It’s all about encoding, elaborate, meaningful, and contextual encoding.
More from Chapter 5 of Brain Rules by John Medina.
“We know that information is remembered best when it is elaborate, meaningful, and contextual. The quality of the encoding stage—those earliest moments of learning—is one of the single greatest predictors of later learning success.”
The better quality of encoding, the more likely the student will be able to retrieve the information when he or she needs it. Think of the encoding as giving the information “tags.” The tags relate to content, timing, and environment. The better the tags, the more able to the student is to find the tagged information.
Make sure your students understand the information you are trying to drive into their heads, common sense of course. If your students don’t understand the information, rote memorization isn’t going to help. It is up to you to explain it clearly. Remember, elaborate, meaningful, and contextual.
Use lots of real world examples in your lessons. Real world examples make the learning meaningful. The more meaningful examples you can put in the lesson, the better the information will be remembered. Also, the more familiar or relevant the examples are to your students, the more meaningful it will be.
“Providing examples makes the information more elaborative, more complex, better encoded, and therefore better learned.”
First Impressions matter. In other words, how you introduce the information matters. Medina explains something he calls the timing principle.
“If you are a student, whether in business or education, the events that happen the first time you are exposed to a given information stream play a disproportionately greater role in your ability to accurately retrieve it at a latter date.”
So, how you set up your lesson and get into your lesson is very important. Starting with, “Class open your books to page…” is not exactly a great first start.
“If you are trying to get information across to someone, your ability to create a compelling introduction may be the most important single factor in the later success of your mission.”
Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, or begin your lesson. Oh, you only have 3 minutes to sink the hook into your students.
Movie directors and public speakers all know the same fact, you lose or win your audience in the first 3 minutes of the movie or presentation. Teachers, you have 3 minutes to make the perfect first impression if you want to increase the learning.
Another interesting fact about the brain is the importance of retrieval taking place under the same conditions. Medina explains that a Spanish-speaking student trying to learn English would actually do better, based on language acquisition rates, at speaking on language in one room of their home, and the other language in another room of the house. I have often heard parents explain that they allow their children to speak Spanish at home and only speak English in public. The research seems to back up this practice.
Finally, teaching and learning about the subject in the place closest in context to the subject is another powerful tool. So, if a student were to learn about engine repair, it would be best to teach and test the student in the actual shop where the engine repair will occur. Want to teach about weather, go outside. I have always found this to be true when it comes to learning swimming. LOL
To decide which online business degree is right for you, it is best to decide what your career goals are or what your current job calls for. For instance, if you want to start your own small business, then a degree in marketing may be your best bet. But, if you are currently a manager at your place of business then leadership degree may get you the skills you need to get a promotion and a raise in your current career. Online Education College Degree http://online-high-school-home-education.blogspot.com .
Posted by: homeducation1 | July 21, 2008 at 06:46 AM