Documentation:How Learning Works

Something should be written at the top to introduce the document and say that each strategy is not linear. One strategy does not come before the "next".

1. How does students' prior knowledge affect their learning?

Principle One:"Students come into our courses with knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes gained in other courses and through daily life. As students bring this knowledge to bear in our classrooms, it influences how they filter and interpret what they are learning. If students' prior knowledge is robust and accurate and activated at the appropriate time, it provides a strong foundation for building new knowledge. However, when knowledge is inert, insufficient for the task, activated inappropriately, or inaccurate, it can interfere with or impede learning."

Strategies and Applicable Learning Technologies built into the Connect LMS

Gauge the extent and nature of students' prior knowledge

1. Administer a diagnostic assessment (pp. 28)

• Create a Survey to assess student familiarity with prerequisite concepts
• Create a Test to assess student familiarity with prerequisite concepts

2. Assess students' prior learning of core prerequisite course concepts openly in the classroom

• Use Clickers to assess student familiarity with prerequisite concepts in face to face lecture

3. Have students assess their own prior knowledge (pp. 29)

• Create a Survey to gain informative data on how students self-assess their command of prerequisite skills and concepts

4. Use brainstorming to reveal prior knowledge (pp. 29)

• Create a new Discussion Board Forum and ask students a question to prompt brainstorming, reflection and integration of prior learning within the course landscape

5. Assess prior knowledge through concept map assignments (pp. 30)

• Have students insert images of concept maps representing their prior disciplinary and/or relevant knowledge using the Text Editor to learn more about the relevant prior knowledge they are aware they have

6. Look for patterns of error in student work (pp. 31)

• Generate Course Reports to gain data on how your students interact with the online course environment

Activate students' accurate prior knowledge

1. Use exercises to generate students' prior knowledge (pp. 31)

• Create a Survey emphasizing themes from prerequisite concepts
• Create a Test emphasizing themes from prerequisite concepts
• Have students Create a Blog to write reflectively on course content and prior learning
• Have students Create a Journal to write reflectively on course content and prior learning
• Use Clickers to ask questions in the classroom and receive instant anonymous results
• Have students insert images of concept maps representing their prior disciplinary and/or relevant knowledge using the Text Editor to prompt them to reflect on their application of prior knowledge in the course

2. Explicitly link new material to knowledge from prerequisite courses and knowledge from earlier in the same course (pp. 31)

• Link content items in Connect with Course Links
• Link open prerequisite conceptual content to current course content by adding URLs and Weblinks

3. Use analogies and examples that connect to students everyday knowledge (pp. 33)

• Insert multimedia course content (YouTube videos, Slideshare slideshows, audio tracks, and more) with the Text Editor to enable the use of a wider range of content resources (such as analogies and case studies) in the online course environment
• Create a Discussion Board Forum for students to upload, describe and comment on case studies, analogies, and metaphors expressed via multiple possible mediums

4. Ask students to reason on the basis of relevant prior knowledge

• Provide heuristics or guiding questions in the description when Creating Assignments. This can also be done elsewhere in your course environment, such as in Test and Survey descriptions.

Address insufficient prior knowledge

1. Identify the prior knowledge you expect students to have

• When Creating a Syllabus, explicitly include this information.

2. Provide instructions or feedback to students before and after they display insufficient prior knowledge

• When Creating a Test Question, include automated instructional answer feedback for incorrect (and correct) answers to direct students to further information
• Include guiding questions to your task descriptions when Creating an Assignment, Creating a Test, or Creating a Discussion Board Forum.

Facilitate student recognition of inappropriate prior knowledge

1. Explicitly identify apparent trends of student misinformation

• Use knowledge from analysis of students' prior knowledge use (Course Reports, Discussion Boards, Journal, and other methods) to inform your in-class Clicker use
• Identify common inappropriate applications of prior learning from assessments or elsewhere by Creating an Announcement for your course environment or maintaining a Discussion Board Forum space for this.

2. Explicitly identify discipline specific norms and conventions

• Attach a file using the Text Editor or Create a Content Item to upload a file describing discipline specific norms and conventions you want to identify.
• When Creating an Assignment, attach a file detailing disciplinary norms and conventions you want to identify specific to the assignment.

