a video can be time consuming when all production factors are taken into consideration, from writing the script, to editing the raw footage and, many lecturers may feel they have neither the time or the skills to devote to creating videos. In terms of time, what needs to be emphasised that once the video is made it’s there to be used over and over again and down the line can actually save time – students can revisit the videos which can leave time for discussions on critical analysis and evaluation without having to go back over content. For as long as a course module exists, then the video will continue to be a useful teaching and learning resource. In terms of editing, lecturers would not be expected to necessarily have the skills required, but that is where developers are key, and they can be called on the handle the technical side of things.

Overall, the key message I took away from the day is that the research presented indicated videos can be a very useful tool but it’s simply not being used enough – maybe the carrots need to be made more obvious and possibly a few sticks as well?

Image credits: Brett Sayles  on Pixels.com

Women holding a hand-held video recorder

Types of content capture

May 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

In September 2018 the University established a working group in order to better understand what the future of content capture should look like here at Portsmouth. The group wanted to know what sorts of content should be captured, what types of media were important, and how students and staff would feel about having their contributions to different types of session recorded. Once the responses from the online consultation exercises and “town hall” meetings have been fully analysed, the results will be made available through a variety of channels (including this blog). Until then, however, I wanted to advertise the recording of a webinar – one of the Future Teacher 3.0 series of webinars – which took place about the same time we were launching our working group.

In this webinar Graham Gibbs, a National Teaching Fellow and Reader in Social Research Methods at the University of Huddersfield, looks at the use of various different types of video in a higher education setting. He identifies “21 in 12” – twenty-one examples of educational video which you can see in just twelve minutes.

As the accompanying blurb states, these videos vary in approach, pedagogy, and production value – but all of them contain some educational value, and many of the techniques could be replicated at Portsmouth using existing technologies. Graham wrote a guide for the HEA’s Innovative Pedagogies series, entitled “Video creation and reuse for learning in higher education”. The guide is well worth reading, but if you don’t have time just check out the Future Teacher webinar – it lasts only 12 minutes!

Jed Villejo
Credit Image: Photo by Jed Villejo on Unsplash

JISC Digifest 2019 banner

Digifest 2019

March 29, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Jisc’s Digifest is my favourite educational technology conference. Spread over two days at Birmingham’s International Conference Centre it’s an ideal opportunity to meet practitioners from other institutions and this can be nearly as useful as the set programme of talks and presentations themselves. This year the focus was on practical ideas that can be taken back to the classroom or lecture theatre. To this end, I attended sessions on the use of video.

The first session, “How digital video innovates pedagogical methods”, was run by learning technologists from Havant and Southdowns College and looked at how staff and students have used video for both formative and summative assessment. Together, the technologists have worked on around 200 videos, some produced by the students themselves. It was clear that the use of video has had a significant impact on teaching and learning at the College. While claims about improved student attainment and retention lacked supporting data, feedback from both staff and students did indicate improvement in student engagement and achievement.

The importance of video in teaching and learning was also the theme of a presentation by Dominik Lukes’  (Learning Technologist, University of Oxford). In his presentation, titled “How YouTube started a revolution in learning and nobody noticed”, Dominik argued that the role of video in teaching and learning can only expand and provided this example of the power of video as a learning tool. Whilst I’m not entirely convinced by the claim that ‘video is the future’, both Dominik’s and the Havant College presentations did illustrate the usefulness and power of video if used properly. Both presentations also highlighted the ease of using YouTube as the delivery platform especially given the automatic subtitles function. It would be interesting to find out more about what students think of video as a learning tool and the extent to which benefits outweigh costs (in terms of time primarily) but from personal experience, I think a lot more use could be made of YouTube in teaching and learning.

Of the panel discussions I sat in on, the most interesting was “Listening to teachers: implications for education and digital“ The discussion was based on a piece of research by anthropologist Donna Lanclos and others the findings of which can be downloaded here. The research consisted of interviewing teachers in both the HE and FE sector with the aim “to uncover what next generation digital learning environments might look like”. Their report also came up with a series of recommendations which are well worth reading.

I was particularly interested in how terminology was being used. Many years ago when I was a student we went to lectures delivered by lecturers, in this discussion it was about “teachers” facilitating and delivering learning. This change in emphasis – teaching rather than lecturing – is something, I assume, that will become more ubiquitous given the introduction of the TEF in 2017. A number of thought provoking issues came out of the discussion not necessarily related directly to technology. For example, to provide effective holistic support to students takes time, which is one resource most staff are short of. This issue links nicely to a presentation I saw by Bolton College on the use of chatbots. But more on that in my next blog along with a look at Snatchbot!

