Teaching Channel Talks Episode 117: Making Learning Stick with Cognitive Science (w/ Meg Lee)

Dr. Wendy Amato: Welcome to Teaching Channel Talks. I’m your host, Wendy Amato. As often as I can, I jump into conversations about topics that matter in education. In this episode, Meg Lee brings us expertise on learning science. Welcome, Meg. Hi, Wendy. Very nice to be with you and your listeners. We need to know right away what is a learning science implementation expert. That’s a lot.

Meg Lee: So learning science is the convergence of cognitive science and educational psychology and, and practice in educational classrooms to see what it is about, how people learn and how we should teach as a result. And my work really centers on taking that. Theory and translating it to what works in real classrooms with real students, and in particular how to make that happen at scale in schools and large school systems.

So I’m sort of looking at how people learn and then what that means for our classrooms.

Dr. Wendy Amato: When we think about teaching and learning, often we focus on student learning outcomes, but your work focuses on preparing teachers. Can you help me justify that priority?

Meg Lee: Sure. So teachers really need to understand how every child’s brain learns.

In order to make sure that they are choosing the right strategies and tools and curriculum resources to teach those students. And so I feel like one of the best investments we can make is making sure that all of our teachers understand how learning happens and how they should teach as a result, and that enables them to use what we know about how the brain learns.

Um, to ensure that every child has access to rich and diverse thinking experiences, and that’s what we want in every single classroom. So our adults contribute a lot to that, both our teachers and our leaders and everyone who supports schools.

Dr. Wendy Amato: I’m afraid to ask this next question, but I must if we are understanding that your work.

Is teaching teachers how to understand how the brain learns in order to improve teaching practice. Are you saying we’ve been doing it wrong all along?

Meg Lee: I think to a certain extent we’ve been doing it wrong. I’ll be honest with you.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Oh no. Oh dear. Well, tell, tell me more.

Meg Lee: I think we’ve been doing it wrong because I think we haven’t realized how fast cognitive science research has grown in the last 50 years.

And so, uh, I’ve been in education for 30 years, and I can tell you a lot of the things that I learned as a. A trainee teacher are still being taught today, and yet the cognitive science has changed along the way. And I like to think about the Maya angel quote that says I did the best I could until I knew better.

And when I knew better, I did better. I think we know better about how learning occurs now, and it gives us an opportunity to make sure that the strategies that we’re using are the best ones to meet, meet the needs of every child. I’m not sure we’ve been doing the best job that we can. I think that many teachers understand a little bit about memory, and they understand a little bit about maybe how to move things into long-term memory, but they don’t know enough about retrieval and memory traces, and they don’t know enough about cognitive load and what it means to think very effortfully and the difference that it can make in students remembering things.

And so those are sort of the secrets of cognitive science that shouldn’t be secrets at all. Wendy.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Can you give me an example, a specific example of something a practitioner may be encouraged to do today that they shouldn’t?

Meg Lee: Well, I’ll give you an example of something that I see all the time in classrooms that teachers think is really exciting and engaging.

They’ll ask a question and they want every pupil to respond with a thumbs up, thumbs down. And on one hand that might look like, well, every child is engaged in answering the question. But in reality, that really doesn’t tell us that every child’s thinking because I, as I might be in that classroom, and I might just look at my neighbor and see what my neighbor is doing and put my thumb up.

So I think one of the things we need to think about is how do we ensure that that deep and effortful thinking happens for every single child in the room. And how are we maybe not bamboozled by the illusion of engagement, uh, by the fact that it looks like everyone’s engaged in what’s happening. You can be really engaged in what’s happening in a classroom and not be learning anything.

Maybe because you already know it, or maybe because it’s very interesting, but it isn’t really connected to the targeted learning for the day. So I think sometimes we’re fooled a little bit and we have to sort of rewire our thinking to realize that, oh, engagement and learning aren’t the same thing. So I really need to be focused on learning and engagement synonymously, but realize that, that they are not exactly the same thing.

Dr. Wendy Amato: There is a lot of emphasis on engagement in teacher preparation and, and ed prep programs. Mm-hmm. You have done extensive work in teacher induction.

