What does Nuthall really say about multiple exposures?

I made this table in 2014, it is based upon a now unsearchable document, namely the now illusive

"Nuthall, G. A. (2001a). Manual: Procedures for identifying the information content of student classroom experiences and predicting student learning."

If anyone has one lying around I would love a copy.

What is it? Well, these are the codes (albeit slightly incomplete, and slightly compiled from other Nuthall research documents) used by Nuthall and his fellow researchers to analyse the interactions students had with a concept. Their purpose was to allow them to predict if learning would occur based upon the "kinds" of interaction.Astonishingly they could oredict if learning would occur to an accuracy of 88%. This is to an extent that it will certainly do for me!

These may be a researcher’s tool, but they certainly illuminate a teachers understanding of how learning takes place, and as such are worthy of a little thought by teachers. It is indeed these research tools that presented us with the multiple exposure rule that if a concept is engaged with three or four times, depending upon the concepts difficulty and the students, then it will be learned. But they might tell us even more.

The codes are categorised into two types: A full set of information that is required for a concept to be learned, here coloured green. Sensationally the other category is a partial set of information that includes important information about the concept being learned.   Here these are shaded blue, and you will see that these are of several different forms. 

	Description
Full set of accessible information needed to learn a concept: picture, words.	The exact information that that students need to hear, read, see, discuss or use in an activity. Information that must be engaged with. Students need the chance to identify and extract relevant information. Any prior knowledge they express is very much part of this.
Partial set of information with some important parts about a concept.	As above, but just not the full information. Chunked explanations. Corrections to work. Relevant prior knowledge that they express too.
Working out Information. Information that can lead to an inference or deduction.	Implicit use of key terminology. Concept use when teaching another concept.[??1]
Background information	Such as: definitions analogies examples non-examples personal experiences
Activities that lead to a full use/view of the information.	These activities are more than just reading, writing and talking about a concept.   Science practical Making a model The information is clearly about the concept
Activities that lead to a partial use/view of the information.	These activities are more than reading, writing and talking, but in this case do not give the full information. This may be information that can be used to lead students to make inferences and deductions.

It must first be noted that students not gaining access to a full set of information is not the result of crap teaching. There are numerous valid, and beneficial reasons why we would not want to present everything all at once: complex ideas need breaking down, or we may be helping students think through the content via definitions, analogies,  examples and non-examples and so forth. This information provides students with useful background information so that they can work out the meaning of concepts through induction and deduction.

 The partial information works in different ways: sometimes it provides a context for the learning and potential sources of useful prior knowledge, and sometimes we give information that will allow students to work out what the concept is in a more direct way.

 Nuthall then pieced together through observation, and interviews when and how students interacted with or engaged with information about a concepts. This really is a marvel. As a teacher you rarely get to see where and when students actually interact with the ideas behind a concept, our classrooms are too busy, with too many students and too many ideas being learned (and forgotten) all at once. So this schematic view of it is certainly worth pondering the interactions our students take in a process of a lesson: When? Where?  How?  How many? First exposure? Second? Did they think? Did they infer? Did they copy? Of course this is impossible to know as much of the important interaction  hidden in the mind of the learner. 

Nuthall used the categorisations

1. Full set of information FSI
2. Partial set of information PSI
3. Activity that leads to a full set of information ALF
4. Activity that leads to a partial set of information ALP
5. Back ground Information BI
6. Working out Infromation WOI

 to work out what was needed for a concept to be learned as summarised in the next table.

Interaction/ Exposure number	1	2	3	4	5	Additional information
Learned occurs with	FSI	FSI	FSI	FSI		Only four required
Learned occurs with	FSI	FSI	FSI	PSI/ WOI/ BI/ ALF/ALP		Only four required. Any one of the blue.
Learned occurs with	FSI	FSI	ALF	ALF	ALF	Any combination of blue .
Learned occurs with	FSI	FSI	ALF	ALP	ALP	any combination of blue.
Learned occurs with	FSI	FSI	PSI	WOI	BI	And any combination.
Learned occurs with	FSI	PSI	WOI	WOI	ALP	And any combination.

