Many of the recommendations I make for classroom and even nonschool-affiliated learning strategies are based in my understanding of generative learning. I have described a specific activity as generative in previous things I have written, but I don’t think I have ever made the effort to provide what I mean by generative. I decided I would give this background now both to explain what the term implies to me and to have something I can refer to in the future.
My applied work in educational psychology is based in cognitive psychology. Cognition is just a way of understanding thinking. Unless someone is really interested in digging into the field, I think it helps if I make an effort to translate some of the core ideas. There is always a danger making the complex simple is a bad idea and my efforts at simplification are off target, but I do it anyway. Think of thinking in terms of mental actions. Assume that learners have at their disposal mental actions they can use to accomplish the thinking and learning tasks they encounter. Learners may differ in which actions are selected to tackle a given task, how skillfully the tools are applied, and how effectively they evaluate the outcome of tool application to determine whether or not more needs to be done.
Here are four actions with a description of the task to which each would typically be applied:
Attend – maintain certain ideas in consciousness (also called working memory)
Find and retrieve – locate what is already stored (also known as long-term memory) and attend to this content
Link – establish connections between information units stored in long-term memory or that content active in working memory
Elaborate – create or discover new knowledge from the logical and purposeful combination of active and stored memory components
Evaluate – determine whether a cognitive task has been completed successfully
We can often take control and apply these activities without assistance, but motivation or lack of awareness of what activities might be useful can result in important activities not happening. Generative activities (Wittrock, 1974, 1990) are external to the internal mental activities of the learner but can make predictable internal activities more likely to occur. Questions about something a student is trying to learn make a good example. A question is external to the thinking of a learner. However, if I ask a question and you cannot answer, attempting to answer this question should have required you to evaluate your understanding. In attempting to answer my question, you have also probably made the effort to find and retrieve information. One related thing to consider – generative activities may encourage activities that are redundant with activities a learner have initiated on her own. This probably does no harm, but it also might be described as busy work. Cognitive activity is always the mental work of the learner with others only able to manipulate such behaviors indirectly and with less precision than a competent and motivated learner could do for themself.
What are some examples of generative activities? Fiorella and Mayer (2016) have identified a list of eight general categories most educators can probably turn into specific tasks. These categories include:
Summarizing
Mapping
Drawing
Imagining
Self-Testing
Self-Explaining
Teaching
Enacting
Summarizing – To summarize, students think about what they have just learned and then rephrase the most important information in their own words.
Mapping – Mapping is the process of converting words into a visual representation. Mind maps, tables, diagrams, and graphs are all common examples.
Drawing – Drawing is a great way to help your students learn more deeply about the material you are teaching. When students draw, they have to think about what information to include, what to leave out, and how to best represent it visually.
Imagining – Forming a mental representation of new information is surprisingly beneficial for learning. An example is tasking your students to imagine the process of digestion by creating mental pictures of each step.
Self-testing – Self-testing is a highly effective learning method. Educators likely recognize that retrieval practice (self-testing) is presently receiving a lot of attention. Some examples of self-testing include using flashcards and quizzes.
Self-explaining – Self-explaining requires students to recall new information and explain it in their own words. This helps students to understand the material better and to avoid simply repeating back what they have read or heard.
Teaching – Peer teaching is another active strategy requiring the recall and translation of what has been learned to present to others. Teaching involves preparation, delivery, and interaction related to the content to be learned. Most educators intuitively appreciate the unique requirements of teaching and recognize that learning for the self and to inform others involve different activities.
Enacting – I think demonstrating is an acceptable way to explain what the researchers meant by enacting.
Generative learning is a powerful approach to education that encourages learners to actively engage with the material, creating new knowledge and connections. This method, grounded in the work of Fiorella and Mayer (2016), and Brod (2021), among others, is centered around the idea that learning is not a passive process, but an active one that involves the learner in the creation of their own understanding.
The strategies I have listed require learners to select and organize relevant information, elaborate on the material based on personal knowledge, and integrate new information with existing knowledge.
Summarization, for instance, involves concisely stating the main ideas from a lesson in one’s own words. This goes beyond copying words or phrases verbatim from the lesson; rather, it involves selecting the most relevant information from the lesson, organizing it into a coherent structure such as an outline, and integrating it with students’ prior knowledge.
Teaching involves selecting the most relevant information to include in one’s explanation, organizing the material into a coherent structure that can be understood by others, and elaborating on the material by incorporating one’s existing knowledge.
Generative learning is not just about the creation of new content. Brod (2021) emphasizes that generative learning requires the production of a meaningful product that goes beyond the information that is an input. This means that activities like highlighting, which do not result in new content, are not considered generative.
Generative learning strategies are not just for students. They can be used by anyone looking to deepen their understanding of a topic. For example, if you’re reading a book or article, try summarizing the main points in your own words, or explaining the concepts to someone else. You might be surprised at how much more you understand the material!
Fiorella and Mayer (2016) offer one additional observation related to these eight types of activity. Four strategies (summarizing, mapping, drawing, and imagining) involve changing the input into a different form of representation.
The other four strategies (self-testing, self-explaining, teaching, and answering practice questions) require additional elaboration. This distinction contrasts ”knowledge-building” and ” knowledge-telling” (e.g., Roscoe and Chi, 2007). Knowledge telling is regarded as the weak form involving a restatement of what is known with limited activation of other existing knowledge (e.g., attempts to generate examples from personal experience) and less extensive monitoring of understanding. In knowledge-building, the strong form, the learner adds to core ideas from existing personal knowledge and in doing to reflects on the core ideas in greater depth resulting in more effective comprehension monitoring.
One additional comment about the eight categories is that the categories were explained by the scholars identifying this category system in terms what the learner could do. While learners could certainly decide to do these things without guidance, it is probably more likely that these external tasks are recommended or assigned by an educator.
What I have described to this point is how I would likely cover this topic in an educational setting. This approach would be designed to be true to what I believe to be the origins of the ideas and learners can then apply what they find useful. Given this background, my own research and practice have both focused on a subset of this list of activities and have taken the general idea of using external tasks to encourage desirable mental activities to recommend activities that share characteristics with the tasks mentioned. I have focused on questions, summarization, teaching, and self-explaining and proposed applications that have included peer tutoring and collaborative notetaking, writing across the curriculum, computer-enabled study environments that involve testing associated with accuracy prediction and data collection that feeds the identification of specific areas needed more work back to students, and the technology-based collection and exploration of notes over extended periods of time to improve personal productivity (smart notes and personal knowledge management). Thinking of external activities that efficiently encourage important cognitive activities has proven a productive way to both think about learning and what tasks may be helpful in helping students learn.
References:
Brod, G. (2021). Generative learning: Which strategies for what age? Educational Psychology Review, 33(4), 1295-1318.
Fiorella, L., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). Eight ways to promote generative learning. Educational Psychology Review, 28(4), 717-741.
Roscoe, R. D. & Chi, M.T. (2007). Understanding tutor learning: Knowledge-building and knowledge-telling in peer tutors’ explanations and questions. Review of Educational Research, 77, 534-574.
Wittrock, M.C. (1974). Learning as a generative process. Educational Psychologist, 11, 87-95.
