Comparing Learning From Productive Failure and Vicarious Failure

A total of 136 eighth-grade math students from 2 Singapore schools learned from either productive failure (PF) or vicarious failure (VF). PF students generated solutions to a complex problem targeting the concept of variance that they had not learned yet before receiving instruction on the targeted concept. VF students evaluated the solutions generated by PF students before receiving the same instruction. Student-generated solutions were either suboptimal or incorrect, and in this sense can be conceived as failed problem-solving attempts. Although there was no difference on self-reported engagement, PF students reported significantly greater mental effort and interest in knowing the canonical solution to the problem than VF students. When preexisting differences in general ability, math ability, and prior knowledge were controlled, PF students outperformed VF students on conceptual understanding and transfer without compromising procedural fluency. These results suggest that when learning a new math concept, people learn better from their own failed solutions than those of others provided appropriate instruction on the targeted concept is given after the generation or evaluation activity.     

Discovery learning: zombie,phoenix, or elephant?

Discovery learning continues to be a topic of heated debate. It has been called a zombie, and this special issue raises the question whether it may be a phoenix arising from the ashes to which the topic was burnt. However, in this commentary I propose it is more like an elephant—a huge topic approached by many people who address different aspects. What is needed in the discussion about discovery learning and related approaches, I argue, is sublation: the kind of lifting up from the one-dimensional discussion between two extremes (minimal guidance vs. direct instruction) that puts an end to the everlasting tug of war by integrating justified concerns from both opposite positions. I evaluate how the different contributions to the special issue help to sublate the discussion about discovery learning. In particular, the case study presented by Trninic illustrates how strong guidance and repetition may be needed for the discovery of something that cannot be told. I further suggest scaffolding, inferentialism, and design research as potential theoretical and methodological ways forward.     

Unpacking the hidden efficacies of learning in productive failure

This paper describes a framework for learning where learners undergo experimentations with the phenomena at hand according to progressive and staged goals. Bowling is used as a case study in this paper. The premise for experimentations is that learners can experience hidden efficacies, including the formation of “bad habits.” A distinction is made between productivity in learning and performance in terms of learning outcomes. In other words, productivity in learning may not necessarily manifest in successful performance, hence the term productive failure. To emphasize the need for self-regulation during problem-solving process, we discuss the movements within the productive–unproductive and success–failure dimensions through three-staged self-regulatory processes and draw implications to learning and instruction.     

Productive friction: How conflict in student teaching creates opportunities for learning at the boundary

Student teaching is contested ground for teacher candidates’ learning. Struggling to implement practises when expectations of university and schools are inconsistent, they experience conflicts between these two worlds. In this article, we conceptualise student teaching as a space where conflicts can be generative for candidates’ learning. We use the idea of productive friction—dissonance experienced by teacher candidates when two or more social worlds conflict that leads to more sophisticated practise—to consider student teaching as a potential boundary space that benefits from diverse perspectives. Drawing on ethnographic data, we contrast the cases of four candidates’ productive and unproductive friction during student teaching. Furthermore, we discuss the qualities of student teaching that can promote productive friction for learning.     

Productive failure in mathematical problem solving

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study comparing a “productive failure” instructional design (Kapur in Cognition and Instruction 26(3):379–424, 2008) with a traditional “lecture and practice” instructional design for a 2-week curricular unit on rate and speed. Seventy-five, 7th-grade mathematics students from a mainstream secondary school in Singapore participated in the study. Students experienced either a traditional lecture and practice teaching cycle or a productive failure cycle, where they solved complex problems in small groups without the provision of any support or scaffolds up until a consolidation lecture by their teacher during the last lesson for the unit. Findings suggest that students from the productive failure condition produced a diversity of linked problem representations and methods for solving the problems but were ultimately unsuccessful in their efforts, be it in groups or individually. Expectedly, they reported low confidence in their solutions. Despite seemingly failing in their collective and individual problem-solving efforts, students from the productive failure condition significantly outperformed their counterparts from the lecture and practice condition on both well-structured and higher-order application problems on the post-tests. After the post-test, they also demonstrated significantly better performance in using structured-response scaffolds to solve problems on relative speed—a higher-level concept not even covered during instruction. Findings and implications of productive failure for instructional design and future research are discussed.     

