Three Reasons Classroom Practice Conflicts With Evidence on How Kids Learn
Teacher training leads educators to downplay knowledge and focus on skills that can't be taught in the abstract.
Over the last several decades, psychologists have unearthed a wealth of evidence on how children learn. But for three basic reasons, it’s proven hard to translate that evidence into classroom practice.
Cognitive scientists—those who study the learning process—have found that students retain information best through things like spaced practice (distributing learning over a period of time rather than cramming), interleaving (switching between different topics), and retrieval practice (trying to recall information that has been partially forgotten). But few teachers incorporate those practices into their lesson plans or suggest that students use them to study. More fundamentally, there’s overwhelming evidence that, especially when students don’t know much about a topic, it’s best to provide information explicitly. But the prevailing theory in the education world has long been that it’s better for even novice learners to “discover” or “construct” knowledge for themselves, often in largely self-directed groups.
Consistent with that theory, teacher-training programs encourage educators to value imparting skills over information—including supposed skills in reading comprehension and critical thinking. The idea is that students will be able to use the skills to acquire knowledge themselves, through their own reading. But scientists have long known that those kinds of skills can’t be taught directly, in the absence of content. The more information students have on a topic, the better able they are to understand a text about it and think about it critically. And while it’s true students need to participate in constructing or discovering their own knowledge, it’s unrealistic to expect them to discover information for themselves, especially about topics in history or science that they know little about.
The reasons for the disjunction between the worlds of education and science are complex. But the obstacles to getting the findings of cognitive psychology into classroom practice fall into three basic categories. (I’ve borrowed this general framework from an organization called Teaching Lab, but the details here are mine.)
Intellectual: The most basic problem is that many educators simply don’t know about these findings, largely because they were never told about them during their training. Schools of education have developed on a different track from the rest of academia, and as a result there’s little communication between their faculty members and those in other disciplines. Rather than focusing on recent research, most ed schools teach as gospel theories of child development that academic psychologists consider outdated—like Jean Piaget’s theory of developmental stages. Once on the job, teachers continue to get training, or “professional development,” that has little basis in science. And their supervisors and instructional materials often assume the validity of non-evidence-based practices.
When introduced to evidence from cognitive science, many teachers eagerly embrace it. But others are resistant, dismissing the work of scientists as too ivory-tower and preferring to rely on their own experience. While teachers’ experience is often valuable, it can also be misleading. For example, to a kindergarten or first-grade teacher it may look as though a child is learning to read without systematic instruction in phonics. But the child may just be guessing from pictures or memorizing words that appear in simple texts—especially because many teachers encourage those strategies. When the child reaches upper grade levels and is unable to sound out unfamiliar words, she’ll be at a serious disadvantage.
Another problem is that educators are frequently directed to adopt new initiatives, many of which claim—often falsely—to be “evidence-based.” As a result, teachers may view anything with that label as suspect, even when it’s firmly grounded in science.
Emotional: Some teachers who understand the need for evidence-based techniques at an intellectual level are nevertheless held back by feelings. They may recognize, for example, that children need exposure to complex texts and concepts at an early age in order to be able to grapple with them more deeply later on. But they may still be afraid—based partly on their training—that such things are “developmentally inappropriate” or too difficult for their students to handle. Many teachers believe, for example, that historical topics are too abstract and remote for young children to grasp or become interested in. In fact, children can enjoy learning almost anything if it’s presented in an engaging way.
Teachers also understandably feel anxious teaching subjects they don’t know much about themselves—and given the deficiencies in teacher education, there may be quite a few of those. Sometimes those anxieties are projected onto kids. An instructional coach who helps implement a new curriculum that has students analyze works of art told me that one teacher in her district resisted a particular lesson because she thought children would be “scared by the art.” The coach suspected the real problem was that the teacher herself didn’t understand the painting, which was nothing more than a semi-abstract landscape. With a good curriculum and sensitive support, though, teachers can learn along with their students.
And it can be difficult for teachers to accept that an approach they’ve been using for years, in the belief that it was helping students, hasn’t actually been working. They may feel tremendous guilt—or, in accordance with a well known psychological theory called confirmation bias, they may simply reject evidence that conflicts with their beliefs.
Behavioral: Even if teachers understand the need for methods rooted in cognitive science—and genuinely want to adopt them—it’s often hard just to remember to use them. Teaching is an incredibly complex activity. With so many things to juggle, it’s natural to revert to deeply ingrained habits. It’s not impossible for teachers to change their behavior, but it can take time—and support from high-quality curriculum and instructional coaches.
The good news is that there are signs that classroom practice and science are edging closer. Groups of teachers, school district leaders, and even deans of ed schools are pushing for change, and some cognitive scientists are reaching out directly to educators. There are also new curricula, at the crucial elementary level, that focus on building children’s knowledge rather than illusory comprehension skills.
Fundamental change in how and what educators teach can neither be imposed from on high nor spring solely from the grassroots; it has to come from both above and below. When education authorities announce a change in policy without clearly communicating the reasons for it and its value, teachers can simply close their classroom doors and continue to teach in whatever way makes sense to them—as they have done for generations. So it’s crucial for teachers to understand and embrace a new approach. But teachers can’t do it alone either. Even if they’re eager to teach in a way that aligns with science, they don’t have the power to adopt evidence-based curriculum and materials or to ensure that a new approach is consistent across a school or district. For that, teachers need the support of administrators and policymakers.
Given these obstacles, it’s clear large-scale change won’t happen overnight. But a growing number of schools across the country are beginning to adopt practices grounded in science, benefiting untold numbers of students—and making teachers’ jobs easier.
For more on this topic, you can listen to an interview with me on the podcast Melissa and Lori Love Literacy.
This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.