Episode 244: How different types of constraints can influence student performance

Andy Psarianos

Okay. So we're back for another episode of the school is cool. Podcasts. I know you've been all thinking what is happening with those schools, cool podcast guys. Like, you know, like what's going on with them? Well, anyway, we're here. That's what we're doing. We're recording podcasts. Okay. So I got a, I got a wild card topic for you guys because we were talking about something else and some of this idea popped in my head and I was like, we need to talk about this. And what I want to talk about is learning within constraints. And that's what I mean by that really is, you just, a lot of, there's, there's a lot of different ideas about how people learn and, know, there's always, it's always seems to be as a pendulum, you know, between kind of like, complete open ended discovery versus kind of like, you know, direct teaching or whatever you want to call direct instruction or whatever it is, right. Whereas like teacher dominated. But I want to talk about this little, little thing that sometimes I feel it, cause I just did a seminar not that long ago and I feel people miss this trick a little bit is, the constraints that you can put in like forcing people not only to answer the question, but to answer the question the way that you want them to answer it. Right. And the role that that plays and that can be a choice of, you going to write it on paper? Are you going to send me something digital? Are you going to. write in a formal, you know, paragraphs, opening sentence, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff? Or is it like free form, like a journal or whatever? And I just want to ask you guys, like, do you think that's something that we don't spend enough time talking about and thinking about?

Adam Gifford

Yes. Podcast over.

Andy Psarianos

Okay, great, done. Thanks for joining us.

Robin Potter

Okay, that was a great episode

Adam Gifford

Yeah, I think I always maintained very early when I started teaching. I was always frustrated by two things. One is when you were doing some form of assessment and it had a box. And the answer was complete once the box was filled. Or I would say to a class, right, we're aiming for about a page on this. So of course when that sentence closest to the bottom of the page and the child looks at it and goes, could I get another sentence in here? No, I don't think so. Right, we're good to go. We're done. Yeah, exactly. So I think in answer to your question, I think unless we know the part that constraints play, good or bad. know whether it's restrictive or whether it's you know we've discussed this before about sort of the free-flowing nature of some forms of creativity now you can have you have to have some constraints with creativity so so you know if you get a brief to say make this or design this you can go sort of you know all over the place with it but you might have to work within those constraints I think understanding that this these tools or how constraints change the way that we think I think if we are bringing those things to the surface then it's a really good thing because it helps shape our thinking. But if we're not aware of it then maybe it's a limiting factor and people in my class when I first started teaching always think a piece of writing is one page long because that's always what happens so therefore for the rest of my life I'll write to one page until I'm told different.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Robin Potter

So is that different than a guideline? Because if you had said, okay, and you can write one to three pages versus, okay, and so you want to keep it to one page, is one of those kind of a guideline and one is a constraint or are they both constraints or one's just less of a constraint than the other? I just wonder how... students are interpreting these things, you know, are they, are they taking it, like Adam says, to heart where they're like, I cannot send Mr. Gifford more than one page. So I'm going to cram it, I'm going to write in so it's not even legible or, you know, just to cram it all on there. Or is it like, I can, I can write another page, I can add to it. He's not going to penalize me for that. So, you know, it's, it's kind of

Adam Gifford

I think just quickly, and Andy I know you desperately jump in, I can see it right. But what I was going to say just quickly with that Robin is not just for the children but also for the teacher, understanding because equally saying write about whatever you want for as long as you want could be debilitating for some people as well, because you just don't, it's like when I think about what do I make for dinner? Sometimes it's like, I'm really hungry and I just don't know because it's too overwhelming so can choose anything. So I think it's for both people involved. If you're trying to elicit these responses, all the people that are in amongst it, what is the impact and whether or not we're even considering those things.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Well, so, and there's many different ways where this, this can crop up and, and, and be used as a tool. So one of the things to recognize is, that decision-making is one of the things that, you know, what am I going to make for dinner? That's kind of, that's a skill that everybody needs to develop. Right? So you can't always be forcing people. So if you said to someone, right, between one and three pages, that in itself is kind of like well which ones you know they're going to be you know it's kind of like the old Italian you know, the old Italian grandmother, when you know, yeah, how much sauce do you put in that? You know, the answer is always something like enough, right? And it's like, well, that's not helpful. Is that like, you know, is that a cop? Is that two cops? Is that what, you know, what does it mean? Right. You know, and, and, but, but there's, there's some kind of magic in that, like, well, it's right as much as you have to, to say what you have to say. And that, that is, that's a real challenge in itself. Right. Um,

