On Friday, January 18, 2019, a new Research Colloquium takes place at the LFE.
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Garvin Brod (Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DIPF); Center for Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk (IDeA) and Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main) will give a talk.
The presentation is entitled: trong>Asking children to generate predictions before telling them solutions: an effective strategy to activate prior knowledge and improve learning?
Abstract:
A major challenge in teaching children is that they rarely make deliberate and strategic use of their prior knowledge. Children, thus, do not draw meaningful connections between their knowledge and the to-be-learned material, which impedes their learning performance (Bjorklund, Muir-Broaddus, & Schneider, 1990). However, elaborative prompts can help children in elementary school-age to make efficient use of their knowledge, which brings their memory performance almost to the level of university students (Brod, Lindenberger, & Shing, 2017). Therefore, educators working with children would profit immensely from easy-to-use methods that reliably prompt children to activate their prior knowledge. In a recent line of research, we have investigated whether letting children generate predictions qualifies as an effective and efficient strategy for activating their prior knowledge and for supporting their learning. An additional benefit of generating predictions besides knowledge activation is that it enables learners to be surprised about expectancy-violating information, which facilitates belief revision (Brod, Hasselhorn, & Bunge, 2018). Two studies will be presented that examined belief revision and facts learning, respectively. In each study, the effectiveness of generating predictions was compared to other generative learning strategies and between elementary school children and university students. Overall, results suggest that generating predictions compares favorably to other generative learning strategies, and particularly so in children.
References:
Bjorklund, D. F., Muir-Broaddus, J. E., & Schneider, W. (1990). The role of knowledge in the development of strategies. In D. F. Bjorklund (Ed.), Children’s strategies: Contemporary views of cognitive development (pp. 93–128). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Brod, G., Hasselhorn, M., & Bunge, S. A. (2018). When generating a prediction boosts learning: The element of surprise. Learning and Instruction, 55, 22–31. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2018.01.013
Brod, G., Lindenberger, U., & Shing, Y. L. (2017). Neural activation patterns during retrieval of schema-related memories: differences and commonalities between children and adults. Developmental Science, 20(6), 1–16. http://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12475
When? Friday, January 18, 2019 | 11 am – 1 pm
Where? Leipzig University, Marschnerstraße 31, House 3, Room 301 („Turmzimmer”), D-04109 Leipzig
