WHAT SHOULD THE STUDENTS DO RIGHT AFTER CLASS TO FIGHT "SWISS CHEESE KNOWLEDGE?"

Just a reminder that my new teaching book (Transformative Education – How Can You Become a Better College Teacher?) can be downloaded for free at the University of Richmond Scholarship Repository:

          https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/

And, if you want to read about the book, here is a story from Inside Higher Ed.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/academic-life/2023/08/30/why-one-professor-makes-time-take-classes-himself

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In my new teaching book, I talk a lot about “the Education Diamond.”  That is my name for the four points in time when a teacher interacts with students and can, therefore, improve the learning process.

1. ·      Getting students to prepare before class.
2. ·      Interaction during the class session itself.
3. ·      Helping students organize and strengthen their learning after the class session (when they face a severe challenge that I call “Swiss Cheese Knowledge.”) 
4. ·      Testing and other graded assignments designed to ascertain the students’ understanding of the material.

If you want to improve as a teacher, pick one of these four points in the learning process and begin experimenting with how to help students do better.  Experimentation is the key to improving. 

So, despite this being my 53^rd year as a college teacher, I have picked one of the points already and started working on it.  I chose the third point of the Education Diamond – what students do in the 12-24 hours immediately after class in order solidify what was covered in class.  I have long argued that this is the weakest point in the learning process for most students and teachers simply because most students and teachers ignore it.  For them, once class is over, it is time to move on to the next subject.  That’s why I refer to it as “Swiss Cheese Knowledge.”  Student understanding looks solid but it is actually just full of holes.   If the teacher doesn’t work to help the student fill in those holes, we all know what will happen—they will get bigger over time.  That’s why students often cry in our offices, “I knew this when we covered it in class, but I couldn’t seem to do it on the test.”  Their knowledge had holes in it that were never filled in.

This semester starting with my second class of the semester, I emailed my students 10 minutes after class. 

“I know our class today seemed helter-skelter.  My classes always seem helter-skelter because I like that.  Nevertheless, we covered a lot of important material today.  So, right now, sit down and write out 15 basic questions that you should be able to answer IMMEDIATELY based on our coverage today.

“You need to identify what we covered of substance before it begins to leak out of your brain.  Don’t procrastinate.  Do it now. 

“Then, find someone else in class and exchange lists.  That will give you two different perspectives of what we covered today that was important.  If there are any questions on either list that you don’t have an answer for, that means I should have covered it better.  Bring it by my office and I’ll try to give you a push in the right direction.” 

Okay, I think this is a great idea, but I knew it was never going to work without some help.  So, I wrote the first 15 questions for the students to model what I wanted them to do.  Showing students what you want them to do is always helpful. 

Then, immediately after every class since that day, I have sent them a quick email saying, “If you are truly serious about doing well in this class, take the next 10 minutes and write out your 15 questions about what we learned today.  I don’t need 16 questions, but I do need 15.”

Finally, my students create their own group chat rooms for this class.  I really like for my students to have a “we are in this together” mentality so that they will work together.  I suggest that they start putting up their 15 questions on that chat space.  I want my class to feel like this is a team effort.  They can probably teach each other better than I can.

Will this improve learning?  Heck, I don’t know.  That’s why I am trying it out this semester.  I do know that I want to improve what the students do after we have class rather than declare victory and move on.  This idea has potential, but I won’t know how well it works unless I try it. 

Now you.   Pick one of the four points on the Education Diamond and come up with your own experiment for improving the learning process at that specific point.   Then, evaluate how well the experiment worked.

That's how to improve as a teacher.

HELPING STUDENTS, BEFORE THE FIRST CLASS AND AFTER THE FIRST CLASS

Yesterday was my first class of the new semester.  After 47.5 years at this job, walking back into a classroom felt a little bit like returning home.  If you are teaching this semester, I hope you enjoyed the first day experience as much I did.  

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As I get older, I become ever more convinced that teachers need to guide each student on how to approach their particular style of teaching.  My students here at the University of Richmond have probably had 30-40 teachers since they entered kindergarten, each with a unique approach to education.  It is unfair of me to expect new students to immediately catch on to what I want from them and why.  Therefore, this semester I am focusing more on introducing my students to the learning strategies that I believe work best in my class.  So, even after 47.5 years on the job, I did two things relatively new in hopes of showing my students how to be successful.

