When we know the best teaching practices, we should use them. A best practice for causing children to learn is to build and strengthen short term memory muscle through everyday teaching and learning.
Expediency is the enemy of best practice. We are all guilty of these three errors in thinking about our teaching. First, “If I said it, they heard it”. Second, “If they heard it, they learned it”. Third, “If they learned it, I am done. I can go on to the next instruction”. Sadly, we jump from the first statement to the third statement multiple times in an hour and too many times in a day’s instruction. Then when children are given a quiz or check test, we wonder why too few children remembered much of what we taught.
Why Is This Thus?
We know memory is not a “drive by” phenomenon. By our own confession as humans, we do not remember everything we learn, and we forget a lot. Daily life is so full of factoids, ideas, and things we do, and experience and they happen so quickly and constantly that we are not able to automatically categorize everything into what should or must be remembered. The reality is that most of our daily experiences come and go and can be allowed to slip away. We forget what we do not prioritize to remember. What is true of us is true of our students. Once in a blue moon we teach a child who seems to have photographic memory – who remembers and can recall what she sees, reads, hears, and experiences with high efficiency. Blue moon! Every other child needs our use of best teaching practices to help them build the power of memory so they can optimize what they learn.
Thus!
Best practice tells us that each fact, concept, word of vocabulary, word with definition – everything we want a child to remember – must be repeated and restated, clarified for correction, and reinforced 5 to 7 times before a child can be expected to recall with efficiency what we asked them to remember. Recall, simply repeating what we said, did, or showed back to us, is short term memory muscle building. Restating it in their own words increases their hold on that memory. Finding contexts in which to apply the facts, concepts, and vocabulary learned allows them to flex the muscle of their own memory on demand. Flexing memory muscle moves what is learned from short term memory into long term memory. That is successful teaching and learning for what we want children to remember
Do These
Correct the first error in thinking about teaching by asking children frequently “What did you hear me say, do, or show you?”. Be certain that children heard what you said, and just as importantly, heard you say what you think you said. Stop here – this is important! Did children hear you say what you think you said? Did they see you do what you intended them to see? A child may have been looking at a friend three chairs away wondering what they will do after school or worrying about their friendship while you were talking, doing, or showing and this child will not clearly know what you think you said, did, or showed. Children are less focused on you than you think they are. Ask them to tell you what they just experienced.
Ask children to repeat back to you constantly during a day of instruction. As a first statement of practice, you are checking to understand what they heard, saw, and experienced. As a second statement of practice, you are saying to all children “Pay attention. You know I am going to ask you a clear and simple question. Be prepared to answer.”
At this point, if multiple children cannot repeat back to you what you said, did, or showed them, then you need to tell, do, or show them again. Don’t look for fault; just respond to fact. If they can’t recall, you need too back up and repeat yourself. This time with their attention.
Once you verify correctness of what children heard or saw, fix the second error – have students repeat it. This expands your fixing the first error. Ask multiple children to repeat what you said. It may seem too repetitive and a waste of time, but you assumed that children listened to you. Why do you assume they listen to each other? Asking multiple children to repeat allows you to verify that each child you ask repeats correct information. Asking multiple children begins to personalize their memory muscle.
Remember your taxonomy. Recall is good but recall is the basic level of learning. The most basic. Help all children muscle up by moving from recall to understanding of what they are learning by restating what you want them to remember using their own words. No puppetry – no recitation of the teacher here. “Tell me in your own words …” requires a child to manipulate their personal vocabulary and thinking about a fact, an idea, or an experience and to retell it in words that make sense to that child. Share the muscle-building by asking multiple children to “Tell me in your own words …”. Reciting is the teacher’s words; understanding is the child’s words.
Fix the third error by looping lessons in a unit of instruction. You will go on to the next lesson in the natural flow of teaching. Within the unit of teaching and learning you planned, lessons are building blocks of understanding where the second and third lessons build upon what was learned in the first lesson or a prior unit of teaching. Madeline Hunter taught us to use “prior knowledge” in introducing new lessons. Use key words, facts, ideas, and a recall of experiences to “set the stage” for next teaching and learning. Looping also builds memory. The best stage for next learning is when children discuss their “prior knowledge” not when the teacher tells them about their prior learning. It is their learning you will build upon not yours.
Looping also builds muscle memory by making what is remembered contextual. The act of repeating facts, ideas, and skills and of retelling of their understanding of their prior knowledge, and connecting what is remembered into the purpose of what is to be learned gives memory context. If it can be applied, it is valuable to be remembered. If it helps to explain, it is valuable to be remembered. If it helps future learning, it needs to be strengthened in memory muscle.
Easy? No. Use the art of teaching to assist the best practices of teaching.
Building memory is mental work for a child. It is strategic work for a teacher. Like doing physical exercises everyday, it is routine and not necessarily exciting for either child or teacher. As an analogy, we know that an adult’s physical health is optimized by “steps per day”. Some experts point to 10,000 steps per day and others argue fewer is adequate, but most experts agree that steps cum muscle movement is very important for personal health. The number aside, it is the stepping that is essential for building health. But stepping for the sake of stepping can be tedious – it is not easy.
Effective teachers use best practices to cause children to learn. Effective teachers use the art of teaching to engage children in their learning. Building muscle memory requires structured practices throughout every lesson and every unit of teaching. These structures can begin to look and feel like routine and routines create a tension of engagement. New and unique can be fun and exciting while routine and usual can become boring. Boring is the tension. This tension is real – to build memory requires structured teaching and learning but structured routines can become uninteresting for children and even for teachers. That leads us to another best practice, because when we know what best practice is, we should try to do it.
Stay tuned for another blog!