3. Provide heuristics to help students avoid inappropriate application of knowledge

• When Creating an Assignment, attach a file or input to the assignment description heuristics and guiding questions that can help students avoid the inappropriate application of knowledge
• When Creating a Test or Survey Question include heuristics and guiding questions as automated instructional answer feedback to contextualize potential student application of inappropriate prior knowledge

Correct inaccurate prior knowledge

1. Ask students to make and test predictions

• Create a Test, set not to be included in the Grade Center so students can use it for practice purposes
• Use the diverse Test Question Options available to diversify question delivery in both graded and non-graded tests in order to prompt recontextualized understanding

2. Provide multiple opportunities for students to use accurate knowledge

Citations and Further Reading

• Pages in How Learning Works:

• Books in the Resource Room:

Case Studies

• Matt Yedlin?
• Ido Roll?

2. How does the way students organize knowledge affect their learning?

Principle Two: "Students naturally make connection between pieces of knowledge. When those knowledge structures form knowledge that are accurately and meaningfully organized, students are better able to retrieve and apply that knowledge effectively and efficiently. In contrast, when knowledge is connected in inaccurate or random ways, students can fail to retrieve or apply it appropriately."'

Strategies and Applicable Learning Technologies built into the Connect LMS

Reveal and enhance knowledge organizations

1. Use Concept Maps to facilitate analysis of knowledge organizations (pp. 59)

• Upload your own concept maps into the course environment to engage students with your more advanced knowledge organization to prompt analysis of their own. You can upload image files in a variety of ways, including attaching a file when Using the Text Editor, to a Content Item, Creating an Assignment, and more.

2. Analyze tasks to identify the most appropriate knowledge organization (pp. 59)
3. Provide students with an organizational structure of the course (pp. 60)

• Create a Syllabus to orient your students with the structure of the course

4. Explicitly share the organization of course activities (pp. 61)

• When Creating an Assignment, or Creating a New Discussion Board Forum, detail the organization of the activity in the activity description so your students can conceptualize how the content and component skills fit within the whole course.

5. Use contrasting and boundary cases to highlight organizing features (pp. 61)
6. Explicitly highlight deep features (pp. 62)
7. Make connections among concepts explicit (pp. 62)

• Tag areas in your course environment with Course Links that direct students to important connected course content areas
• Organize your course content into Content Folders to emphasize connections and categorization of course knowledge

8. Encourage students to work with multiple organizing structures (pp. 63)

• Use Concept Map exercises in course Discussion Forums, Blogs, Journals and more to prompt student focus on multiple knowledge organizations
• Create Groups where students can share and discuss knowledge organizations using powerful LMS tools such as Discussion Boards, Wikis, and Blogs with a smaller number of classmates.

9. Ask students to draw a concept map to expose their knowledge organizations (pp. 63)

• Create a New Discussion Board Forum where students can upload concept maps and comment on others to critically analyze their own knowledge organizations and those of their peers.
• Have students Create a Wiki Page where they can upload concept maps and collaborate with others to critically analyze their own knowledge organizations and those of their peers.
• Create an Assignment asking students to Submit a concept map representing a knowledge organization
• For live and interactive concept map sharing and discussion you can use the Whiteboard in Blackboard Collaborate Web Conferencing

10. Use a sorting task to expose students' knowledge organizations (pp. 64)

• Create an Assignment emphasizing the sorting of course concepts to expose and enhance knowledge organizations
• Use Clickers to ask questions that expose student and instructor knowledge organizations to the class at large
• When using Blackboard Collaborate Web Conferencing take advantage the Participants Panel to conduct live polls using questions highlighting categorization of course knowledge
• Have students complete assignments by Creating a Wiki Page to place emphasis on the organization of content

11. Monitor students' work for problems in their knowledge organization (pp. 64)

• Analyze Course Reports and/or Discussion Boards and other student work to support diagnosis of potential knowledge organization issues you have identified in a student's work

3. What factors motivate students to learn?

Principle Three: "As students enter college and gain greater autonomy over what, when and how they study and learn, motivation plays a critical role in guiding the direction, intensity, persistence, and quality of learning behaviours in which they engage. When students find positive in a learning goal or activity expect to successfully achieve a desired learning outcome, and perceive support from their environment, they are likely to be strongly motivated to learn."