Have you ever had what you thought was a great idea and after getting started working on it you were distracted by an even bigger and probably more important project? Did you ever go back to the original idea?
In the early 1990s, my wife and I were involved in introducing computers to students in ways we hoped would allow students to learn through engagement in multimedia projects. One of our first projects which became known as the butterfly project involved an elementary teacher (Pam Carlson) who annually involved her students in studying butterflies. The students learned the life cycle of a butterfly (egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, adult) and both read about butterflies and raised Painted Lady butterflies. We worked with Pam to extend her existing activities to include multimedia authoring using Macintosh computers, Kid Pix, and Hypercard.
We found a thematic coloring book about butterflies and digitized images. Students selected a butterfly and used Kid Pix to color the image appropriately. They also investigated their butterfly to find interesting facts including where is the country the butterfly could be found. They indicated the range on a map and added facts as audio.
Kid Pix saved content in a unique type of file. Sound and images were saved in the file as resources. I was able to use a program called ResEdit to extract images and sound from these files and paste this content into Hypercard cards. It may seem strange now, but early tech involved some hacking. I was able to create a HyperCard stack consisting of the cards created by all of the students that would play as a slideshow. This required I generate a script for each card that started playing the audio when the card opened and wait long enough for the audio to play before advancing to the next card. I created a front card for the stack that showed an insect collection box with miniatures of each butterfly that served as buttons to link to the card providing the information about that butterfly. When displayed on a large television monitor it was pretty impressive for the time.
Some months later my wife and I were attending a conference in Chicago and were exploring a large bookstore. We discovered a section containing a large number of thematic coloring books. This became the starting point for our adventure. In the front matter of a coloring book, I found that the collection of coloring books was published by Houghton-Mifflin and an address was included for the publisher. When I returned home, I used the address to propose an idea. Houghton-Mifflin should digitize the coloring books and I would write a short manual explaining how the collection of images could be used in learner multimedia projects. I explained several different types of projects.
Some time went by and we were eventually informed that HMCO did not really have a way to implement what they thought was an interesting idea. Another month or so went by and we received another contact from Houghton-Mifflin explaining that our idea had somehow been passed around the company and the editor for the higher education division wanted to visit us and see some of our projects in schools. I know quite a few book reps and textbook authors and I have never heard of this type of response. Again, at the time what we said grade school kids were creating sounded very strange.
We had a great visit setting up meetings with a couple of teachers we worked with and showing the projects. We were eventually offered a book deal with the expectation that we include our ideas about technology-enabled project-based learning within a general book for what I came to describe as the teacher training “learning to integrate technology” course. This was the big adventure that took over our work leaving behind the specific proposal for multimedia authoring to learn projects. We eventually wrote this book (Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning) and two years later with the dawning of the Internet age Integrating the Internet for Meaningful Learning. These two textbooks were eventually merged and we published 5 editions of the resulting book over the next 15+ years.
HMCO sold its higher ed collection and eventually, we ended up publishing through Cengage. As our perspective on the ideal resource for the type of course that would best serve practicing and in-service teachers changed and as our familiarity with textbook companies increased, we proposed changing the resources offered to learners. The three-year or so revision process in a rapidly changing field like educational technology made it impossible to address current thinking and resources. The revision cycle also required that we wait and then frantically revise when a new edition was authorized.
As an alternative, we proposed a less expensive ($29) Primer focused on core ideas and a website that would be continually updated with current content. The Primer would incorporate some portions of this web content when the next edition was created and this revision process could be quicker and more effective given this approach. We could never get to an agreement on a way to do this and as we approached retirement we agreed that we would receive our copyright on our content and we ended up creating a version of our proposal as a Kindle book. Even book companies offering leasing/rental plans do not deal with all of the challenges of the textbook industry. The revision cycle combined with the reality that companies only make income on the original sale encourages companies to continually push new releases. I still think less expensive (and smaller) textbooks combined with online resources offer a good compromise solution.
Back to the original idea
The clipart idea and multimedia projects were not actually wholly forgotten. I have always been an advocate of writing across the curriculum. My take has been to improve a text-only approach by emphasizing multimedia authoring. Writing and teaching others offer many advantages as generative activities requiring the use of knowledge and evaluation of understanding (metacognition). Authoring activities are relatively easy to implement in most curriculum areas and products can be shared as a means of encouragement. The productivity allowed by writing to learn is a reason I have mixed feelings about some AI applications. AI offers significant benefits for improving writing skills, but reliance on AI when writing to learn ruins the generative benefits that are involved. I think self-driven learners understand the difference, but those willing to satisfy assignments in the most convenient way possible will lose out when relying heavily on AI.
OWLs
Back to multimedia authoring. I had a unique opportunity to continue my interest in learner multimedia authoring. This opportunity emerged in an unusual way. My undergraduate training was in biology. I originally intended to be a high school biology teacher, but became interested in research on science teaching and was drafted for military service eventually resulting in a commitment to grad school.
When I finished and began working at the University of North Dakota, I connected with North Dakota Game and Fish promoting a program they called OWLS (Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites). Game and Fish provided small grants to schools for the development of prairie gardens. These were small sites planted to native vegetation potentially attracting helpful insects and watchable wildlife (the organization’s term for wildlife they did not manage for hunting). I worked with the state agency to host a web server focused on providing project information and sharing among sites. I also visited and taught workshops to promote the concept and teaching related tech skills that would apply (e.g., multimedia authoring, digital photography). I did convince the organization to pay for a collection of wildlife clipart that was originally sold for $4 and sold as a hypercard stack. Eventually, we just placed the collection online allowing anyone to cut and paste what they might find helpful.
I happened to think of this experience and remembered that I still have this clipart on my server. It is saved as bitmaps so lacks the versatility now expected.
Useful clipart alternatives are available. I pay a small fee ($20 a year) to use images from the Noun Project and you will see these images in some of my posts. Educators interested in clipart for projects may find this source of value. The following were selected as alternatives to the images I selected from the ND CllipArt Collection
I have become a fan of digital photography and imagery as an alternative to the use of line art. With so many learners carrying smartphones, they have a high-quality camera always available. Images are also available online, but it is important to be sensible to copyright issues and look for images offered under a Creative Commons license. I make an effort to offer images I think may be helpful to others and propose that learning about Creative Commons and sharing images is a great learning opportunity.
One more addition. Since I mentioned AI, I asked Google’s Duet to comment on the educational benefits of student use of clipart. The following is the product of that request.
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Created using Google Duet AI
Help me write an article about students using clipart to develop writing projects.
Help me write an article about students using clipart to develop writing projects. Students can use clipart to develop writing projects in a variety of ways. For example, they can use clipart to illustrate their writing, to create visual aids, or to brainstorm ideas.
Clipart can be a helpful tool for students who are struggling to get started on a writing project. By browsing through a collection of clipart, students can be inspired by the images and come up with ideas for their own writing. Clipart can also be used to create visual aids that can help students to explain their ideas more clearly. For example, a student could use clipart to create a timeline of events or to illustrate a concept.
Clipart can also be used to brainstorm ideas. By cutting and pasting images together, students can create collages that represent their thoughts and ideas. This can be a helpful way for students to generate ideas and to get their creative juices flowing.
