As the parent of a kid with ADHD, it would be so incredibly helpful if every teacher thought like this. So often all the info comes verbally and then the class moves on and processes the info by doing some other verbal activity, only it was too transient the first time, and now the activity to use and review the info is transient, too. She often can’t remember a question long enough to process and form a deep answer. Having the information and questions in a more permanent form that she can reference evens the playing field so she can do early college and thrive, rather than being lost and behind.
Readers might be interested in the Japanese art of board work (bansho). Careful board planning allows students to see the structure of the lecture all at once.
Thanks for sharing this Olivier. In the microlesson I created and linked here, Dylan Wiliam talks about it too but this is a wonderful share. Love it, thank you so much!
Your lesson sounds fine to me. The oral parts of your lesson (the review, the introduction, the recap) don't sound complex and mostly deal with information students have already encountered. Since there is little complexity, it is unlikely these things would stress student working memory. The flashcards and Q&A sound like good retrieval practice exercises, where the objective is to solidify student knowledge of previously-learned material. Again, this is not a place where we'd normally worry about the transient information effect.
The part of the lesson where there appears to be the most complexity is the text analysis. In that case, you nicely avoid the transient information effect by providing two physical forms of representation: First, each student has a tangible representation of the text in the form of book sections, which students can study, underline, and mark up. Second, the concept map works to reduce the transient information effect by providing students with a tangible medium for representing, and analyzing, the complex relationships described in the text.
I think what you've done is great. Had you simply read aloud the book sections to the class, their working memories would have been overloaded. They would have suffered from the Transient Information Effect. Providing them with a physical text and concept map greatly reduced the load on their working memories and made it possible for them to engage with the material at a deeper level.
As an ESL teacher, my instinct was always to have important information, such as steps to writing a paragraph or simple rules for using comparative adjectives, on a piece of chart paper and taped up on the wall (otherwise known as an "anchor chart".) It would stay up for several days as we practiced the skill; I felt gratified when I observed students pointing to and referring to the chart paper with their classmates as they worked through the assignment. In these most recent years, students would come up to the chart and take a picture of it with a device, so they could look at it more easily at their desk or (hopefully) at home.
I wonder whether having a chart paper on the wall as a reference is more or less or equal to having a teacher-shared powerpoint on your device to look at. Again, my instinct was to have as few barriers as possible between the student and the source of information, so I liked the chart paper right on the wall in front of them. I even felt that a piece of chart paper at the front of the room would result in students using the anchor chart effectively, rather than having it posted at the back of the room....I didn't want the little dears to have to turn their heads! :) In any case, I preferred the chart on the wall to having students needing to go through a series of clicks to find something on their devices. However, there is no science behind this particular practice of mine, and it certainly reveals more about my personal eccentric preference of paper over electronics rather than any real understanding of how students learn best.
That's such a great idea! The anchor chart is perfect for any material that you'd like to be visible for days at a time. You don't have to use up blackboard space or worry about it being erased. And you can reuse it each year. I also like your point about it being a quicker, easier reference than having to find the information on their device, or in their notebook. It reduces cognitive load significantly if the student just has to look up to the front of the room to consult the chart.
I've responded to this post in my blog https://predictablycorrect.substack.com/p/rethinking-the-transient-information. I propose that the Transient Information Effect is better understood using the latest and increasingly dominant theory of human cognitive architecture - Predictive Processing / Active Inference, overcoming the limitations of the working memory model and cognitive load theory. Basically you need to have sensory data stick around or be repeated long enough for your brain to update its generative model ( held in linked neuronal networks) so it can predict similar sensory data in the future.... its got nothing at all to do with limited memory stores which have been a useful metaphor but are not now the brain actually works at all.
This explanation is so helpful—thank you. As an elementary school reading specialist, I’m thinking about how the Transient Information Effect applies to the read-aloud in the K-1 classroom and the implications for instruction.
As the parent of a kid with ADHD, it would be so incredibly helpful if every teacher thought like this. So often all the info comes verbally and then the class moves on and processes the info by doing some other verbal activity, only it was too transient the first time, and now the activity to use and review the info is transient, too. She often can’t remember a question long enough to process and form a deep answer. Having the information and questions in a more permanent form that she can reference evens the playing field so she can do early college and thrive, rather than being lost and behind.