But also on the flip side of that, sometimes when people are really, really too abrupt with their answers, and this comes up in math all the time, say, add these three numbers. the answer is 15. OK, well, add these three numbers, but do it my way, which is something plus something equals that. Like, change it to something. I want you to make 10, for some students, that's actually a real challenge because they already know the answer. So they don't understand why you're forcing them to make 10 to, to write. Right. So that's a, that's a different type of constraint versus, you know, and even just not an education. Like if you think about why is that a skill? Well, if you got to write a postcard to someone, not that anybody writes postcards to anybody anymore, you know, you got to kind of really think about like, what are you going to say? Right. Because there's not a lot of space. Um, while if you're just rambling on about, know, it's something, you you were talking about Adam previously that, know, you kind of miss getting letters, right. And, and it's like, well, did you, do you remember when you got these rambling letters? Some people would just be like, you know, and then Jim went to the store and after he went to the store and it was raining on Wednesday and then, you know, and it's like seven pages later, you're like, okay, what, are you writing? You know, and it's like two different ends of the spectrum, you know? so I, I kind of think that it's a real tool for a teacher sometimes, right? It's like, do it my way. I want you to do it my way. So in a journaling exercise, some days you might say 'Write about whatever you want write about. Up to you, right?' But then today, you know, or tomorrow, it's like, no, I want you to look at this method and look at this method and tell me which one you think is better. And then I'm going to give you a very specific, you know, and that's a constraint, right? They're both different types of constraints. And they play an important role in learning. And sometimes we just forget about it because we're just running to the right answer, you know? Is that action? Yeah. Cool.

Robin Potter

Well, especially in it. Sorry, Andy. Oh, just thinking in a test form too. You know, you may be great at writing essays, you are terrible at multiple choice. But your teacher has put 50 questions, multiple choice. And you know, you can't sit there and write on the side. Well, this is what I would have said had you asked me to explain it, but I don't quite know what the answer is here. So I'm going to guess. so constraints like that could be really impactful as to how a student maybe performs on the assignment or the test, where if they're just not comfortable picking one of four answers that are available, they may do poorly on it. Whereas if they were able to write it in an essay format, maybe they would have done incredibly well. But the constraint is there because the teacher has set it. So if you're not good at that way that test is set up, could be, that could, you know, change the outcome.

Adam Gifford

But I think too, is that the example that Andy gave, like the one where, you know, like say it's a real free flowing journal and then one that's quite organised by the teacher and those sorts of things, I think we also include a step where they can evaluate the two of them so you can see the skill set in both and work with both of those so you know when you get to situations like the one you've described Robin right this is time pressure or this is this way inclined so what would you use in that circumstance well I'll be really tight to be like this blah blah blah blah right now you're stuck on a desert island and you're keeping a journal what sort of writing would you write I'm gonna write like this blah blah blah blah because there are no constraints or time constraints on that I think it's surfacing those things but it's whether or not we give those enough attention because I think that we either de-skill, we have the potential to de-skill that, I don't know, more free-flowing way of writing things. And I've said this in a previous podcast ages ago about whenever we got given the flash cartridge paper that was used for an art project and you knew that there was one per student per year.

And the children could sense how terrified you were because you handed over this after they've done multiple drafts of a painting or whatever it is and of course freak out because they've got this white piece of paper that's so precious and you're just thinking you don't want that and it wasn't until made of mind said get them to paint on newspaper for the first term you know like don't give them white paper so they get you know that they know that they can just do what they do and be creative I think unless you surface those things and you understand that as a teacher or anyone that guides those sorts of things happening then I think we can't expect people to be good at stuff that they don't practice or know how to use.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, you know, and it's so important because I think.

We, we, we sometimes we can become so fixated on what the answer is, right? Yes. It was Wednesday that Napoleon made that fatal mistake on blah, you know, and we don't think about what the delivery mechanism is or the expression of that idea or the depth that we want to go into or whatever. Like, you know, so because we're fixated on the fact that it was Wednesday and, and the Wednesday bit may be important, but, all the other stuff is

also really important, right? And we need to have that rounded experience through school, right? Where we see things in many different perspectives, including other people's perspectives sometimes, right? Having to work to somebody else's, you know, rhythm, right?