If performance gains always support learning gains?

As a teacher, I often remind myself about the distinction between performance and learning. In my class, I constantly measure students’ new learning throughout a semester (10 minutes after learning, one week later, at the end of the month and at the end of the semester) to make sure that students have retained information in their long-term memory and be able to apply learned knowledge and skills in different contexts. My intuitive sense is that performance and learning are always positively related. However, I find it interesting when research has shown that short-term performance is not an indicator of long-term learning. Several assigned articles in this course and Dr. Bjork’s lecture have provided empirical evidence for this negative correlation.

I used to believe taking a step-by-step blocked approach is a good way to course design as it shows high performance gains and this is a pervasive approach that I experienced as a student. This course challenged my belief through all of the discussions about the effectiveness of spaced and interleaved practice schedule. Reflecting my teaching experience, I realized that I applied interleaving in my teaching although I was not aware of it. I was introduced to the concept of backward design in my Masters program and I applied it to redesign a writing course at my school. Instead of providing linear practice as shown in the writing textbook, moving from one tense to another, I examined the course outcomes and redesigned learning experiences that geared towards those learning goals. By looking at the outputs of the instruction from a broad conceptual perspective, I automatically mixed the course content, especially the verb tense instruction, when helping students write about an assigned topic. Learning was less predictable and more mistakes were made along the way; however, in the end, students could write better with fewer errors associated to verb tenses compared to the previous course. Aware of the benefits of interleaving, I now understand that this course successfully enhanced students’ ability to differentiate tenses; thus leading to a better outcome. There are several factors that may contribute to the success of this course. Two of the most significant factors, I believe, are my careful consideration when designing each class activity to make sure it contributed to the learning goals and the “desirable difficulties” that I posed to the students when I mixed relevant learning content together.

For me, teaching is a learning process. In order to become a better learner and more successful teachers, I need to constantly challenge my assumptions and seek for empirical evidence to support my teaching. The experience of my writing class reminded me that my intuition about learning and performance was not right. Using blocked practice in verb tense instruction can yield better performance gains; it does not necessarily ensure that students could successfully apply appropriate verb tenses in different contexts.