Invention Versus Direct Instruction: For Some Content,It’s a Tie

An important, but as yet unresolved pedagogical question is whether discovery-oriented or direct instruction methods lead to greater learning and transfer. We address this issue in a study with 101 fourth and fifth grade students that contrasts two distinct instructional methods. One is a blend of discovery and direct instruction called Invent-then-Tell (IT), and the other is a version of direct instruction called Tell-then-Practice (TP). The relative effectiveness of these methods is compared in the context of learning a critical inquiry skill—the control-of-variables strategy. Previous research has demonstrated the success of IT over TP for teaching deep domain structures, while other research has demonstrated the superiority of direct instruction for teaching simple experimental design, a domain-general inquiry skill. In the present study, students in both conditions made equally large gains on an immediate assessment of their application and conceptual understanding of experimental design, and they also performed similarly on a test of far transfer. These results were fairly consistent across school populations with various levels of prior achievement and socioeconomic status. Findings suggest that broad claims about the relative effectiveness of these two distinct methods should be conditionalized by particular instructional contexts, such as the type of knowledge being taught.     

Productive failure in learning the concept of variance

In a study with ninth-grade mathematics students on learning the concept of variance, students experienced either direct instruction (DI) or productive failure (PF), wherein they were first asked to generate a quantitative index for variance without any guidance before receiving DI on the concept. Whereas DI students relied only on the canonical formulation of variance taught to them, PF students generated a diversity of formulations for variance but were unsuccessful in developing the canonical formulation. On the posttest however, PF students significantly outperformed DI students on conceptual understanding and transfer without compromising procedural fluency. These results challenge the claim that there is little efficacy in having learners solve problems targeting concepts that are novel to them, and that DI needs to happen before learners should solve problems on their own.     

Supporting Communication in a Collaborative Discovery Learning Environment: the Effect of Instruction

We present a study on the effect of instruction on collaboration in a collaborative discovery learning environment. The instruction we used, called RIDE, is built upon four principles identified in the literature on collaborative processes: Respect, Intelligent collaboration, Deciding together, and Encouraging. In an experimental study, a group of learners (ages 15–17) receiving this instruction was compared to a control group. The learners worked in dyads on separate computers in a shared discovery learning environment in the physics domain of collisions, communicating through a chat channel. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the logged actions in the learning environment and the chat protocols showed that the RIDE instruction can lead to more constructive communication, and improved discovery learning activities, as expected, although no direct effect on discovery learning results was found. This study shows the benefits of providing instruction on effective communication and the learning process in a collaborative discovery learning situation.     

Designing Effective Learning Environments for Continuing Education

Advances in technology for distance learning present better‐than‐ever opportunities for designing learning environments that bring optimal features of the conventional classroom to distributed learners. Yet, with the advantages of reaching learners come corresponding challenges for meeting many and varied cognitive, motivational, and organizational needs. Anchoring design of distance learning instruction solidly in current research from cognitive science and motivation, as well as utilizing tested principles of instructional design theory, provides for optimal balance of strategic decision‐making and appropriate management of trade‐offs in design of effective learning environments. This paper shows how Bransford, Brown, and Cocking's (1999) four characteristics of effective learning environments can be developed for continuing education, to maximize learning, transfer of learning, and motivation. As illustration, I will focus on the process of translating traditional continuing education (CE) from lecture‐based, on‐site instruction to Web‐based instruction, a trend in many institutions of higher education.     

Effect of U-Pace Instruction on Academic Success,Learning, and Perceptions in Younger and Older Undergraduates

A randomized controlled trial was conducted to determine the efficacy of U-Pace instruction for older undergraduates, ages 25 and older, and younger undergraduates, ages 18 to 24. Additionally, change in learner perceptions across the semester, an outcome not reported in the literature on U-Pace instruction, was investigated. In both younger and older undergraduates U-Pace instruction produced greater learning, greater academic success, and sustained or improved students’ perceptions of themselves as learners compared with Face-to-Face instruction. The findings provide strong support for the efficacy of U-Pace instruction in younger and older students and highlight a possible mechanism underlying U-Pace instruction’s effects on learning and academic success.     