If you have followed this blog for long, you know that I put a lot of stress on (a) what students should do to prepare before each new class session and (b) what students should do soon after class to get the material organized in their brains.  Here is advice I gave (by email) three days prior to the first class and additional advice that I gave (by email) three hours after our first class.  I want every student to get off to a great start.  If a student falls behind at the beginning, it often becomes a semester of playing “catch up.”

EMAIL -- THREE DAYS BEFORE CLASS

As many of you likely know, I teach using a rather intense version of the Socratic Method based on presenting odd and unusual puzzles to the students that I then help them solve.  It is a method that I enjoy and seems to work well for my style of teaching.  However, that approach is different from what many of my students have previously encountered.  They occasionally experience problems learning how to prepare for my class.  When I begin to question them in class, I am frequently amazed by how poorly they are ready to answer questions they have had for 48 hours. 

In my email (which went out 72 hours before they even met me for the first time), I explained, “Let me help you get ready in an efficient manner.  For each question, you should consider following four basic steps.

“(1) – Go through the problem/puzzle and write down the actual facts.  Most class puzzles have 4-5 basic facts and then a lot of fluff.   For example, a puzzle might provide a cost, an expected life, some time periods, and the like.  Don’t circle those.  Physically write them down.  Writing down the facts of a question will not take long and the act of writing helps them stay in your mind. 

“(2) – Identify the basic question.  What are we trying to address?  Ultimately, in even the most complex puzzle, there has to be a question that we must answer.  You need to know that.  Write down the question just to make sure you are clear on what is being asked.

“(3) – Assume that I am going to look you in the eye and ask you to start answering the question.  Write down the first sentence of your response.  Do not abbreviate it or use short hand.  You do not have to write down the entire answer but I think writing down the first sentence will force you to think about the facts and think about the direction of your answer.  The first sentence establishes where you are going with an answer.  I actually believe writing down the first sentence of your answer might be the most important thing you can do to be well prepared for my class.  For one thing, having that sentence in front of you will give you confidence in class.  I don’t want you sitting there in fear.

“(4) – Outline the rest of your answer.  I don’t need for you to write out a long answer.  By writing out the opening sentence and then outlining the rest of your answer, I think you will be prepared for our conversation and ready to learn.

“I think that is a reasonable amount of work.

---Write down the facts.

---Write out the question.

---Write out the first sentence of your answer.

---Outline the rest of the answer.

“In my class, I think that is good guidance for being ready to be engaged in a genuine Socratic method conversation.”

EMAIL THREE HOURS AFTER CLASS. 

I have written often about Swiss cheese knowledge.  Students leave the classroom thinking their understanding is solid when it is actually full of holes.  Their knowledge is weak at places, disorganized at others.  Students need to take almost immediate action to organize and solidify what they have learned.  

Students often have developed no learning tactics at that point other than recopying their notes.  That is nice but it is hardly an essential key to in-depth learning.  From my experience, immediately after class is a point when students need some serious guidance before the knowledge seems to seep away.

In my mind, students often look at learning new material as if they are attacking a gigantic block of concrete.  Because the material is new to them, it initially looks huge.  Getting their brains wrapped around that new block of concrete knowledge must seem overwhelming and, thus, impossible.  Many lack any type of strategy for filling in the holes in their Swiss cheese knowledge so they can get a handle on complex, new material.

I prefer to look at new material as a vast bowl of marbles.  Each marble represents a tiny piece of information that is relatively easy to absorb.   Once students start to grasp a sufficient number of those marbles, they begin to develop a logical understanding of even the most esoteric subject.

For that reason, three hours after my first class yesterday, I emailed them the following suggestion.

“We covered a lot of material today that you need to absorb.  Here is a hint.  Take your notes and break the coverage down into what I call, ‘Three-second questions.’  These are questions that you should already know so well that if I asked you in class, you could quietly count to three and then rattle off the answer without further thinking.  For a 50-minute class, you can probably write out 20-50 questions.  Break the subject down into very small parts.  If you can learn enough three-second questions for each class, you can make a triple A plus in this class.”  

If students break down the material into small enough pieces, they will come up with a string of questions that they know or can learn.  Holes in their knowledge are spotlighted.  I want them to be able to read those questions, count to three, and then give the answer.  The questions organize the material and provide a method for review.

Writing the questions takes a bit of practice so I wrote them for yesterday’s class.  I just took the class notes and wrote out a simple question for each small “marble” of information.  I do it sequentially so that one question will almost always lead to the next question.  In most subjects, learning seems to improve if the material can be arranged sequentially.

