You will hear an educational psychologist talking about ways to improve learning. For questions 1-8, complete the sentences with a word or short phrase.
1. The traditional view of a thinker is of __________________.
2. The idea of__________________________was put forward by an ancient Roman philosopher, Seneca.
3. Explaining a concept to others makes one's own ________________________ of it stronger.
4. When students teach others in a classroom situation, it has been shown to make their _____________________ faster.
5. The Protégé Effect could be responsible for higher IQ among _____________________.
6. Betty's Brain features a ________________________________, a teachable agent called Betty.
7. Feedback from the teachable agent leads users to check the material, helping them to learn more ______________________.
8. Students become involved _______________________ with Betty, which powerfully affects their learning.
KEY
1 a solitary person
2 learning through teaching
3 understanding
4 learning
5 first-born children
6 virtual character
7 thoroughly
8 emotionally
Vocabulary
bounce ideas (off somebody)/(around) to tell somebody your ideas in order to find out what they think about them
- He bounced ideas off colleagues everywhere he went.
conscientiously adverb /ˌkɒnʃiˈenʃəsli/ in a careful and correct way. E.g. She performed all her duties conscientiously.
The protégé effect is the idea that, when students explain study material to others, it reinforces their understanding.
thoroughly adverb /ˈθʌrəli/ completely and with great attention to detail
- Wash the fruit thoroughly before use.
- The work had not been done very thoroughly
Script
Track 8.2
N: Listening, Unit 8, Page 118, F
ExN: You will hear an educational psychologist talking about ways to improve learning. For questions 1 – 8, complete the sentences with a word or short phrase.
Woman: Today I want to talk a bit about the social side of learning and thinking. Although traditionally a thinker is seen as a solitary person, lost in contemplation, scientists are starting to realise the importance of interaction with others when learning. Bouncing ideas off each other can be very useful when trying to problem-solve of course, but that’s not what I’m concentrating on today. No, today, I’m going to look at the relationship between the teacher and the student, but focus on the benefits for the teacher.
Most of us have probably been asked by someone to explain something at some point, and that’s when we take the role of the teacher, and in doing so, we often find out that our understanding of a concept isn’t perfect! However, when we do manage to communicate an idea in such a way that others can grasp it, it invariably means that we, too, as teachers, have a very good knowledge of the subject. Learning through teaching is nothing new. As long ago as ancient Rome, the philosopher Seneca described this phenomenon, stating that, ‘While we teach, we learn.’
In modern psychology, this is known as the Protégé Effect, which basically means that explaining something to others reinforces your own understanding of it and so you become an expert in it. This process has been proven to accelerate learning in the classroom. Experiments have been done where college students teach computer sciences to high school students, who in turn transfer their knowledge to middle school students, thus motivating the older students to learn and engage more conscientiously with the material. It is also believed by some experts that this happens naturally in many families, as older siblings help their younger brothers and sisters to learn. Some even go as far as to suggest that this may be one reason for a tendency for first-born children in a family to have a higher IQ!
Let’s say that we want to make the most of this effect, well obviously one way is to find someone to teach, but there is now also a virtual model that helps students benefit from the Protégé Effect. It’s a computer program called ‘Betty’s Brain’ and it was written to help middle school students master science subjects. The students have to teach Betty, who is a ‘teachable agent’; a virtual character. Of course, as they teach her, they too master the material. They have to check her progress and as they do, they identify gaps in her knowledge, encouraging them to go over the material and learn it more thoroughly. It forces them to organise their knowledge in a structured way.
It’s hardly surprising then, that student performance improves when compared with students without access to Betty’s Brain. Finally, the student tutors connect emotionally with the Betty character, feeling disappointment when she fails to do well and satisfaction when her efforts succeed; something which has a powerful effect on their learning.
ExN: Now listen again.
