It’s been a long time since schools focused solely on the three Rs—reading, writing, and arithmetic. Along the way, we realized that there’s so much more that defines a successful student and citizen, and that schools play a central role in training students to improve on a multitude of skills and abilities.
As outlined in the Common Core State Standards, for example, we are now tasked to teach a set of speaking skills. More and more businesses are citing the ability to speak and communicate comprehensively as vital skills in terms of hiring and professional success. For K–12 teachers, this means more targeted lessons that are focused on oral presentation and verbal assessment.
The fear of public speaking, or glossophobia, strikes almost 80 percent of our general population. Throw in our country’s percentage of English-language learners (ELLs), which ranges from 10 to 25 percent of our K–12 population (depending on the state), and you have an issue that requires precise scaffolding to help prepare our students to hit grade-level speaking expectations. So how can we challenge students to improve their oral presentation skills?
Striving for Equity
I used to use TED talks as my oral presentation template, as many teachers do. As an English language arts teacher and recently retired coach of one of the largest middle school speech and debate teams in the country (Go Bulldogs!), I’ve relied on TED talks for both exemplars and research. But I found that despite my scaffolds, there was still a great divide in final presentation quality between those who could and those who couldn’t. Enter Ignite Talks.
TED and Ignite Talks have some similarities, but it’s their key differences that have worked out better for my high- and low-ability learners, native speakers, and ELLs, and for both extroverted and introverted students.
Here’s what these speech platforms have in common: They both use the format of advocacy: hook, background information, evidence, and a call to action. And they both blend writing genres—memoir/anecdote, argument/persuasive, and informational/expository—rather than segregate them.
And here’s how they differ: Ignite Talks include specific timing and pacing guidelines where TED talks do not. These guidelines, I find, work to bring out the best in all learners, leveling the playing field for students. In fact, with the Ignite Talks rules, I found that students who liked to talk were forced to be more concise. And those who were fearful really only had to muster their courage for a short, set period of time.
Ignite Talks break down as follows: 20 slides, with 15 seconds per slide = 5 minutes.
The slides are set to advance automatically, and because of this, they must be highly visual. So there’s an opening to teach symbolism as well as how to find and cite free images. Because of the speed, a speaker cannot rely on the slides as their script; there’s no room for bullet points or paragraphs. This encourages students to make eye contact and speak with their back to the screen and not to the audience.
The time limit reminds me of the math homework debate: If students struggle with five problems, why give them 50? And if they can conquer five, well, 50 won’t add to their learning. Having students present with a strict pacing structure helps to avoid repetition or babbling from those students who love to talk—or those who are underprepared. A strict pacing structure also helps those students who suffer from presentation paralysis.
Organizing the Speech
Sometimes students present independently. Other times, they work in small groups so they can divide up the Ignite Talks verbal workload. To help them break down the outline of a collaborative speech, I give them a choice in organization.
I also offer an executive summary structure—background information, evidence, recommendations—to simplify a possible outline even further and bring more authentic writing to their presentation.
Both speech structures (Musk’s and mine) basically ask the students to provide research and take a strong stance on an issue, but they can select the structure that makes the most sense to them. The structure of both helps them to chunk their slides and images.
Before they get started with their planning, I always go over the oral presentation rubric, so there are no surprises. For my most recent project-based unit, I used a speech rubric when my students presented Ignite Talks as superhero leagues, focusing on global issues that they felt passionately needed to be solved. Incidentally, the groups were heterogeneous: ELLs presented alongside native English speakers, and it was an equitable success.
Depending on your group of learners, you will decide which works best—TED or Ignite Talks. What ultimately matters, though, is that you are taking on the charge of preparing your students to speak credibly and confidently out there in the world.
Students in Montclair State University’s dual-certification program (Jackie Mader / Hechinger Report)
Strong progress has been made to integrate students with disabilities into general-education classrooms. Educator instruction hasn’t kept up. When Mary Fair became a teacher in 2012, her classes often contained a mix of special-education students and general-education students. Placing children with and without disabilities in the same classroom, instead of segregating them, was a growing national trend, spurred by lawsuits by special-education advocates.
But in those early days, Fair had no idea how to handle her students with disabilities, whose educational challenges ranged from learning deficits to behavioral disturbance disorders. Calling out a child with a behavioral disability in front of the class usually backfired and made the situation worse. They saw it as “an attack and a disrespect issue,” Fair said.
Over time, Fair figured out how to navigate these situations and talk students “down from the ledge.” She also learned how to keep students with disabilities on task and break down lessons into smaller, easier bits of information for those who were struggling.
No one taught her these strategies. Although she earned a bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate in math instruction for both elementary and middle school, she never had to take a class about students with disabilities. She was left to figure it out on the job.
