Learning by trial and error: unleash the potential of feedback

What is trial-and-error learning?

When it comes to learning, our spontaneous reflexes are rarely the right ones. However, cognitive science teaches us that our brain has basic needs in order to develop a new skill, and that certain conditions must be met to become able to process a task correctly, on the one hand, and then to make it automatic, on the other hand. From the most solid and consensual research results on the subject, we have extracted 8 fundamental principles, 8 pillars of sustainable learning. Whether you are a trainer, teacher, or simply curious, we show you everything your brain needs for successful learning, and how to apply these principles in your profession as well as in everyday life. First pillar, learning by trial and error.

You need to explain to your new colleague how your company's computer system works. A teacher by nature, you do everything necessary to facilitate his understanding: you draw superb diagrams for him, You patiently introduce concepts one after the other, and you make sure that his attention stays focused at every moment on key concepts. Your colleague thanks you warmly for your masterful presentation: thanks to you, he understood everything in just five minutes. In doubt, you ask him to summarize in a few words what he learned... and suddenly discover a huge misunderstanding of the very first concept you introduced. This phenomenon well known to cognitivists isIllusion of mastery.

To overcome the illusion of control, the brain has a fundamental need: to be confronted with feedback. That's what we call thelearning by trial and error. Ce pillar of apprenticeship is both one of the most recognized in research and one of the most unknown to the general public. Indeed, despite the consensus on the effectiveness of learning by trial and error, this method is often overlooked by both trainers and learners.

Learn by trial and error consists of manipulating the information you have just received in your head, putting your brain into a test situation, and then correcting yourself. For example, to better understand the difference between accounting assets and liabilities, rather than rereading the definition of these terms yet again, take concrete examples of transactions, ask yourself what category to include them in, then check if you made a mistake and why.
‍Questionnaire, practical case resolution... there is no shortage of opportunities to learn by trial and error. This is in particular what the simulation exercises that you can design with Didask allow you to do.
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Learning by trial and error, or how feedback protects us from the illusion of control

Where does the effectiveness of this method come from? When the learner does not have the opportunity to mobilize the concepts they have just seen, they can hardly know where they stand. Moreover, it is not uncommon for him to think he knows a concept that he will in reality be unable to mobilize when he needs it: Often, concepts that are superficially simple to understand (like the rule of three) Give us more problems than expected when it comes to putting them into practice (for example, apprentice nurses may have difficulty applying the rule of three correctly when calculating doses to be administered).

Conversely, when they have to put their brain into action, the learner can See what he knows... and what he doesn't know. So it comes out of theIllusion of mastery, a state in which we ignore our ignorance, and can then adjust your learning strategy according to your needs. When learning by trial and error, it is crucial to have detailed feedback on what you are doing in order to progress effectively (2). Without this Feedback precise, we may make the same mistake next time.

A study compared two groups of 35 Iranian high school students who were following the classical curriculum at their school. For an entire semester, half had to take action through short questionnaires administered every week, while the other half did not have to perform a test.

During an exam offered to both groups at the end of the semester, the members of the group with the weekly tests performed better on average than the members of the other group. This significant result, far from being an exception, has been replicated in many different contexts over the past few decades.
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‍To find your way back, start by looking for it

To resume the metaphor for memory as a forest, where each path corresponds to a well-learned concept, anchoring a concept without taking action is in a way like memorizing a path by simply following a map of the forest.

To actively test your knowledge, it's best to explore the forest and try to find your way back on your own after a quick look at the map. You will then know if you actually know your way around, or if you still need to consult the map. It is by causing opportunities to lose yourself in your memory that you will not let yourself be trapped later..

Towards a benevolent relationship with error

Of course, learning by trial and error requires learners to dare to confront their ignorance. As they spontaneously tend to avoid these situations, you need to reassure them and de-dramatize the error : this one is not Not a value judgment, but an opportunity to improve again and again.

It is a whole relationship with oneself and one's abilities, deeply rooted from an early age, that must sometimes be transformed: the idea of a test tends to evoke stressful moments such as the written interview, the job interview... So do not hesitate to Sprinkle your training with kindness to build confidence in your learners and unlock their learning abilities. Praise them for their efforts, and encourage them to test themselves as often as possible. Test after test, feedback after feedback, they will end up seeing the error as a trivial matter, or even (and that is the whole objective) as the essential condition for successful learning.

4 practical tips for teachers & trainers

• Tip 1: Ask your learners to summarize, schematize, or explain to a peer what they have learned: there are many tasks to propose to put your learners into action. It's up to you to find the one that best suits your learning situation.
  
  
• Tip 2: Suggest appropriate actions at the level of all your learners: your various tests should allow everyone to make mistakes, and not only beginners.
  
  

• Tip 3: Give accurate feedback : evaluating a general performance (“generally satisfactory”) gives the learner too little information. To maximize learning abilities, better treat each correct answer, error, and area for improvement individually, with clarity and kindness.
  
  
• Tip 4: Use the body only when it is essential : dealing with feedback does not necessarily mean having to use your body. Mobilizing the body and movement in learning is only useful if the skill to be transmitted is a skill (Bara and Tricot, 2017). For the rest, it's all too often a source of mental load superfluous: a well-designed multiple choice questionnaire can be just as effective

To go further, we invite you to continue reading with two useful articles to get started in e-learning: Educational engineering for e-learning: approaches, techniques and prospects, and Developing and implementing online training: the guide to get started
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sourcing

[1] Gholami, V., Morady Moghaddam, M. (2013).The Effect of Weekly Quizzes on Students' Final Achievement Score. Modern Education and Computer Science, (1), 36-41.

[2] Butler, D.L., & Winne, P.H. (1995). Feedback and self-regulated learning: A theoretical synthesis. Review of educational research, 65(3), 245-281.