Meg Lee: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Helping to bring in that every new group of, of educator.

Meg Lee: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Where are you making positive changes? What specific things are you doing related to induction?

Meg Lee: I think the key with induction is making sure that as teachers come into classrooms, they understand the preliminary basics about how learning occurs, and they understand how to tie strategies to that, um, practical things that work in their classroom, for instance if teachers understand that.

Forgetting is part of remembering. They want to be able to bring back things that students have learned previously and they wanna do that in sort of a routine fashion. They can develop routines in the classroom and strategies and games that re have students recall. What did we learn last class last week, last month?

Um, that’s really important for the brain to continue to develop those memory traces for those key ideas. So I think when we think about teacher induction, one of the things I want to be sure we do is help them with the strategies that have the most utility and also are the most realistic for teachers to handle because the plate of a new teacher is.

Exceedingly full. So we want to make sure that what they are investing their time in and what they are preparing for their lessons every day are things that really pay off for the learners.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Meg, this work in teacher induction could be a game changer for the next wave of educators or even for the established teacher who’s ready to level up and and be better.

Do know better, do better. What other recommendations can we make for teacher induction?

Meg Lee: I think teacher induction needs to focus on some key principles things that teachers can sort of sink their teeth into and feel confident about. I think, you know, the number one concern of teachers as, as brand new teachers has to do with classroom management, classroom routines.

And so thinking about how learning happens helps us to conceptualize how we need to. Teach and practice those routines, um, how we can make them more fluid also helps us to think about how we can ensure that we’re not creating environments that are unwittingly distracting for students. So thinking about how we present material to them how we design our.

Any kind of papers or decorations or bulletin boards, as well as our electronic slides, things like that. All of that has to do with the design echoed by cognitive science principles. So if you understand how learning happens, you have a much greater chance of being able to utilize your time most effectively.

And I think new teachers want that because they want students to learn. They want to get deep into their content. They also want to make sure that their classrooms are spaces that are safe and engaging and inviting, and that link between cognition and emotion is really important. And so. Kids are most motivated to learn when they’re doing well.

So we sometimes think that motivation comes and then achievement follows it. But what we’ve learned most recently in cognitive science research is that in many cases, motivation. Is actually the result of being successful. So we need students to feel successful and then they will be further motivated.

So sort of changing that paradigm, uh, is an aha moment for many teachers, whether new or experienced.

Dr. Wendy Amato: That early win is a strategy that’s used across industries actually, and certainly in education. How can we help give some early wins? Where can we advise educators to do some things in a bite-sized way to show the learners that that’s a path forward?

Mm-hmm. What examples can we come up with? The two of us? I’m thinking scaffolded questions.

Meg Lee: Absolutely. And scaffolding one of my favorite topics of all time, because the beauty of a scaffold is you can build it, but you can also disassemble it, right? It can be taken away. So as students they may need a scaffold to reach the standard that everyone is working on, but as soon as they’re there.

Those scaffolds can be removed. And it also doesn’t imply that their standard is different from anyone else’s. And I think that’s so important. I think another way we can develop small wins is just to have students think about what would it look like to exhibit mastery in this particular area?

So really being very targeted and specific about what is the standard that we want students to meet and how do we demonstrate for them what that looks like, and then how do we help them see the path forward? And that requires a lot of effortful thinking on the part of the student and the teacher. And, um, it also requires taking their prior knowledge into consideration.

So what are they bringing to the classroom that we can actually capitalize on and use, and how are teachers sort of mining what that prior knowledge might be as they’re deciding how to craft their lessons? I think that’s something I overlooked a lot as a teacher. I wasn’t as tuned into the fact that students were bringing a lot of knowledge into my classroom.

Some of it was really wonderful and very queued towards where I wanted them to go. And some of it was erroneous, right? It was wrong. And I didn’t even realize that they had some misconceptions that I might have needed to take care of before I moved forward. So in many ways when we utilize, uh, strategies aligned with learning science, I.