Applicable Learning Technologies built into the Connect LMS

Establish value of course objectives

1. Connect the material to students' interests (pp. 83)

• Use and encourage student use of multimedia Mashups via the Text Editor to foster student conceptual connections to prior learning, and well understood knowledge and interests
• Add a URL to link a content item or any content space in your course environment to external resources or media important and valuable to student learning

2. Provide authentic, real-world tasks (pp. 83)
3. Show relevance to students' current academic lives (pp. 84)
4. Demonstrate the relevance of higher level skills to students' professional lives (pp. 84)
5. Identify and reward what you value (pp. 84)

• Monitor your course discussion board forums to identify excellent student contributions and Post a Reply to confirm, commend, or to make a suggestion directly within the thread

6. Show your own passion and enthusiasm for the discipline (pp. 85)

Facilitate student formation of positive expectancies

1. Ensure alignment of objectives, assessments, and instructional strategies (pp. 85)
2. Identify an appropriate level of challenge (pp. 85)

• Create a Test and choose to not include student results in the Grade Center so that

3. Create assignments that provide the appropriate level of challenge (pp. 86)

• Use the diverse assessment options available (Journal, Blog, Wiki, Multimedia File Upload, Discussion Boards, more) to provide variation, flexibility and the appropriate level of challenge for different learners

4. Provide early success opportunities (pp. 86)
5. Articulate your expectations (pp. 87)
6. Provide rubrics (pp. 87)

• Create a Rubric
• Attach a Rubric with a Course Activity

7. Provide Targeted Feedback (pp. 87)

• When Creating a Test Question, include automated instructional answer feedback for incorrect (and correct) answers to instantly direct and support students' ongoing growth
• Monitor and facilitate course Discussion Boards to provide targeted support and guidance

8. Be Fair (pp. 88)

• Use iPeer Surveys to generate respondent data you can use to filter your students into well balanced groups for group assignments
• When marking in the Grade Center, use the grade anonymously option

9. Educate students about the ways we explain success and failure
10. Describe effective study strategies (pp. 88)
• Tests (metadata): to level questions to ensure they are the appropriate level of challenge­
• Tests: Diagnostic Assessments to help ensure material is at an appropriate level of challenge

Address value and expectancies of course learning

1. Provide flexibility and control (pp. 89)

• Use the diverse assessment options available (Journal, Blog, Wiki, Multimedia, Discussion, more) to provide variation and flexibility to lend a sense of control

2. Give students an opportunity to reflect (pp. 89)

• Receive, mark and give back tests and assignments in Connect to create greater time for reflection on assignment feedback and to save lecture time
• When giving students class-wide feedback on assignments and tests, do so via text or video in the online course environment (e.g. Create an Announcement) to save class time, and so that students can get it earlier and have more time to reflect on it

• Journal tool, learning portfolios, discussion board: Provide opportunities to reflect
• Learning portfolios to connect performance goals (EX accreditation) with learning goals and program goals

4. How do students develop mastery?

Principle Four: "Students must develop not only the component skills and knowledge necessary to perform complex tasks, they must also practice combining and integrating them to develop greater fluency and automaticity. Finally, students must learn when and how to apply the skills and knowledge they learn. As instructors it is important that we develop conscious awareness of these elements of mastery so as to help our students learn more effectively."

Applicable Learning Technologies built into the Connect LMS

Expose and reinforce component skills

1. Push past your own expert blindspot (pp. 112)

• Create word clouds from student created content (e.g. Journals) to compare with word clouds from your own (or other disciplinary experts') content and Attach the Files to an announcement or discussion board

2. Enlist the help of others (pp. 113)

• Create a Group for all course instructors where you can experiment and collaborate in a closed environment within the course
• Create a Content Pass for a file in your content collection that you want to share with someone outside Connect for feedback

3. Focus student attention on key aspects of the task (pp. 114)

• Create Rubrics to be explicit about the learning objectives and submission criteria
• Provide examples of excellent assignment submissions from previous cohorts by Creating a Content Item or Attaching a File to an assignment description

4. Diagnose weak or missing component skills (pp. 114)

• Design practice or low stakes tests that are organized to expose component skills

5. Provide isolated practice of weak or missing skills (pp. 115)

• Create practice or low stakes tests that are designed to expose component skills and supplement with automated answer feedback or self assessment

• Tests, Surveys: Diagnose/identify weak or missing component skills
• Course Reports: Item level test analysis. Identifying weak component skills
• Remedial self-assessed testing to provide isolated skill practice

