Guide and time generative learning activities to overcome barriers to sense-making¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 7 claims (5 for, 2 mixed) · 2 studies (2 review), q2–q3 · 0 of 2 report an effect size · 7 claims rest on one study

Description¶

Because many learners do not spontaneously explain, visualize, or enact learning materials, the review recommends explicit prompting and guidance for GLAs, and instructors can use external GLA products as formative assessments to adapt instruction. When learners' products 'reveal knowledge gaps or misconceptions, instructors can provide targeted feedback to support subsequent internal sense-making processes'. The review also proposes overcoming barriers 'by appropriately guiding and timing GLAs', with timing including implementing any GLA as a self-testing opportunity after instruction.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Learners need explicit prompting and guidance, since many will not spontaneously engage in sense-making

Constraints¶

• GLAs do not guarantee sense-making; learners may struggle to generate high-quality representations without sufficient background knowledge or guidance

Target Learners¶

• Students learning conceptual science and mathematics material

Target Learning Goals¶

• Higher-quality explanations, visualizations, and enactments supporting comprehension and transfer

Affordances¶

• Generative Sense Making Framework

Claims¶

• Cognitive barriers—insufficient background knowledge or working memory capacity—impede productive engagement in generative learning activities [+W]
• Sequencing generated drawing before viewing a provided visual improves transfer, suggesting provided visuals work best as feedback [+W]
• Enacting support—gestures and manipulatives—facilitates explanation quality and problem-solving, partly by adding strategies to verbal explanations [+W]
• Learning from examples depends on the explaining mode: prompting principle-based self-explanations and guided comparison of examples improves transfer [+W]
• Prior frameworks (SOI, ICAP) explain GLA benefits at the category level but cannot specify how distinct GLAs uniquely contribute to sense-making [+W]
• Provided visuals can act as a crutch: explaining with provided visuals yielded higher-quality explanations but no transfer advantage over explaining without them [~W]
• A systematic review argues that concrete materials aid mathematics and science learning when they are explicitly and gradually connected to the abstract symbols they represent [~W]

Related Strategies¶

• Rice Tables And Sandboxes Science Through Inquiry

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Fiorella, L. (2023). Making Sense of Generative Learning. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09769-7