Many teacher-education programs offer just one class about students with disabilities to their general-education teachers, “Special Ed 101,” as it’s called at one New Jersey college. It’s not enough to equip teachers for a roomful of children who can range from the gifted to students who read far below grade level due to a learning disability.
A study in 2007 found that general-education teachers in a teacher-preparation program reported taking an average of 1.5 courses focusing on inclusion or special education, compared to about 11 courses for special-education teachers. Educators say little has changed since then.
A 2009 study concluded that no one explicitly shows teachers how to teach to “different needs.” Because of time constraints, the many academic standards that must be taught, and a lack of support, “teachers are not only hesitant to implement individualized instruction, but they do not even know how to do so,” the report stated.
Fair says teacher-preparation programs should be doing more. At the very least, “You should have a special-education class and an English language learner class,” she said. “You’re going to have those students.”
Between 1989 and 2013, the percentage of students with disabilities who were in a general education class for 80 percent or more of the school day increased from about 32 percent to nearly 62 percent. Special-education advocates have been pushing for the change—especially for students who have mild to moderate disabilities like a speech impairment—in some cases by suing school districts.
Some research shows as many as 85 percent of students with disabilities can master general-education content if they receive educational supports. Supports can include access to a special-education teacher, having test questions read aloud, or being allowed to sit in a certain part of the classroom.
Students with disabilities who are placed in general-education classrooms get more instructional time, have fewer absences, and have better post-secondary outcomes. Studies also show there is no negative impact on the academic achievement of non-disabled students in an inclusion classroom; those students benefit socially by forming positive relationships and learning how to be more at ease with a variety of people.
Alla Vayda-Manzo, the principal of Bloomfield Middle School about 30 miles outside of New York City, said she’s seen the benefit of inclusion for students. The school serves about 930 students, nearly 20 percent of whom have a disability, according to state data. When students with disabilities are included in classrooms with their peers, Vayda-Manzo said the high expectations and instructional strategies “lend themselves to those students being more successful than they would be had they been in a separate, self-contained environment.”“It’s not just getting a child included … that is only a small portion of the battle.”
But as more districts move to make classrooms inclusive, they’ve been caught flat footed when it comes to finding teachers prepared to make the shift. Academic outcomes for students with disabilities have remained stagnant for years, even as more students with special needs are integrated into general-education classrooms. Students with disabilities are less likely to graduate and more likely to earn an alternate diploma that is not equivalent to a general diploma in the eyes of many colleges and employers. And year after year, they score far lower than their peers on standardized exams.
Experts say the problem is that it takes much more than just placing students with disabilities next to their general-education peers: Teachers must have the time, support, and training to provide a high-quality education based on a student’s needs.
Mike Flom, a parent and co-founder of the advocacy group New Jersey Parents and Teachers for Appropriate Education, said many factors impact inclusion’s effectiveness. His twin sons, now in seventh grade, were placed in an inclusion classroom beginning in fifth grade. Initially, Flom said his sons had “mixed reviews” on whether inclusion was beneficial.
“I think the teachers were really motivated to be helpful,” Flom said. “I don’t know the extent to which they were permitted to do the things, or had enough training to do the things, that were required to be more effective.”“It’s not just getting a child included … that is only a small portion of the battle,” he added.
These days, Mary Fair navigates her classrooms with ease. She has learned through experience how to teach students with a variety of disabilities and works with a veteran special-education teacher to modify lesson plans and tests.
On a recent morning in a seventh-grade math-inclusion classroom at Bloomfield Middle School, Fair and her co-teacher, the special-education teacher Christina Rodriguez, started a lesson on the order of operations.
Fair stepped up to the front of the classroom as Rodriguez circulated to make sure students were on task.“We’re starting order of operations,” Fair said. “It’s something you did in sixth grade, but today we are doing it differently.”“Ms. Fair, I want to see if they remember,” Rodriguez said to Fair, who smiled and nodded.“Put your hand up if you remember what the order of operations is,” Rodriguez said.More than half of the students raised their hands
“Who remembers ‘PEMDAS’?” Rodriguez asked, referring to the mnemonic device used to remember order of operations (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, Addition and Subtraction). More students eagerly shot their hands in the air.
Fair cut in and explained that although they learned PEMDAS in sixth grade, they were going to learn a new rule about the order of operations today. “Take your yellow paper and fold it horizontally,” Fair said, referring to a yellow sheet of paper that sat on each student’s desk.“Like this,” Rodriguez said, holding up a piece of paper and demonstrating how to fold it horizontally.“Like a hamburger,” Fair added.