Readers might be interested in the Japanese art of board work (bansho). Careful board planning allows students to see the structure of the lecture all at once.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10857-021-09511-6
Thanks for sharing this Olivier. In the microlesson I created and linked here, Dylan Wiliam talks about it too but this is a wonderful share. Love it, thank you so much!
I love this! Thank you for sharing!
Great article. Thank you!
I’m writing from Italy; I teach history and literature in high school.
To limit the transient effect, I wanted to ask what you think of this lesson structure:
Brief oral review of the previous lesson with questions asked to students at their seats.
Short oral introduction to what we will be talking about during the lesson.
Reading from the book of the sections relevant to us.
Underlining of key words segment by segment.
Oral recap of what we have covered during the lesson.
Then, reworking the underlined information into a concept map.
Creation of a set of flashcards on the selected concepts and information.
What do you think? Thank you!
Hi Donato,
Thanks for your message.
Your lesson sounds fine to me. The oral parts of your lesson (the review, the introduction, the recap) don't sound complex and mostly deal with information students have already encountered. Since there is little complexity, it is unlikely these things would stress student working memory. The flashcards and Q&A sound like good retrieval practice exercises, where the objective is to solidify student knowledge of previously-learned material. Again, this is not a place where we'd normally worry about the transient information effect.
The part of the lesson where there appears to be the most complexity is the text analysis. In that case, you nicely avoid the transient information effect by providing two physical forms of representation: First, each student has a tangible representation of the text in the form of book sections, which students can study, underline, and mark up. Second, the concept map works to reduce the transient information effect by providing students with a tangible medium for representing, and analyzing, the complex relationships described in the text.
I think what you've done is great. Had you simply read aloud the book sections to the class, their working memories would have been overloaded. They would have suffered from the Transient Information Effect. Providing them with a physical text and concept map greatly reduced the load on their working memories and made it possible for them to engage with the material at a deeper level.
As an ESL teacher, my instinct was always to have important information, such as steps to writing a paragraph or simple rules for using comparative adjectives, on a piece of chart paper and taped up on the wall (otherwise known as an "anchor chart".) It would stay up for several days as we practiced the skill; I felt gratified when I observed students pointing to and referring to the chart paper with their classmates as they worked through the assignment. In these most recent years, students would come up to the chart and take a picture of it with a device, so they could look at it more easily at their desk or (hopefully) at home.
I wonder whether having a chart paper on the wall as a reference is more or less or equal to having a teacher-shared powerpoint on your device to look at. Again, my instinct was to have as few barriers as possible between the student and the source of information, so I liked the chart paper right on the wall in front of them. I even felt that a piece of chart paper at the front of the room would result in students using the anchor chart effectively, rather than having it posted at the back of the room....I didn't want the little dears to have to turn their heads! :) In any case, I preferred the chart on the wall to having students needing to go through a series of clicks to find something on their devices. However, there is no science behind this particular practice of mine, and it certainly reveals more about my personal eccentric preference of paper over electronics rather than any real understanding of how students learn best.
That's such a great idea! The anchor chart is perfect for any material that you'd like to be visible for days at a time. You don't have to use up blackboard space or worry about it being erased. And you can reuse it each year. I also like your point about it being a quicker, easier reference than having to find the information on their device, or in their notebook. It reduces cognitive load significantly if the student just has to look up to the front of the room to consult the chart.
I've updated the end of the article to add your point about the value of anchor charts. Thanks again for the suggestion.
I've responded to this post in my blog https://predictablycorrect.substack.com/p/rethinking-the-transient-information. I propose that the Transient Information Effect is better understood using the latest and increasingly dominant theory of human cognitive architecture - Predictive Processing / Active Inference, overcoming the limitations of the working memory model and cognitive load theory. Basically you need to have sensory data stick around or be repeated long enough for your brain to update its generative model ( held in linked neuronal networks) so it can predict similar sensory data in the future.... its got nothing at all to do with limited memory stores which have been a useful metaphor but are not now the brain actually works at all.
This is really helpful Adam -- thank you for sharing the link and for introducing Predictive Processing / Active Inference.
Thank you so much Adam. Taking the time to explore this further, very fascinating post. Thank you!
This explanation is so helpful—thank you. As an elementary school reading specialist, I’m thinking about how the Transient Information Effect applies to the read-aloud in the K-1 classroom and the implications for instruction.
Thank you, Harriet. 🙏🏾