December 2023 – Learning Aloud

The Advantage of Paper? Why?

Happy New Year. My final post of the year will return to one of the issues I have written about several times during this past year. I would describe the issue as seeking an answer to the questions “Does reading from a screen reduce understanding immediately and reduce the development of reading skills long term?” At one level, I know what I think personally. I read nearly everything from a screen because what I am doing is more than reading. I am using the digital advantage of reading from a device in the process of taking notes and annotating I see as beneficial in the long run. I have made my own decision regarding my behavior in what I consider a logical way. The issue of skill development is a different issue. I see the amount of time our grandkids spend on their devices mostly watching video. I really don’t know if this preoccupation with screen-based information is damaging to their development of reading and thinking skills. I do think it is an important issue that deserves attention.

I just finished working my way through a new meta-analysis related to this issue (Altamura and colleagues). Like so many articles I have read on the topic, the results are troubling as related to the concern for younger readers. However, the results because of the limitations of the methodology employed are open to questions and alternative interpretations. I will describe the review as best I can and as always invite those interested in this issue to read the original document for themselves.

The authors begin their approach by noting a widely accepted relationship between “out of classroom” reading to reading skill development. The relationship is proposed based on a positive spiral. As younger readers are exposed to gradually more demanding texts, they develop improved skills important to reading comprehension. These improved skills make possible successful understanding of even more demanding material which tends to be more informative and enjoyable and the upward spiral of capabilities continues. This relationship relates to other literacy correlates such as having access to more reading material in the home and being read to more frequently.

With an interest in digital reading, the researchers decide to review literature relating screen-based reading to reading proficiency as readers age. Does the same relationship between reading digital content and reading skill hold developmentally for what they define as recreational reading? With their definition of recreational reading comes the first methodological issue? They include pretty much any text-based experience one might have on a digital device – text messages, social media interactions of any type, blogs, and digital books. Obviously, there is not a meaningful equivalent to social media and text in previous studies of the relationship between text consumption and reading proficiency. The researchers did code from the difference between these short and long form samples of text in their statistical approach and this distinction will end up being important in my comments at a later point in this post.

The researchers propose they are testing two competing hypotheses. The displacement hypothesis suggests digital text is a replacement for text on paper and the shallowing hypothesis suggests that shorter segments of text so frequently available in digital environments require less in processing skill and encourage scanning and skimming. Shallowing may prevent critical skills from being applied and developed.

The researchers summarize their results as follows:

This relationship is significantly moderated by the reader’s educational stage. At early stages (primary and middle school) negative relationships are observed between leisure digital reading and text comprehension, while at later stages (high school and university) the relationship turns positive.

While the pattern of reading activity and comprehension skill differs from what is found with paper-based text, neither of the hypotheses was cleanly supported. This was the case because age was the only moderator variable achieving significance and the relationship was not consistent. The differentiation of the type of reading material was not significant. That is, the division between time spent on the more purely social and short content versus longer content was not a significant predictor of skill differences. The researchers suggest that studying the combination of screen and paper could be important. In other words, a focus on digital reading ignores other reading the participants might have done with text on paper which would likely have been longer-form reading.

So, this paper can be added to others (e.g., Delgado at colleagues) that offer concerns especially for younger readers. As I have suggested in other posts, this question is difficult for researchers to address because important variables are difficult to control with carefully controlled research studies. The developmental nature of reading skill is not consistent with an experimental approach that would control a treatment such as whether individuals read from paper or screen over an extended period of time. I question how much “reading” children actually do from screens. Few are allowed or can access social media services as a matter of personal safety. A more significant issue would seem to me to be whether reading is being replaced by watching. Research typically fails to provide actual quantification of the amount of time individuals are exposed to text. Without total exposure perhaps differentiated as screen vs paper, what conclusions are possible?

References

Altamura, L., Vargas, C., & Salmerón, L. (2023). Do New Forms of Reading Pay Off? A Meta-Analysis on the Relationship Between Leisure Digital Reading Habits and Text Comprehension. Review of Educational Research, 00346543231216463.

Delgado, P., Vargas, C., Ackerman, R., & Salmerón, L. (2018). Don’t throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension. Educational Research Review, 25, 23-38.