Overall, clipart can be a valuable tool for students who are working on writing projects. It can help students to illustrate their writing, to create visual aids, and to brainstorm ideas.
Here are some additional tips for using clipart in writing projects:
Choose clipart that is relevant to the topic of the writing project.
Use clipart sparingly so that it does not distract from the text.
Label all clipart so that readers know what it represents.
Credit the source of the clipart if it is not your own original work.
You can make cognition as simple or complex as you want, but for me, learning boils down to thinking about experiences and being an effective educator boils down to encouraging and perhaps directing this thinking in students.
Research conducted by educational and cognitive psychologists provides some ideas about how this directing and encouraging might be accomplished. I always emphasize the “might” in my writing. Simply put, learning must be accomplished by the learner and another person or an external task can only work when a learner engages with that person or that task.
I find the research cognitive psychologists conduct incredibly useful in understanding what it takes to accomplish learning and based on this understanding how educators and learners might then proceed to be more successful. Just as every gardener does not have to study botany and chemistry to achieve a great harvest of tomatoes, not every researcher must immerse herself or himself in the details and depth of research to be a successful educational practitioner. Some practitioners may be fascinated with how understanding and retention are accomplished and others just may want to know what tasks to assign that are usually productive. As an academic retiree, I spend some time as a translator between these two types of individuals. I would also propose that the interaction of these two groups is important because ideas flow in both directions. For science-based approaches to change and improve both groups should be willing to share their perspectives and be thoughtful in interpreting the ideas presented to them.
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. It seemed that these services were designed to transform informational content into learning experiences and this was accomplished by layering different elements or tasks on the original content. Layering seemed the correct description because these services could not actually modify the content originally shared by content creators for ethical and legal reasons, but what the service could do was take the feed from the creator’s service and add elements on top. Elements were additions that could encourage important cognitive behaviors in a learner. I typically describe these elements as external tasks that encourage cognitive or mental behaviors. This description is similar to what others call generative activities (to be accurate generative activities are sometimes described as requiring the creation of a product, but the idea of an external task to influence cognitive behavior is the same). 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. What are the cognitive tasks that are important in learning a certain thing and what external activities might be added to the exposure to the input of demonstrations and other inputs to increase the probability these cognitive behaviors occur?
For example, what external tasks would increase the likelihood of:
Knowledge activation – what do I already know that is relevant
Elaboration – how does this input fit with what I know and what might it imply
Comprehension monitoring – do I understand, does this apply as I think it does
Retrieval practice – what makes this easier to retrieve when it is appropriate
Depending on the specific service, the elements that layering services provided included 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.
The application of this approach to AI-assisted study behavior
My interests seem to occur in waves. There was the layering wave and I, like so many others, have launched into an AI in education wave. AI has rapidly taken over most of the online discussions I follow. AI can be applied in many ways, but I think at this time one of the most productive is study behavior. One of my core interests has always been study behavior. I define study behavior broadly as everything that follows the initial exposure to new experiences. Note-taking in class occurs after the initial exposure. The questions a teacher asks or the discussions that are encouraged with peers during class occur after the initial exposure. Then, there are all of the activities, required and voluntary, students engage in on their own. For those of us outside of a formal educational setting, we may engage in such activities as taking notes or highlighting what we read to enhance the benefit of pure exposure to new material.
My new interest is in how AI tools can be applied as a tutor or skilled peer to improve the study experience. There is a good deal of overlap between the approach I have been taking with promoting layering services and now with AI tutoring. Tutoring is possibly the best way to assist a learner, but tutoring is expensive and access is not always available. If we consider what a tutor does for a learner and also take the approach I describe as identify productive external tasks that promote learning, we may find similar opportunities when treating some AI services as a tutor.
What I am proposing here is not that novel and efforts to create smart tutors have generated commercial and research interest for years and presently by organizations with connections to education (Google, Khan Academy). What I think I can add are some ideas about using an available AI tool (ChatPDF) right now to explore this capacity.
ChatPDF as the name implies allows an AI-assisted interaction with a PDF that you upload. Focusing AI on a specifically designated resource has both advantages and disadvantages. With studying, you are often studying something specific – a specific resource. The information you are encountering might be available from many other sources, but if you are a student, your responsibility can be defined in terms of specific sources. The advantage I have found with using a specific resource rather than “general knowledge” with present AI applications is that my interaction seems more accurate with a target source. I have less challenges with an AI chat service wandering off and offering content that is identifiably erroneous. This will likely change as improvements continue, but for now there are problems. The disadvantage of targeting a specific source is that aspects of studying involve going beyond the information provided to speculate about examples and applications not presented in the target material. When you constrain the interaction to a source, I have found AI struggles with this type of expectation. AI tools now available can do many impressive things, but you do need to have a sense of what is reasonable to expect and what problems might occur.
I recognize that many resources a student encounters are not provided as pdfs (e.g., a textbook). I have no immediate workaround for this challenge so I offer this post as a recommendation for exploration. I predict this is what is coming and that there are opportunities available now in specific situations. For my own exploration, I have been using the content I wrote. I want to make certain I understand the content I am applying AI to investigate at a deep level so I can evaluate what the AI offers me as a learner. I have authored a couple of textbooks and I was able to take the word processing file of a chapter, save it as a pdf, and then upload it to ChatPDF (here is the chapter if you want to submit it yourself and mimic my prompts).
As I explored ChatPDF and thinking about arguing the service could act as a tutor, I decided that that comparison to a professional tutor might be a bit much. Perhaps, more accurately, the AI service could be described as acting like a capable peer. A talented peer would be helpful and accurate most of the time, but you might also expect that sometimes you would find things your peer did not quite get as well as you did and still find it helpful to continue to study with this individual.
What follows are some of my interactions with the chapter I uploaded using ChatPDF. I label the material in the following may – Comment, Prompt, and AI – so you can interpret the various examples I provide. Remember that if the AI presents a question and the learner responds, the question is the AI presenting and the answer is the learner returning a Prompt. Prompts are what the learner submits and AI is always what the service replies in the material that follows. The idea with these examples is to offer some insights into how this tool could be used by a learner to assist them in improving their understanding and retention of content. Unlike a human tutor, a learner must prompt the AI system to create the interaction. However, the system is quite versatile and it is worth the time to just explore and see what it will do. As you will see, the system allows a conversation to continue through several interactions so there may be multiple prompts and responses that continue on the same initial theme. This would be the way a student and tutor interact.
ChatPDF Examples
[Comment] Gagne’s 9 events, a very popular model of instructional design, suggests a learning experience begin with an event intended to capture learner attention. To me, using ChatPDF after reading assigned content is a study experience that would not typically include this element, but just to offer an example of how an AI service might generate such an event see the following.
[Prompt] Identifying something from this chapter that will likely surprise me.
[AI] Something surprising and interesting idea from this chapter is the concept of “personal theories,” which are individual beliefs or mental models that people develop based on their experiences and observations. These personal theories can sometimes be flawed or inaccurate, and may lead to inert knowledge if they are not challenged or corrected by more formal, accurate theories learned in an educational setting. This highlights the importance of not just teaching information, but also helping students to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to evaluate their own beliefs and assumptions.
