Think Critically, Act Constructively, Engage Creatively (Ekev 5774)

A friend recently called laughing about his most recent bout of "cyberchondria" -- internet-assisted hypochondria. The internet is such an engaging and seductive tool that it sometimes overrides our reason and judgment. Ironically when so many "facts" are available through Google, we can forget to think when using it.  

Yet thinking and learning at JCHS depend on students being empowered to think critically, act constructively, and engage creatively with the most challenging dilemmas of our time. For these reasons, the JCHS Professional Community (faculty and staff), joined by the JCHS Board of Trustees and the Knesset Executive (student body officers) spent this summer reading " Make It Stick: The Science ofSuccessful Learning," recently published by Harvard University Press.  

The book's authors -- Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel -- reframe traditional thinking about the distinction between facts, critical thinking, and applied creativity. In their words, knowledge is not sufficient but it is necessary.  Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners and teachers -- in high school and beyond.

One illustrative excerpt from "Make It Stick" about 8-year olds is instructive: "Here's a study that may surprise you. A group of eight-year-olds practiced tossing beanbags into buckets in gym class. Half of the kids tossed into a bucket three feet away. The other half mixed it up by tossing into buckets two feet and four feet away. After twelve weeks of this they were all tested on tossing into a three-foot bucket. The kids who did the best by far were those who'd practiced on two- and four-foot buckets but never on three-foot buckets."

To help understand how kids who never practiced tossing at three-foot buckets did better than those who had, the authors bust the myth of "massed practice."  Many of us grew up believing focused, repetitive practice of one thing at a time is necessary for mastery. (Think Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000hour rule.) But, according to the authors of our summer reading, "the rapid gains produced by massed practice are often evident, but the rapid forgetting that follows is not. Practice that's spaced out, interleaved with other learning, and varied produces better mastery, longer retention, and more versatility."  

Deeper learning is achieved through spaced practice, especially when it is interleaved and varied. But the authors caution that when "practice is spaced, interleaved, and varied, it requires more effort. You feel the increased effort, but not the benefits the effort produces." Ironically, even in studies where "participants have shown superior results from spaced learning, they don't perceive the improvement; they believe they learned better on the material where practice was massed."  

Okay, so what about the beanbag study?  It demonstrated the idea that varied practice -- tossing beanbags into baskets at mixed distances -- improves the ability to transfer learning from one situation and apply it successfully to another. This is supported by recent neuroimaging studies that suggest that different kinds of practice engage different parts of the brain. The learning of motor skills from varied practice, which is more cognitively challenging than massed practice, appears to be consolidated in an area of the brain associated with the more difficult process of learning higher-order motor skills.

Remarkably the authors conclusions -- supported by extensive, modern research -- track powerfully with several educational principles advanced by the 12th century Jewish Sage, Maimonides (scholar, philosopher andpedagogue). His treatise on Torah learning opens with a passage from this week's Torah portion, Ekev, exhorting us to teach our children in our homes and beyond, when we rise in the morning and rest at night. (Deut. 11:19).

Maimonides develops a framework for learning that is:

• Spaced -- for instance, balanced with earning a livelihood
• Interleaved -- for instance, distributed one-third scripture, one-third oral tradition, and one-third talmud or applying principles from scripture and the oral tradition to new situations
• Varied -- for instance, depends on distinguishing one thing from another -- comparing and contrasting and applying something from one context to another

See, for example, Maimonides "Hilchot Talmud Torah" sections 1:11-12.  

These are powerful lessons for empowering our students to think critically, act constructively, and engage creatively. The opening meetings for the JCHS Professional Community and Board will focus on what we can learn as a school community from "Make It Stick."  I also will use "Make It Stick" in parent education programs during the year. I know this important book and the challenges it poses will both enrich and elevate learning at JCHS throughout the year.