6. Small interventions with massive leverage

Small and cheap learning interventions with outsized effects

This is part of a multi-part series in which I outline a framework for teaching code. The full table of contents can be found here

There is a lot that goes into learning a new skill. A lot of what dictates a learner's success is to do with their behavior outside of structured lessons, rather than any base-line attributes. For example, people who are willing to struggle tend to do better than people who want things to come easy. People who put in more time (within reason) do better than people who waste time.

This is part 2 of a 2 part article covering mechanisms that promote useful behaviors and mindsets in students.

If you haven't read part 1 yet, it is very much worthwhile.

Goal-setting

Goal-setting can come in many shapes and forms. Setting a goal such as "passing a course" or "earning a certificate" can be useful, but educational goals are generally a means to an end. It's useful to know what that end is. It's useful to know why the education matters in the first place.

When the learning gets hard (as it should) then having a reason to keep going can make a huge difference to performance.

this paper talks about a specific intervention designed to help learners conceptualize their own goals.

During the study, special attention was paid to changes in gender and ethnicity related performance gaps:

After Year 1, the gender gap closed by 98%, and the ethnicity gap by 38% (rising to 93% after the second year)

Those are amazing results, but how does it work?

The intervention - a writing exercise

In brief, how this intervention works is as follows:

Learners are given a few well chosen questions to answer. These questions are used to get the learner to look to their future and set up a vision and anti-vision.

The "vision" would be a description of what life would be like if things went well, if the learner showed up as their best self. What impact would they have on their families and communities.

The "anti-vision" portion of the exercise focuses on where things would go if the learner did not step up and actively work towards their goals, or where they would end up if they gave into their own worst aspects.

For full details, read the paper. You can also sign up to do the writing exercise yourself here.

Growth mindset

Growth mindset is something I have covered before, so I wont go into it in detail here. I encourage you to read the previous article.

At this point, most people have heard of the Growth Mindset and know that it is worth pursuing. Making sure that learners at least know about the growth mindset is very worthwhile and quite easy to do up front.

Of course, simply knowing about the growth mindset is not enough - a growth mindset is something that needs to be grown and reinforced over time.

Stress-is-enhancing mindset

At this point, the stress-is-enhancing mindset is a less well known than the growth mindset. It can act like an amplifier for the growth mindset.

The TLDR is that stress can be genuinely useful in many situations. If you feel stressed, you'll also feel pretty awake. Stress can even help you access the holy-grail of productivity - flow.

When it comes to learning, especially learning something hard, there is likely to be stress involved. There is likely to be confusion, frustration and doubt. There might be tests, projects and presentations. Learners who are able to lean into stress and use it as a tool do better than learners who try to escape it.

You can learn more about it here:

Stereotype threat theory

In part 1 of this article, I spoke about a few things that reduce the effects of "Stereotype threat".

As a reminder: Stereotype threat theory states that "minority students underperform because of pressures created by negative stereotypes" [ref].

In other words, if someone thinks that they don't belong then they will be less able to perform well. You can see how this ties into growth mindset - if a person thinks their performance is determined and limited because of a group they are a part of, then that is counter to growth mindset.

But growth mindset doesn't come for free, it's something to be built up and maintained.

If a learner is suffering from stereotype threat and they are under stress, then that stress is likely to reinforce their belief that they don't belong. Confirmation bias is a whole thing, and people who judge themselves and their abilities negatively will be prone to interpreting their struggles in a cetain negative light.

This is what hard feels like

To combat this aspect of stereotype threat it is useful to state up front that the course is hard and that learners should expect to struggle.

If a learner is struggling and losing confidence as a result, it is useful to remind them that this is meant to be hard and they are meant to be challenged by it. Remind them that struggle is normal. Then remind them again the next time they are losing confidence. This is something that needs to be repeated.

If a learner is struggling to learn something, then it could easily be due to missing meta-cognitive skills. Learning itself has been well-studied, there are patterns and anti-patterns, good practices and common misconceptions. Understanding how learning itself works pays dividends fo all learners, not only those that are struggling.

Learning how to learn

One way I think about teaching code is: I teach code in order to teach metacognition. Once you teach a person how to teach themselves and how to assess their own growth then they fly.

Learning and teaching are things that are very well studied, so it is possible to get a lot out of resources that are not code or software specific. Here are 2 resources I recommend often:

Clearly, knowing a bit about what is and is not effective is directly useful. If people do more effective things, they will have better results. If people are aware of what is ineffective, they will be less likely to waste time.

These resources are great at giving you an idea of what generally works, and what generally does not, but the real power comes in that they can help you to develop mental frameworks around how learning works so that you can apply that knowledge in different domains.

End!

While this 2 part article on education initiatives covered a lot of ground, it did not cover everything that can be done. The science of education and learning, and the effectiveness of different interventions are things that are still under active study.

If you are especially interested in understanding and keeping up with the behavioral science that underpins what I described here, I highly recommend keeping an eye on this excellent resource.

6. Small interventions with massive leverage - Part 2