102091 SECONDARY

CURRICULUM 2B
PROFESSIONAL TASK Secondary
Curriculum 2B
Professional Task
Student Name: Samuel Chappuis

Student Number: 18331631

Date Submitted: 10/5/19

Campus: Kingswood
IS LEARNING FROM WORKED EXAMPLES A GOOD CLASSROOM STRATEGY?
What are effective strategies when teaching mathematics? It is a question that is extremely
important in mathematics education. Is learning from worked examples a good strategy? What
about problem-based learning, mathematical modelling or inquiry-based learning? Anthony &
Walshaw (2009, p. 6) illustrate that “mathematical understanding influences decision making in all
areas of life – private, social and civil.” It is therefore highly imperative that mathematical educators
know what are effective mathematics teaching strategies. This paper’s focus is to investigate the
effectiveness of the teaching strategy of exploring worked examples in the classroom. It aims to
highlight the research that supports the strategy as well as looking at the arguments against the
strategy. Ultimately, this paper intends to justify an opinion towards the question with the support
of current research literature.
Learning from worked examples involves the process of having students explain the steps of
problems that have already been solved (WestEd, 2016). A worked example is a “step-by-step
demonstration of how to perform a task or how to solve a problem” (Clark, Nguyen, Sweller, 2006, p.
190). The strategy is especially suited when trying to foster the initial acquisition of cognitive skills,
and hence usually utilised when students begin studying specific types of problems (Renkl, 2017).
Renkl (2017, p. 2) talks about the worked-example effect, stating that “leaners profit more from the
study of worked examples as compared to solving problems”. Figure 1 illustrates what a worked
example could look like:

Figure 1: A worked example on congruency proofs (Greenwood et al., 2014)

The learning potential of these types of worked examples is fully developed when students are given
the opportunity to make sense of the given solution (Renkl, 2017; Rittle-Johnson, Loehr, Durkin, 2017).
Figure 1 provides the question, an example of the solution as well as an explanation of the solution.
Renkl (2017) illustrates that successful worked-problems are represented several ways like in this
example. In mathematics, it is very common for students to try and solve problems. However,
problem-solving may be difficult if students have just been introduced to a specific topic. At the
beginning of starting a concept, students usually lack the proper understanding and hence if they jump
straight into problems the learning effect will be low (Renkl, 2017). Worked examples help in this
respect, they’re like a bridge between the understanding of a concept and the skills needed to solve
problems using the concept. By exploring the solutions and explanations of worked examples,
students build up a better understanding of the concept (e.g. congruence tests) (Renkl, 2017; Salden,
Aleven, Renkl, & Schwonke, 2009).

Cooper and Sweller (1985; Cooper & Sweller, 1987) conducted research comparing the
strategies of learning by problem-solving and learning by worked-examples. In one experiment,
Sweller and Cooper gave 9th grade students the opportunity to learn how to solve algebraic equations
under two conditions. Firstly, all students studied a worked example for each category of problem as
introduction to their learning. In the conventional problem-solving condition, students worked on 8
questions relating to the 4 problem types. In the example condition, students worked on the same 8
questions but the questions were paired with structurally worked out examples that were similar to
the 8 questions. The result of a final test concluded that learners in the example condition produced
fewer errors and spent less time on the test than their counterparts in the problem-solving condition.
This experiment highlighted the effect worked examples have on student’s understanding. There have
been various other studies that have also observed this effect (e.g. Carrol, 1994; Zhu and Simon, 1987;
Schwonke, Renkl, Krieg, Wittwer, Aleven, & Salden, 2009). Also, Mendiolea (2013, p. 1) highlighted in
his paper that “students prefer to have an explicit process to follow when completing mathematics
problems”. However, it should be noted that perhaps this effect was only beneficial in the learning of
algebraic equations. Additionally, as Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, & Sweller (2001) and Tuoiven &
Sweller (1999) highlight, the use of worked examples is only effective at the beginning of cognitive
skill acquisition. Renkl (2017) identifies that using worked examples after students already have some
understanding of a concept becomes redundant.

Furthermore, WestEd (2016, p. 1) illustrates that the strategy of learning from worked
examples reduces “working memory load so learners can focus on understanding the meaning behind
steps in problem solving”. By trying to make sense of worked examples, students are able to process
information more deeply than they otherwise would. As Renkl (2017) notes, at the beginning of topics,
students have very little understanding of the principles underlying the content they are learning.
Hence, students are not able to rely on meaningful strategies to solve problems as they have yet to
be introduced to them. Renkl (2017) suggests that with the lack of meaningful strategies, students rely
on shallow strategies such as relying on key words or the copy-and-adapt strategy. In these strategies,
students try to focus on the key words in question to gauge some meaning or they use a strategy that
has worked for them in the past in a previous concept and they adapt it to the question given. Renkl
(2017, p. 3) highlights these strategies as an instance of “extraneous activities”, meaning unproductive
in the process of understanding. Studying worked examples, trying to make sense of them and using
them to solve similar problems frees learners from these extraneous activities and allows for more
capacity to learn.