To an outsider, it’s impossible to tell who is the general-education teacher and who is the special-education teacher. Both Fair and Rodriguez have desks at the front of the room. They switch off during lessons, effortlessly picking up where the other has left off. They both give directions and explain content. They are careful not to fall into what educators say is a common trap: seeing general-education students as the responsibility of one teacher, and special-education students as the responsibility of the other.
That’s how a good inclusion class should be, Rodriguez said, but it takes practice and time. Like Fair, Rodriguez didn’t receive any training in special education before she entered the classroom. She became a teacher through an alternate program. When she got a job teaching special education six years ago, she relied on strategies she learned while working as an aide in a class for students with autism. In 2014, she received her master’s degree in teaching students with disabilities from New Jersey City University; she now teaches a class for Montclair State University’s dual-certification teacher-preparation program.
Although most traditional teacher-preparation programs nationwide do include some training on students with disabilities, usually in the form of one course over the entirety of the program, educators say this course is often generic and perfunctory. Aspiring teachers also may be given assignments in other classes that require them to adapt a lesson for a hypothetical special-education student.
Fair said she had some assignments like those, but “we didn’t really know what we were talking about, because we weren’t taught it.” Her colleague, the science teacher Jessica Herrera, said she was only offered one class in special education—called “Special Education 101”—when she went through a traditional teacher-preparation program in New Jersey.
“A lot of my training was for that ‘middle of the road’ kind of kid,” Herrera said. “I was prepared for the regular ed student.” In her 13 years as a teacher, Herrera has taught some inclusion classes; she said she picked up strategies from working with “good special-education teachers.” When she earned her master’s degree from Montclair State, she was finally taught how to teach a “range of learners,” she said.
Fair and her co-teacher Rodriguez say there are certain things they wish were included in all teacher-education programs, like an explanation of the different kinds of disabilities and ways to address the various struggles students may encounter. They also say teacher preparation should include more classroom management and “subtle ways” to keep students focused and on task.
Mimi Corcoran, the president of the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), said teacher preparation should better address topics in special education. “We do a disservice to the teachers we’re sending [to schools] in the way we’re training, and we’re doing a disservice to kids,” Corcoran said. “We’ve got to step up to the plate and think differently and act differently, and that’s hard because everybody gets comfortable and systems are hard to change.”
Some teacher-preparation programs are trying to better prepare graduates to teach students with disabilities, especially in inclusion classrooms. At Syracuse University, George Theoharis, a professor and the chair of Teaching and Leadership, said the school’s elementary special-education program has been one of the leaders nationwide in training educators for inclusive education.
Every teacher who graduates from Syracuse’s Early Childhood or Elementary Education program is dual-certified in special education and spends time in inclusion classrooms. Theoharis says it’s an approach that more preparation programs should take. “All of our programs need to be inclusive,” Theoharis said, referring to teacher preparation. “Regardless of what job teachers get, people need to be prepared to work with all children and see all children as their responsibility.”
At Montclair State, students can receive a dual certification in special education and a subject-level or grade-level range. The school also offers a unique concentration in “inclusive iSTeM,” which specifically prepares science, technology, engineering, and math teachers for inclusion classrooms. Students in the program receive a Master of Arts in Teaching, a certification in math or science, and are endorsed by the state as a teacher of students with disabilities.
Jennifer Goeke, a Montclair State professor and the program coordinator, said the dual-certification program prepares teachers to be hired as either a general- education or special-education teacher. “They know how to perform both roles easily and effectively,” Goeke said.
On a recent afternoon, Goeke was holding class in the Bloomfield Middle School media center. She asked her 17 students to first discuss issues they were having in their “fieldwork classrooms,” where they are currently observing and working with general- and special-education teachers. She listened to a few descriptions of struggles and then reminded her students that part of their job is to be an example for other teachers.
“I’m not trying to minimize or trivialize what you might be learning in your content area,” Goeke said. “It’s very important that you have a strong grounding in the methodology and the philosophy of your discipline … and know how to teach your content.” But, Goeke added, “You have to remember that most people do not have any diverse learners in mind. Their training did not teach them to take those students into account.”
In Montclair’s program, students work with two mentor teachers for a year in an inclusion classroom and in small-group settings. They receive extensive training in how to work with students with disabilities as well as how to effectively teach content, like math and science, or grade levels, like early education or elementary education.
Bloomfield chose to partner with the iSTeM program in 2012, and has hired two graduates of the program, and offered teaching positions to several more, who eventually chose jobs in other districts. The Bloomfield Principal, Vayda-Manzo, says the graduates of the program are “like unicorns in the field,” as it’s rare to find teachers who are dual-certified in general and special education.