自主学习模式下的网络环境设计

网络发展促进了新的教学模式的出现,网络环境下的自主学习随之成为一种主导性的教学改革模式。在该模式下,教师与教学环境设计者在角色定位上是相同的,因而教师对环境设计的理解和把握直接关系到教学成败,理解网络自主学习和网络环境设计的意义,掌握设计原则和方法成为亟需。     

The impact of guidance during problem-solving prior to instruction on students’ inventions and learning outcomes

Multiple studies have shown benefits of problem-solving prior to instruction (cf. Productive Failure, Invention) in comparison to direct instruction. However, students’ solutions prior to instruction are usually erroneous or incomplete. In analogy to guided discovery learning, it might therefore be fruitful to lead students towards the discovery of the canonical solution. In two quasi-experimental studies with 104 students and 175 students, respectively, we compared three conditions: problem-solving prior to instruction, guided problem-solving prior to instruction in which students were led towards the discovery of relevant solution components, and direct instruction. We replicated the beneficial effects of problem-solving prior to instruction in comparison to direct instruction on posttest items testing for conceptual knowledge. Our process analysis further revealed that guidance helped students to invent better solutions. However, the solution quality did not correlate with the posttest results in the guided condition, indicating that leading students towards the solution does not additionally promote learning. This interpretation is supported by the finding that the two conditions with problem-solving prior to instruction did not differ significantly at posttest. The second study replicated these findings with a greater sample size. The results indicate that different mechanisms underlie guided discovery learning and problem-solving prior to instruction: In guided discovery learning, the discovery of an underlying model is inherent to the method. In contrast, the effectiveness of problem-solving prior to instruction does not depend on students’ discovery of the canonical solution, but on the cognitive processes related to problem-solving, which prepare students for a deeper understanding during subsequent instruction.     

Achievement Goals and Persistence Across Tasks: The Roles of Failure and Success

The focus of this study is on the role of achievement goals in students’ persistence. The authors administered 5 puzzles to 96 college students: 4 unsolvable and 1 relatively easy (acting as a hope probe). They examined whether and how persistence may deteriorate as a function of failing the puzzles, as well as whether and how persistence may rebound after an event of success. Time spent engaging in the task comprised the dependent variable persistence (representing a behavioral aspect of engagement). Results suggested that mastery-oriented students persisted significantly longer compared with performance approach–oriented, performance avoidance–oriented, and amotivated students across failure trials. However, performance approach–oriented students were more likely to rebound after experiencing success. Qualitative data provided insights into the affective processes that accompanied engagement with the task.     

Causal Attributions for Success or Failure of Students in College Algebra

Research in the field of attribution theory and academic achievement suggests a relationship between a student's attributional style and achievement. Theorists and researchers contend that attributions influence individual reactions to success and failure. They also report that individuals use attributions to explain and justify their performance. Studies in mathematics education identify attribution theory as the theoretical orientation most suited to explain academic performance in mathematics. This study focused on the relationship among a high risk course, low success rates, and attribution by examining the difference in the attributions passing and failing students gave for their performance in College Algebra. Students from a large urban community college in South Florida (n = 410) self-reported their performance on an in-class test by providing open-ended attribution statements to explain the cause of their performance. They then attributed their performance along the dimensions of locus of causality, stability, personal controllability, and external controllability using the Causal Dimensions Scale (CDSII). The open-ended attribution statements were coded in relation to ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck and compared using a Pearson chi- square procedure. The quantitative data compared the passing and failing groups and their attributions for performance on the test using One-way ANOVA and Pearson chi-square procedures. The results of the quantitative data comparing passing and failing groups and their attributions along the dimensions measured by the CDSII indicated statistical significance in locus of causality, stability, and personal controllability. The results comparing the open-ended attribution statements indicated statistical significance in the categories of effort and task difficulty.     