[Comment] Activate existing knowledge. Events two and three in Gagne’s model are to identify goals and activate relevant existing knowledge. Again, I am focusing here on how a tutor might guide study, but again I will show a use of the AI tutor that accomplish such goals and with this example I will show how a learner could followup as one might with a human tutor.
[Prompt] What are the most important ideas I should learn from this chapter?
[AI] This chapter covers several key ideas related to the nature of learning and the thinking processes necessary to produce learning. Some of the most important ideas include understanding how students learn, what skills and knowledge they should acquire, and how to design effective learning tasks that promote meaningful learning. Additionally, we discuss the cognitive system at both a detailed and conceptual level, identifying core functions that contribute to student learning. Finally, we emphasize the importance of considering the limitations of the cognitive system when designing instruction.
[Prompt] What are questions I should be able to answer to show I have learned these important ideas?
[AI] To demonstrate your understanding of the important ideas covered in this chapter, you might be able to answer questions such as:
What are some key factors that influence how students learn?
How can you design learning tasks that promote meaningful learning?
What are some core functions of the cognitive system that contribute to student learning?
Why is it important to consider the limitations of the cognitive system when designing instruction?
How can you use your understanding of how students learn and what skills and knowledge they should acquire to inform your teaching practice?
[Prompt] Let me pick one of these questions to see if I understand.
[AI] Sure, feel free to pick any of the questions I provided earlier and I’ll do my best to help you answer it!
[Prompt] What are some limitations of the cognitive system that educators should consider when designing instruction?
Learners can easily become overloaded when learning something new. Their existing knowledge may also not provide necessary background knowledge and they need time to process new ideas. If more and more information is added before students have time to think, they will miss things when they become overloaded.
[AI] You did a good job summarizing the idea that learners can become overloaded when presented with too much information at once. It is important for educators to consider the limitations of the cognitive system when designing instruction, such as the limited capacity of working memory and the importance of providing sufficient time for learners to process new information. By taking these limitations into account, educators can design instruction that is more effective and helps learners avoid becoming overloaded.
[Comments] One of the easiest uses of AI is to use it to ask and respond to questions. You can test your understanding of a claim you make or ask the service to present you with questions. The wording of the prompts is important in getting the service to interact with you in the way you want. Read the way I ask the service to present me with a series of multiple-choice questions carefully.
[Prompt] Is the limit of short term memory what I can remember the next day
[AI] According to page 3 of this PDF, there is a limit to how long information will be maintained in working memory without continued attention. This means that the limit of short-term memory is not necessarily what you can remember the next day, but rather how much information you can hold in your mind at any one time without actively rehearsing or attending to it.
[Prompt] If I am a teacher, how can I provide a form of metacognition for a student when that student cannot provide it for himself?
[AI] As a teacher, you can provide metacognitive support to students who may not be able to provide it for themselves. One way to do this is by modeling metacognitive strategies and explicitly teaching students how to use them. For example, you might demonstrate how to monitor comprehension while reading by thinking aloud and sharing your thought process with the class. You could also provide prompts or questions that encourage students to reflect on their own learning, such as “What did you learn from this activity?” or “What strategies did you use to solve this problem?” Additionally, you could encourage peer-to-peer discussions where students can share their own insights and perspectives on the learning process. By providing these types of supports, you can help students develop their metacognitive skills and become more effective learners.
[Prompt] Ask me a short essay question based on the content of this chapter.
[AI] How can teachers help students to develop critical thinking skills and avoid the phenomenon of “inert knowledge”? Provide specific examples of instructional strategies that can be used in the classroom to promote active learning and meaningful application of new information.
[Prompt] Remind students they learned information relevant to a novel problem in class as part of challenging them with a new problem to solve.
[AI] This statement aligns with the concept of “transfer” discussed in the chapter on “Inert Knowledge.” Transfer refers to the ability to apply knowledge and skills learned in one context to new situations or problems. One way that teachers can promote transfer is by explicitly connecting new problems or tasks to previously learned information or skills. By reminding students of what they have already learned and how it relates to the current problem, teachers can help students make connections and apply their knowledge in a more meaningful way. This can also help to avoid the phenomenon of inert knowledge, where students may have acquired information but are unable to use it effectively in new situations.
[Comment] A limitation is revealed in the following interaction. The tutor asks a question requesting an example and the example given is not something the tutor understands to be a part of the chapter.
[Prompt] Ask me a short essay question based on this chapter
[AI]] How can the concept of “inert knowledge” impact student learning, and what strategies can teachers use to help students avoid this phenomenon? Provide specific examples to support your answer.
[Prompt] A parent knows that young children may commit some bad behaviors to get his parents attention, but typically parents respond to such misbehaviors anyway.
[AI] I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how this statement relates to the chapter on “Inert Knowledge” and learning strategies. Is there a specific question or topic you would like me to address?
[Prompt] Generate 10 multiple choice questions for this document. Number the questions and allow me to provide an answer for each number. Do not provide answers I can see.
[AI] Sure, here are 10 multiple choice questions based on the document:
What is metacognition?
a) The capacity to direct and control our own cognitive behavior
b) The ability to memorize information quickly
c) The process of learning through repetition
d) The use of external tasks to support weak cognition
What is the common challenge when working with a group of learners?
a) Meeting individual needs when working with a group
b) Encouraging students to work independently
c) Providing enough resources for all students
d) Ensuring that all students have the same level of knowledge
What is an example of metacognitive control?
a) Monitoring your own understanding of the material
b) Memorizing information without understanding it
c) Repeating information until it is learned
d) Using external tasks to support cognition
What is metacognitive knowledge?
a) Personal insights regarding the self and tasks and potential strategy options
b) Memorized information about a subject area
c) The ability to repeat information quickly and accurately
d) The use of external tasks to support cognition
How can teachers provide metacognitive support to students?
a) By modeling metacognitive strategies and explicitly teaching students how to use them
b) By providing lectures without any interaction from students
c) By assigning homework without any guidance or feedback
d) By providing multiple-choice tests only
What is an example of an external task that may support weak metacognition?
a) Study questions
b) Group discussions
c) Peer-to-peer feedback
d) Individual reflection
What does effective tool use require?
a) Recognizing task demands, personal strengths and weaknesses, and insight necessary to recognize and respond when a plan does not achieve expected results.
b) Memorizing information quickly without understanding it.
c ) Repeating information until it is learned.
d) Using external tasks to support cognition.
What is the capacity to direct and control our own cognitive behavior?
a) Metacognition
b) External tasks
c) Cognitive processing
d) Learning strategies
What is the importance of understanding how students learn?
a) It helps teachers design effective learning experiences for students
b) It helps teachers memorize information quickly
c) It helps teachers assign homework without any guidance or feedback
d) It helps teachers provide multiple-choice tests only
[Prompt] 1 a
[AI] Correct! Metacognition is the capacity to direct and control our own cognitive behavior.
[Prompt] 2 a
[AI] Correct! The common challenge when working with a group of learners is meeting individual needs when working with a group.
etc.
[Comment] Here is a sequence generated when I asked for help understanding, but was unclear about whether the AI bot “understands” a concept in the same way I use the concept. For example, I understand that inert has to do with what context triggers the use of knowledge. Hence, a student who understands the meaning of a word on a test or when asked in class would not necessarily access the same knowledge when in a different context (at home reading a book) that does not trigger “school content”. This seems how I used the term when writing the cognitive chapter. I ended up trying to negotiate an interpretation by interacting with AI as tutor which while not generating a simple clarification I might have wanted was fairly sophisticated. I found myself arguing with the AI service about the meaning of something I had written, but this interaction was interesting.