Is there such a thing as aptitude?

The concept of aptitude and how differences in aptitude influencing learning could be reduced through mastery strategies have interested me throughout my academic career. I understood aptitude as something I thought of as intelligence. Intelligence is an abstraction that researchers attempt to measure with intelligence tests and investigate in practice through correlations with academic progress. Intelligence tests are not a direct measure of aptitude, but really an estimate based on differences in what individuals have learned and can do. Even the simple representation of intelligence as IQ (intelligence quotient) imagines intelligence as how much has been learned (mental age or MA) divided by age (chronological age).

Intelligence tests have come under a great deal of criticism based on potential racial/SES biases. These criticisms are certainly fair, but the tests do predict academic achievement and I was never convinced to support the abandonment of the development and use of such tests. The correlations measure something, and whatever this is does not disappear when tests are not given. If both tests and educational practice are biased, why not recognize that this is the case?

The theoretical basis for mastery learning (see Arlin and Bloom references) proposes that educators consider the rate of learning and accept that the rate of learning differs greatly among individuals. To me, this sounded very much like intelligence, and the concept of IQ is obviously related to learning rate (how much was learned per unit of time). However, what these researchers and educational theorists proposed was that other factors were involved in traditional educational practice and these other factors had a significant impact on achievement. While time required for learning was determined by aptitude, it was also influenced by whether the method of instruction met individual needs and by differences in existing knowledge. Think of it this way. If aptitude-based differences in learning create a range of learning speeds and a class of students moves through learning experiences faster than some students can master some important skills and concepts, in the future some students will be burdened not only by learning at a slower rate, but also by missing knowledge prerequisite to new skills and concepts they are trying to learn. Over time, these missing elements (Sal Kahn calls this Swiss cheese learning) will accumulate increasing failure and frustration in some learners. Mastery learning strategies focus on limiting the accumulation of knowledge prerequisites by individualizing the rate of learning to the rate of mastery. Some students in completely individualized approaches do move more slowly (and some faster), but the theory proposes that the rate of actual mastery would be faster than without mastery for all learners because deficits would not accumulate in learners needing more time and more capable students could move more quickly. The work of Arlin attempted to demonstrate what these changes in the rate of learning might be. When ratios such as 5:1 or 7:1 are proposed, it is easy to see why some students would fall hopelessly behind.

Individualization is challenging. Tutoring has always been a personal interest, but not economically feasible. With access to personal computers in the 1990s I saw the first method that might be available to provide individualization and this continues as an interest. Many attack present attempts to make use of technology in direct instruction as boring and depersonalizing. I think these folks have the wrong idea, but this is a topic I address elsewhere. Here, I want to recognize recent research that claims individualized instruction with technology (Koedinger, et al) may not only deal with individual differences in background knowledge, but also challenge the notion there are meaningful differences in the rate of learning.

How variable is the impact of aptitude?

Koedinger and colleagues studied the work of thousands of students from all grade levels working on different types of content using the type of technology-enabled methods I described above. Their focus was different in being based on the mastery of very specific capabilities rather than courses or even weeks of work. The learning experiences consisted of initial exposure to information (video or written) followed by a sequence of worked activities. I suppose a worksheet would be an example of a worked activity, but the variety and type of activities included a many different activities. The goal was to reach 80% mastery on a worked activity. The authors found that in the first attempt following the acquisition phase, the top half of students scored 75% and the bottom half scored 50%. The top half then required 3.7 practice trials to reach mastery (80%) and the bottom half 13 trials. What startled the researchers was that the gain per practice trial was very similar leading the researchers to conclude learning rate was very similar once existing knowledge was addressed. Aptitude (if I can be allowed to switch terms here) accounts for little difference in speed.

I am not convinced I would interpret these results in the same way given the method, but I do like the demonstration that allowing additional learning trials allows students the same level of achievement. I encourage interested parties to review the study themselves and see if they agree with my assessment. The statistical method is quite sophisticated and I wonder what interpretations the method allows. I would be more convinced had the researchers carried their research over an extended period of time and actually determined what happens when individual differences in existing knowledge are eliminated. The difference in understanding after the individual phase of exposure to new content was substantial and while likely a partial product of existing differences in background it does not seem to me that the difference would not partially also be due to aptitude differences. Since learners with existing background knowledge are not involved, it seems to me there is no demonstration that aptitude does not play a role in determining the number of practice trials that are required.