发现学习CAI课件教学设计的内容和步骤

讨论了发现学习CAI课件教学设计的内容和步骤：发现学习目标的分析;确定发现学习类型;媒体资源和学习情境的设计;自主学习的设计、形成性练习的设计。认为“自主学习的设计”是整个设计的核心内容,并给出了概念、规则和问题解决三种发现学习的自主学习模式。     

Comparing the effectiveness of preparatory activities that help undergraduate students learn from instruction

Students can learn better from instruction after first engaging in activities that prepare them to learn (Kapur, 2016; Loibl, Roll, & Rummel, 2017; Schwartz & Bransford, 1998). In this study, we compare the effectiveness of four activities that prepare university students to learn from instruction. We use productive failure, an established instructional design, as the baseline preparatory condition. In productive failure, students generate solutions to challenging but accessible problems, which serves as preparation for formal instruction. We compare this approach with three alternative preparatory activities: contrasting a correct and an incorrect solution, sensemaking of the correct solution only, and studying a fully worked-out example of the correct solution. Despite the differences in preparatory activities, participants on average performed nearly identically on most of the process and outcome measures. In universities, or with similarly advanced learners, a variety of activities may be equally effective at preparing students to learn from instruction.     

Sequential effects of high and low instructional guidance on children’s acquisition of experimentation skills: Is it all in the timing?

We report the effect of different sequences of high vs low levels of instructional guidance on children’s immediate learning and long-term transfer of simple experimental design procedures and concepts, often called “CVS” (Control of Variables Strategy). Third-grade children (N = 57) received instruction in CVS via one of four possible orderings of high or low instructional guidance: high followed by high (HH), high followed by low (HL), low followed by high (LH), and low followed by low (LL). High guidance instruction consisted of a combination of direct instruction and inquiry questions, and low guidance included only inquiry questions. Contrary to the frequent claim that a high degree of instructional guidance leads to shallow learning and transfer, across a number of assessments—including a 5-month post-test—the HH group demonstrated a stronger understanding of CVS than the LL group. Moreover, we found no advantage for preceding high guidance with low guidance. We discuss our findings in relation to perspectives advocating “invention as preparation for future learning”, and the efficacy of “productive failure”.     

Scaling Up,Scaling Down: Seven Years of Performance Assessment Development in the Nation's Second Largest School District

To provide an accurate reading of students' and schools' rates of progress, and to provide cues for instruction, assessment at every level should be connected to explicit learning goals and standards. To show how this requirement can be fulfilled, and how research-based assessment can effectively support learning and instruction, this article summarizes a 7-year performance assessment collaboration between assessment researchers and the nation's second largest school district. The project's success in scaling up empirically tested assessment design models and scoring procedures to a district assessment involving more than 300,000 students per year raises the possibility that high-quality learning-centered assessment may again be a practical option for large-scale assessment and accountability.     

Productivity tools for simulation-centered training development

Model-based training offers a number of potential benefits in training performance of complex tasks, particularly when an interactive device model can be manipulated both by the training system and by the learner. Unlike fixed training systems, simulation-centered training allows the learner to practice in a realistic setting that is not artificially constrained, and it allows the training system to automatically support the learner in attaining complex goals. Rapid authoring of many other learning transactions can also be supported in a model-based environment, enhancing the potential for both high-quality interactive instruction and productivity in the development of such instruction. A potential problem with the model-based approach, however, is that the model development process is traditionally very unproductive and often results in unreliable or unrealistic models of the systems to be learned. Presented in this article is theRapids authoring system, an integrated set of direct manipulation tools for the production of interactive graphical models and instruction based on those models. A short course based on models of neural networks on the visual retina is described to illustrate the productive application of theRapids simulation and course authoring tools. Development ofRapids was funded by the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory, under RICIS Research Activity No. ET 13 (NASA Cooperative Agreement NCC9-16) administered by the University of Houston, Clear Lake. Our colleagues, Lee D. Coller, Quentin A. Pizzini, David S. Surmon, and James L. Wogulis, collaborated in the design and implementation ofRapids. Mark Johnson of our organization was instrumental in developing the diagnostic model used inIMTS.     

梁山县高中生物理考试成败归因特点调查

以山东省梁山县780名高中生为被试,以考试成败归因问卷为工具,探讨高中生对物理考试成败结果的归因特点。结果表明：整体上看,梁山县高中生对考试成败倾向于作内部可控归因,其中又主要归因于持久努力、临时努力和学习方法,对考试成功与失败的归因倾向基本是一致的;男女生对于考试成功的归因不存在明显的差别,对考试失败的归因有一定差异,女生比男生更看重学习方法、学习基础与能力等原因对失败结果的影响;不同年级高中生对考试成败具有基本相同的归因倾向;不同成绩水平高中生对考试成功的归因不存在明显的差异,对考试失败的归因存在一定的差异。