[Prompt] Help me understand inert learning. What does the term mean and provide an example.
[AI] Inert learning refers to the phenomenon where students may learn information but are unable to apply it in new or unfamiliar contexts. In other words, they may be able to repeat information but are not able to use it in a meaningful way. An example of inert learning might be a student who memorizes a list of vocabulary words for a test but is unable to use those words in conversation or writing outside of the test context. This can happen when students are taught information in isolation, without opportunities to practice applying it in different contexts or with different types of problems. To avoid inert learning, it is important for teachers to provide opportunities for students to practice using new information in different ways and contexts.
[Prompt] What do you mean by test context? What do you mean by a meaningful way?
[AI] By “test context,” I mean the specific situation in which the student is asked to demonstrate their knowledge, such as on a quiz or exam. In this context, the student may be able to recall information that they have memorized, but they may not be able to apply it in a more complex or unfamiliar situation.
By “meaningful way,” I mean using the information in a way that is relevant and useful to the student’s life or goals. For example, if a student is learning about fractions, being able to use that knowledge to solve real-world problems involving measurements or cooking would be a meaningful application of that knowledge.
[Prompt] Would the concept of inert knowledge predict a student might be able to provide a correct meaning for a word from the test if a teacher asked for a definition, but not when the student encountered the word while reading at home?
[AI] Yes, that is a possible example of inert knowledge. If a student is able to provide a correct definition of a word on a test or quiz, but is unable to recognize or use the word in context when reading at home, it suggests that the student has not fully internalized the meaning of the word and is not able to apply it in new or unfamiliar situations. This could be due to a lack of practice using the word in different contexts or because the student has only learned the definition in isolation without connecting it to other knowledge or experiences.
[Comment] The AI tutor is versatile and you can get it to interact with you in different ways. In the content that follows, I ask the service to generate question prompts and then an outline of ideas from the chapter as might be included in a PowerPoint presentation. I then interact with the tutor based on these prompts and parts of the PowerPoint outline.
[Prompt] Write three discussion prompts based on this chapter.
[AI] Sure, here are three discussion prompts based on the chapter:
1. What are some examples of boundaries that exist in your own experiences, and how have you crossed them?
2. How might crossing boundaries between different grade levels or schools impact your learning and personal growth?
3. In what ways can using primary sources enhance your understanding of a topic compared to using a textbook?
[Prompt] Write a response to each of these discussion prompts.
[AI] 1. Personally, I found the ideas presented in this chapter to be very relatable to my own experiences with learning. I think that the concept of crossing boundaries between different experiences is particularly relevant, as it highlights the importance of being open to new perspectives and ideas. In my own learning, have found that being willing to explore new topics and engage with different viewpoints has been key to my growth and development.
2. In terms of encouraging students to engage in meaningful learning, I think that it is important for teachers to create a supportive and inclusive classroom environment. This can involve providing opportunities for students to collaborate and share their ideas, as well as offering personalized feedback and guidance. Additionally, I think that it is important for teachers to be flexible and adaptable in their teaching methods, in order to meet the diverse needs and interests of their students.
3. One example of how the thinking processes discussed in this chapter have helped me in my own learning is through my experiences with critical thinking. By learning to question assumptions and evaluate evidence, I have been able to develop a more nuanced and informed perspective on a variety of topics. Additionally, I have found that being able to think critically has helped me to communicate my ideas more effectively, both in writing and in conversation.
[Prompt] What is wrong with reading a textbook from a tablet or computer
[AI] Research has shown that reading from a screen can result in overconfidence and poorer comprehension compared to reading from a paper source. While there are multiple hypotheses as to why this difference exists, some evidence points to metacognition. It is presently unclear why this happens, but external performance and more practice reading long form content from a screen may help compensate for the lack of insight into comprehension. However, it is important to note that this research is not suggesting that reading from a tablet or computer is inherently bad, but rather that it may require more effort and attention to ensure comprehension and avoid overconfidence.
[Prompt] I know that I should try to read from my phone while I am driving. Is this an example of working memory overload that may result in an accident?
[AI] Reading from a device while driving is not recommended as it can lead to distractions and accidents. Research has shown that reading from a screen can result in overconfidence and poorer comprehension compared to reading from a paper source. It is presently unclear why this happens, but external performance and more practice reading long form content from a screen may help compensate for the lack of insight into comprehension. Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is important for effective tool use and the skilled learner can plan to avoid difficulties or compensate for problems. However, it is important to prioritize safety while driving and avoid any distractions, including reading from a device.
[Prompt] Create the text that would appear on PowerPoint slides used to explain the memory stores and processes and cognitive process that make up the model of cognition used in this chapter.
[AI] Slide 1: Introduction to the Cognitive Perspective
– Describes learning and thinking activities in terms of multiple memory stores
– Processes or mental actions used in thinking and learning
– Executive mechanisms used to evaluate and control processes
Slide 2: Memory Stores
– Three memory stores: sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory
– Sensory memory holds information briefly
– Working memory maintains information for a short period of time
-Long-term memory stores information for a longer period of time
Slide 3: Mental Tools
– Learners have mental tools to accomplish thinking and learning tasks
– Four mental tools: Attend, Link, Elaborate, and Retrieve
– Attend maintains ideas in working memory
– Link establishes connections between information units – Elaborate adds meaning to information
– Retrieve accesses information from long-term memory
Slide 4: Evaluation and Control
– Learners use executive mechanisms to evaluate and control processes
– Determine whether processes have accomplished intended goals
– Prioritize certain learning activities based on cognitive constructs
[Prompt] When the slide says the mental tool of attend keeps information in short term memory, I think this means that when we think about something we keep what we are thinking about in our consciousness longer. Is this correct?
[AI] Yes, that’s correct. The mental tool of attend is used to maintain certain ideas in consciousness, which is also known as working memory. This helps to keep the information in our consciousness for a longer period of time, allowing us to think about it more deeply and process it more effectively.
[Prompt] When the slide says sensory memory holds information briefly, just how much time is that? I think it a couple of seconds at most. Is that correct?
[AI] Yes, that’s correct. Sensory memory holds information for a very brief period of time, usually just a few seconds at most. After that, the information either fades away or is transferred to short-term memory.
Summary comment: I hope these examples offer insight into the flexibility of ChatPDF as tutor. Learning how the AI services work takes some experimentation and most services offer the opportunity to experiment without cost. One issue I must acknowledge is that much of what I write about assumes a motivated learner. Thinking is work and work requires interest, resolve, and incentives. None of us is probably motivated to learn some of what others expect us to know. Accepting this reality, I tend to like what Sal Kahn said in defending mastery approaches to learning. Approaches that improve the success of learning address at least an important aspect of the motivational component of education. We are more interested in learning when our efforts result in success than when these efforts are frustrating and often unsuccessful. [my interpretation]
I happened on this Medium post describing what the author called the Explanation Effect. The article itself was about strategies we can apply to learn and understand and the explanation effect sounded very similar to what I have previously described as Teaching to Learn. Teaching and even preparing to teach are great generative learning activities as most teachers will tell you. You must understand something to teach it well. The explanation effect implies more than the one-way act of teaching others and might be more accurately described as an educated discussion in which the parties involved share and perhaps even argue about something. Hence there is an exchange of information, accurate or not, about something. The Medium post argued this type of experience is one of the best ways to learn.
