Improving learning from examples through reflection.

Abstract

Many institutions have moved from illustrating points with case studies to using them as the primary method of instruction. Experiments were conducted to test how elaborations of case examples and types of reflection questions affected learning. Annotated examples produced learning beyond what students could self-explain. Carefully posed reflection questions resulted in better learning. However, the quality of the response was more important than merely the act of responding. Initial knowledge and general math abilities had differential impacts on whether students benefited from questions. The practical implication is that examples alone may not provide all the instruction needed or demonstrate the range of skills that students might need. Therefore, instruction could be improved by providing additional explanations within examples as well as reflection questions at the end of examples.Case studies, the practice of using real examples in the teaching of material such as law, business, or medicine, have been extended in recent years to the training of basic material and skills (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993; Nahemow & Pousada, 1983;Williams, 1992). Typically, students receive varying amounts of lecture before they learn from these cases. For example, in law, students receive no instruction on how to prepare a brief or how to read a case before their first assignment (Williams, 1992); on the other hand, in medicine (problem-based learning), students typically receive instruction and aid with their cases from an instructor (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993).Despite providing realistic examples for students, training using case studies has received

Reflection during portfolio-based conversations

“…Another possible explanation could be the fact that we used transcripts of conversations instead of text written by students; students may find it easier to express themselves in spoken text and address their story to someone who is present physically. It could also be that teachers in some way stimulate students to reflect during portfolio-based conversations (e.g., Bartell et al, 1998;Lee & Hutchison, 1998;Van den Boom et al, 2004).…”

“…Van den Boom, Paas and Van Merrië nboer (2007) speak in this context about ''reflective dialogues'': ''iterative processes in which reflections are elaborated on'' (p. 536). During these dialogues, teachers can stimulate the elaboration of student thinking by providing reflection prompts (Lee & Hutchison, 1998;Van den Boom et al, 2004) and by providing feedback on the process and the outcomes of students' reflection ( Van den Boom et al, 2007). Also, to trigger reflection, it is important that portfolio conversations are structured and focused on specific experiences or artefacts, collected in a clear-cut period of time (Wolf et al, 1995).…”

BEETLE II: Deep Natural Language Understanding and Automatic Feedback Generation for Intelligent Tutoring in Basic Electricity and Electronics

“…For example, the second stage relies on the tutor taking on a Socratic role (Seeskin 1987) and leverages what we know about student learning through postactivity reflection and self-explanation (Chi et al 1994;Katz et al 2003Katz et al , 2007King 1997;Kolb 1984;Lee and Hutchison 1998;Mestre et al 2011). At its core, this stage recognizes the importance of getting students to generate or construct their own interpretation and understanding of a domain (Duffy and Jonassen 1992;Osborne and Wittrock 1983).…”

Effects of instructional aids on the acquisition of dynamic decision-making skills

“…Third, for steps in a procedure that might appear mysterious, the addition of a sentence or two explaining the underlying principle can enhance learning (Catrambone, 1995;Lee & Hutchison, 1998). For a causal map, boxes with explanations for key relationships could be integrated into the map, and similarly for the textual outline (Chandler & Sweller, 1991;Mayer & Moreno, 2002).…”