As I said a lot of new technology is being built.
But it's very easy to be distracted by this technology.
It's easy to forget what to focus on because of all the shiny visuals.
Simultaneously technology can open new doors or
put in new constraints on our pedagrophy.
So let's think again, let's refocus.
When we teach what should we care about the most?
Well I have some practical experience as an
instructor but i am not an expert in education.
So i rely on a influential study by John Hand.
He looked at 800 hundred meta-analysis and synthesized them.
He was looking for what influences learning.
Which circumstances, tools and techniques or which had
the best effects or which just had average effects.
So let's pick and choose a few of those factors in no order at the moment.
The first is physical attributes.
The class size, for
instance.
It's clear that this is relevant to the setting.
The second factor is computer-assisted instruction.
It's also clear that this is crucial in [UNKNOWN].
There are other factors that will affect teaching,
things that are mainly more intrinsic to the student.
Course we would like to think that we can teach anyone, but we expect the
students disposition to garn their intrinsic motivation to
have to be a factor in the outcome.
In some way mooks have a self-selected audience for now so this is mitigated.
There's also the factor of the student's prior cognitive ability.
Think of something like their IQ, for instance.
We have little control there.
Fortunately, there are part we can actually change.
The instructional quality of the course, for instance.
That is, the student's perception of the quality of the instruction they get.
According to Hadley's definition.
What about individualization?
The design of a learning program specifically the student.
Or maybe mastery learning.
This is when student are giving test
on relatively easy material soon after instruction.
And if it seems necessary there given more work again.
They're retested until they get it.
Maybe a teacher could challenge students by applying goals, but
there is also feedback which in Hadi's mind which includes
positive reinforcement for what has been done well, information about
needs to improve but also includes merely clarifying the goals.
As part of the feedback.
There's also peer tutoring, where the
students explain, check, and assess each other.
How about a good old test?
How about external factors, such as the presence of a television at home?
Hattie identified 130 different such factors.
I only picked a few here.
But it's already a lot of influencers on the student's achievements.
But how do you rank them so we could make
sense of the potential thug of that large number of influences.
So
what do you think ranked the best?
What ranked the worst?
You can maybe guess that television is the worst.
That seems kind of an obvious candidate in
fact television slowed down a students progress.
Next up and very controversially was class size.
This is still very much at the bottom in fact the data indicates
inconclusively that small class sizes have a
tiny positive effect on the students learning.
The best way to make sense of
this is probably to better understand Hattie's methodology.
This result comes after accounting for all
the other effects, if all else remains equal.
So if a politician somewhere bases a decision on this study, and
blindly doubles the class size of all the classrooms in their country.
Presumably formed by firing half of the teachers.
Well the teacher that remain will be suddenly swamped with work.
And enable to do some of the other
techniques that actually have a very positive effect.
So this would be bad.
On to the positive effects.
When Haddie performed this study he very well understood
that most of those techniques had a positive effect.
The point was to identify those that were most effective.
So we set the bar at the average effect size.
Obviously we're interested in the top effects, those way above the bar.
But we should proceed methodalically.
Below that bar still with a positive effect
but not so great are computer assisted instruction.
Individualization and testing.
Above that and in a position that starts to be
very useful are challenging students with goal, peer tutoring, mastery learning.
And slightly above all those three the student's disposition to learn.
But the three stellar effects
are feedback, student's prior cognitive ability.
And instruction quality.
Each is at a level where you expect 50% increase in the pace of learning.
Of course feedback is a bit of an umbrella term here.
It covers pure feedback or mastery learning for instance.
Also computer assistant goes up as more.
Yes, the course becomes more interactive and more engaging and also that smaller
effects can be combined to accumulate
traction, so nothing should be fully dismissed.
So, we now have Haddies final ranking for the effects I've selected.
Why am I talking about this?
Well, because in mooks some of it is especially relevant.
Mastery learning has been trumpeted again and again for months.
We can offer a quiz sampling questions and answers until the student gets it.
Interaction as well more and more mooks have interactive components
that students can use to visually see what they are learning.
So this is all a success story for mooks
integrating fully those effects in the format you want.
Pure effects are also important and also present in mooks.
But they're not full mastered yet.
There are some structured peer grading components in mooks
but they're still in early stages and can be improved.
Also, few people know for sure how to get a forum started.
One that encourages students from all backgrounds to engage with their peers.
I'm certainly no, not one of those experts.
It's a skill, something that needs to be learned and practiced.
Some of those experts, on the other hand, might be lurking in this class.
So please help the discussion get started on the forums if you feel you can help.
I would love to engage with all of you.
Share your opinion, don't be afraid.
There's definitely no right or wrong.
Even Hattie's study is open to criticism.
And especially my retelling of it.
This is education.
There is no one answer.
So, I would love to have a discussion on the forums about all that.
The last effect I want to discuss that will be the
next video is the most important according to Hattie, that is feedback.
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