Generative learning activities have always been a personal fascination and the explanation effect would be an example. It is an example of an activity in which engagement in an external activity provides a likely way to manipulate important cognitive behaviors involved in retention and understanding. Many of the behaviors learners engage in as study activities are intended as generative activities.
To understand why engaging in tutoring (as a learner) or peer teaching (both parties are really learners) is proposed as a superior generative activity, it might be helpful to consider a hierarchical framework of generative activities proposed by Chi (citation included at end of this post). In this hierarchical framework, higher-level activities integrate lower-level activities and as one advances through the hierarchy it is proposed that activities at that level are more productive. In the following image, I have identified the stages of this framework and added an example of each level I assume would be familiar to most educators.
Smart notes require that a learner summarize and extend an input with personal insights or examples. So, a student might highlight a concept in a textbook (active) and then construct a note that summarizes what was highlighted as the learner understands it based on existing knowledge and perhaps include an example. Hence, additional cognitive activities would be included in the construction of a note. It is important to recognize that an activity (e.g., creating a note) may or may not involve productive cognitive behaviors (e.g., copying the text into a notebook) or may involve other cognitive activities leading to even more enhanced understanding and application. As an educational device, external activities are assigned with the expectation that the use of the activity will be productive, but the cognitive connections are always under the control of the learner.
I like to describe interactive activities as involving secondary inputs. If students discuss or argue about concepts from a book, the information in the book is the original input, but the comments from a peer or a tutor are a second input. The second input may add something new for the learner to add to an existing understanding or challenge the understanding the student has originally generated and now force a reconsideration and possible modification.
Chi and others have engaged in research to justify the proposed advantages I have described here. When researchers offer insights that hopefully will influence practice, the impact tends to depend on how practitioners translate general recommendations and how practical it seems it would be to come up with activities matched to these insights. I think educators understand practices such as guided discussion or issue debates and I hope the way in which I have explained the benefits of seeking activities at the constructive and interactive levels of Chi’s framework is persuasive
Chi, M. T. (2009). Active?constructive?interactive: A conceptual framework for differentiating learning activities. Topics in cognitive science, 1(1), 73-105.
Chi, M. T., & Wylie, R. (2014). The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educational psychologist, 49(4), 219-243.
The concept of generative cognition proposes that cognition is an active process of interpreting inputs, purposeful storage, and drawing inferences. The learner must apply the various cognitive processes that accomplish a generative function, but external tasks and circumstances can influence the likelihood these processes are applied.
I understand these ideas are abstract so I will offer an example. My favorite involves the use of questions. One important cognitive outcome is that learners generate applications of concepts they have acquired. It would be ideal that individuals attempt to generate these connections on their own. However, if after presenting a principle, I ask the learner “what would be an example of xxx?” the question may prompt relevant cognitive activity. Questions are an external activity that can prompt multiple cognitive behaviors. It may seem obvious, but it was important to consider the goal when such questions are asked. Yes, it might be a way to evaluate understanding, but it is also a way to encourage a specific important type of thought that may or may not have been attempted by the learner.
So, the idea of considering how specific external tasks might change the probability of important cognitive behaviors is an important perspective for educators and instructional designers. In this case, I am proposing that writing tasks can encourage important cognitive behaviors.
External tasks and the constructivist model
A focus on generative processes is consistent with what is called the constructivist model of learning. This model argues that each individual must do the mental work to create personal understanding and application and this is done through mental activities that are applied to both existing knowledge and new inputs. Existing knowledge is used as a base for interpreting new inputs. This can be both good and bad with biases being an example of how what we already think can result in the faulty interpretation of new inputs.
To understand the constructivist perspective, it is necessary to get past a pure storage interpretation of learning. We do store the memories of experiences which are described as episodic memories, but understanding requires doing something more with both these stored episodes and new inputs.
To explain what this “something” is, I tend to describe the process as building a model. Others might suggest we generate rules or abstractions (depending on the learning that has occurred). These personally created models, rules, or abstractions are used to interpret new experiences. Sometimes the interpretation works out and sometimes it falls short. Piaget described these two outcomes as assimilation and accommodation (you might remember from Intro Psychology). When a new experience can be successfully understood as an example of an existing model, the result is assimilation. When the match reveals a problem and the existing model is changed as a consequence, Piaget called this accommodation. Hence, our models become more sophisticated to handle a greater variety of examples.
Internal accomplishments and external tasks.
Different theorists propose internal accomplishments consisting of specific components. Two similar models start with the activities of selection, organization, and integration (SOI) or selection, organization, association, and regulation (SOAR). These components explain how a thinker gets beyond simple storage.
What we already know that may be relevant to new information may or may not be activated. Activation is necessary for using existing knowledge to understand new experiences and to possibly build on what is already known. Activation is necessary for organization, association, and regulation.
The process of activation has some interesting characteristics which result in the simultaneous activation of additional content that is already linked or connected with the selected or targeted information. This body of activated information (brought into working memory) encourages elaboration (going beyond just the core idea that was targeted) because of these connections. If you are aware of the testing effect, you are aware that these connections occur because of a property of the way information is stored in memory. The effort to recall activates stored content even when it is not successful in locating the specific answer to the question prompting the retrieval effort. The information recalled that is not the answer is likely to be related and bringing this related information back into awareness (working memory) is beneficial to learning and understanding.
Writing tasks of all types are built from and prompted by internal actions. This is the case even when taking notes. The writer makes selections from the stimulus material (the book or the lecture) for recording and judgments of importance guide these selections. What is selected may depend partially on what is already known (see activating of existing knowledge). Attempting to connect with what is known produces knowledge activation similar to the testing effect. If the writer attempts to record content in other than the strict form of the external stimuli, these summaries would likely involve organization. Struggles to produce a written summary that makes sense could trigger metacognitive insights.
Other forms of writing likely have goals that require the writer place even more emphasis on organization and elaboration. Examples might include requests that a writer compare and contrast issues raised as external stimuli, persuasive arguments that contest the rationale proposed in an external stimulus, or tasks that require the writer combine information from multiple stimuli (e.g., several external sources which cover different issues on a topic or even offer conflicting information).
Relevant Research
Those interested in understanding the cognitive impact of how the typical writer is influenced by writing tasks take one of two general approaches. The first approach compares a type of writing activity with a control treatment – often rereading the source is used to control for any additional time required of the writing task. When a concurrent form of writing is involved (i.e., note-taking while listening), all that is necessary is to allow the writing and the control group the amount of time required for the presentation.
The second approach compares multiple ways of acting on a written input (reading) that compares different tasks. e.g., highlighting, taking notes, written recall, and essay. (Arnold) The intent with this approach is to determine if different external tasks have different advantages and perhaps to evaluate which cognitive activities produce which benefits (greater retention, understanding, application).
Summaries of these two research approaches produce conclusions that are inconclusive which seems fairly typical for applied educational research.