Current teachers at Bloomfield have also benefited from iSTeM, Vayda-Manzo said. The program provides professional development for inclusion teachers at the school who agree to be mentor teachers for iSTeM students, and those teachers also observe each other and work with professors from Montclair State. Vayda-Manzo said the school makes sure co-teachers have the same planning periods so they have time to plan lessons together each day.
Herrera, who mentors iSTeM teachers, said the professional development provided through the program has improved her ability to teach students with disabilities. “I feel like I got a lot of additional strategies through that,” Herrera said.
On-the-job training is essential to ensure teachers have the skills needed to teach all students in their classroom, especially those teachers who may have attended teacher preparation years ago or missed out on training about disabilities, according to Mimi Corcoran of NCLD. “We have to be fair for the educator,” Corcoran said. For “many that are already in field, the concepts of special education and how to include kids has shifted, and [teachers] need the supports.”
Vayda-Manzo said it has been an easy choice to continue the program.“I saw the impact that it made in our inclusion classes,” Vayda-Manzo said. “We saw tremendous gains.”
We often hear about the need for students to learn how to program in order to be ready for STEM fields and the Information Economy. It’s what we’ve been hearing for over a decade. However, there’s a fascinating piece from the Washington Post that explores how the so-called “soft-skills” might be even more vital than ever.
For years, Google focused on hiring the best computer science students who excelled in their core content area, positing that innovation required the best computer science minds in the world. But when they tested this hypothesis, they were shocked by the results.
According to the article:
In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last.
The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.
Don’t get me wrong. Students need to master content standards. But Google’s survey proves that many teachers have been saying for years: that the so-called “soft skills” aren’t soft at all. Fortunately, when students engage in PBL, they develop these skills and disciplines needed to thrive in the Creative Economy.
But it goes beyond economics. When students engage in PBL, they experience the sheer joy of learning. They are able to hit a state of creative flow and learn that there’s something deeply profound about creativity. They become self-directed, independent thinkers.
The following are some of the trends that I notice when students engage in project-based learning. This is not a scientific study so much as observations I’ve noticed from my own experiences. However, I am currently working on a larger literature review on the benefits of PBL. I’ll be sharing it out within the next month. Many of the ideas in the following video are backed up by research (like the soft skills, the “stickiness” of information, and the moderate increases in student achievement).
#1: Students learn how to engage in meaningful collaboration.
When students engage in PBL, they often get the chance to work on collaborative projects, where they work interdependently to solve problems. Initially, this was really challenging for me as a teacher because I hated group projects as a student. I hated doing all the work and then watching everyone else get the credit. But then I realized something. Collaboration isn’t just a skill.
It’s a discipline. It’s something that takes years of practice. So, I started to embed structures that would help guarantee that every student participated in collaborative projects. It didn’t work every time but slowly, I watched students learn how to engage in meaningful collaboration.
When students genuinely collaborate in PBL, they learn how to speak up and listen. They learn how to ask incisive questions, how to contribute to the team, and how to give and receive critical feedback. Which leads to the next point . . .
#2: Students learn to see nuance and multiple perspectives.
When I did that History Day Project in the eighth grade, I encountered perspectives on the integration of baseball that I would have never experienced in reading a textbook. The same thing happened with my eighth grade students. When they were immersed in a PBL environment, they got to wade into the nuance of multiple perspectives.
Teachers can tap into this idea by specifically asking students to consider new perspectives. During the initial inquiry phase, it can help to let students ask multiple questions on their own and then share their questions together. When they engage in research, it can help to ask students to find sources from various perspectives and deliberately wade into the nuance of the ideas. As they ideate together, you can utilize a structured brainstorming approach that encourages them to examine ideas from multiple angles.
#3: They become divergent thinkers.
The best project-based learning units encourage students to tackle problems from a unique perspective. This is at the heart of divergent thinking. It’s the ability to explore problems from different angles, use materials in different ways, and ultimately grow into innovators. Here’s where creative constraint comes in. Teachers often have to work with limited resources or tight schedules. They have to hack the standards to tie them into a PBL unit. But in the process, they are helping students to think outside the box by “thinking inside the box.” Here’s what I mean:
When students learn to “think inside the box,” they are practicing the type of divergent thinking that they will need in the future. This is the type of thinking that can’t be replaced with artificial intelligence or automated with a machine.
#4: They learn project management.
When I talk to people in business, in the arts, and in the STEM fields, I often hear people mention that they wished they had learned how to do project management when they were younger. If we want students to think like artists, entrepreneurs, and engineers, they need the chance to engage in project management. When students have full ownership of the project process, they learn how to engage in project management. Here, they are able to set goals, monitor progress, make adjust, and reflect on their learning.
