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Knowledge, Like Water, Will Slip Between Our Fingers Unless.

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When you cup your hands and use them to scoop up a drink of water, how long can you hold the water before it seeps between your fingers and out of your hands? Some can hold onto the water longer than others, but eventually the water slips from everyone’s hands. So, it is with our memory. We hear a name or phone number or read a story and for a bit of time we remember these. However, after a bit of time, that length of time varies with the person, recall of the name and phone number and the details of the story slip from our memory like water between our fingers. Short-term memory is only that, good for a bit of time. If we want to remember things for a longer stretch of time, we need to build long-term memory. We can build memories if we choose to do so.

What do we know?

We consider memory to be a natural phenomenon for keeping track of things. In everyday life, we have hundreds of micro experiences every day. These are things we see, and hear, and do as part of daily living. Yet we remember very few, because they were insignificant and occurred quickly and without reason to become longer memory. Our brains are not intended to remember everything we see, or hear, or do because there are thousands of these minutiae every day. Consider what it would be like inside your head if your brain were constantly trying to make sense of every detail in every second of your life. Happily, no one knows what your head would be like because this does not happen naturally. Instead, our brain sheds the minutiae in short order. Forgetting is as natural as remembering. Unless we actively work to build memory.

Being a student in school may build many memories but schooling itself does a poor job of teaching students how to remember. Our curricular program for every grade level and every course is industrial in nature. A teacher organizes units of instruction and teaches them one after the other. Sadly, schooling is assembly line instruction, and the conveyor belt only stops at graduation. The daisy chain organization of curriculum assumes that some of what a child learns at an earlier age will relate to or be applied in a later age. Certainly, a child’s developing skill sets in phonics-based reading and use of arithmetic skills are used throughout school and later life. However, what the child reads in fourth grade or the math work the child did in sixth grade are stand-alone assignments. 

Case in point – why do children in the United States typically study US history in grades 5, 8, and 10? The casual answer is that by teaching it again in 8th and 10th grade children develop a deeper understanding of their national story. If that were true, why do so many children have trouble on tests of US history? It is the most repeated curriculum in PK-12 yet ask any adult the name of the 8th US President or the relationship between the American Revolution and the War of 1812 or the effect of the Smoot-Hawley Act and you will wait a long time for answers. Are these important to remember? Maybe not, but they are indicative of how we treat this three-peat taught curriculum. Most American adults cannot pass the Immigration Service civics test. We are illiterate about our national story. So much for teaching children how to remember.

Being smart in school by remembering what you learn should not be a secret – help every child to be as smart as they can be. We need to teach children all the “secrets.”

Long ago and before the Internet’s instant access to information, knowledge was power. People who knew things and could do use their knowledge had advantages over people who did not know. Sadly, schools and teaching were a matter of “teachers know and children do not know – and only the smartest children learn what teachers know.” Too many of us experienced this in school.

Today our teachers’ job is to cause all children to learn what teachers know. A first-grade teacher’s job is to cause all first-grade children to learn the first-grade curriculum. A chemistry teacher’s job is to cause chemistry students to learn chemistry. This is teaching with an “I will do everything in my ethical abilities to teach my children what they need to know and do.”

Memory work is not easy, and it is not intuitive for all children. If a child has natural memorization ability, great! For children who need help memorizing, teach them how to remember. This mandate and constantly needs adaptive practice in every PK-12 classroom. We do not teach how to study and remember in elementary school and never again in middle and high school. We teach and practice these abilities in every classroom.

What to do better.

Start by acknowledging the current state of learning and remembering. We do not teach for long term memory. We do not teach children how to build long term memory, and our classroom practices do not build memory for the long-term. We talk about the importance of building, recalling, and using background knowledge but do not teach children how to recall and use what they have been taught.

Be intentional. Building recall does not take as much time and effort as reteaching what children have forgotten. “Children, we are going to learn how to improve our memory.”