I am pleased to see that this type of research continues and assume this study will generate replications and hopefully extensions.

Additional comments on mastery learning and learning speed

Arlin, M. (1984). Time variability in mastery learning. American Educational Research Journal, 21(1), 103–120.

Arlin, M. (1984b). Time, equality, and mastery learning. Review of Educational Research, 54(1), 65–86.

Bloom, B. S. (1974). Time and learning. American Psychologist, 29(9), 682–688.

Koedinger, K. R., Carvalho, P. F., Liu, R., & McLaughlin, E. A. (2023). An astonishing regularity in student learning rate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(13), e2221311120.

Khan, S. (2012) The One World Schoolhouse?—?Education Reimagined. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 2012 and Twelwe, Boston & New York.

Content focused AI for tutoring

My explorations of AI use to this point have resulted in a focus on two applications – AI as tutor and AI as tool for note exploration. Both uses are based on the ability to focus on information sources I designate rather than allowing the AI service to rely on its own body of information. I see the use of AI to interact with the body of notes I have created as a way to inform my writing. My interest in AI tutoring is more related to imagining how AI could be useful to individual students as they study assigned content.

I have found that I must use different AI services for these different interests. The reason for this differentiation is that two of the most popular services (NotebookLM and OpenAI’s Custom GPTs) limit the number of inputs that can be accessed. I had hoped that I could point these services at a folder of notes (e.g., Obsidian files) and then interact with this body of content. However, both services presently allow only a small number of individual files (10 and perhaps 20) can be designed as source material. This is not about the amount of content as the focus of this post involves using these two services to interact with a single file of 27,000 words. I assume in a year the number of files will be less of an issue.

So, this post will explore the use of AI as a tutor applied to assigned content as a secondary or higher ed student might want to do. In practice, what I describe here would require that a student would have access to a digital version of assigned content not protected in some way. For my explorations, I am using the manuscript of a Kindle book I wrote before the material was converted to a Kindle book. I wanted to work with a multi-chapter source of a length students might be assigned.

NotebookLM

NotebookLM is a newly released AI service from Google. The AI prompts can be focused on content that is available in Google drive or uploaded to the service. This service is available at no cost, but it should be understood that this is likely to change when Google is ready to offer a more mature service. Investing time in this service rather than others allows the development of skills and the exploration of potential, but in the long run some costs will be involved.

Once a user opens NotebookLM and creates a notebook (see red box surrounding new notebook), external content to be the focus of user prompts can be added (second image). I linked Notebook to the file I used in preparation for creating a Kindle book. Educators could create a notebook on unprotected content they wanted students to study.

The following image summarizes many essential features used when using NotebookLM. Starting with the right-hand column, the textbox near the bottom (enclosed in a red box) is where prompts are entered. The area above (another red box) provides access to content used by the service in generating the response to a prompt. The large area on the left-hand side displays the context associated with one of the areas referenced with the specific content used highlighted.

Access to a notebook can be shared and this would be the way an educator would provide students access to a notebook prepared for their use. In the image below, you will note the icon (at the top) used to share content, and when this icon is selected, a textbox for entering emails for individuals (or for a class if already prepared) appears.

Custom GPTs (OpenAI)

Once you have subscribed to the monthly payment plan for ChatGPT – 4, accessing the service will bring up a page with the display shown below. The page allows access to ChatGPT and to any custom GPTs you have created. To create a Custom GPT you select Explore and then select Create a GPT. Describing the process of creating a GPT would require more space than I want to use in this post, but the process might best be described as conversational. You basically interact by describing what you are trying to create and you upload external resources if you want prompts to be focused on specific content. Book Mentor is the custom GPT I created for this demonstration.

Once created, a GPT is used very much in the same way a NotebookLM notebook is used. You use the prompt box to interact with the content associated with that GPT.

What follows are some samples of my interactions with the content. You should be able to see the prompt (Why is the word layering used to describe what the designer does to add value to an information source?)