Once the student has a list of three-second questions for a class, review and practice becomes simple.  Heck, they can carry the questions around with them and review them as they eat their lunch.

MY POINT

My point is that I am starting the semester giving my students two techniques that I think work well in my class.  I do not know if they would work in any other class but I believe they work for my students.  Why hide that knowledge?  Why wait until they are lost before offering advice.   I want them to learn how to do well for me right from the very beginning.

For my students, before class, I think they should

---Write out the facts

---Write out the question

---Write out the first sentence of the answer

---Write out an outline of the rest of the answer

For my students, after class, I think they should

---Go through their notes and write out a sequential series of three-second questions to cover every piece of information that we covered.  The three-second questions mean that they can read each question, count slowly to three, and then provide the answer.  If they have that level of knowledge, the understanding of even the most complex material will start to develop rather quickly.

CLOSING THE HOLES ON SWISS CHEESE KNOWLEDGE

Over the years, I have argued often on this blog that one of the really weak spots in education was the failure of students to close the holes on what I call “Swiss Cheese Knowledge.”   Thus, on the first day of class last week, I drew a block on the board and put holes in it.  I then explained the drawing to my students.

When you leave class every day, your knowledge looks like a block of Swiss cheese.   It appears entirely solid.  However, it is full of holes—things you missed, things you misunderstood, things you did not quite catch.  I know the knowledge feels solid, but it really is not.   If you do not take action, those holes just get bigger as time passes and your memory begins to fade.   Having taught for nearly 50 years, I know where the holes are likely to be.   I can and will write test questions to expose those holes.  In many ways, testing is just an attempt to measure the quantity and size of the holes in your knowledge.  

How well you do in this course is very much dependent on what you do after each class to close those holes before they simply get too big to manage.  I think this is the part of learning that most students either do not appreciate or simply choose to ignore.   You have to close those holes in your knowledge or I will find them on the tests.  Then, you will come to me after the test and say, “I knew the material perfectly until the test started and then I just froze and couldn’t answer any of the questions.”   No, that is a popular student story but it is rarely true.   The knowledge looked and felt solid to you but it was really full of holes and I found them.

There are many things you can do to close the holes but I want to suggest two.   First, I will send you practice exercises throughout the semester that will begin, “Here is a practice question based on what we covered today in class.   I wrote it so you could determine if you had any holes in your knowledge.  The answer is X.   If you get that answer, then move on.  I am not worried about you.   But if you cannot get X, come by and see me, sooner rather than later.  We need to fill in that hole.”

The second thing takes more discipline.   As soon as possible after class, write out a memo on everything we covered today.  Assume you were writing the memo to a friend who missed class and needs to know what we covered in a very clear and organized way.   Class moves very quickly and has a helter-skelter feel to it.   Nevertheless, if you look closely, you will begin to realize that there is a fairly well defined organizational structure.   By writing out a “friend memo,” you’ll start seeing the whole picture.   That’s a good way to start noticing some of those holes in your knowledge so that you can take action.

From my experience, students are good about doing practice questions because they are curious as to what I thought was important and whether they can do it.  Writing “friend memos,” though, is tougher.   It is not as much fun and takes some time.  As one student said, “That much thinking makes my head hurt.”

So, the holes are never filled.

I think we often fail to realize how much guidance our students need.   We can tell them but, in most cases, we need to show them as well.   For example, during the second day of class, we spent the entire 50 minutes talking about a lot of liability questions – Why is this a liability?   Why is that not a liability?

Immediately after that class, I wrote out a detailed memo and sent it to the students.  “It might not have seemed like we covered much today and it might have all seemed rather random but here’s exactly what we did.   We covered a whole lot of material.”   I very much wanted to show them exactly what a class memo could look like.  They need that modeling.  I cannot over emphasize that one sentence.

I will not do that again this semester.   I wanted to do it once to show them what I meant.   I have made my point.   Now, it depends on them if they have the ambition needed to do the work.  I felt like I needed to impress on them the problem of Swiss Cheese knowledge and two important steps needed to fill in those holes.

I think teachers often think all learning problems originate during class.   I am much more inclined to believe that many if not most problems happen in the day or so immediately following class.   That is why I focus so much attention on that time period.

The Most Important Days of the Semester – Part Two

(If you would like for me to send you an email whenever I post a new blog entry, just drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu and I'll add you to my list.)