 

A wooden background with a flag with the word Explore on it

UoP does the TESTA test! An introduction to the TESTA project

February 19, 2018 / / 0 Comments

From January 2018 to September 2018, The University of Portsmouth will run the Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (TESTA) project. Initially involving 10 courses, the aim is to expand this pilot project to more courses and improve the quality of student learning through addressing programme-level assessment​ ​across the university.

What is TESTA?

TESTA, originally funded by the Higher Education Academy, is currently sustained by the University of Winchester and Southampton Solent University. TESTA aims to improve the quality of student learning through addressing programme-level assessment. Over 50 UK universities as well as universities in Australia, India and the USA have engaged with TESTA since its early project days (2009-2012). TESTA works with academics, students and managers – and for students, academics and managers – to identify study behaviour, generate assessment patterns to foster deeper learning across whole programmes, and promote assessment for learning.

Why TESTA?

Because:

  • There needs to be more consistency between modules, across programmes, and a greater emphasis on progressively developing students’ internalisation of programme-level standards, over time, rather than relying on documentation to specify criteria at the level of assignments or modules.
  • The programme view shifts perspectives from: figures/percentages  and student experience surveys (e.g. NSS)  to enhancement strategies;‘my’ unit to ‘our course’; teacher-focused on module delivery to student experience of the whole programme; from individualistic modular design to coherent team design.
  • It engenders a team approach. The process enables the researcher to get to know the team and programme;. It’s a listening process, and a valuing process​. The team make decisions based on data, knowledge and guidance.​
  • It enhances curriculum Design and Pedagogy; a.rebalancing formative and summative, b.making connections across modules, and c. ensuring sequencing and progression of assessment across the programme. Also, developing approaches to formative, including more authentic assessment, influencing curriculum design (content-load etc.) etc.

What does TESTA involve?

The process involves mixed research methods for the sake of a. exploring various dimensions of the programme and b. triangulating the data. The process for each course/programme includes: a TESTA audit; an Assessment Experience Questionnaire; and Student focus groups. The process results in a programme case study report with summary of findings, interpretations and recommendations and an interactive workshop presenting this report.

What people say:

‘The value was to look at what we do from a scientific perspective and look at things objectively, and that is really enabling us to re-think how we do things. Because it’s driven by the project the staff are very willing and accepting of the data. I don’t think anybody, after we had the meeting with you guys, sat there and said ‘They’re talking absolute rubbish.  What do they know?’ (Programme Leader, Nursing). ​

​‘I’ve found it useful to have a mirror held up, to give a real reflection. We talk about the ‘student voice’, but actually this has provided a mechanism, which isn’t part of the programme, which isn’t the evaluation’ (Programme Leader, Education).​

‘TESTA has revealed some really interesting and, I believe, accurate information about our programme/ approaches/ student experience.  The details of your report have enabled some really strong shifts. We would not have reached these conclusions otherwise and I feel that TESTA has had the desired effect of enabling us to think a little more progressively.’ (Programme Leader, Dance)

‘Our very productive TESTA meeting has stimulated much discussion about how we can develop our modules to include more formative feedback and more engagement in large lectures. Some​ developments will be incorporated in the interim validation and others will influence our departmental policy on assessment and feedback for next year’ (Programme Leader, Psychology.)

More information about TESTA and a variety of resources can be found at http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/services/dcqe and https://www.testa.ac.uk/

Any interested programme/course leaders can send an email to amy.barlow@port.ac.uk or melita.sidiropoulou@port.ac.uk

Image credits: Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Tablet displaying apps

Can technology provide us with the opportunity to move away from traditional delivery methods?

June 5, 2017 / / 0 Comments

“The most vital app an educator could use is good purposeful teaching”

Introduction

On the way back from setting up the Mobile Ubicast unit for a lecturer, I had an interesting discussion about the use of technology in teaching. My first thoughts took me back to my previous life as an ICT co-ordinator of a primary school where a member of the leadership team teaching was eager to be observed “using ICT” within their teaching. What unfolded was 45 uncomfortable minutes of the educator using a digital camera within an English lesson. Of course it led to my first question of “why did you use the technology?” It did not help the students achieve their learning goals in English, whilst also not allowing them to develop or demonstrate skills using the technology.