Build fluency and facilitate integration of skills

1. Give students practice to increase fluency (pp. 115)

• Create practice, low stakes, and/or self-assessed tests that are designed to increase fluency of component skills

2. Temporarily constrain the scope of the task (pp. 116)
3. Explicitly include integration in your performance criteria (pp. 117)

• Learning Modules
• Learning modules focusing on individual component skills component skills to reduce cognitive load
• Tests that focus on fluency, Using timed testing
• Test questions that emphasis skill integration

Facilitate robust skill transfer

1. Discuss conditions of applicability (pp. 117)
2. Give students opportunities to apply skills or knowledge in diverse contexts (pp. 117)
3. Ask students to generalize to larger principles (pp. 118)
4. Use comparisons to help students identify deep features (pp. 118)
5. Specify context and ask students to identify relevant skills and knowledge (pp. 119)
6. Specify skills or knowledge and ask students to identify contexts in which they apply (pp. 119)
7. Provide prompts to relevant knowledge (pp. 120)

• Online case studies using learning module—used to discuss conditions of applicability to increase transfer
• Online discussion and resource sharing with experts
• External media: Develop rich contexts when considering skills transfer

5. What kinds of practice and feedback enhance learning?

Principle Five: "Learning and performance are best fostered when students engage in practice that focuses on a specific goal and or criterion, targets an appropriate level of challenge, and is of sufficient quantity that and frequency to meet the performance criteria. Practice must be coupled with feedback that explicitly communicates about some aspects of students' performance relative to specific target criteria, provides information to help students progress in meeting those criteria, and is given at a time and frequency that allows it to be useful."

Applicable Learning Technologies built into the Connect LMS

Address the need for goal directed practice

1. Conduct a prior knowledge assessment to target an appropriate challenge level (pp. 145)
2. Be explicit about your goals in course materials (pp. 145)
3. Use a rubric to specify and communicate performance criteria (pp. 146)
4. Build in multiple opportunities for practice (pp. 146)
5. Build scaffolding into assignments (pp. 146)
6. Set expectations about practice (pp. 147)
7. Give examples or models of target performance (pp. 147)
8. Show students what you do not want (pp. 147)
9. Refine your goals and performance criteria as the course progresses (pp. 148)

• Survey tool: Conduct a prior learning assessment to target and appropriate challenge level
• Tests, pools and surveys: Provide multiple opportunities to practice using low stakes tests
• Lesson plan/Syllabus tools: be explicit about your goals in the course material
• Assignments: Use assignment introduction and ability to upload files to in order to provide prompts or scaffolds

Address the need for targeted feedback

1. Look for patterns of errors in student work (pp. 148)
2. Priortize your feedback (pp. 149)
3. Balance strengths and weaknesses in your feedback (pp. 149)
4. Design frequent opportunities to give feedback (pp. 150)
5. Provide feedback at the group level (pp. 150)
6. Provide real-time feedback at the group level (pp. 150)

• Clicker Toolkit
• Create a Group

7. Incorporate peer feedback (pp. 151)
8. Require students to specify how they used feedback in subsequent work (pp. 151)

• Tests, pools and surveys: Use item level analysis to look for patterns of errors in students work
• Assignments/Tasks/Tests: Provide frequent short tasks in order and provide feedback
• Assignments/Groups: Provide feedback at the group level
• i>Clickers: To provide real-time feedback at the group level
• i>peer to provide peer feedback

6. Why do student development and course climate matter for student learning?

Principle Six: "Students are not only intellectual but social and emotional beings, and they are still developing the full range of intellectual, social, and emotional skills. While we cannot control the developmental process, we can shape the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical aspects of the classroom climate in developmentally appropriate ways. In fact, many studies have shown that the climate we create has implications for our students. A negative climate may impede learning and performance, but a positive climate can energize students' learning."