  • Use recall events. Tell children “Before the next chapter or unit test, we are going to do things to help you remember what you are learning. These small activities will strengthen your memory of what you are learning before our usual tests.” Every several days have children “Tell me about the story we have been reading? I want to hear what you recall and your thoughts about the main characters, the plot, and where you think this story is going.” At the start, be non-evaluative and over time expect children to develop correct details. Have children tell each other about steps they have been taught to use in checking their multiplication problems. Do not just do the steps but explain why each step is mathematically important. Have children hum the song they are learning or restate the safety rules for using a turning wheel for pottery. Work on recalling the essential things in the current chapter or unit or story or class activity. Then, do it again next week.
  • Use non-graded retesting. Tell children “Frequent review of what you learned and was in a recent test helps you to remember what you learned. So, we will have several follow-up tests of that same information. The follow-up tests will not be graded, because we are taking these tests to build memory of what you already were tested on.”
  • Use flash cards. Have children make their own flash cards. This applies to all K-12 children in all subjects. Cards can be created to build recall for vocabulary and definitions, events with dates and names, series of steps in a process, and to explain significance. The practice of creating flash cards alone builds memory; the use of flash cards builds stronger memory.

No child is too old for flash cards! At age 77 I am relearning French language and flash cards are part of the routine.

  • Use intermittent review. Students tend to cram for tests. Tell children “Better practice is scheduled or intermittent review over time. Do not leave studying for a test until the last night before test day.” The recall events described above practice intermittent study. Use intermittent for end of course and end-of-year tests. Next month do a review of essential content and skills taught the previous month. Run through last month’s flash cards. Three months hence do it again. The reason is this – background knowledge, like water in your cupped hands, eventually will slip away if you do review/refill it.
  • Use memory organizers. Tell children “It is okay to create your own ways of remembering what you don’t want to forget.” Teach them how to draw a concept map linking ideas together as supporting details. Teach them associations to link new learning to what they know. Teach them how to create a rhyming word phrase so that each word reminds them of ideas and strings of ideas they want to remember. Teach them to use a simple sentence where each word reminds them of an idea or string of ideas they want to remember.

The Big Duh!

Return to a variation of Cartesian logic. “If I taught something to children and they did not learn it, did I really teach them anything?” Possibly. Instead posit, “If I taught children and did not teach them how to remember what I taught them, did I really teach anything?” Indeed, not. If you expect children to remember what you taught them, teach them how to remember.

Remembering Is Difficult; Forgetting Is Easy

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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!

If We Want Students to Study, We Must Teach Them How

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“I need to study for my test”, I would say to myself.  With self-discipline I sat at the card table that was my desk at home in my high school years, textbook and class notes in front of me, and engaged in the mystery of studying.  Mystery, I say now almost 60-years after high school graduation, because the act and art of studying was so elusive, I might as well have been told to flap my arms and fly.  With little understanding of what it meant to study, I waddled through years of school tests relying on what I heard and observed in class and my reading of the assigned texts.  And so it goes still.  Last week I heard and saw a high school student in our high school library, as I prepared for a school board meeting, say to friends, “I need to study for my test.  I wish I knew what to do!”. 

I ask my readers to consider this article through the eyes and ears of a student in school.  Too many students throw up their hands in defeat repeating the last sentence in the first paragraph.  All students need us to teach them how to be successful in school.  Teaching them what will be on a test is important; teaching them how to study for a test is just as important.

The quick answer to “How should I study?” is that we need to teach all students to

  • Listen and pay attention in class
  • Build short-term memory through repetition
  • Read aloud
  • Focus on key words and ideas
  • Master automaticity of key facts
  • Understand what the problem wants you to do
  • Speak your solutions out loud
  • Study frequently

Listen and Pay attention

School, study and learning have gone hand-in-hand forever.  In the first instance, children are told to pay attention to what their teachers says and does daily.  Listen and watch, listen and watch – these two aspects of paying attention are a child’s first pass at learning.  Remarkably, children learn a lot just from listening and watching.  I was told as a student, “If you just pay attention in class, listen to your teacher, with a special focus on what the teacher writes on the board (now digital screen), you can pass every class”.  I also learned that the bar for passing classes was not very high – just attend school and pay attention.

In the second instance, if a student wants better than passing grades, a student must do more.  If being present and listening to and watching what a teacher says and does can result in a D grade or better, what does a student need to do be earn even better grades?  Study.  Here we go.

