These days there are many people presenting new and exciting ways to make learning happen. There are also many techniques that have been around for a long time and are still valid. It might do us well to revisit the existing techniques as we find the need to employ different methods for improving learning.
In this blog I am going to overview some of these techniques. The references from Wikipedia, wikihow, and Business Insider are not marketing materials. The other two references are from marketing materials, but in spite of that, the materials present interesting techniques for improving learning. Please note that I am not advocating purchase of these products, but rather I believe the concepts underlying their creation are valid and worth covering in this blog.
4 New “Effective Teaching” Methods To WOW Your Students
Ari Sherbill
This article presents four attention grabbing ways that the author, Ari Sherbill, believes can hold students’ attention. The first way he presents to get and keep learner’s attention is to tell them up front what is in it for them. This is a concept that is used in many different circumstances. Advertisements tell you the benefits of the products they present, for example food that tastes good, clothes that make you look great, medicines that will cure your problem. Since learners hear about different benefits in their every day lives, telling them the benefits of completing the training is very likely to be familiar to them. Therefore, this method should grab the learner’s attention.
The next method presented is finding ways to show the learner what they will miss if they don’t learn what is being presented. Here the learner needs to hear about the impact to them. For example, if they don’t learn what a healthy diet is they won’t have the ability to choose foods that are good for them. Perhaps they need to learn how chemicals interact with each other. The instructor might need to mention up front that the training will cover which products can be used together and which can cause an unsafe condition if mixed. It is all about telling the students the impact to them if they don’t learn what is going to be covered in the lesson. The benefit to them for learning is to avoid the pain that comes from not knowing whatever it is that will be covered in the training.
The third benefit presented by the author is to create anticipation of what will be taught; to give a preview of what they will learn later.
“Think Hollywood. They never just release a movie, it’s against attention hacking DNA. Every movie ever released from Hollywood is first launched with a Preview.”
The fourth and final attention grabber presented by Ari Sherbill is what he calls VAC, an abbreviation of what has been presented as the three main types of learners – Visual, Audio, and Kinesthetic. Recent research is now discounting classifying learners into these three types. However, Sherbill does say that learners need to be stimulated with all three types of presentations and therefore is talking to the need for all learners to be exposed to all three types. “The IDEAL learning environment is when the Student sees, hears, and feels the material themselves.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/auditory-visual-kinesthetic-learning-styles-arent-real-2018-2
Hilary Brueck Feb, 20,2018
Title: “There’s no such thing as ‘auditory’ or ‘visual’ learners”
Hilary Brueck presents even more thought and research on learning styles in her post in Business Insider.
“For decades, there’s been an idea that people have set “learning styles,” which are often categorized into three types: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Some people also believe that some learners are more concrete while others are abstract.”
….
“In fact, research shows that teaching students according to different learning styles has no effect on how they perform on assessments. Every time scientists have tried to prove this theory, they’ve failed.”
…..
“The ‘learning styles’ myth is dangerously flawed
Promoting the idea that some people learn better in certain ways is not only ineffective, it’s also harmful and potentially discriminatory.”
So, while the idea of crafting a learning approach to an individual learning style is now deprecated, the effectiveness of presenting to all three styles has been shown to be effective. No matter which kind of hook you use to grab the attention of your learners, the end goal remains the same: Help the learners commit the material to long-term memory and to give them the ability to use what they have learned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsC9ZHi79jo
How to triple your memory by using this trick | Ricardo Lieuw
A Ted Talk caught my attention this past week. This talk is about memorization. When this talk was recommended to me I first thought “memorization? We really need to do it so little today with all the electronic tools we have.” But, of course I stopped and realized I myself need help with memory. Every time I meet someone new it is a struggle to remember his or her name, especially when I meet more than one person at the same time. So I watched the Ted Talk, twice actually. I was impressed with his presentation. In reality I have read articles about memory techniques in the past, but I never attempted to apply the techniques as I had an excellent memory. However, that was the past, it is now no longer the case, so the Ted Talk was the right information at the right time for me.
Essentially my take away was to tie images to a person’s name, or anything else you’d like to memorize. Yes, I have heard this before but the presentation in this talk helped me to internalize how to use this technique.
Two other references about how to use these methods to improve memory are also in my opinion worth reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci
https://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Memory-Palace
Perhaps, like me, this information will be something that comes at the right time and you will be interested in trying out these techniques.
Blueprints for Learning 