However, typical worked examples “show an algorithmic solution to a mathematical problem”

(Renkl, 2017, p. 4). Hence it may become apparent that learning from worked examples enables
students to become fluent about procedures but not become fluent with the understanding of a
concept. Learning from worked examples is an instance of instrumental understanding (Skemp, 2006).
Skemp (2006) spoke about two ways to learn mathematics: instrumental understanding and relational
understanding. In instrumental understanding, students know rules and procedures and have the
ability to use them. Relational understanding means students know what to do and can justify why.
Skemp (2006) highlighted that students develop deep understanding of concepts, and relationships
between concepts when learning is based on relational understanding. Additionally, Skemp (2006)
stated that students are able to remember content easier if they learn through relational
understanding. Worked examples are a great way to build instrumental understanding and procedural
fluency, however they don’t give students the opportunity to reason or think deeply about a problem.
If worked solutions always detail every step of a problem, there is no requirement for students to
make sense of the problem and can lead to “illusions of understanding” (Renkl, 1999, p. 478). If worked
examples are constantly being used, students are basically being hand-fed the knowledge to do similar
problems and hence are not actually doing any thinking. Also, learning directly from worked examples
is an ineffective strategy when students are faced with problems in unfamiliar situations where an
algorithm or procedure is not needed or can’t be easily taken from the problem. In these situations,
students are forced to think which they haven’t been allowed to do with worked examples.

Furthermore, typical worked examples do not address the common errors that students
make. Vamvakoussi & Vosniadou (2010) illustrate that the learning of mathematics is impeded by
common student misconceptions and misunderstandings. These misconceptions and
misunderstandings need to be addressed and corrected and typical worked examples aren’t able to
do this. Typical worked examples only provide correct solutions. By looking at and exploring worked
examples, students learn exactly how to solve a problem using appropriate steps and explanations.
However, what if students forget a certain step, adapt an incorrect step or use an incorrect
explanation to solve a similar problem? How do worked examples help in this respect. Additionally,
the fact that worked examples only give one correct solution could lead to students incorrectly
thinking that there is always only one correct solution to a mathematical problem (Perez-Felkner,
McDonald, Schneider & Grogan, 2012; Schoenfeld, 1985).

To further illustrate the issues with learning from worked examples, this paper aims to
examine a typical mathematics activity in the topic of differentiation. Typical introductions to
differentiation involve defining the secant to a function and taking limits to find the tangent to the
function (Herbert, 2013). This then leads to defining the first principle of differentiation and goes on
to define rules and procedures for differentiating functions. Worked examples are great when
exploring how to use the rules of differentiating for different functions. They give students confidence
when building up procedural fluency. However, worked examples don’t give students the confidence
to solve unfamiliar problems in differentiation. Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 present how a traditional
activity in differentiation would be a decent way to teach students how to solve problems in familiar
situations but not in unfamiliar ones. Appendix 1 showcases a traditional activity that would be used
in the differentiation topic. The activity shows rules and formulas and provides worked examples for
the individual methods which students can follow. Additionally, the questions follow a similar
structure to the worked examples. As mentioned before, this is a good way to build students fluency
but it doesn’t allow for problem-solving or depth of knowledge in the overall concept. Appendix 2 is a
HSC mathematics question which presents a differentiation problem in an unfamiliar context. Worked
examples like the ones in Appendix 1 would not enable students to complete this question. Simply,
teachers can’t expect students to learn how to do these unfamiliar questions based solely on worked
examples. They require mastery of Skemp’s (2006) relational or conceptual understanding in order to
be solved.

Ultimately, I believe that learning from worked examples is a good classroom strategy,
however it should be utilised in accordance with other successful teaching strategies. Learning from
worked examples is a good way to establish procedural fluency with repetitive mathematical
algorithms. This strategy is good for students to solve problems in familiar situations however it
doesn’t give them the skills to solve unfamiliar problems. Effective learning in mathematics is when a
variety of strategies are utilised to cater for the diversity of all students. I believe that students
should work with both correct and incorrect worked examples and be engaged in trying to solve
problem-style tasks including open-ended and investigative style questions where multiple paths to
a solution are discussed (Renkl, 2017; Ley, Attard & Holmes, 2018; Steffe, 2010; Anthony &
Walshaw, 2009; Anderson, White & Sullivan, 2005). It is highly important that students have
conceptual understanding and procedural fluency and are able to solve problems in familiar and
unfamiliar situations.
FACT SHEET: LEARNING FROM WORKED EXAMPLES

What are worked examples?

 A worked example is a step-by-step demonstration of how to perform a task or how to solve

a problem.
 They present how a question should be solved and explain the reasoning for each step

How do students learn from worked examples?

 Through analysing the examples and trying to make sense of the explanations
 By identifying the concepts, the worked examples have used
 By following the structure of worked examples to solve similar problems

What are the advantages?

 Reduces memory load

 Allows student to better understand problems at the beginning of a topic
 Students are able to process information more deeply
 Gives a reference point when working on questions and when studying

What are the disadvantages?

 Doesn’t allow for students to think deeply about how to solve problems
 Very structured, not much allowance for different methods of solving problems
 Doesn’t help students to solve unfamiliar problems
 Doesn’t address common student errors

What this means for your child:

 In mathematics, your child will learn to use worked examples to aid in their understanding
but they will also be given other opportunities to understand the content.
 Your child’s mathematics teacher will endeavor to provide a variety of strategies for your
child to learn the required content.
APPENDICES
Appendix 1:

Differentiation Methods

Differentiate the following using differentiation methods:

Appendix 2:
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