SMART ObjectivesAfter Reviewing The Material Below You Will Be Able To:
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CONtent Summaries
Chapter 3: Mix Up Your Practice
Practice makes perfect, when used in regards to the classroom is typically referring to the idea of cramming. Cramming, staying up all night and force feeding yourself information, may be effective for a quiz or small test you have coming up but it won’t help you with long term learning nor being able to retrieve that information afterwards. Practice is a great way to study and enhance your learning however, there are more effective methods to be used to train your brain. Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel (2014) argue that Spaced, Interleaving and Varied Practice are much more effective methods to teach your brain to retrieve and recall information while also fostering long term retention, conceptual thinking, adapting concepts to new situations and discrimination. Spaced practice is the idea of breaking a concept down into different parts that require the brain to work harder to retrieve the information. While this may seem time consuming, if done correctly long term retention will be evident as you revisit and/or add more information. Interleaving is the idea of switching skills or topics before mastery, while mixing the concepts together. This may create frustration due to pace and the idea of switching just prior to that “ah-ha” moment but research shows this does help foster long term retention. Varied practice is similar to interleaving however the students practice their skills and expand on the different ideas, sometimes in different contexts. |
Chapter 4: Embrace Difficulties
Traditional thinking was the easier to learn something the easier it would be to remember. On the contrary, research shows the longer and more difficult learning something was, the easier it’ll be to recall that information. Elizabeth and Robert Bjork developed the idea of desired difficulties, which are those inconveniences faced that create slow learning but in turn make learning stronger. Learning through active, complex tasks strengthens your mind’s routes to memory recall, creating a foundation that allows for new and more recent learning to be retained. Effort-centric practice assists recognizing related ideas or motor skills concept specific to them when recalling is necessary (Brown, et al, 2014). |
Mark McDaniel: Making Learning Stick: Evidence and Insights to Improve Teaching and Learning
Mark McDaniel promotes the idea of doing away with the lecture style classes in an effort to create a more active classroom with student groups. He believes that the following low revision ideas used in a classroom will promote effective long term retention:
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Anders Ericsson on the Science of Expertise
Anders Ericcson discusses his expertise on spotting experts. Experts are those who are able to consistently outperform their peers at a high level. With the help of mentors, they are able to identify areas of weakness and use deliberate practice to achieve the goal of improving the skill. What truly makes an expert are their methods of practice and their willingness to continuously work to improve. In field related exercises, an expert can use memory as a means to solve different issues for a targeted goal. Example of this would be a coach drawing a play for his team during a crucial period in a game. |
Formative Assessment
references
- Brown, P.C., Roediger, H.L., and McDaniel, M.A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Pres of Harvard UP.
- F. (2015). Making Learning Stick: Evidence and Insights to Improve Teaching and Learning. Retrieved September 10, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=japP8Cr0q6g
- L. (2016). Anders Ericsson on the science of expertise | Larry King Now | Ora.TV. Retrieved September 10, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gn3f8sEb8Y