What to do:  When you tell students to pay attention, mean it.  Get their attention.  Don’t proceed until you have it.  Too often we say “Now, pay attention” and then proceed without getting their attention.

What to do:  When you tell students to “add this to your notes” check their notes.  If they wrote down the wrong things, they will study the wrong things.  If it is important enough to tell them to write it down, ensure that they wrote it down.

Short-term Memory

Short-term memory counts because most tests assess short periods of learning.  Quizzes assess the smallest amount learning.  Chapter or unit tests, think four weeks of learning, are the most common school assessments.  Semester and end-of-year tests by their nature assess the most important ideas and skills learned in 18 and 36 weeks.  Annual state tests cover learning over multiple years, usually going back at least two years.  Knowing this, short-term memory is the first key to studying for most tests.

Short-term memory is all about repetition.  Repetitive practice does not make perfect, as people want to believe, but it does make what is repeated permanent.  The brain needs reinforcement if we want it to remember something and the more often, we say or do the same thing, the more likely the brain will remember it.  When a child listens and watches the teacher, the brain gets an initial introduction to information, but it is not enough if we want the brain to remember that information for very long.

As a rule, when you think short-term memory think 5 to 7 repetitions.  Re-read the assigned information multiple times.  A chapter in a text or a book the class is reading or the handouts or a screen shot that was shown since a last chapter or monthly test is what will be on the next chapter or monthly test.  This information is what a student needs to re-read and re-look at multiple times.  If it helps, make chicken scratches on a bookmark for every time you read re-read this information.  Get to at least 5 preferably 7 scratch marks.  If your brain has 5 to 7 repetitions of the same material, your brain will be prepared to answer questions about this material on an assessment.

What to do:  Use class time to practice short-term memory.  “We are going to take five minutes for you to read that paragraph (word list, vocabulary definitions…) at least five times to yourself.  Start now.”  If you want students to know information, show them how and give them time, your time, to know it.

Re-read Aloud

One more step – read it aloud.  It is too easy to just skim over the pages when you read it silently.  Your eyes move but your brain does not engage.  Reading aloud means the brain must see and you must say every word.  Too many of us say, “I already read it.  I don’t need to waste time reading it again”.  However, reading once is not enough to create adequate short-term memory.  Read it again and read it aloud.

What to do:  Once again, do it in class.  Students can read aloud with soft voices.  Spread them out around the room and use all your square footage.  Then, listen to students as they read aloud.  Nod, smile, and reinforce.

Focus on What the Teacher Focuses On

Teachers give students clues about what is MOST important in the lessons they teach.   Most teachers tell their classes, “Write this down” or “Add this to your notes”.  Then they write or display the most important words or ideas in the current lesson on the board or screen.  If a teacher writes it, a student should also write it.  And write it exactly as the teacher writes it.  Treat these words and ideas like a giant billboard with flashing lights that tell you “Know this because it will be on the test”.

If a student’s notes only show what a teacher writes on the board or screen, that student has a start in preparing for the next test.  Build understanding from these key words and ideas.  If it is a word, define it – know what the word means.  If it is an idea, write several sentences about how the idea was explain in class.  For example, if the word is “germinate”, define it.  If the idea is “growing season”, write down an example of a growing season and what happens over time.

Then, build these definitions and examples into short-term memory with 5 to 7 repetitions. 

Listen and pay attention, copying key words and ideas, re-reading aloud and doing these things 5 to 7 times builds good short-term memory in language arts, social studies, most of science, second languages,

What to do:  Interview students.  Simply ask each student to “Tell me what you know about…”.  Formative assessments are not always quizzes.  A quick oral interview of a cross section of students will tell you if instruction has been successful in causing learning.

What to do:  Teach students to self-interview.  “What do I know about…?”, is a question a student can use as a studying check-up.

Math is Different

There is only so much that short-term memory can achieve in arithmetic and math.  In the primary grades, teachers work to create automaticity of facts.  Consider the tables students memorize and the urgency for knowing these facts on demand.  The clearest example is a multiplication table.  Repetition and short-term memory allow a student to quickly call out 63 when asked to multiply 7 times 9.  All students need to achieve automaticity mastery of math facts. 