Project management is about more than just setting a schedule. It’s the idea of following through on your plans and continuing with tasks even when nobody is looking over your shoulder. It’s what happens when you learn how to set meaningful, realistic goals and break those down into tasks.
#5: They develop a maker mindset.
One of the most tragic things I hear students say is “I’m just not the creative type.” I don’t buy it. I don’t believe there is a “creative type” out there. We’re all creative. Every one of us. And PBL is a great chance for students to own the entire creative process, leading to a maker mindset where they can think like designers, artists, and engineers. When this happens, students are able to embrace a larger definition of creativity and value the creative contributions of those around them.
We often hear that our current students will work in jobs that don’t exist right now. But here’s another reality: our current students will be the ones who create those jobs. They will have to rewrite the rules. Some students will be engineers or artists or accountants. Some will work in technology, others in traditional corporate spaces and still others in social or civic spaces. But every single one of them will need to think creatively in their jobs.
As students work through PBL, they are able to experience a broad spectrum of creative thinking. They learn how to think like an artist but also think like an engineer or a hacker. At one moment, they might be building empathy by doing an interview. In another moment, they might be doing prototyping in an engineering project and or engaging in information literacy for a publishing project.
Over time, they see that creative work is interdisciplinary. And this ultimately leads to a maker mindset, where students learn to view the world differently and find new solutions to complex problems. Which leads to the next point . . .
#6: They become problem-solvers and critical thinkers.
PBL encourages students to solve complex problems by engaging in inquiry, research, and ideation. This is the kind of work that you don’t accomplish in filing out a packet or doing a worksheet. It requires students to view problems from multiple angles and sometimes even navigate multiple systems in order to solve these complex problems.
Not only are they solving the problems but they are taking it to the next level and actually creating the solutions. So, they are able to see that problem-solving actually connects to real-world contexts. I remember when we were doing our Tiny House projects and a student said, “I get it now. I understand why people need to know proportional reasoning.” He needed a complex problem, rooted in a real-world experience, for that concept to make sense.
Note that this doesn’t always work. There are moments when it gets frustrating. However, that’s also part of the problem-solving process. Students get the opportunity to fail forward. Which leads to my next point . . .
#7: They develop iterative thinking.
Project-based learning includes a phase for revision. In some cases, it’s more about feedback and revision while other projects require testing and revision. But the idea is the same. Students test, revise, and iterate. This is one of the areas where I see a big disconnect between school (where you are graded once and move on) versus life (where you are constantly improving and iterating).
I want students to learn how to figure out what’s working, make sense out of what’s failing, and then create a better iteration. But this requires a shift toward mastery-based grading as well as the freedom to make mistakes. For all the talk of “high standards,” iterative thinking only works when students experience slack. And yet, when they have this permission to fail, they can then improve their work and develop endurance.
#8: They are more likely to develop a growth mindset.
Iterative thinking ultimately leads to a growth mindset. It’s counterintuitive but the best way for students to have higher standards is to experience the permission to fail. This doesn’t mean we embrace failure but that we treat failing as a part of the learning process. After all, fail-ure is permanent and fail-ing is temporary.
Note that failing isn’t fun. It actually sucks when stuff doesn’t work out. And that’s an important reminder. Sometimes PBL isn’t fun. Sometimes it’s really, really frustrating. I have had students cry when something didn’t work. It wasn’t because of a grade, either. They were simply so into their project that they wanted it to work. But eventually, when it did work, they were able to develop a growth mindset.
#9: They grow more empathetic.
One of the PBL approaches we will explore is design thinking, which is centered around the idea of empathy. In some models, empathy is the starting point. Other times, it occurs in the research and ideation phases. But regardless of when it happens, if students are going to launch heir work to an audience, they need to design products out of a place of empathy.
This is one of those areas that goes far beyond the corporate world. We have a crisis of empathy in the U.S. I see it every time I go to Facebook. People talk over one another and lob easy insults at the opposite side. Trapped in their echo chambers, they move into a place where they miss the pain that others are experiencing. But I think we can change this as educators when we ask students to engage in empathy-driven design thinking.
#10: They increase in metacognition.
When I first saw the metacognition cycle, I thought, “Man, this seems so similar to aspects of PBL.” This is because PBL encourages students to plan, monitor, and reflect throughout the entire process.
So, if we want this for students, they need to work on projects. Real projects. The kind of projects that they get to own. And ultimately that requires a teacher who is wiling to take the leap and make PBL a reality.
Unlike the carefully scripted dialogue found in most books and movies, the language of everyday interaction tends to be messy and incomplete, full of false starts, interruptions and people talking over each other. From casual conversations between friends, to bickering between siblings, to formal discussions in a boardroom, authentic conversation is chaotic.It seems miraculous that anyone can learn language at all given the haphazard nature of the linguistic experience.
