It's all about making the information and subject relevant to their lives in some way. Whether if it is with current events or personal stories, makes the learning process more engaging.
Lori,
So true. The more connections of this type you can make for the students the better. This way they will see the relevance and value of what they are studying.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
If I want someone to think, to learn, it only makes sense to understand as much about thinking and learning as I can. I can then add that knowledge to my working memory as I attempt to not only engender a positive experience in my classrooom but practical applications of the course content for each individual. How can I make a moment in this lecture an episodic memory? Can I connect an episodic memory to semantic memory?
Tom,
By taking the semantic memory component and connecting it to some experience students have had (episodic) the retention factor goes way up. So the more connections and examples the greater the learning that occurs.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
The description in the material on how the brain matures was very helpful. I work with individuals in the 18-20 year old range to those in their 50's and sometimes beyond that may have been displaced by a plant closing,etc. and now are back looking to garner new skills to enhance their employment possibilities. Revisiting as to how we operate as humans and our brains process information helps us as instructors/facilitators build or rebuild a solid foundation in looking at instructional strategies that will benefit our students.
Don,
I am amazed at how the brain functions for something that weighs three pounds and is 80% water. What a wonderful device we have been given to train, educate and then utilize throughout our lives.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Realizing learning is a process will assist in having realistic expectations for learners. Although there may be several things we'd like our learners to know, we should not overload them with information. We should guide our learners towards what they need to know in their careers. Understanding how the brain works, faculty should distribute content in a manner that will assist with retention. In the career college setting, we are able to take a "hands-on" approach to learning, which assists with retention as well.
Paula,
You make a point about "essential knowledge and skills". We need to be able to identify both of these and then make sure they are taught to the point the students have them stored in their working memory banks. They can gain the other information at a future time as they progress in their career development.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Understanding the basics of learning is a benefit for me, because this allows me to ensure that the instruction I am presenting gets to the learner. I might have to adapt my instructional strategy when I have a learner in my class that is not getting the information. Understanding how that learner best adapts to receiving information will allow me to adjust as needed to meet the needs of the learner.
Understanding the basics of learning will benefit me by giving me a foundation to understand my own teaching strategies, and how those strategies best help my students to learn. I really want to adapt more exercises that target the working memory. I want the students to be constantly engaged with the material.
Jimmy,
This is a great goal to have. Case studies are great ways to get students involved in the application of what is being taught. The more examples you can share from the field the better. Each of these elements will enable the students to store more information in their working memory and this increases their retention of the course content.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I feel that I can use more personal examples from work history and more hands on application when teaching core concepts in the classroom. This will help the students store the information into long term memory and also provide an "episodic" event that will help the students retrieve the material when necessary.
Understanding how the brain functions, and how learning occurs, is very helpful in the way I present my lessons, as I stay more focused on the essentials, so those things that are relevant are the things being remembered, and being put into action.
There are several things which strike me as odd about this -- the first being somehow that the letter 'w' in this discussion comes out very poorly rendered -- almost like a weak typewriter key for those who remember typewriters, though this should not be a consideration for a Web site.
The major issue here, I think, is that [even with the continuing cascade of discoveries stemming from improved imaging investigations of the brain] even though we have a good knowledge of how the brain works, the 'educational establishment' has been remarkably reluctant to actually incorporate much of this.
The second major issue is treating all 'academic' and 'practical' subjects as if they were the same. This is what makes IT such an interesting topic -- because, like in medicine, the reality is a practical application, yet it is heavily informed by academic theory. Anyone inclined to doubt this should consider the massive problem in network security today, where a prime cause of many problems is exactly this disconnect between theory and practice -- because without a good theoretical understanding, it is impossible to change out of reactive mode.
Which brings in my instructional strategy -- producing an effective linking of episodic and semantic memory [both of which are important] by the age-old device of 'telling a story'. In fact, if we consider all the elements in story telling, we can see that this is an excellent mechanism for implementing such a strategy. For example: one of the major problems in IT security application is the unwillingness of senior non-technical management to understand -- the recent TARGET breach, however, now shows how penalties are real. By weaving examples of actual events as part of the IT security story, students are both motivated to learn, while seeing how the theory and the practice interact.
I am tireless in telling my students that there are really two types of knowledge in IT. The first is the body of knowledge they work with every day -- so repetition will engrave it on the inside of their eyelids [it had better!]. The second is knowledge that they only need every couple of months or at even greater intervals -- I tell them that they should not try to remember such knowledge, but instead should know how to find it rapidly if they need it.
There is much more to this than meets the neuron, I feel.
John-Howard,
Your discussion on how learning maturity should develop is right on. The key as you mention is the ability to see situations, break then down into need areas and then strive to come up with solutions. This is what is going to be expected of them in the work place so they need to learn how to work through these steps while students. Thank you for sharing this perspective with us.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I teach motorycle electrical and I found a way to use the sense of feel to teach ignition systems. By holding a small magnet over a stick coil while the engine is running you are able to feel the magnetic field inside the ignition coil colapse. This allows the learners to feel something that can't be seen.
Andrew,
Thank you for sharing this example with us. This is the kind of creative instruction that gets the message across to students and helps that message to be put in their working memory bank for use later.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Understanding the basics of learning will enable me to recognize the individual ways in which students retain information. I can tailor my instructional methods to meet the students' learning needs. For example, if I'm getting the deer in the headlights look from students during a lecture on Ohm's Law, I need to be able to recognize that it's time to change strategy and get out the training circuit boards (breadboards) so they can see those laws in action.
Richard,
The key is reading your students and that is exactly what you are doing with your observations and then modifications to keep them engaged. This is what focused teaching is all about.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
This is the first time that I have seen the three filters that learners use to process information. Understanding the deletion, destortion and generalization models will help me assure that my students are actually processing the information that I am sharing with them.