Prompts can generate all kinds of ways of interaction (see a section below that describes what some of these interactions might be). One type I think has value in using AI as a tutor is to have the service ask you a question. An example of this approach is what is displayed in the following two images. The first image describes a request for the service to generate a multiple-choice question about generative activity which I then respond (correctly) and receive feedback. The second image shows the flexibility of the AI. When responding to the question, I thought a couple of the responses could be correct. After I answered the question and received feedback, I then asked about an answer I did not select wondering why this option could not also be considered correct. As you see in the AI reply, the system understands my issue and acknowledges how it might be correct. This seems very impressive to me and demonstrates that the interaction with the AI system allows opportunities that go beyond self-questioning.

Using AI as tutor

I have written previously about the potential of AI services to interact with learners to mimic some of the ways a tutor might work with a learner. I make no claims of equivalence here. I am proposing only that tutors are often not available and an AI system can challenge a learner in many ways that are similar to what a human tutor would do.

Here are some specific suggestions for how AI can be used in the role of tutor.

Summary

This post describes two systems now available that allow learners to work with assigned content that mimics how a tutor might work with a student. Both systems would allow a designer to create a tool focused on specific content that can be shared. ChatGPT custom GPTs require that those using a shared GPT have an active $20 per month account which probably means this approach would not presently be feasible for common application. Google’s Notebooks can be created at no cost to the designer or user, but this will likely change when Google decides the service is beyond the experimental stage. Perhaps the capability will be included in present services designed for educational situations.

While I recognize that cost is a significant issue, my intent here is to propose services that can be explored as proof of concept and those educators interested in AI opportunities might explore future productive classroom applications of AI.

Evaluating tech tools for adult learning

I feel comfortable writing about learning in educational environments. I have reviewed many instructional and learning strategies, read applied studies intended to evaluate the efficacy of these strategies, and read a substantial amount of the basic cognitive research potentially explaining the why of the applied investigations. In a small way, I have contributed to some of this research.

As my life circumstances have changed, I have begun exploring related, but unfamiliar topics. In retirement, I am by definition no longer playing an active role as a salaried educator or researcher. I retain the opportunity to access the scholarly literature as an emeritus faculty member, but I can no longer engage as a researcher. These changes led to a different perspective. I have become more interested in other folks like me who are still interested in learning and how they go about responding to such interests.

As I have contemplated this situation, it has become clear that this situation is not a matter of age. While it was very important for me to constantly learn while I was working, I don’t think I spent much time considering how I should best go about it. There was work to be done and despite my own focus on education, I did little to consider the strategies of my own learning.

I began to think more deeply about self-directed learning, adult learning, or whatever else might be the current way to describe this situation when I began participating in a book club that has as one interest Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and the technology tools that can be applied when committed to implementing this concept. For those who are unfamiliar with PKM, one way to gain insight would be to read a couple of the self-help books explaining views on this topic and describing techniques argued to be useful in achieving goals consistent with the general idea of Personal Knowledge Management.

Sonke Ahrens How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

Tiago Forte Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential

There is plenty of specific information available from such books and other online resources regarding how to study topics for understanding and retention. It is easy to locate tutorials for online services and apps to implement these strategies. There seem to be hundreds of posts on Medium, Substack, and YouTube with titles like “My Obsidium Workflow”, “I Switched From OneNote to Notion and Can’t Believe My New Productivity”, and “All of the Notetaking Apps in One Post”. There must be something people want to understand and evaluate here. When i dig deeper there are some logical arguments proposed to justify techniques digital tools enable such as the creation of permanent and atomic notes, linking notes, and progressive summarization and I can sometimes associate these techniques with cognitive concepts I knew such as generative learning, spaced repetition, and retrieval practice.

What I finally decided I was missing was the type of applied research I found readily available when specific study techniques are proposed for classroom use. Learning and studying over time is not really what is studied in K12 and postsecondary education. What students know is studied over time, but not frequently how different methods of study influence the development of skills and knowledge. Differences in what studies can do on the next exam or at the end of a course are typically the focus. This seems different from the goal of evaluating learner-guided activities to develop knowledge and skills over many years.