For this reason, many language scientists – including Noam Chomsky, a founder of modern linguistics – believe that language learners require a kind of glue to rein in the unruly nature of everyday language. And that glue is grammar: a system of rules for generating grammatical sentences. Children must have a grammar template wired into their brains to help them overcome the limitations of their language experience – or so the thinking goes.
This template, for example, might contain a “super-rule” that dictates how new pieces are added to existing phrases. Children then only need to learn whether their native language is one, like English, where the verb goes before the object (as in “I eat sushi”), or one like Japanese, where the verb goes after the object (in Japanese, the same sentence is structured as “I sushi eat”).
But new insights into language learning are coming from an unlikely source: artificial intelligence. A new breed of large AI language models can write newspaper articles, poetry and computer code and answer questions truthfully after being exposed to vast amounts of language input. And even more astonishingly, they all do it without the help of grammar.
Even if their choice of words is sometimes strange, nonsensical or contains racist, sexist and other harmful biases, one thing is very clear: the overwhelming majority of the output of these AI language models is grammatically correct. And yet, there are no grammar templates or rules hardwired into them – they rely on linguistic experience alone, messy as it may be.
GPT-3, arguably the most well-known of these models, is a gigantic deep-learning neural network with 175 billion parameters. It was trained to predict the next word in a sentence given what came before across hundreds of billions of words from the internet, books and Wikipedia. When it made a wrong prediction, its parameters were adjusted using an automatic learning algorithm.
Remarkably, GPT-3 can generate believable text reacting to prompts such as “A summary of the last ‘Fast and Furious’ movie is…” or “Write a poem in the style of Emily Dickinson.” Moreover, GPT-3 can respond to SAT level analogies, reading comprehension questions and even solve simple arithmetic problems – all from learning how to predict the next word.
Comparing AI models and human brains
The similarity with human language doesn’t stop here, however. Research published in Nature Neuroscience demonstrated that these artificial deep-learning networks seem to use the same computational principles as the human brain. The research group, led by neuroscientist Uri Hasson, first compared how well GPT-2 – a “little brother” of GPT-3 – and humans could predict the next word in a story taken from the podcast “This American Life”: people and the AI predicted the exact same word nearly 50% of the time.
The researchers recorded volunteers’ brain activity while listening to the story. The best explanation for the patterns of activation they observed was that people’s brains – like GPT-2 – were not just using the preceding one or two words when making predictions but relied on the accumulated context of up to 100 previous words. Altogether, the authors conclude: “Our finding of spontaneous predictive neural signals as participants listen to natural speech suggests that active prediction may underlie humans’ lifelong language learning.”
A possible concern is that these new AI language models are fed a lot of input: GPT-3 was trained on linguistic experience equivalent to 20,000 human years. But a preliminary study that has not yet been peer-reviewed found that GPT-2 can still model human next-word predictions and brain activations even when trained on just 100 million words. That’s well within the amount of linguistic input that an average child might hear during the first 10 years of life.
We are not suggesting that GPT-3 or GPT-2 learn language exactly like children do. Indeed, these AI models do not appear to comprehend much, if anything, of what they are saying, whereas understanding is fundamental to human language use. Still, what these models prove is that a learner – albeit a silicon one – can learn language well enough from mere exposure to produce perfectly good grammatical sentences and do so in a way that resembles human brain processing.
Rethinking language learning
For years, many linguists have believed that learning language is impossible without a built-in grammar template. The new AI models prove otherwise. They demonstrate that the ability to produce grammatical language can be learned from linguistic experience alone. Likewise, we suggest that children do not need an innate grammar to learn language.
“Children should be seen, not heard” goes the old saying, but the latest AI language models suggest that nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, children need to be engaged in the back-and-forth of conversation as much as possible to help them develop their language skills. Linguistic experience – not grammar – is key to becoming a competent language user.
Deep Neural Networks have become very significant in everyday real-world applications such as automated face recognition systems and self-driving cars. Deep Neural Network is used by researchers to model the processing of information and examine how this processing is equivalent to that of humans. While how DNNs perform computations can be very different from the human brain.
Hence, researchers have invented a unique approach to understanding whether the human brain and its DNN models recognize things in the same way, using similar steps of computations. Prof Philippe Schyns, Dean of Research Technology at the University of Glasgow, said: “Having a better understanding of whether the human brain and its DNN models recognize things the same way would allow for more accurate real-world applications using DNNs.
This article defines a new approach to better this understanding of how the process works: first, researchers must show that both the brain and the DNNs recognize the same things – such as a face – using the same face features; and, secondly, that the brain and the DNN must process these features in the same way, with the same steps of computations. This research would overcome the main hurdle in AI development i.e. understanding the process of machine learning, which matches how humans process information.