Writing of different types has been found to be beneficial when compared with a control. For example, Graham and Hebert (2011) conclude that taking notes, writing summaries, and extended writing tasks provide significant learning advantages. Hebert, et al. (2014) reach a similar conclusion.
Comparing the effectiveness of different writing tasks
Arnold and colleagues (2017) propose that different dependent measures would be useful to understanding the impact of different writing tasks. For example, several different writing tasks may improve recall (writing what you remember, compare and contrast), but task differences (e.g., recall vs. compare and contrast) may result in a different outcome should a dependent variable other than memory be used. Hebert, Simpson & Graham (2013) found no difference in what was recalled from tasks requiring taking notes, answering questions, or summarization.
Klein and colleagues (2016) conclude that the differences within a genre (because of learner skills or application efforts) are more important than the differences between writing tasks. Learner responses to writing tasks are often not as task specific as researchers would prefer and as been suggested previously external tasks do not automatically result in individuals responding in an expected way or possible at all.
Why?
Writing has established benefits impacting learning and application. Educators have important opportunities finding ways to add writing tasks to the assignments they give. I became interested in the importance of different writing tasks when writing about the benefits of taking notes in a digital format. While studies on the generative benefits of note-taking are mixed, it is important to recognize that note-takers tend to have a goal beyond the accumulation of notes. Notes are intended to be reviewed in preparation for a known task such as an examination or generated with the belief that the stored information will be useful at a later time. Note-taking does not have to be justified as a generative activity although ways of taking notes that have a generative function or that are more useful for an anticipated use would be useful to develop.
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Arnold, K. M., Umanath, S., Thio, K., Reilly, W. B., McDaniel, M. A., & Marsh, E. J. (2017). Understanding the cognitive processes involved in writing to learn. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 23(2), 115-127.
Graham, S., & Hebert, M. (2011). Writing to read: A meta-analysis of the impact of writing and writing instruction on reading. Harvard educational review, 81(4), 710-744.
Hebert, M., Graham, S., Rigby-Wills, H., & Ganson, K. (2014). Effects of Note-Taking and Extended Writing on Expository Text Comprehension: Who Benefits?. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 12(1), 43-68.
Hebert, M., Simpson, A., & Graham, S. (2013). Comparing effects of different writing activities on reading comprehension: A meta-analysis. Reading and Writing, 26(1), 111-138.
Klein, P. D., & Boscolo, P. (2016). Trends in research on writing as a learning activity. Journal of writing research, 7(3), 311-350.
I have highlighted much of what I read for probably 50 years. I started in college and I tried different approaches sometimes highlighting with different colors. My preference was the slim highlighter in yellow. When I began reading using my phone, iPad, and Kindle I learned how to highlight using these devices. My interest in educational technology led me to look more deeply into the opportunities to highlight and annotate on these devices and you may have read what I have had to say about these tools in previous posts.
Here is the thing about highlighting. If you follow the research on the efficacy of different learning/study strategies, you soon understand that highlighting is not particularly useful. I knew this too and I was interested in study techniques long before personal computers were a thing. I taught educational psychology to college students and study behavior was a topic I hoped the students would find relevant. In explaining highlighting’s poor record, I claimed students highlighted too much and may sometimes use highlighting as an excuse for not thinking. I called this the “I’ll get that later” strategy. Too often later never comes. Still, I continued to highlight and I assumed many of these students did too.
There are good reviews of the research on highlighting (Dunlosky, et al, 2013) that reach the conclusion that highlighting has low utility. I think it is important to carefully understand the methodology used in the studies that investigate highlighting. What is the breadth of the perspective? In research that examines the application of note-taking, a distinction is drawn between the generative and external functions of notes. I think a similar issue applies here. The research indicates highlighting is not cognitively active and has limited generative value, but what about external storage. If it was an hour before a major test and I was trying to review the 120 pages that were assigned in my textbook, I would rather I had highlighted that book than not.
Ahrens (citations appear at the end of this post) proposes that underlining (I would assume a practice similar to highlighting) is similar to what Ahrens classifies as fleeting notes. Fleeting notes are taken to quickly capture information and the idea of smart notes that Ahrens emphasizes focuses on the translation of fleeting notes into smart notes. A smart note can stand alone to convey meaning to the note taker and others and requires the note taker to use personal knowledge to generate a note that is meaningful.
A recent Edutopia article on highlighting reached a negative conclusion about the value of highlighting (it may even hinder learning) and suggested solutions educators should propose that could be explained in a way very similar to what I have just proposed; i.e., fleeting vs permanent. They suggest that students a) annotate their highlights with short summaries and personal reflections or b) generate questions related to the content they have highlighted.
The Edutopia suggestions bring me to the topic I want to emphasize.
Technology-based reading offers advantages over paper-based reading that are seldom emphasized. I rely heavily on highlighting when I write on my Kindle or using a browser extension that allows me to highlight web content. I don’t read from paper much anymore, but when I do I also highlight a lot. When I use my iPad or computer to read and highlight, I tend to be using tools that allow me to add annotations (actually extended additions I would prefer to describe as notes) as part of the same integrated approach. I suppose I could read from a paper source and have a notebook on my desk at the same time, but I have never actually worked in this way.
If I take notes from a highlighted book or journal article, it is usually later in some process of a task such as reviewing material in preparation to write something myself. In thinking about how I work now, I propose that reading using a technology-supported environment encourages the process of creating meaningful notes earlier in this process. There is an efficiency when meaningful notes are made during the initial process of reading new content in comparison to trying to create the same context when trying to make sense of highlights or notes that simply move unprocessed words from one paper source to another after a delay.
Given the opportunities of reading on a digital device, I think we are at a point where highlighting may have value. Under these conditions, highlighting services as a placeholder for what should be a fairly immediate generation of meaningful notes. The placeholder has two benefits – it marks and saves a location in content that offers the benefit of context should a reader need to make use of the source material later. The marked material is also isolated through highlighting and this would seem to benefit the note-making process.
I suggest it is time to prepare secondary students for these opportunities. I also argue that educators abandon the paper is best assumption. If learning is understood as a process with initial exposure not isolated from studying and review, I cannot see how paper sources have an advantage. Learn to use a digital highlighting and annotation tool and work this tool into your knowledge generation and storage work flow.
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking–for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers.
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the public interest, 14(1), 4-58.
I have become quite interested in the history of attempts to use technology to support personal productivity. Rather than begin at the stage of visionary speculation (e.g., Vannevar Bush’s Memex), I will use my own history of using digital technology to generate written products. A point to consider from the beginning of this description – what follows depends on my own recollection of the features of the digital tools I have used which may be incomplete or flawed. I am more certain of the chronology of tools.
Most of my academic work involved reading what others had already written and using my understanding of these inputs to guide my own research and writing. In a career that covered 40+ years, this involved reviewing hundreds of books and thousands of journal articles in order to produce a number of research articles, a couple of books, and more recently thousands of blog posts. Technology played a role of even my early writing if you count learning a markup language that was used to generate a dissertation initially stored on 80 column computer cards. Let’s ignore the next decade or so and skip ahead to time associated with the availability of the personal computer.