The time frame is not the only difference. Some of the strategies for school and adult independent note-taking are similar on the surface but different enough to warrant additional research. Note-taking, sometimes even described as note-making to differentiate the processes by advocates of some PKM methods, is a good example. In the Smart Note approach, isolating specific concepts such as individual notes written with enough context to be interpretable over time and then linking these individual notes to other notes by way of multiple links is quite different from how students take and make use of notes. The note-taking tools are different, the goals are different, and the mechanisms of creating and then acting on the written record are different. I want to know if the mechanics of these differences are actually useful. Controlled comparisons would be interesting, but so would studies examining how adults familiar with these approaches make use of what the tools allow over time, if they actually do. Do learners working for their own purposes stick with what the logic proposed for the use of a learning tool or do they modify the ideal approach to something that is simpler and less cognitively demanding? Formal research methods have proven useful in understanding study strategies proposed for classroom-associated use but should be repeated in evaluating self-directed adult learning.

I don’t think much if any of the type of formal research I propose exists. At least, I have not been able to locate this work. Maybe the payoff for such effort just is not there. Maybe there is a lack of grant support to fund academic research, but we academics are still interested in topics that seldom bring funding. There is a payoff available to those who develop tools and services in the form of subscriptions and for those writing self-help books that attract attention in the form of sales.

As I consider what it would take to work on these topics, I can imagine the challenges researchers would face. How would you collect data and how would you assure privacy when the tools used are often associated with work? How would you get individuals to participate in studies? What would individuals be willing to provide if you wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of the technique employed? I at least would hope individuals might be willing to provide information about the tools they used, how long they have used these tools, and how they have used the tools and perhaps changed their patterns of use over time.

Adults continually have learning tasks to keep up with vocational demands and for personal growth. We are told that rapid advancements in so many areas and so many information sources learning and learning to learn using technology would seem of increasing value. Perhaps by explaining my observations I can interest those still involved as active researchers. It is also possible I am missing a body of research that would address my interests. If this is the case, I would welcome suggestions.

Design learning experiences using generative activities – Layering

I have written multiple posts explaining generative activities and how such external activities encourage productive cognitive behaviors. Some of these posts describe specific classroom applications of individual generative tasks. In this post, I intend to describe how educators can apply some of these generative activities when they assign web content (pages or videos).

In many cases, online content assigned in K12 classrooms was not prepared as instructional content. For example, an article from Scientific American might offer information relevant to a specific standard addressed in sophomore biology. What activities might an instructor add to help learners understand, remember, and possibly apply concepts within this article. For example, a textbook would likely have activities inserted at the end of a chapter, added as boxes within content, or recommended in a teacher’s manual. Instructors often make additions as class assignments. What I am supporting here is similar to what educational researchers have described as adjunct questions. These were originally questions added within instructional texts or attached at the end of such texts. Embedded activities play different roles than even the same activities might play when delayed and isolated from the informative content. At the time of initial exposure, my argument is that there is a difference between information and instructional content and the connection of generative learning activities is a way to make this transition.

A couple of years ago I became interested in a group of online services that were developed to improve the educational value of online content (web pages and videos). I developed my own way of describing what these services were developed to accomplish. Layering seemed a reasonable description because these services could not actually modify the content originally shared by content creators for ethical and legal reasons. What a layering service could do was take the feed from the creator’s service and add elements on top of that content. Elements were additions that could encourage important cognitive behaviors in a learner.

With a layering service, the content a learner encounters is a combination of the content from the content creator and additions layered on this content. Two sources and servers are involved. From the perspective of a designer, a layering service works by accepting the URL for a web page or video from the designer and then allows the designer to add elements that appear within or on top of the content from the designated source. The layering service sends this combination to the learner and this does not change the original document and still downloads the original from the server each time the combination of original and layered content is requested by a user. Ads still appear and the content server still records the download to give the creator credit. The layering service generates a link provided to learners and recreates the composite of content and designer additions each time a learner uses that link.

