Repetitions or Reflections: How can we learn faster?

If this question interests you, the paper below has both answers and revelations for teachers, trainers, parents, students and everyone else who is curious to learn.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2414478

Although the paper titled ‘Learning By thinking: How reflection improves performance’ by Giada Di Stefano, Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano and Bradley Staats was published a decade ago, its contents make sense and are practical even to this day. At 62 pages [half of them having figures and tables], most of you will say TL; DR. So, here’s the gist for you below. The statements quoted from the paper are within quotes.

• This discovery, ‘the marginal benefit of reflecting on previously accumulated experience is superior to the marginal benefit of accumulating additional experience’ will haunt me for a long time. Although my simulation games have relied on self-appraisal [a refined and tightly organised reflection of game actions] for 20 years to focus on learning, that repetition [additional experience] produced a lesser outcome when compared to reflection was new to me.
• 'The way in which one engages in reflection may play a major role in its effectiveness as a learning tool'. Every experience is easily forgotten and, therefore, must be captured and dissected quickly. Only an organised approach can help to recall the experience and thoroughly squeeze it to make value for the learner.
• This is one of my most useful discoveries in many years: 'the marginal returns of practice are not superior to those of reflection'. My players must spend more time on reflection and less on repetition. Analysis is just another aspect of reflection.
• What is ‘sufficient’ may need more clarity: 'Reflection can take place only if an individual has accumulated sufficient experience on which to reflect'. An experience is an event that is observed, remembered later and understood by the learner. It is sufficient for reflection if it emotes feelings [therefore, it is remembered, and has been observed]. 'Participants who had the least experience with the task (familiarity level 1) benefited more from practice compared to articulation'. Sometimes, you may have to do it again until you understand the event as an experience.
• ‘Write down their reflections instead of just reflecting to themselves’ is a terrific idea. We have done this occasionally before, but will now do this more often. Clearly, writing helps to articulate and embed conclusions, impressions and ideas in the minds of the learners.
• 'Learning rates are significantly greater when individuals work on related tasks than when they specialize in a single task'. Specialisation should not be confused with attaining mastery of the topic or act, and is a hindrance to learning. Exposure to a breadth of ideas, without rooting them in subject specialisations, makes them smarter learners.
• Is it ‘possible for people to train and learn smarter, not harder?’ Yes, it’s too easy! Just ask the learners to engage more in reviewing their training events as experiences, instead of mindlessly doing something repeatedly.
• To become smarter, the learner must write down the experiences and inferences drawn. ‘Participants who took time to simply think about their experience with a task [a reflection condition we will refer to as articulation] with participants who spent the same amount of time first thinking and then writing down their takeaways [a reflection condition we will refer to as codification] (Zollo and Winter 2002).’

For decades, I have been a votary of repetition because it was a useful habit that could smoothen actions, sharpen abilities and produce skills. For over two decades and in almost every game, our players focused on five themes: data, decisions made, results and outcomes, interactions with others, and errors made in their end-game self-appraisals.

This selective gist of the paper is a summary for me to remember, and a reiteration or correction of my beliefs and biases; for you, teachers and trainers, useful ideas.

Recommendations

1. After tough exercises, ask the learner to write down what was learnt and present it, extempore, in class.

2. After every tough exercise, ask the learner to repeat at least once more, before writing and reflective learning.

3. Be clear about reflection themes. My game players have focused on data [what did you see?], decisions made [how did you use the data?], results and outcomes [what did you achieve, what happened?], interactions with others [what did you hear and learn from others?], and errors made [omissions and commissions: pinpricks to change behaviour].

#reflection #repetition #experience #learning #smartlearning #players #games