I would like to focus on what has come to be described as a second brain. My early research interest in classroom note taking has always caused me to use the description of “external storage” which was accurate at the time, but now seems too narrow. I now see the use of digital tools as striving for more than just storage. I don’t like term second brain because the phrase is too ambiguous. I think in terms of a verb – externalization. Digital tools may result in an internal record, but getting to what is stored externally is also important and understanding the value of the process or work flow enabled by digital tools is very important. This work flow is also external.
Looking back and looking forward
In preparing my comments on this topic, I have considered several ways to explain both my personal experiences and how I see progress in using technology to facilitate knowledge accumulation and the creative process. Looking back and looking forward popped into my head as a way to explain an important aspect of how the use of technology has evolved within this domain.
In my own career, my early work typically began with general reading of books and academic journals. There were certain topics I emphasized, but I knew it was wise to at least broaden what I read to topics I might cover in the classes I taught. In this exploration, I took notes on what I decided was useful and/or important information. Once in a while, I encountered an idea that really intrigued me and I wanted to make certain I would add to the topics I talked about with students or perhaps I wanted to incorporate into my research and writing activities.
These more unique discoveries often motivated me to look back. The author typically offered an idea I thought was important, but also tied it back in some way to ideas recorded in other documents. To be cited, these earlier documents were older. I used the reference section of the document I was reading to identify these sources and could then locate and read the documents published at an earlier date. This process might continue through several iterations until I either ran out of time or the historical content seemed less useful.
Looking back enabled a certain kind of linking. It helped me see how ideas built on other ideas and often how ideas diverged as new information was discovered. The literature itself has built in linkages and by following these connections I could built my own understanding and sometimes generate an external representation of this understanding.
The limitation of looking back while helpful was that it did allow an easy way to look forward. I could make crude efforts such as trying to find newer work the authors I read had generated, but this was not an easy process. If you are familiar with Google Scholar, you are familiar with a technological innovation that allows a form of looking forward. Google Scholar accumulates the citations from published work and provides a list of articles that cite an article you target with a search. This collection of citations offers a way to consider how work that follows the searched article used the information in the article you identified. What applications were attempted and how did they work? What limitations were considered and were these limitations proven to be valid. Have some of the core ideas been extended in useful ways? Now, I had to do the work of reading the new material I thought might be informative and often draw my own connections and conclusions, but at least the web of citations Google Scholar makes available is a way to start.
A twist on my way of thinking might be understand this as a social system. It is not a purposeful system as might be involved when a group of individuals works with each other to contribute to a summary valued by all. There are now digital tools for such efforts. It is simply a way to cross reference connections others have observed.
Technology-enabled discovery functions involving methods beyond the example of looking forward I have just described are the area in which I see most innovation occurring.
Technology supported thinking
Supported is the key word here. We still do the thinking, but technology can allow supports that compensate for some important limitations of the cognitive system. Retrieval makes a good example. We often know things were are unable to recall when information would be useful. The search features of technology tools often can substitute for our own efforts at retrieval.
The developments I want to describe can be understood as the evolution of reference managers. By evolution, I mean tools originally designed to store, organize, search, and export the citations stored as references have become much more and now have become external environments within which the user can think by discovering new information to expand how existing ideas are understood and gain understanding by summarizing and speculating about what others have proposed.
A technological reference manager was originally a way to store references either by the entry or importing of citations. Once entered, references could be augmented by tags, annotations, and perhaps the abstract of the original document and connections to the full document as a pdf. Having this content in a digital format allows retrieval by search and the surfacing of other stored documents containing the same search phrase or tag. Aside from the value of just having such information in a form allowing easy retrieval, reference managers saved users a lot of work by allowing citations to be output in a format that could be used as a reference section for written outputs. As an example, I used EndNote for many years. I don’t mean to imply that EndNote is a primitive reference manager as tools of this type have become more powerful over time.
I would argue that an important extension of such reference managers occurred when the tools encouraged users to write earlier. If you consider the role of tools in the process of moving beyond storage and retrieval more toward personal application, writing earlier means that a tool is used closer in time to the original exposure (reading, listening) to record personal insights, interpretations and possible applications. So, I might collect references over many years in anticipation of eventually using the sources in writing something original. Rather that wait until I want to write something to review and then trying to find ideas in my digital database of resources, I now create summaries of my ideas upon initial reading which may make later application of the content still embedded in multiple documents (perhaps highlighted) much more efficient. When I am initially reading something, the context is right there making it easier to personalize ideas I might have. I cannot necessarily anticipate how ideas will eventually be used but I can avoid much of the time and effort required to reread what might or might not be useful to get to the point of reactivating an understanding of a primary source. There is also cognitive value in generating personal summaries for understanding and transfer and while such summaries could be stored external to the type of tools I am describing here, connecting such summaries with the citation and pdfs offers some advantages for retrieval and contextualization.
I use the following tools to add annotations, notes, and highlighting to pdfs (both are Apple tools). There are many similar tools.
I extract some of my summarizations and organize them in Obsidian.
Discovery seems to be moving to AI
I would recommend any of the tools I have mentioned to anyone wanting to keep track of useful sources they have discovered. I am now going to describe some opportunities that are attempts to extend the cognitive benefits of what I have described using artificial intelligence (AI).
When I described Google Scholar as forward looking, I was describing a service that identifies other sources that are related in some unstated way to an earlier source. What if the discovery of associated content could be identified in other ways? Our own memory often works through association. One idea makes us think of something else and sometimes noticing this connection turns out to be very useful. Perhaps it is a connection we have not considered before. The AI applications I am describing here attempt to do something similar. As I understand the process, the AI creates summaries that are stored and then attempts to locate similarities across other generated summaries. In some of these cases I have explored, the units of association are smaller than an entire document. You can read a summary of one approach and determine if my interpretation is at least close. Such possible connections may exist unnoticed in summaries you have already stored yourself or perhaps in summaries generated by others working on the same issue. Once discovered, you can consider the possible connection and determine if you think there is something valuable in the relationships you explore.
Here are some of the efforts using AI I have been exploring. It is too early for me to offer personal comments about the usefulness of these tools as effective use would seem to require I create a significant amount of stored content the systems can use to identify connections.
These examples are available for exploration. Mem X strikes me as something I might pay to use ($10 a month) after an exploration phase. The Mem X note-taking app has an advanced feature called smart search that allows what the developers call serendipity. The purpose of this feature which seems the main differentiator from the free Mem is this capability of knowledge discovery (among teams) and rediscovery for each individual. Semantic Scholar (wikipedia description) is available now and Semantic Reader is under development with some examples available for exploration.
One final comment. The final tools I list and the more general common on AI refer to tools that support the work of thinking. The distinction between support and thinking itself is important. I doubt that traditional sresearch will surface evaluating the value of such support. Unlike the work I studied years ago that evaluated the value of taking notes (the generative function) and external storage (the value of consulting these notes at a later time), the value of suggested relationships among ideas would be difficult to investigate in a controlled fashion. This is likely to be a topic that will rely on anecdotal reports from those trying something out and if the reported experience is positive the investment of time to see if the tool is helpful to you. I don’t think we are really to the point yet that even the anecdotal recommendations are really available. My purpose is proposing that such tools and the related explorations by individuals are underway. You can join the exploration if you are so inclined.
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