Applicable Learning Technologies built into the Connect LMS

Promote student development and productive climate

1. Make uncertainty safe (pp. 180)

• Use the anonymity provided by Clickers to reduce stigmas around student expression of uncertainty

2. Resist a single answer (pp. 181)

• Create a Discussion Board Post with questions to a course mock exam or test and encourage students to submit answers and recognize the validity and value of multiple answers

3. Incorporate evident into performance and grading criteria (pp. 181)
4. Examine your assumptions about students (pp. 181)

• Create a Survey to gain data on possible assumptions to inform your instruction

5. Be mindful of low-ability cues (pp. 182)
6. Do not ask individuals to speak for an entire subject group (pp. 182)

• http://www.whatilearnedinclasstoday.com/

7. Reduce anonymity (pp. 182)

• If course content deals with socially sensitive subject matter, have students submit assignments openly on course blogs to encourage accountability and discussion among students

8. Model inclusive language, behaviour, and attitudes (pp. 183)
9. Use multiple and diverse examples (pp. 183)
10. Establish and reinforce ground rules for interaction (pp. 183)

• When Creating a Forum add a description that establishes and reinforces ground rules for scholarly interaction

11. Make sure course content does not marginalize students (pp.184)
12. Use the syllabus and first day of class to establish the course climate (pp. 184)
13. Set up processes to get feedback on the climate (pp. 184)
14. Anticipate and prepare for potentially sensitive issues (pp. 185)
15. Address tensions early (pp. 185)
16. Turn discord and tension into a learning opportunity (pp. 186)
17. Facilitate active listening (pp. 186)

• Rubrics: Use rubrics and have students read each others work and circle the pieces of evidence to highlight visually
• Assignments, Tests: When possible use assignments with multiple possible answers
• Reduce anominity : Online office hours, BBIM, online space, course blog
• Use multiple and diverse examples---using external weblinks to connect students to diverse examples
• Discussion board: Provide a framework for online group interaction—netiquette, model, collaboratively develop rules for online interaction
• Facilitate active listening: Model active listening when responding to students on the discussion board paraphrase student responses and connect and summarize student responses.

7. How do students become self-directed learners

"Learners may engage in a variety of metacognitive processes to monitor and control their learning--assessing the task at hand, evaluating their own strengths and weaknesses, planning their approach, applying and monitoring various strategies, and reflecting on the degree to which their current approach is working. Unfortunately, students tend not to engage in these processes naturally. When students develop the skills to engage these processes, they gain intellectual habits that not only improve their performance but also their effectiveness as learners."

Applicable Learning Technologies built into the Connect LMS

Assessing the Task at Hand

1. Be more explicit than you may think necessary (pp. 204)
2. Tell students what you do not want (pp. 204)
3. Check students' understanding of the task (pp. 205)
4. Provide performance criteria with the assignment (pp. 205)

• Rubrics/Checklists: Provide performance criteria with assignments, assessments.
• Assignments: Students hand in proposals in order to check their understanding of the task

Evaluating Students' Own Strengths and Weaknesses

1. Give early performance based assessments (pp. 206)
2. Provide opportunities for self-assessment (pp. 206)

• Tests: Early performance-based assessments, ungraded self-assessments
• Journal tool: Self-assessment

Planning an Appropriate Approach

1. Have students implement a plan that you provide (pp. 207)
2. Have students create their own plan (pp. 207)
3. Make planning the central goal of the assignment (pp.208)

• Assignments: Students submit in proposals in show their plan and approach for a task

Applying Strategies and Monitoring Performance

1. Provide simple heuristics for self-correction (pp. 208)
2. Have students do guided self-assessments (pp. 209)
3. Require students to reflect on and annotate their own work (pp. 209)
4. Use peer review / reader response (pp. 209)

• Tests/Journals: Student complete a guided self-assessment
• iPeer: Peer Review/Reader response. Assists students evaluate and monitor their own work more effectively
• Assignment submission: Allow students to upload a reflective sheet along with assignment

Reflecting On and Adjusting Ones Approach

1. Provide activities that require students to reflect on their approach (pp. 210)
2. Prompt students to analyze the effectiveness of their study skills (pp. 210)
3. Present Multiple Strategies (pp. 211)
4. Create assignments that focus on strategizing rather than implementation (pp. 211)

• Tests: Provide students with a virtual exam wrapper an attached form that they complete and upload when they access their exam grade
• Learning Modules: include learning modules/folders that focus on study skills.

Beliefs about Intelligence and Learning

1. Address student beliefs about learning directly (pp. 212)
2. Broaden students understanding about learning (pp. 212)
3. Help students set realistic expectations (pp. 213)

General Strategies to Promote Metacognition

1. Modelling your metacognitive process (pp. 214)
2. Scaffold students into the metacognitive process (pp. 215)