Final Post

Having failed to create neither a single conversation nor build a significant or growing audience, I must conclude that the time has come to curtail this work and look elsewhere to contribute to educaiton.  I continue to believe in the power of research to motivate insights in teaching.  It is only with educator willingness to change, and the inspiration to see how and where to change, that education can escape the traditional "teaching" practices within which it has been stuck for the past century.

Interruptions

Interruptions

Ever sit down in the afternoon to read a book or newspaper and soon after starting have the phone ring?  Sometimes I think my friends are on FaceTime, just waiting for me to sit down.  If that ever happens to you, watch what you do next.  Research says that you’ll return to the interrupted task with increased intensity.  You see, researchers have know for quite some time that, when we’re interrupted at a task, our brain treats that task as a goal and yearns to complete it.  So I got to thinking…

It might be worth the test for teachers to purposely interrupt students working on, say, math practice or perhaps a writing assignment.  The key would be to wait until the class was, for the most part, absorbed in the task.  That would both create the frustration that would intensify the goal of completing the task, and, it would make it more likely that students would look over what they had completed and refresh their approach to the task, also a proven strategy for enhancing the learning.  

I’m not saying that this is a proven technique.  What I’m saying is that research suggests that it “might” enhance learning.  How might one do that in the classroom?  One approach that make sense to me is to minimize the time for work completion after instruction so that students had time to plan and begin their work, but not enough time to complete it.  Then, later in the day, while the material is still relatively fresh in students’ minds, a “study hall” period could be planned where students completed catch up assignment with the teacher flowing around the classroom providing support.

If you try it, please let me know how it worked.

Interruptions

Interruptions

Ever sit down in the afternoon to read a book or newspaper and soon after starting have the phone ring?  Sometimes I think my friends are on FaceTime, just waiting for me to sit down.  If that ever happens to you, watch what you do next.  Research says that you’ll return to the interrupted task with increased intensity.  You see, researchers have know for quite some time that, when we’re interrupted at a task, our brain treats that task as a goal and yearns to complete it.  So I got to thinking…

It might be worth the test for teachers to purposely interrupt students working on, say, math practice or perhaps a writing assignment.  The key would be to wait until the class was, for the most part, absorbed in the task.  That would both create the frustration that would intensify the goal of completing the task, and, it would make it more likely that students would look over what they had completed and refresh their approach to the task, also a proven strategy for enhancing the learning.  

I’m not saying that this is a proven technique.  What I’m saying is that research suggests that it “might” enhance learning.  How might one do that in the classroom?  One approach that make sense to me is to minimize the time for work completion after instruction so that students had time to plan and begin their work, but not enough time to complete it.  Then, later in the day, while the material is still relatively fresh in students’ minds, a “study hall” period could be planned where students completed catch up assignment with the teacher flowing around the classroom providing support.

If you try it, please let me know how it worked.

Nature or Nurture?

Back in the “old days” when I still taught, I often felt dismayed that the last week of school was, for some teachers, a time for extra recess and a daily movie.  Occasionally, one of my students would challenge me with something like, “Mr. Howell, the other fourth graders get to watch movies this week.”  My response was always the same:  “I’m paid to give you 180 days of education, and I’m going to do my best to do just that.

We’re born with something like 100 billion brain cells, “neurons,” they’re called.  From shortly before birth until about age 2, we form an incredible number of connections between those neurons, perhaps 150 trillion connections, called “synapses.”  From age 2 until about 16, we “educate” those neurons and synapses.  At about age 16, the brain pares off about a third of its neurons.  While it’s not firmly established what determines which neurons stay and which go, many believe that the brain simply gets rid of the neurons and related synapses that are unused.  It appears that the initial structure of our neural network is the work of “nature,” and that the adult version of that brain reflects the effects of “nurture” on that initial structure.

As I’ve reported frequently, our adult brain relies heavily on the background knowledge and skills that we acquire between age 2 and 16 to continue to grow and learn.  This makes elementary education particularly valuable to the adult success of our students.  Within the 180 days that we’re given with our students, we bear a huge responsibility to put them in the position to learn the skills and knowledge that will take them through life.  Should we really trust that to Disney?