“Creating human-like AI is about more than mimicking human behavior – technology must also be able to process information, or ‘think’, like or better than humans if it is to be fully relied upon. We want to make sure AI models are using the same process to recognize things as a human would, so we don’t just have the illusion that the system is working.”
This research would provide us with more accurate and reliable AI technology that will process information similar to the human brain…
Neuroscience has taught us a lot about how our brains process and hold on to information. Learning new things is a huge part of life — we should always be striving to learn and grow. But it takes time, and time is precious. So how can you make the most of your time by speeding up the learning process?
Thanks to neuroscience, we now have a better understanding of how we learn and the most effective ways our brains process and hold on to information. If you want to get a jump start on expanding your knowledge, here are 10 proven ways you can start learning faster today.
1. Take notes with pen and paper.
Though it might seem that typing your notes on a laptop during a conference or lecture will be more thorough, thus helping you learn faster, it doesn’t work that way. To speed up your learning, skip the laptop and take notes the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. Research has shown that those who type in their lecture notes process and retain the information at a lower level. Those who take notes by hand actually learn more.
While taking notes by hand is slower and more cumbersome than typing, the act of writing out the information fosters comprehension and retention. Reframing the information in your own words helps you retain the information longer, meaning you’ll have better recall and will perform better on tests.
2. Have effective note-taking skills.
The better your notes are, the faster you’ll learn. Knowing how to take thorough and accurate notes will help you remember concepts, gain a deeper understanding of the topic and develop meaningful learning skills. So, before you learn a new topic, make sure you learn different strategies for note taking, such as the Cornell Method, which helps you organize class notes into easily digestible summaries.
Whatever method you use, some basic tips for note taking include:
Listen and take notes in your own words.
Leave spaces and lines between main ideas so you can revisit them later and add information.
Develop a consistent system of abbreviations and symbols to save time.
Write in phrases, not complete sentences.
Learn to pull out important information and ignore trivial information.
3. Distributed practice.
This method involves distributing multiple practices (or study sessions) on a topic over a period of time. Using short, spaced-out study sessions will encourage meaningful learning, as opposed to long “cram sessions,” which promote rote learning. The first step is to take thorough notes while the topic is being discussed. Afterward, take a few minutes to look over your notes, making any additions or changes to add detail and ensure accuracy.
Do this quickly, once or twice following each class or period of instruction. Over time, you can begin to spread the sessions out, starting with once per day and eventually moving to three times a week. Spacing out practice over a longer period of time is highly effective, because it’s easier to do small study sessions and you’ll stay motivated to keep learning.
4. Study, sleep, more study.
You have a big project or a major presentation tomorrow and you’re not prepared. If you’re like many of us, you stay up too late trying to cram beforehand. Surely your hard work will be rewarded, even if you’re exhausted the next day… right? However, that’s not the most efficient way for our brains to process information.
Research shows a strong connection between sleep and learning. It seems that getting some shut-eye is an important element in bolstering how our brains remember something. Deep sleep (non-rapid-eye-movement sleep) can strengthen memories if the sleep occurs within 12 hours of learning the new information. And students who both study and get plenty of sleep not only perform better academically; they’re also happier.
5. Modify your practice.
If you’re learning a skill, don’t do the same thing over and over. Making slight changes during repeated practice sessions will help you master a skill faster than doing it the same way every time. In one study of people who learned a computer-based motor skill, those who learned a skill and then had a modified practice session where they practiced the skill in a slightly different way performed better than those who repeated the original task over and over.
This only works if the modifications are small — making big changes in how the skill is performed won’t help. So, for instance, if you’re practicing a new golf swing or perfecting your tennis game, try adjusting the size or weight of your club or racket.
6. Try a mnemonic device.
One of the best ways to memorize a large amount of information quickly is to use a mnemonic device: a pattern of letters, sounds or other associations that assist in learning something. One of the most popular mnemonic devices is one we learned in kindergarten — the alphabet song. This song helps children remember their “ABCs,” and it remains deeply ingrained in our memory as adults. Another is “i before e except after c” to help us remember a grammar rule.
Mnemonics help you simplify, summarize and compress information to make it easier to learn. It can be really handy for students in medical school or law school, or people studying a new language. So, if you need to memorize and store large amounts of new information, try a mnemonic and you’ll find you remember the information long past your test.
7. Use brain breaks to restore focus.
Information overload is a real thing. In order to learn something new, our brains must send signals to our sensory receptors to save the new information, but stress and overload will prevent your brain from effectively processing and storing information.