On October 1, 2017, I posted the first of a two-part blog entry on the importance of the 2-4 days after the first test of the semester.  This initial essay included an email that I sent to my current students immediately after their first test.   My assumption has long been that students are most interested in how to do well in a course as they leave the first test.   The email encouraged them to consider two specific aspects of their post-test assessment. 

First, if they felt they had not done well, I made three suggestions about what might have gone wrong.   It is hard to improve without some identification of the problem.  Students who do not do as well as they had hoped should come up with an honest ending to this sentence prompt, “I did not do well on the first test because . . .”    A vague response does not do anyone any good.  As I said in that previous essay, most students simply do not spend enough time studying.

Second, I tried to get my students to put themselves into one of four categories (confident and ready to build on that positive first step, over confident and relaxed, unhappy but ready to take on the challenge to do better, and terribly discouraged and ready to give up).   Obviously, I am trying to encourage them (whether they did well or poorly) to put on a burst of energy and enthusiasm after the first test.   It is still early in the semester.   I never want any student to feel defeated and hopeless.

The second part of my strategy to help the students make positive changes in their approach to this course comes on the day I return the graded first tests to them.   I walk into class with the papers under my arm.  However, before I hand them back, I make a few specific points about possible improvement.

I did not record my opening remarks this semester but the speech below is my best memory of what I said.   It only took a few minutes but I wanted to encourage them to start looking at the course in a different way.   Remember – my only goal is to guide the students to better learning and that should lead to a better grade.  

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“In just a few minutes, I will return your first test which is roughly 25 percent of your overall grade so you still have plenty of time to improve your average if you want or destroy it even if you did well on this test.   We have a long semester.  This is just the first test.   Whether you improve this grade is squarely up to you.

“I often tell students that learning only occurs at three points.  I refer to this as the learning triangle.  First, learning can occur during class.  We are together 150 minutes per week.  I want us to use each of those minutes wisely to enhance your knowledge of the subject.   To tell you the truth, most students (and I certainly include this class) typically do well during class.  No one falls asleep.   Everyone attempts to answer the questions as I pose them.   People take good notes.  Students can always do better, but I am not upset by the work you have done so far in class.

“The second point on the learning triangle is all the work that students do before they arrive at class.   I assign questions and you have to decide how much time and energy you want to expend to prepare answers to those questions.   Most students, and again I would include this class in this assessment, do fairly mediocre work when it comes to class preparation.  For most, there is simply not enough urgency to push them beyond doing as little as possible before class.   I honestly believe it is hard for any student to excel unless they do excellent work leading up to class – not mediocre work and not good work but genuinely excellent preparation.   Without good preparation, it is hard to pick up the subtle but key points brought out during class discussion.   You can only struggle to keep up with the main points.  Key little nuances are just missed. 

“The third point on the learning triangle is all the work that students do after class.   As I have said before, students invariably leave class with Swiss cheese knowledge.   It looks and feels solid but is totally full of holes.  To do well, you need to spend serious time after class filling in those holes.   For some, those holes are tiny.   For others, the holes are massive.   Either way, the reason I send you problems after class is to help you fill in the holes.   When I give a test, all I am trying to do is discover the size of the holes in your knowledge.  

"Most students are good in class, mediocre before class, and absolutely awful after class.   That’s the way it usually happens.

“Some students are mystified as to why their grades are not higher because “I worked so hard during class.”  However, that is only one of the three points of the learning triangle.  If you don’t get the grade you want on this first test, remember it is my opinion that it was the quality of the work you did before class and the quality of the work you did after class that led to the poor grade.  Work on those two and I think your grade can and will improve radically.  

“I am willing to help you improve your grade if you will come my office.  But, do realize that I will probably not be addressing our 150 minutes together each week.   Typically, that goes well.   If you want to do better, you have to start looking more seriously at the other two points of the learning triangle.

“If you twant a higher grade on our second test, you will need a grade higher than ‘mediocre’ on class preparation and a grade higher than ‘awful’ on filling in the holes of your Swiss cheese knowledge after class is over.” 

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I never like to hand back that first test without telling students in advance “listen, if you like your grade, don’t make any changes in your routine.  If you don’t like your grade, you have time to fix it and here is some advice about where you need to start putting in more time and effort.”   I believe it is unfair (at least on the first test) to give a student a poor grade (and I give plenty of them) without providing some type of framework to help them see where they are coming up short and how to make amends.  

If you can get your students to make necessary adjustments, the first test can be the key step toward turning a mediocre semester into an outstanding semester.