You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 124 -  Why busy work does not necessarily equal productive, useful or impactful work. Stay tuned to discover where your teen could be saving their time and energy and how they could be increasing their productivity, without spending more time and having a much bigger impact on their results.

Hey VIPs! How are you? I hope you and your teens are doing great and feeling positive.

I have something for you today that is one of those ‘good news’ bad news’ topics.
Because: Even if studying looks active, any actual learning may not be happening. That’s the bad news.
 

The good news is that when we recognise this, we can cut out any of the ineffective learning, and either switch it to something much more effective - which will positively impact results. OR we can confidently cut out anything that isn’t actually making a difference, and have some free time for other things - which will positively impact your teen’s life balance.


I had such a great example of this happen to me this Christmas. I’ve actually had this topic in mind to do a podcast on for a little while.  But I’m only sharing it now because I decided to do a bit of up to date research around active revision, active processing of info, and effective, long term learning. Because this was such a great real life example of distinguishing active vs passive learning - or passive ‘not learning’ even, when from an observer, the activity itself - kinda looked active. 

I’ve talked before about active vs passive revision in episode 52. I’ll definitely link to it in the show notes . But first of all, I want to emphasise, that active is the active cognition, NOT the actual activity happening. Perfectly demonstrated by me and my terrible lack of quiz learning despite it being a fun, engaging and ‘active’ on surface level appearance at Christmas.

So, my husband and I had my dad over visiting for Christmas and new year, from the UK. One of the things we kinda all enjoy doing together is quiz type games. 
Nothing too hardcore. I am terrible at general knowledge, but something a bit more lighthearted and fun.
 

So I bought us this game as a joint Christmas gift called ‘I should’ve known that’. 
It’s basically just quiz cards with a bit of fancy scoring. And to be honest, after a while, we even dropped the scoring. 
 

Now, I will say that it was a bit easier than I was expecting. That is not a lightly veiled brag. Like I said, I’m pretty rubbish at general knowledge. The questions, were just - well yes, things that most people would probably know. So the name was accurate - Yes, you definitely should know that. BUT of course there were ones I didn’t. And in those cases, the question-asker would just reel off the answer and we’d move on.

I didn’t think much of this until - we came BACK to the cards a couple of weeks later.

Because we did get through all the cards over the course of Dad’s visit, and ended up coming back to them.  We were sat doing that awkward waiting around on the last day, because my dad’s return flight wasn’t until the evening. (I hate that - where you can’t really go do anything because you’re all packed, but you’ve also got time to kill before heading to the airport.) 
 

Well, we got out the cards and decided to re-quiz on the ones we’d got wrong.
And guess what? For me at least - I hadn’t learned ANYTHING new.
 

Every card I got wrong the first time, when I got asked it again. I’d not registered or remembered the answers I’d then been told AT ALL. And this was just two and a half weeks later.

Now, yes, of course I wasn’t exactly using the cards or questions as a study technique. I wasn’t going to sit an exam on any of this. I wasn’t necessarily purposely trying to commit that information to memory. 
BUT - you’d have thought I might have remembered something new?

And it made me think - how many students are revising using flash cards or quizzing each other with friends?

It’s a pretty common method, right?

And it also struck me that this kind of quizzing and checking of answers, does seem more engaging and active than just reading over info, or writing out notes.

It looks or seems interactive. But it still didn’t stick.

And so what with that, and some recent discussions about active vs/ passive learning and revision, I’ve done some more research to see what others are saying about this currently. Because this is not a new concept at all. I’ve tried to teach, tutor and coach this since my very earliest days of teaching. 
I was taught this in my teacher training way back in 2005. But of course, there is always new research or findings happening when it comes to how we learn and our brains work. 

And here’s one piece of writing that I came across and thought I’d share. Now bear with me because it is actually an article, reflecting on a comment, that was posted below another article!

I will link to it in the show notes so you can see the full trail if you want to: it’s an article by Blake Harvard - called ‘The Myth of Passive Learning’. 