Nuthall himself said “ Provided a student is able to piece together, in working memory, the equivalent of three complete definitions or descriptions of a concept, that new concept will be constructed as part of the students long term memory” From the table It suggest that four  Full sets of information (FSI) will do the job, as will three provided there is an additional set of partial information.

If there is less than two full sets of information then students will require a total of five interactions with partial information sets.

This makes it essential for teachers to be aware what a full set of information may look like. This is difficult to achieve for every fact and idea you want students to learn.  Ergo, I do not think this is a planning tool, but a key piece of pedagogical content knowledge that will help us plan better teaching sequences.

 This research primarily suggests some useful planning suggestions. So that for learning to take place, students must:

• interact with a full explanation of concept at least once.
• interact with the information on at least four separate occasions.

 and that:

• the more often they interact with the full picture the better for their learning.
• perhaps breaking down concepts is not always the best strategy as more exposures will be needed for learning to occur for each of the smaller parts and then for the big idea you intended to teach.
• related information can be deduced, collated and learned from many pieces of information.
• we have to remember that, no matter how much we manage knowledge, we are entirely reliant upon students engaging with it!

The importance of a full set of information is problematic for teachers as We instinctively strive to break down immense potential complexity into neat, bite-sized chunks appropriate for student consumption. Sadly, this well-intentioned process may not actually benefit student learning; as the most effective teaching activities are often linked to big questions or ideas. This is probably best defined by David Perkins who, in his book “Making Learning Whole”, labels the breaking down of learning into small chunks, rather tongue in cheekly,  as a disease, naming it ‘elementisis’. The problem with elemetisis is that students never get to join the elements back together after they have been broken down for them, so that they may see how the knowledge works as part of a whole.

---

 Graham Nuthall 2007 The Hidden Lives of Learners NZCER page 127.

 Graham Nuthall Vol. 99, No. 4 (Mar., 1999), pp. 303-341 The Elementary School Journal The Way Students Learn: Acquiring Knowledge from an Integrated Science and Social Studies Unit
David Perkins - making Learning Whole 

Hidden Lives of Learners - Preston Lodge Festival of Learning.

Falling in love again...

I think I've gone and done it again, I have fallen in love with PEEL, although it's probably more honest say falling more in love with PEEL.
The reason is simple, the alignment of their good learning behaviours and Graham Nuthalls research. 

1. Checks personal comprehension for instruction and material.  Requests further information if needed.  Tells the teacher what they don't understand.

The idea here is, linked to his idea that teachers can not tell if students are learning or not from the wherewithal of classroom activity, this is a call for students to be OK with not knowing, and to share this with the teacher. Thereby granting us access to the third world of students private world.

2.  Seeks reasons for aspects of the work at hand.

This is a classic strategy to find out how and where to connect the ideas being learned to bigger questions or problems. This is Nuthalls third premise of effective activities being built around big questions. 

3.  Plans a general strategy before starting.

and this is Nuthalls fourth premise that effective activities are managed by the students themselves.

4.  Anticipates and predicts possible outcomes.

Two systems operate simultaneously when learning. One is the working memory the other is a reasoning system inferring and deducing information. It's why learning can happen even if students have only been exposed to the full set of information about a "concept" a couple of time, but have had partial a couple of times too. Check out page 126 of Hidden Lives. 

5.  Checks teacher's work for errors; offers corrections.

Is this the epitome of students managing their own activities? 

6. Offers or seeks links between

     - different activities and ideas

     - different topics or subjects

     - schoolwork and personal life

Nuthall talks at length about the schema formed in the long term memory, and how these are intertwined with "how" we know it. This is often a good start point to begin to tackle alternative (mis) conceptions. 

7.  Searches for weaknesses in their own understandings; checks the consistency of their explanations across different situations.

For learning to happen students must meet the information in different guises and contexts. Again, I feel this useful in undermining alternative conceptions ( I have been corrected both times I have met Ian Mitchell from PEEL, who deeply understands that these errors in understanding may well be rooted in observation and logic),which can be challenged by developing students' skills in a variety of contexts, e.g. using questions during fieldwork and practical demonstrations.( from Jane Dove) 

8. Suggests new activities and alternative procedures.

Ditto, fourth premise. Indeed this is a category used in the research, as students manipulate the task presented to them by teachers. 

9.  Challenges the text or an answer the teacher sanctions as correct.

Ditto, students managing their activities. 

