Test-Taking Cements Knowledge Better Than Studying, Researchers Say - NYTimes.com - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...21memory.html
tests quizzes assessment brain based learning constructivism knowledge studying nytimes
shared by lkryder on 10 Jun 14
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students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods.
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the illusion that they know material better than they do.
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“I think that learning is all about retrieving, all about reconstructing our knowledge,” said the lead author, Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University. “I think that we’re tapping into something fundamental about how the mind works when we talk about retrieval.”
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These other methods not only are popular, the researchers reported; they also seem to give students
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The final group took a “retrieval practice” test. Without the passage in front of them, they wrote what they remembered in a free-form essay for 10 minutes. Then they reread the passage and took another retrieval practice test.
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But when they were evaluated a week later, the students in the testing group did much better than the concept mappers. They even did better when they were evaluated not with a short-answer test but with a test requiring them to draw a concept map from memory.
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we are organizing it and creating cues and connections that our brains later recognize.
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But “when we use our memories by retrieving things, we change our access” to that information, Dr. Bjork said. “What we recall becomes more recallable in the future. In a sense you are practicing what you are going to need to do later.”
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The Purdue study supports findings of a recent spate of research showing learning benefits from testing, including benefits when students get questions wrong.
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Howard Gardner, an education professor at Harvard who advocates constructivism — the idea that children should discover their own approach to learning, emphasizing reasoning over memorization — said in an e-mail that the results “throw down the gauntlet to those progressive educators, myself included.” “Educators who embrace seemingly more active approaches, like concept mapping,” he continued, “are challenged to devise outcome measures that can demonstrate the superiority of such constructivist approaches.”
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I am impressed by the constructivist community realizing what a powerful study this is. I think this is an indication of what we will start to see as brain based learning studies increasingly show us what is happening biologically when we learn.
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This NYTimes article does contain a link to the actual study but you need an account. The excerpts though and the responses by Gardner was very interesting
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This NYTimes article does contain a link to the actual study but you need an account. The excerpts though and the responses by Gardner was very interesting. I will try to find access to the study in the library database
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This NYTimes article does contain a link to the actual study but you need an account. The excerpts though and the responses by Gardner was very interesting. I will try to locate the study in the library database