We actually create more efficiencies for our educators. And if there’s anything that teachers need right now, it’s efficiency in those kinds of ways so that they can use their time to develop those tight, meaningful relationships with children so that kids feel very advocated for and supported in their learning.

And, and so that’s part of the reason why I think anything that we can do to support the teachers is really ultimately very much supporting our students.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Meg, I’ve got a challenge for the two of us together. We bring more than 60 years, uh, in education and I, I’d like to challenge the two of us to come up with things that happen in a classroom that should be routines.

What do you think? I wanna go with something basic like how to turn in homework.

Meg Lee: Absolutely. I think how to come into the room, Wendy. Um, how do you enter the classroom? How do you get your materials ready for the first minute of the day? Um, what do you do if you have a question? How do you both collect and pass out materials?

How do you help a new student or a substitute teacher, someone who’s not familiar with the classroom how do you indicate that you are struggling? I. With something and you need some extra help without sort of melting down in the classroom. Um, let’s come up with some more.

Dr. Wendy Amato: How about how, how to voice disagreement during a discussion?

Meg Lee: Absolutely. That’s a good one. And I’m also thinking how to quickly sort of. Move into some kind of a collaborative group when we want to have a conversation. So whether it’s a turn and talk with a partner, or maybe we’re working in a triad or a quad for a few minutes. Um, and then I think another one I love is how do we utilize.

Every pupil response effectively. So not the thumbs up, thumbs down, but maybe it’s a mini whiteboard. Um, maybe it’s a post-it note, but how am I gonna show my learning and what does that look like? We could probably come up with, I was quick ones. We could come up with 20. Wendy.

Dr. Wendy Amato: I was, as we were just beginning to get warmed up there, I was also thinking, what do I do after I’ve been absent?

From Absolutely. Like how to, you know, to get back into the swing of things without a gap or a moment of missed instruction. There’s so much,

Meg Lee: How do I tell the teacher I might need a seat change?

Dr. Wendy Amato: Ooh, that’s a great one. Mm-hmm. And you can use that in any context. It doesn’t, even adults. Right. Dinner.

Dinner parties see change. Yes.

Meg Lee: Right. Seat change.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Yes. That’s wonderful. I like I emphasize that because we know that routines are helpful and it allows a student to focus on the new material.

Meg Lee: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Wendy Amato: And instead of being overwhelmed with just the mechanics of being a learner, and children come into our classrooms with such varying degrees of sort of student skill that it can be complicated.

Meg Lee: It absolutely can be complicated and it, it also sometimes masks their ability to think and process and, and handle deep things because there are lots of students who are overwhelmed by the the changes in routine in a given day or the number of classes that they have where the expectations are constantly different. And sometimes that can look like a student who may not be as able, and that’s not true at all. It’s that they are juggling the cognitive load we would call it, of all of those routines for every single classroom that’s different or places where the routines are not in place and it’s chaotic.

And if I’m so focused on. What I’m supposed to put in the top of my paper to indicate that it’s mine, then that’s taking bandwidth where I could be thinking about those really deep and enduring ideas.

Dr. Wendy Amato: I love it.

Meg Lee: Again, something new teachers really benefit from understanding how to set really good routines and then they’re able to soar when they get those things in place.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Those kinds of routines take time to establish and often need to be taught over time.

Meg Lee: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Wendy Amato: But it is a worthwhile investment. Are there a few that you would recommend, let’s say for an elementary school teacher? Are there a few routines that you would recommend to prioritize at the beginning of the school year or the beginning of the day or the week?

Meg Lee: I think so I think the number one routine for an elementary school teacher is really, how do I get your attention? Right? So what are the signals to make sure, um, my favorite routine is signal pause and cyt. So what is the signal? And then once the signal’s given, there’s a pause, and then the important thing is that there’s an insistence that the signal is followed.

So. Every student knows what the signal is and knows what the expected behavior and response to the signal is. That’s really critical for elementary school students. I think another one for them as I mentioned, would be something like how to use a mini whiteboard to let the teacher know, uh, your answer to a question.

