Symposium: Tackling the Complexities of Promoting Effective Learning Strategy Use in Day-to-day Subject Learning in Japanese Classrooms

Over the past several decades, it has been established in numerous research studies that the cultivation of student competencies in use of effective learning strategies is essential in school education as the use of such strategies directly affects students’ learning achievement and outcomes [1, 2]. However, methods and guidelines for such cultivation have never been clearly established, and teachers generally receive inadequate information about methods for teaching effective learning strategies during their period of teacher training [3]. Consequently, even if they appreciate the value of cultivating such competencies in their students, the methods teachers employ for implementing such development in their classes (e.g., via lesson design, homework assignments, assessment methods) may lack alignment with intended outcomes. Thus, the quality of instruction, guidance, and advice students receive from their teachers about the use of such strategies vary considerably and, because of this, many students fail to develop competencies and predispositions for such use [4]. One approach that could be taken to overcome this problem is for educational researchers to directly collaborate with teachers in designing methods for incorporating such development in their real classroom contexts [5]. Taking such an approach has numerous advantages, one of the most important of which is that it brings about benefits from the combined knowledge, skills, and experiences that researchers and teachers possess. For example, while researchers would usually possess greater expertise in the conduct of rigorous research, teachers would often possess much greater understanding of the complexities of educational systems such as schools and classrooms, including their culture, objectives, rules, and politics. Furthermore, because the developmental work is undertaken in natural settings (rather than experimental laboratories), its ecological validity is enhanced [6]. In the present symposium, we will describe three studies that had taken such an approach in the context of Japanese classrooms. One important aim is to elucidate some of the mechanisms and processes that make researcher-practitioner collaborations viable and successful, as well as to identify problems/challenges that can be encountered. Together, these studies suggest methods for the promotion of student competencies that take into consideration the complexities of authentic everyday educational environments.
 
Paper 1: Improving Students’ Metacognitive Learning Strategies in Daily Classroom Teaching in School: The Effects of Utilizing the "Thinking-After-Instruction Approach"
Presenter: Yuri Uesaka (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
Co-authors: Nobuyoshi Fujisawa (Kashiwajima Elementary School, Japan), Shin’ichi Ichikawa (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
Improving use of metacognitive learning strategies (e.g., monitoring one’s understanding and appropriately controlling one’s learning behaviors on that basis [1]) in daily classroom teaching in school is crucial to cultivate self-regulated learners. This paper introduces a collaborative and practical study between psychologists and public elementary school teachers in Japan, which focused on improving students’ metacognitive learning strategies through the use of the “thinking-after-instruction” approach [2]. In this school, all math classes in all grades were conducted using this approach for 3 years. By following this approach, in preparation for each day’s class session, students were encouraged to read their textbook to clarify what they might not have understood sufficiently, and to set concrete goals for what they should listen to carefully in class. In addition, after the teacher had taught the target knowledge content focusing on conceptual understanding rather than procedural knowledge, students were asked to explain key points to their peers “as a teacher might explain” (e.g., explaining how a formula is derived). Student could therefore identify gaps in their understanding if they could not explain well. At the end of each class, for the self-evaluation stage, the students were asked to reflect again on what they had understood/not understood sufficiently. As a result of these efforts, the academic achievement of students in this school started to improve as measured by standardized tests. To examine whether students in this school spontaneously used effective learning strategies and understood deeply what they were supposed to be learning, the notebooks of students in one classroom (randomly selected) in the 5th grade were analyzed. The results demonstrated that most of the students prepared for each upcoming class and clarified what they understood, identified what they did not understand, and specified goals to achieve in class. In the students’ descriptions at the self-evaluation stage, they referred not only to the procedures they learned, but also to their understanding of the meaning of those procedures. Such comments indicate not only the acquisition of deeper understanding, but also of spontaneous use of metacognitive learning strategies.
 
Paper 2: Using mathematics textbook skills: How to cultivate learning skills in a regular mathematics class
Presenter and Author: Mari Fukuda (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
Skills in textbook reading and use are important to becoming self-regulated learners in any subject, even in mathematics, because during independent study, students should be able to overcome impasses by using resources such as their textbooks. However, some students cannot read textbooks meaningfully, and thus cannot use textbooks as a tool for overcoming impasses. To enable students to read mathematics textbooks more meaningfully and strategically to achieve better understanding of mathematics concepts, it is useful to create opportunities for them to self-explain important contents of textbooks (e.g., a principle behind the solution steps of workedout examples) [1]. However, it is difficult for students who lack sufficient background knowledge to infer the principles behind worked-out examples because there are usually insufficient explanations about why these steps are taken [2]. In this study, two interventions were conducted in a regular high school mathematics class. First, the mathematics teacher instructed students about new principles and concepts and why steps in worked-out examples were taken, then asked the students to write explanations by themselves concerning those same points that in their textbook had not been explicitly explained. This was done to scaffold students into making inferences during self-explanation. Second, after instruction, the teacher asked the students to explain in pairs. One of a teacher’s three classes was assigned as the experimental class and other two classes were the control classes. There were no other differences in treatment between the experimental and control classes except for the writing and self-explanations noted. The intervention was conducted over one semester, following which it was found that understanding of textbook content in the experimental class (assessed by a problem requiring students to explain principles of formula in textbook) was moderately superior than in the control classes, and regularly scheduled test scores of the experimental class were higher than those of the control classes. Moreover, although none of the experimental class students reported textbook use for overcoming an impasse before the intervention, some of them did report such use at postintervention. Based on that results, cultivation of student skills in textbook use to become selfregulated learners will be discussed.
 
Paper 3: Re-designing of homework and lessons: Toward an improvement of learning skills and attitudes
Presenter and Author: Eriko Ota (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
A  lot of students in Japan struggle with understanding and applying conceptual knowledge provided in school lessons [1, 2]. In this situation, it is important for teachers to encourage students to prepare and review well before/after lessons, especially when contents are difficult to learn [3]. Homework is one of the most widespread instructional tools that can be used to scaffold better out-of-school learning [4]. However, the purpose of homework assignments tends to be “drill and practice”, which might preclude students from deeper processing in learning [5, 6]. Considering this problem, the author is going to introduce two research projects that provide ideas that could be helpful in addressing such a problem. First, the author has conducted a series of experimental and quasi-experimental studies that examined the effects of re-designing homework and lessons on students’ learning skills and attitudes as well as academic achievement. These studies have shown that (a) having students explain conceptual knowledge in both homework and lessons leads to better learning, and that (b) providing sufficient instructions about what and how to explain helps lower-achieving students to benefit more from re-designed homework. However, in interviews with school teachers, some mentioned that they felt it difficult to implement these practices in their classrooms. Second, and in order to overcome this particular problem, the author developed and conducted a workshop for school teachers to examine in more detail what is difficult for them when re-designing homework and lessons. The workshop comprised a lecture on cognitive psychology-based theories and practices, training on re-designing homework tasks, and discussions. Qualitative analyses of teacher discussions revealed that (a) it was difficult for them to determine what “good explanations” were (e.g., how students should explain the concept of “congestion”), and that (b) some believed that “teachers should only support students in discovering those concepts by themselves”, and they felt uncomfortable with the approach of teaching knowledge and showing models of explanations explicitly during lessons. From these results, problems of educational situations in Japan and gaps between psychological research and educational practices will be discussed.