Questions are my favorite example of an external activity that can be added to encourage a variety of important thinking (internal) behaviors. For example, if you want a learner to link a new concept to everyday experiences the concept is useful in understanding, you might ask the learner to provide examples that show the application of the concept. Many learners may do this without the question, but the question increases the likelihood more learners will work to identify such connections with their existing experiences. Those who think about instruction in this way may describe what they are doing as designing instruction. I offer an extended description of generative activity in a previous post.

Depending on the specific service, the elements that layering services I am aware of include annotations, highlighting, questions, and discussion prompts. Annotations could include additional material such as examples, translations, or instructions. Questions could be open-ended or multiple-choice. A few of these elements could also be added by the learner (highlights and annotations) so elements provided to the designer could be used to encourage specific use of the elements available to students.

My personal interest in promoting layering services is intended to encourage the use of services that allow educators, educational content designers, and learners to work with this content to provide more effective learning resources and more generative learning experiences. In addition, content creators have a right to assume the server used by the content creator will be contacted each time content is requested and inclusions such as ads are included. The expectations of the content creator are not ignored when using a layering service.

I have identified several services that meet my definition of a layering service. Here, I will describe one service focused on web pages and one that focused on video. Other examples can be explored from the page linked above and I assume others exist that I have not identified. Services are constantly being updated, but I have just worked with the two examples I describe here and this information should be current as of the uploading of this post.

Insert Learning

Insert Learning is my best example of the services promoted here. I say this because it offers the most generative options and the generative options are part of an environment allowing an educator to both create multiple lessons, assign these lessons to members of multiple classes, and record data on student completion of some of the types of activity involved in individual lessons.

The following image should give you some idea how this works. Down the left border of the image, you see a menu of icons allowing the designer to select highlight, note, question, and discussion. Highlight and note work as one probably expects. When the icon is selected text can be highlighted by the designer or learner. The note icon adds what appear as Postit notes allowing the inclusion of text, links, images, video, and whatever else works as an embed. The question icon adds questions either multiple choice as appears in the image or open-ended. The discussion icon appears very much like an open-ended question but accumulates and displays responses from multiple learners to a prompt.

As I said, Insert Learning differentiates itself from many of the other services because the layering component is part of a system that allows the assignment of lessons to individual students organized as classes and also collects responses to questions by lesson and student. The following image shows a couple of responses to an open-ended question. I used Insert Learning in a graduate course I taught in Instructional Design. I made use of several of the tools I presented to students even when the most common use would be in K-12. This image shows how responses to questions would appear in the Grade Book. I could assign a score to a response and this score would then be visible to the student submitting a given response.

It has been a few years since I used Insert Learning. When I did, I paid $8 a month. I see the price has now increased to $20 a month or $100 for the year.

EdPuzzle

EdPuzzle is a service for adding questions and notes to videos. It includes a system for adding these elements, assigning these videos to students, and saving student responses to questions. The following images are small to allow them to be inserted in this post. In the following image, the red box on the right allows the selection of the element to be added – MC question, open-ended question, and note. The timeline underneath the video (middle) is also enclosed in a red box. As the designer watches the video, clicking one of these buttons stops the video and allows the selected addition to be included. A dot appears below the timeline to indicate where an element has been added. A learner can either play the video which will stop for a response when one of these inclusions is reached or select one of the dots to respond. The second image shows the dialog box used to add an open-ended question.

In the video I used in this example, I created a demonstration using Python to run LOGO commands and saved the video to YouTube. Again, this was a demonstration used in a graduate edtech course. Early in the video, I showed and explained the LOGO code. The video then showed the result of running this program.

When using EdPuzzle with this video, I inserted a note asking students to take a pencil and sheet of paper to draw what the LOGO program would create. Near the end of the video, I inserted an open-ended question asking that students explain how Papert’s notion of computational understanding would provide a different way of thinking about the traditional definition of circle (i.e., a plane closed figure with points equidistant from a point).

I used the free version of EdPuzzle because I only assigned students to a few examples to experience what the service provided. You can do a lot with this service at no cost. The pro-level price is $13.50 per month. EdPuzzle Pricing

Summary – these two examples demonstrate the use of layering services to add generative activities to a web page and a web video. There are similar services available from other companies that generate similar student experiences. The value in such services is the opportunity to design learning experiences containing activities likely to improve understanding and retention.