Digital technology and equipment help provide multiple access points, like a door with multiple handles at different heights but ultimately pedagogy and learning intentions must stay at the forefront of the educators mind. It brought me back to a great JISC document I read based on the Digital experiences students should have. I thought I would signpost a few of the parts that I found most interesting and hopefully it may spark a few ideas of how technology could be used in your lectures.

Social referencing

Jane Challinor gives a good account of the trials and tribulations of using Diigo social bookmarking site with level one undergraduates She outlines the discovery that students at Level 2 and 3 were found to have poor research skills. Even at level 3 students made little use of academic journals and the cause of academic irregularity were caused by poor record keeping, especially of web based sources so a key feature of the module was to introduce the students to e-search, a tool which allows students to search journal database similar to Athens. By using groups within Diigo not only could students benefit from the features of a social referencing site such group/shared discussions, bookmarking and direct online source linking, it gave lecturers the opportunity to monitor student activity, thus make it an assessment for learning tool encouraging precision teaching. Without giving away any spoilers (!) it not only improved the students record keeping and bookmarking, it changed their whole attitude and behaviour towards using online sources and journals within assignments.

Digital critique

As there is broad range of digital sources of communication to reference from online, it gives students the ability to develop skills of critique that takes them beyond just reading text on screen. It allows students to examine a specific source in terms of its credibility, argument, tone, implied audience and provenance – who is hosting and propagating this message? This could then influence the creation of their own digital content, with a greater appreciation of its purpose and the audience it is targeted at. New Media Literacy: a blog post by Lynsay Grant offers an interesting blog based on critique against re-design that is well worth a read.

 

Use a simulation to support real-world practice

Simulations allow students to venture where perhaps the real-life situation represent unacceptable risk to the student or others. But simulations also allow students to review, revisit and revise their preparation and practice to a real-life event. Simulations can also be used to collaborate and to provide a shared platform to problem solve. The skills2Learn site shows a wide range of practical and field-based skills that can be carried out through elearning and virtual reality simulations. The advances of modern technology and the range of mediums through which to experience sound, image, video and touch based representations has become more accessible and affordable with the rise of Google Cardboard and other VR displays. The four walls of a lecture theatre no longer need to confine “where” learning takes place.

Digital deconstruction

Within my teaching role, one area in which I felt I excelled was finding new and innovative ways to teach topics. One such way was trying to introduce coding to 6-year-olds by taking them out of the computer suite and into the kitchen, testing their given programmes (recipes) and debugging and re-coding where necessary. Chrissi Narantzi’s blog explores her use of LEGO bricks with first-year undergraduates. I love the concept of taking what essentially is a digital concept, bringing it into a real life situation or a practical analogy as it were to broaden and deepen their understanding and application of digital skills. Possible applications of this could be statistical analysis, qualitative data analysis, design, giving a presentation with slides, mindmapping, ‘cut and paste’ editing, sharing ideas via twitter, commenting on/reviewing other students’ work.

Use gamification

This is a powerful concept that I have seen bear the fruits of success with younger students. I have been fortunate on a few occasions to have met critically acclaimed Tim Rylands who really was at the forefront of gamification within education and his TED talk about teachers being creative and using games to enhance learning in other topic areas is well worth watching and extremely powerful. Other gaming concepts such as ‘levelling up’,  earning XP points and shading a progress bar could be ways in which to make aspects of your teaching engaging while also giving competition a positive element. A different Chrissi Narantzi blog  shows how a mixed reality game is used in academic development and while it does require a level of ingenuity to incorporate gaming features, it can really help give insight and make learning fun.

Final thoughts

There are a number of other digital experiences that Jisc recommend students have and I’m sure the concepts of lecture capture, online questionnaires and presenting using digital media will be covered in subsequent blogs but perhaps it is a good point to reflect on our own practise and consider how using technology within our existing delivery could enhance the learning experiences of our students further.

References

Grant, L. (2010). New media literacy: Critique vs re-design. Available at: http://dmlcentral.net/new-media-literacy-critique-vs-re-design/ (Accessed: 23 November, 2016).

Jisc (2015). Digital experiences students should have. Available at: https://digitalstudent.jiscinvolve.org/wp/files/2015/01/Digitalstudentexperiences.pdf (Accessed: 23 November, 2016).

Terms, P.I. (2016). Can you Diigo it? Available at: https://prezi.com/j82f6mbocnwb/can-you-diigo-it/ (Accessed: 23 November, 2016).

 

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