Here’s what struck me.

First of all was the comment:

“…the term “passive learning” is an oxymoron. There is no such thing. If students are learning, then they are NOT passive, and learning does not always include moving or talking…”

In other words, it is about the active thinking and cognition. It’s NOT just looking active or displaying activity.

And then secondly, the author of the article then goes on to say:
 

Without mentally attending to material/information, there can be no learning.  The idea of passive learning vs. active learning as an outward expression of engagement is very misleading.  A student can look ‘active’ with their learning because they are having a discussion with others or using a manipulative, but without assessment of the student’s cognition, we (students and teachers) should not  assume learning has occurred.  

I think this is a big thing. 

That just because we have produced something on paper, or nodded along in class because it made sense when the teacher explained it, it may or may NOT mean that the information has been engaged with, understood and processed in a way that means the learner truly has learned it. Can explain it for themselves independently - in any way that it’s asked for.

I also like this commentary because it emphasises that being active doesn’t mean it has to be ‘creative’ or visually ‘busy’. I mean, I was living proof of this as a high school student. I have particularly strong memories of Chemistry lessons where we’d be shown what to do for an experiment, and then in groups we’d do it. And I vividly remember not having a clue what was happening or what we were supposed to be doing. But luckily because we were working in a group, I would be helping and participating, and fumbling my way through with the help of my friends, and to the teacher, it would’ve looked like I was engaged and active. But honestly I had no real idea what we were doing or why.
 

I was taking cues from the others in the group - I somehow got lucky that I had smart friends, or at least ones who were better at listening and processing the explanation. But I can tell you, I was not making any connection between what was happening and the theory or concept we were supposedly testing.

That’s why, I always say, it’s not about the actual format. It’s not about the flash cards, or the table summary, or the model making - or whatever is being produced.  It’s about the process and the act of mentally transforming material, information, concepts from one format to another. It’s not that writing notes is passive in itself. It is if it’s just copying or paraphrasing from an existing text.
But it isn’t if it’s note’s being made from the original format being an image or diagram that requires active thinking and taking that information and constructing those notes from your teen’s knowledge in their brain.

And it’s not that making some cool looking model is automatically active.
If it didn’t require any active thinking or any true understanding in order to create it, then it’s passive - even though it might look very active.
If it’s a model based on reading some information, watching an explanation and then crafting a model that represents those things, then that’s active.

So this is just about increasing awareness around what your teen is spending their time and effort on and not falling into passive study.

Because, passive study is a problem for two reasons:

Firstly, frankly a waste of time. That time could be spent on doing things that would be much more effective. And notice I’ve said time and not effort there.
Because, like I said at the start - passive study does not require much effort.
At least not mentally. 
 

It might involve practical effort to write out pages and pages of notes, but that doesn’t mean that any cognitive load has been lifted.
Unfortunately that’s the reason so many students end up using them. Because they feel easy and - this is the second problem - they also feel like they’re being productive.

But, as a double-negative, that feeling of being productive because they wrote all those notes or made that mega-model is also now creating a false sense of security, productivity and superficial confidence.

They might feel accomplished for the physical or visible output produced, but the truth is that the mental work just isn’t there. If students are exhausted and really need to do something ‘easy’, then they may well just be better off taking a break to recharge, or stepping away to do something enjoyable and coming back later. Honestly, they could spend a whole day on passive techniques and output and it would not be as effective as spending one hour on focused, mentally active and effective study.

So I share all of this to hopefully help you support your teen in making smarter decisions about what and how they’re studying, how they’re using their time and energy, and becoming more aware of that active engagement mentally - not just on a practical level.

As Blake said: 
 

A student can look ‘active’ with their learning, but without assessment of the student’s cognition, we (students and teachers) should not  assume learning has occurred.

So it’s up to the teacher in the classroom, but the student in their own independent study to ensure that they are using strategies and activities that actually ENSURE learning is occurring, Not just the illusion of it.

I’ll see you back here next week, and until then, I hope you have a brilliant week. Take care, bye