How learning works

This section is about how learning works, based on educational research.

Carpentries pedagogical model

• Carpentries teach computational competance to learners
• Applied approach: specific, practical examples
  • Allows hands-on practice, building confidence and laying foundation for future learning
  • Real time practice and feedback
  • Two-way feedback allows instructors to adjust pace and content, and improves lesson materials

Acquisition of skill

Development of mental models

• Effective learning happens when the learner creates a mental model of the domain.
• Mental model is a collection of facts and concepts, along with their relationships.
  • US resident example.
• Novice doesn’t have a mental model of the domain.
• They therefore reason by analogy and mental models of other domains.
• Competent practitioner has a good-enough mental model for everyday purposes.
• Experts have many more linkages between concepts - discussed in more depth later.

Exercise: Your mental models (5 mins)

• In the shared document, write your primary research domain or area of expertise and some aspects of the mental model you use to frame and understand your work.
• What concepts/facts are included?
• What types of relationships are included?

Teaching novices

• Research shows each stage of skill needs to be taught differently.
• Presenting novices with a pile of facts early on doesn’t work because they need a mental model to fit them into.
• Our aim is to help novices to build a mental model, so how to think about programming, so they can learn more on their own.

Importance of going slowly

If someone feels it’s too slow, they’ll be a bit bored. If they feel it’s too fast, they’ll never come back to programming.

• The material is designed to focus on building mental models, and avoids overloading learners with unrelated facts.
• Adjust our teaching to their skill level, without making them feel inferior about their current practices or skill set.
• Meeting learners where they are is one of the strengths of Carpentry workshops.
• We teach relevant and useful skills in an inclusive environment, and continually request and respond to feedback from learners.

How ‘knowledge’ gets in the way

• In addition to going slowly, we need to address the misconceptions of broken mental models in order to build better ones.
• Mental models are hardly ever built from scratch – learners have some information, ideas and opinions on a topic.
• Often, this prior knowledge is incomplete or inaccurate, which makes it difficult to incorporate new, correct information into their mental model.

So fixing misconceptions is as important as presenting correct information.

Misconceptions

• Simple factual errors: easiest to correct
• Broken models: correct by reasoning (our focus)
• Fundamental beliefs: can’t really address

Identifying and correcting misconceptions

• In order to expose misconceptions, in order to address them, instructors need feedback on learners’ mental models.
• This comes from formative assessment.
• Summative assessment is pass/fail e.g. driving test.
• Formative assessment is a feedback mechanism, not a pass/fail.

• Allows learners to focus their study effort, and instructors to respond to challenges learners are facing.

• Repetition vs reflective practice:
  • 10,000 hours practice -> expert … but only with feedback.
  • Hence we emphasise practice and feedback in workshops.

Exercise: Identify the misconceptions (10 mins)

• Each incorrect answer to an MCQ should be a plausible distractor with diagnostic power

• What is 27 + 15?
  1. 42
  2. 32
  3. 312
  4. 33

• Choose one wrong answer and explain the misconception associated with it.

Exercise: Handling outcomes (5 mins)

• Formative assessments allow us as instructors to adapt our instruction to our audience. What should we do as instructors if the class chooses:
  • mostly one of the wrong answers?
  • mostly the right answer?
  • an even spread among options?

Exercise: Modelling novice mental models

• Take 10 minutes to create a multiple choice question related to a topic you intend to teach.
• Type it into the shared document and explain the diagnostic power of each its distractors, i.e., what misconception is each distractor meant to identify?

Formative Assessments Should Be Frequent

1. Teach some stuff
2. Present MCQ probing for misconceptions
3. Students answer a MCQ

• Do it frequently - e.g every 15 mins or so
• Can be done preemptively
• Break-up teaching and re-focus attention

Learners are commonly far too satisfied to not understand key points and remain confused.

Notes on MCQ design

• A good MCQ tests for conceptual misunderstanding, not factual knowledge
• For distractors, think about problems from previous training events
• MCQs are useful even if not used in class – instructor thinks about learners’ mental models.

Key points

• Our goal when teaching novices is to help them construct useful mental models.
• This requires practice and feedback.
• Formative assessments provide practice for learners and feedback to learners and instructors.