10. Offers ideas, new insights and alternative explanations.

11.  Justifies opinions.

12.  Reacts and refers to other students  comments. 

The final three all tie in with the first premise that social relationships determine learning. Nuthall, does indeed highlight many of the detrimental aspects of social relationship and offers this. "Some teachers have overcome this, by developing powerful learning communities". If the interactions of my students were peppered with these three behaviours I'd really think I was onto something...

I am not on  commission with PEEL, although I should be.  You can find them here www.peelweb.org it is a bargin to subscribe and gain access to the 1500 articles and ideas on offer.

Two Types of complimentary pre-assessment.

Quality

Qualities Broad PA (eg a multiple choice pre exam) Specific PA (eg a hinge question or task. Time period effective Long Term Short Term Number of Learning Intentions examined Many One When Well before a module is designed End of a lesson in time for next lesson Informs module design lesson planning direction of a lesson Quality of information Yes or No or maybe information on learning intentions detailed information on student ideas of specific concepts- narrow and deep ease of Demonstrating “progress” Very difficult - need to be  subject specialist to spot Ease of demonstrating learning Don't make me laugh yes we are getting there Ability to identify misconceptions not really, although debatable if its useful for the students Yes Ability to reveal how students use knowledge No Possible Who is this really for Teacher and the System Students and Teachers Number of times each “concept” is tested More than once May be a single antecedent will look like Data A mess of ideas Ease of interpretation Easy More than likely requires PCK Useful as an interim check Yes No Useful for “observers of your lessons”` Who cares, the observer must be more skilled. Who cares, the observer must be more skilled.

Some Nuthallian Connections

Standard Based Grading. Expeditionary Learning

I’ve been heading in this direction for a little while now, so it has been good to see this first hand at King Middle School and Casco Bay High School in Portland.

I'm reminded of this passage from Graham Nuthall. "Significant knowledge and ability are not like this."

As a teacher I know I can only attend to the items of learning that we want our students to learn. I really can’t do a great deal about turning a C grade into B grade, these are averages of performance and therefore an abstraction.  I can do something about a student not understanding how a star develops or a how to balance a chemical reaction.  I can explain these in different ways, design tasks to break these ideas down, to make them memorable or to practice them. In these terms separating the grading system and the knowledge is a rather bizarre practice.

Staff at King Middle have found students are better at articulating there understanding of the content and of what they have learned and still need to practice.  This is the big advantage of Standards Based Grading. These items or learning targets are communicated with parents and provide for concrete conversations about learning and next steps.

It appears that the students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate competence in each of the learning outcomes for a module. I think this four chances, and have been told categorically that the school will not report on an learning outcome if the student has only had one assessment on that target.  A wide variety of tasks are used for assessment.

Some students in year 8 have found the transition difficult after being used to a percentage style grading. A few students (and parents)  have been a little confused by this, and some have found it more difficult to get the highest grades.

My big concern over SBG is how it could be used in a very reductionist way, valuing only small items of knowledge rather than the beautiful complexity that learning brings. The context of Expeditionary ( and Project) Learning seems to be the counter balance to this. I will need to ask some questions around some of the more “stand alone” courses.

Both staff and students seem happier with the HOWLS grades being separated from the academic grades, and have found these easier to be acclimatised to than the academic ones. The HOWLS grades are not too dissimilar to Cramlingtons 5 R scores.

A few of the do not’s and do’s  in grading have been pointed out.

1.       Do not include behaviour in academic grades.

2.       Do not consider attendance in academic gradings.

3.       Have clear rubrics

4.       Do not use mean scores ( and I am assuming “best fit” too)

5.       Only summative assessment counts.

6.       Involve students in the process.

7.       No zero gradings.

8.       Look at recent or current scores.

9.       DO not lump grades into one

--  Do not use group work for individual assessment.

Following the identification of the benefits of SBG was made three staff working groups were established to develop the school practice and to begin to share the vision of this.

1.       Academic standards

2.       HOWLS

3.       Remediation

A simple but thorough approach. These categories all feed into the student led conferences and have already improved the focus in these sessions.

The book A repair kit for Grading by Ken O’Connor has been recommended and on first glance looks a worthy purchase. This book was the start point for their work.