When we are confused, anxious or feeling overwhelmed, our brains effectively shut down. You can see this happen when students listening to long, detailed lectures “zone out” and stop paying attention to what’s being said.
They simply aren’t able to effectively conduct that information into their memory banks, so learning shuts down. The best way to combat this is by taking a “brain break,” or simply shifting your activity to focus on something new. Even a five-minute break can relieve brain fatigue and help you refocus.
8. Stay hydrated.
We know we should drink water because it’s good for us — it’s good for our skin and our immune system, and it keeps our body functioning optimally. But staying hydrated is also key to our cognitive abilities. Drinking water can actually make us smarter. According to one study, students who took water with them to an examination room performed better than those who didn’t.
Dehydration, on the other hand, can seriously affect our mental function. When you fail to drink water, your brain has to work harder than usual.
9. Learn information in multiple ways.
When you use multiple ways to learn something, you’ll use more regions of the brain to store information about that subject. This makes that information more interconnected and embedded in your brain. It basically creates a redundancy of knowledge within your mind, helping you truly learn the information and not just memorize it.
You can do this by using different media to stimulate different parts of the brain, such as reading notes, reading the textbook, watching a video and listening to a podcast or audio file on the topic. The more resources you use, the faster you’ll learn.
10. Connect what you learn with something you know.
The more you can relate new concepts to ideas that you already understand, the faster the you’ll learn the new information. According to the book Make It Stick, many common study habits are counterproductive. They may create an illusion of mastery, but the information quickly fades from our minds.
Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems we haven’t encountered before and drawing inferences from facts already known. By finding ways to fit new information in with preexisting knowledge, you’ll find additional layers of meaning in the new material. This will help you fundamentally understand it better, and you’ll be able to recall it more accurately.
Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, uses this method. He said he views knowledge as a “semantic tree.” When learning new things, his advice is to “make sure you understand the principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.” When you connect the new to the old, you give yourself mental “hooks” on which to hang the new knowledge.
Simply reading and re-reading texts or notes is not actively engaging in the material. It is simply re-reading your notes. Only ‘doing’ the readings for class is not studying. It is simply doing the reading for class. Re-reading leads to quick forgetting.
Think of reading as an important part of pre-studying, but learning information requires actively engaging in the material (Edwards, 2014). Active engagement is the process of constructing meaning from text that involves making connections to lectures, forming examples, and regulating your own learning (Davis, 2007).
Active studying does not mean highlighting or underlining text, re-reading, or rote memorization. Though these activities may help to keep you engaged in the task, they are not considered active studying techniques and are weakly related to improved learning (Mackenzie, 1994).
Ideas for active studying include:
Create a study guide by topic. Formulate questions and problems and write complete answers. Create your own quiz.
Become a teacher. Say the information aloud in your own words as if you are the instructor and teaching the concepts to a class.
Derive examples that relate to your own experiences.
Create concept maps or diagrams that explain the material.
Develop symbols that represent concepts.
For non-technical classes (e.g., English, History, Psychology), figure out the big ideas so you can explain, contrast, and re-evaluate them.
For technical classes, work the problems and explain the steps and why they work.
Study in terms of question, evidence, and conclusion: What is the question posed by the instructor/author? What is the evidence that they present? What is the conclusion?
Organization and planning will help you to actively study for your courses. When studying for a test, organize your materials first and then begin your active reviewing by topic (Newport, 2007). Often professors provide subtopics on the syllabi. Use them as a guide to help organize your materials. For example, gather all of the materials for one topic (e.g., PowerPoint notes, text book notes, articles, homework, etc.) and put them together in a pile. Label each pile with the topic and study by topics.
The Study Cycle, developed by Frank Christ, breaks down the different parts of studying: previewing, attending class, reviewing, studying, and checking your understanding. One of the most impactful learning strategies is “distributed practice”—spacing out your studying over several short periods of time over several days and weeks (Newport, 2007).
The most effective practice is to work a short time on each class every day.Not all studying is equal. You will accomplish more if you study intensively. Intensive study sessions are short and will allow you to get work done with minimal wasted effort. Shorter, intensive study times are more effective than drawn out studying.
Know where you study best. The silence of a library may not be the best place for you. It’s important to consider what noise environment works best for you. You might find that you concentrate better with some background noise.Working and re-working problems is important for technical courses (e.g., math, economics). Be able to explain the steps of the problems and why they work.
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Striving for Equity
The slides are set to advance automatically, and because of this, they must be highly visual. So there’s an opening to teach symbolism as well as how to find and cite free images. Because of the speed, a speaker cannot rely on the slides as their script; there’s no room for bullet points or paragraphs. This encourages students to make eye contact and speak with their back to the screen and not to the audience.