And again, this is really helpful because at a glance I can see whether students have an answer or not, and I can see. Each individual student whiteboard. And so I like to use that as what I like to call them for elementary school students are show me boards. So I might say 1, 2, 3, and show me, and then everyone can show the answer.

And certainly you wouldn’t do that for every single strategy at every single class time. But when students understand how to do those things on a routine basis, um, it makes the classroom much easier.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Let’s transfer this conversation to the home environment. Oh, I have heard parents accused of being rigid or uptight or, um, overly structured when they provide a checklist or they have a.

A chore chart or they have a a mnemonic device to help a child do the morning routines or the bedtime routines. Can you share some insights for homes and families? You’re, you are an author of Mindsets for Parents Strategies to Encourage Growth Mindsets in Kids. So I know you’re thinking about young people in their home environments too.

Meg Lee: Absolutely. I, I think parenting is a challenge and every child, you know, depends on those routines at home. And so if in your home, you know, a chore chart or a mnemonic device to remember, the routine helps. By all means, I think the most important thing is consistency of whatever the routine might be.

So, um, whether you have it written on the wall or not, is it at least consistent? Does the child realize that? This is something that feels safe to me because I know that every evening I’m going to, you know, brush my hair, brush my teeth, put on my pajamas, and then someone’s gonna read me a book before I fall asleep.

And that is my routine every single night. I think kids who have environments where they can predict what is going to happen, don’t have to worry as much. And we see less anxiety in children who have some predictable routines.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Meg, let me transition our conversation into thinking about mindsets.

Meg Lee: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Teacher mindsets to parent mindsets or children’s mindsets. Being ready to explore deep and effortful thinking.

Meg Lee: Mm-hmm. So, I became interested in mindsets probably 15 years ago with the work of Carol Dweck out of Stanford, um, who really talked about the idea that mindsets are on a continuum from growth to fixed and in a growth mindset.

Peoples seem to think that they can persevere through failure and overcome obstacles. And in a fixed mindset, people more or less believe that their ability is. Fixed and they probably aren’t gonna get better at something. Um, this work was really pivotal when it came out and I was very interested in how it applied in the classroom and also how it applied to parenting.

But what was interesting is, um, something happened that happens in research quite frequently, which is people. Decided that, that they could change people’s mindsets by doing some simple things that were a little too simplified. So we oversimplified the concept and said like, all we have to do is praise children for working hard.

All we have to do is say, well, you can overcome any mistake, or all we have to do is put up posters that say, keep trying. Those are sort of the quick fixes, but with all of the work that has to do with learning and cognition, there are nuances. Wendy and I really wanted to go back and look at that, work through the lens of an evidence informed educator and say, you know, what is it really saying?

And what it really says is, yes, we want kids to persevere, but we have to teach them how to do that. And we have to think about directing them to utilize strategies or to think about what could make them resilient. And so, uh, we need to think about how we praise children. And it isn’t just about praising kids for trying hard, it’s also about.

Praising them for applying those strategies well, praising them for not giving up when it’s difficult. And those are hard things to remember to do. I struggle myself and I’ve been doing the work for 15 years not to praise a child for being so smart. But really, we want to be able to lens those things with the nuance with which that research is really aligned.

And so, like so many things, there are no silver bullets, there’s no real fast path. It’s about thoughtfully implementing what we know on what we learn from cognitive science.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Can you help me make a connection between growth mindset and what you’re recommending in your work across districts now?

Meg Lee: Oh, absolutely.

Dr. Wendy Amato: There’s a little mindset shift happening in that space too, isn’t there?

Meg Lee: I would say, and I’ve always thought this, that more important than the student mindsets. Are the adult mindsets. Tell me more. So I think I, there was a catchphrase 15 or 20 years ago that was, you know, does every teacher believe that every student can learn?

And of course every teacher will say yes. I wouldn’t be a teacher if I didn’t think every student could learn. But when you dig a little deeper into teacher practice, sometimes some things make you wonder. So if you’re differentiating every lesson to meet the need of every child, that might sound very student centered and and effective.

