Should we forget about the “Forgetting Curve”

 

A little back I was reminded of Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve, to be clear I had not actually forgotten about it, I just had not thought about it for a while.  Ebbinghaus was I assume a barrel of laughs and spend some time trying to memorise lists of syllables, in meaningless three letter blocks.  Such as below, (look at them closely there may be a test later.   

BFM, DTK, RLV, WJP, XKC, QVC, ZQH 

What he found was that despite trying to learn they very quickly forgot these trigrams. From this Ebbinghaus inferred somethings about how quickly we forget data and developed the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.  

For the scientifically minded Ebbinghaus’ discovery is now defined and described with this equation: 

R = e^(-t/s) 

In this formula, "R" is a measure of how readily you can recall something, "s" is the “strength” of your memory, "t" is the amount of time that has passed, and "e" is the magical Euler’s number, a mathematical constant.   

People like me, Instructional Designers, and others in the world of learning, constantly battle with the Forgetting Curve, after all how can we make change if most people forget most of what we tell them almost immediately? 

Well Ebbinghaus was not finished, have identified this information retention problem, he set about finding a solution. After further research Ebbinghaus discovered that by revisiting the information at intervals more of the data was recalled.  

In our equation above, repeating and reviewing information increases the strength of the memory, leading the downward slope of R to become more gradual. 

Thus, was born “spaced repetition”, which has gone on to become a key learning strategy. The advent of information technology made this strategy easier to deliver, increasingly AI is being deployed deliver “personalised” learning reinforcement, whole businesses now exist primarily to combat Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve.  

So why do I suggest we should forget all this? 

At the top of this page there were six three letter groups, without looking can you recall any of them? 

Now given I didn’t really ask you to learn them I  don’t have high hopes, however I would suggest that the one most people, at least in the UK & US, will recall is the second to last one. Why? 

Well the second to last one is synonymous with the name of a TV shopping channel, a channel sufficiently well known that even people who haven’t watched it are aware of it and have feelings about it, often quite negative feelings. 

This knowledge and reaction endow that block of three letters with context and meaning that the others generally lack. Now in this example there are some cultural factors at work, if the national broadcaster in the country where you grew up was DTK, then DTK is the one you would have recalled.  

What Ebbinghaus really illustrates is that humans are bad at remembering things that are meaningless to them, additionally he showed that spaced repetition can improve recall of this type of information.  

My question is are we using spaced repetition as a hammer to drive home the blunt nails of meaningless information?   

Might we better serve our audience by finding ways to make the information meaningful? Failing that identify do they really need to know this? If not, can we make the information available at point of need?  If yes, revisit the question of meaning, can we create an experience that gives meaning to the data? Do not get me wrong, I like spaced repetition and believe it has a role in learning, it is a powerful tool in our armoury, one that should be used responsibly. 

Should we forget about Ebbinghaus and his beloved letter groups? Of course not! That said perhaps we should not reach for spaced repetition so quickly, just because we have a hammer, does not make every problem a nail! If we can find the right context, endowing the data with meaning, then perhaps we can truly escape from the tyranny of the Forgetting Curve.          

A debt to Chocolate Covered Broccoli

As I touched on in my first post I was inspired to start this blog having stumbled across the concept of 'Chocolate Covered Broccoli'. Generally the idea of using game mechanics to engage and encourage learners with subject matter which they may not naturally find interesting.

While I may have just come to it, this is far from being a new idea, and in fact the material that got me piqued my interest is from a conference 3 years ago and explored 'Intrinsic'(making the learning part of the game play)  versus 'Extrinsic' (making the learning secondary ) approaches when applied to gamification of learning.  It is a short, and for me though provoking presentation and it can be found here feel free to draw your own conclusions.

I like this presentation for a couple of reasons:

·         It applies some level of rigour to the topic, rather than just accepting that any form of 'learning game must be good' for learners

·         It gets to the point fairly quickly

·         While the generally conclusion, intrinsic is more effective that extrinsic, is not exactly a shock, it raise good questions about the challenges of developing good 'intrinsic' games based learning materials.

While this presentation is 3 years old it seems that the quality and value of game based learning is still an issue and while engagement and fun are important, without  good solid integration of well designed learning goals and challenges then many games are just that 'games'.  I plan to explore the quality of games based learning  further in the future posts, but for now I would say that if someone is trying to sell you a 'Learning Game' either a parent,  teacher, or school administrator that you look very closely at how the learning is woven into the fabric of the activity, before you part with either your, or your schools money.

So what is this about loving Broccoli?

Welcome to my new, and in fact first meaningful (hopefully) blog, Learning to Love Broccoli, so what is this about?
Well principally it is about learning, sometimes about about the things I love (which sometimes intersect with learning) and just occasionally about Broccoli.
Why Broccoli? Well I am engaged in the business of learning, mostly on the business related adult learning side (which has been my work for some years now) but also as a parent of a young currently pre-school child, and as a believer in life-long learning. So I read an amount about things to do with learning and recently came across 'Chocolate covered Broccoli'. The idea that a Green vegetable covered in chocolate might be more appealing to children (and maybe some adults) applied to learning. Many children don't like traditional learning, they often grow into young adults who find learning difficult and finally adults who find learning unappealing, rather like over cooked broccoli!
Reading about efforts to develop new ways of structuring and delivering learning, metaphorically covering it in chocolate, caught my imagination and inspired me to start this blog.
I hope to collate ideas and offer some commentary on new or different approached to learning in a range of settings, not just school (K-12) but the broader learning world, and I suspect it will not be all about technology and gamification either.
Anyway that is the plan, and if my daughter allows I will be back with some proper thoughts soon, and thanks for taking the time to read this; feedback and suggestions are very of course welcome.