This is not short-term memory but long-term memory work.  To build long-term memory students need 17-20 repetitions and then frequent repetitions over time.  What does this mean?  Teachers and students hammer the drill and practice with intensity.  Repeatedly until short-term memory cannot help but answer 63 to the 7 x 9 question.  AND, then repeated practice frequently but not intensely over time.  That means next week and next month.

What to do:  On demand and without fanfare ask a student to tell you their addition or multiplication or division tables.  Make the telling oral so that it quick fire.  Do this over time with all students to reinforce long-term memory.

Know the Language of Math by Writing Math Sentences

Once math facts are secure, math learning is all about understanding the language of a math problem.  What does the math language of the problem tell you to do?  Without fail, some students read the text of a math story problem or look at the numerics of a math problem and do not know what the language of the problem is telling them to do.  The have not learned to read the language of math; math is Greek to too many children.  Because students can read text, we assume they can read math, and this is not a leap we should make.

As always, demonstrate and over-demonstrate the skills of interpreting English sentences into math sentences by visibly interpreting the words or numbers into “math sentences”.  Do this each time a new math concept is taught.  “This is how you read the math problem and we will write each step of the problem into a math sentence.”  Once students learn to do this, the mystery of story problems is resolved.

What to do:  Each time you make a math assignment, demonstrate how to interpret the language of the problem into math sentences.  Say it aloud and write it on the board/screen.

What to do:  When circulating around the class while students do their assignment, don’t look for right answers/current solutions.  Ask students to tell you their math sentences.  This is the skill that gets them to the right answers.

The Template for Short Answers and Essays

Most quizzes and tests use multiple choice, true-false, and fill in the information questions.  These are easier to correct.  They also are easier to turn into the data of learning as the number of correct answers seems to equate to learning.  Given the factual nature of most multiple questions, m-c is a test of memory.

Many students frown when the test or quiz requires short answers or essays.  In multiple choices and fill in type questions, a correct answer or information leading to a correct answer is displayed in the problem stem.  This is not always true in short answers or essays.

Once again we teach students to write short answers and essays by teaching them how with frequent demonstrations.  How often has a student heard a teacher say, “You should have learned how to write an essay back in grade xxx”.  If the teacher has to say this, she already knows that a student did not learn how to write an essay back then.  We need to fill this gap in learning.

Additionally, an essay written in fifth grade will not satisfy the requirements for an essay in 8th or 11th grade.  We expect more sophisticated thinking in essay answers as students get older.  We need to teach students what “more sophisticated” looks like by providing models, requiring short answer and essay writing in daily and chapter work, and, here it is, providing ungraded, critical feedback to students about their writing.  Ungraded and critical feedback takes the pressure off students for on-demand writing and incrementally develops writing strength.

The starting point is for each student to understand a five-part essay template:  introduction sentence, three supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence.  Just like math facts and vocabulary definitions, students need an immediate response to an essay assignment.  They immediately begin an outline of five parts.

What to do:  Have faculty agreement in a five-part essay template.  Remove the mystery of how to write an essay or short answer.

What to do:  Write essays frequently.  Remove the on-demand paralysis by making writing essays a general practice.

What to do:  Essay practice should be like basketball practice; we don’t keep score in practice sessions.  Instead, give critical feedback on how the clarity of each part of the essay, the strength of the supporting information, and the interpretation of the conclusion.  Build essay muscle.

Cramming is Guilt Studying

Lastly, keep students from doing what what I did.  Cramming for tests is a student’s attempt to resolve guilt for not doing the daily and weekly practices that build readiness for school tests.  If we teach and build study habit practices into usual teaching and learning, there is no need for cramming.  All the above is designed for daily, weekly and repeated practice.  

What to do:  If it is important that students learn to study, teach them how to study.

The Big Duh!

There should be no surprises in school tests.  All information and skills should be clearly taught and practiced so that a test is a natural wrap-up to what has been taught and learned.

Equally, there should be no mystery in how to study.  Every student should be taught independent study skills just as they are taught their A, B, Cs.  When we accept that study habits are not innate but are learned practices we teach students, then we are the right track of causing every student to become a strong learner.