But if that differentiation is changing the standard. Then are you really believing that every student can learn and meet that standard? Uh, because the message you may be sending that child is no. Um, should we instead think about how we scaffold to meet the same standard rather than changing the standard?

I think, uh, sometimes teachers don’t necessarily have a mindset that is growth about themselves and the way they can evolve their own practice, and so I love to talk about learning science in schools with and in districts because teachers will say things like, well, now I understand why that worked and this doesn’t work.

Or, now I understand why this strategy that I did in my classroom, the kids really learned from it, but I didn’t know why it worked. Now I understand why it works. Those are my favorites. Or they’ll come up to me and they’ll say things like. Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why didn’t someone tell me this?

I needed to know this 20 years ago. And so the idea every one of us should be deliberately developing our strategies and our skills, and so. That goes for adults too. We should all be having a growth mindset and persisting and persevering and trying new things and being prepared to struggle because struggle’s not a bad word.

I don’t think people, most of the people I know in life, if I ask them to tell me what they’re most proud of, it would be those things that were a struggle. That’s where we have a lot of pride. So I tend to think that healthy supported struggle is a good thing and that we need to help children understand that if something is hard, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.

And that’s the same for our teachers.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Meg, you’re making a lot of commitments in districts.

Meg Lee: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Wendy Amato: I’d like to talk about the state of Maryland a little bit, and what is being codified into law there. Can you talk about that and how your work will help teachers meet those standards?

Meg Lee: Sure. So, um, the state of Maryland has passed a new statute that requires certain topics to be part of teachers’ professional learning, and one of the topics is the science of learning.

So every teacher in Maryland has to have foundational understanding of the science of learning. Every teacher who comes subsequently to teach in Maryland will have to have that foundation. And it’s joyful for me because I think this is something that every teacher deserves to have because it will help every teacher do their job better, and it will also help.

Every single student to be taught by someone who understands how learning happens. So it’s a passion of mine and I’m really excited that in this next phase of my life, I’ll be able to help schools and districts as they bring that to life, both in Maryland where we are very proud to be the first state to have that in enshrined in law.

But I am certainly. Very, very hopeful that we are not the last and that there are other states ready to follow us. And I know there are other districts who already believe that this is something very, very important for teachers to learn. And it’s my privilege to get to work with those leaders and those teachers in those districts to make that happen.

Dr. Wendy Amato: What can you teach me about learning science partners? Uh, where would I get more information if I were a classroom teacher or a school leader wanting to bring this to my district?

Meg Lee: So Learning Science Partners is an initiative that I started with, uh, Dr. Jim Heal. And Jim and I are sort of the theory and practice implementation sidekick, uh, duo, I guess you would say.

And it is our passion to put this information in the hands of our teachers and leaders so that our students benefit. And we have a website, um, www.learningsciencepartners.com. You can reach us. Um, you can leave us a message, you can see some of our work and you can follow our publications, um, and our podcasts like this one.

So we’re very excited to be able to share that and we hope people will reach out if they have questions.

Dr. Wendy Amato: I love it. Let’s finish with a call to action. Let’s imagine that we are in front of the group listening to our conversation. What will we turn to them and say, please do this next.

Meg Lee: Please focus on.

What has the most utility in our classrooms today? So what are the things that are most important to make sure that our students can learn? And how do we operationalize those so that our teachers have the tools that they need? I think. Support of our educators is so important, and I know as an educator, I have appreciated the support of parents and community members my entire career.

And so I would say, let’s keep that up. It’s so important right now.

Dr. Wendy Amato: And with you, whatever seat a person is in pointing towards learning science is going to get us all where we need to be.

Meg Lee: Absolutely.

Dr. Wendy Amato: Thank you for this conversation, Meg.

Meg Lee: Thank you for having me. It’s been a lot of fun

Dr. Wendy Amato: To our fellow educators, thank you all of you for joining us.

If you’d like to explore topics that Meg and I discussed today, please check out the show notes at TeachingChannel.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe on whatever listening app you use that will help others to find us, and I’ll see you again soon for another episode. Thanks for listening.