The Baker’s Dozen Rules of Basic Learning Theory
1. Covering vs Teaching = “Cognitive Overload.”
a. Teaching takes time. Covering ten items in a session teaches virtually nothing as a result of cognitive overload.
b. Cognitive Overload occurs:
1. When we cover too much material in a session.
2. When we inject distractions; things that really add insignificantly to understanding but take up storage space in the brain.
c. Our brain has a working memory of only 5-7 items at a time. Keep the items presented to a minimum. Working memory must be converted to long-term memory. The next 12 rules are much of what makes this conversion happen.
2. Recency and Primacy.
a. The first (primacy) and last (recency) items in a learning sequence are more likely to be remembered than items in the middle.
b. Start and finish your learning sequence with the most important points.
3. Distributed practice is far superior to massed practice.
a. It is better to practice 4 days a week for 30 minutes each day than it is to practice 1 day a week for 2 hours.
4. Long-term memory takes place in the emotional areas of the brain.
a. To create long term memory, emotion must be present. Motivation is a big factor in creating long term memory.
b. Start every lesson by setting the stage (See Part 3).
c. Use humor, powerful analogies, and stories.
d. Use Praise, Prompt, Leave Tactics (PPL). Keep it positive (See Part 2)!
5. Virtually all long-term memory is hastened by association.
a. Associate the new material with known material. Attach it to something!
b. Analogies are important tools as are building on previous skills and knowledge.
6. Organize teaching into “chunks.”
The concept of “chunking” learning segments into smaller and similar content areas is important. For best results, sequential chunks should be related and similar. If a lesson is about loops, refrain from throwing in a discussion of mends. Better yet, the ideal lesson will deal with the formation of narrow loops only. This would be the chunked learning segment. When it is mastered, the instructor could now add another learning segment dealing with the formation of wide loops. This is “chunking”. Comparing and contrasting the tip paths of each is a very powerful tool to be used when going from one chunk to the next.
7. Spiraling is the concept of revisiting/reviewing previously learned material.
Example: Every lesson should include a review of the initial pick up cast and the formation of loops followed by a new learning segment.
8. Staircasing is building future, more complicated, tasks or knowledge on a good foundation.
Example: 90% of a candidate’s likelihood of passing the casting portion of the CI or MCI exam is rooted in the ability to control basic loops. Basic loops are the foundation of further development. To practice the slack line casts before mastering loops is largely an exercise in futility.
9. Combine #5, #6, #7 and #8 above and we get to Sequencing.
The order in which we teach new skills is of great importance. By teaching foundational skill (a) narrow loops, and then adding skill (b) wide loops, and then reviewing (a) narrow loops and (b) wide loops as a way of teaching (c) narrow and wide loops in successive casting strokes is an example of staircasing, spiraling, chunking and using association.
10. Keep things simple.
For #4 we could have written, “It is important to understand that the Amygdala, Hypothalamus, and Hippocampus are the primary organs responsible for long term memory while the Cerebellum and Neocortex play more minor roles.” Instead, we wrote, “Long term memory takes place in the emotional part of the brain.” This isn’t completely accurate in more ways than one, but everybody gets the idea! As a teaching tool, it is often far superior to get the point across than to be technically accurate.
11. Repetition.
The typical person requires 7 repetitions in the proper context before he or she can commit a reasonable learning segment to long term memory. This is, of course, dependent on motivation, innate ability, and other factors. Distributing these repetitions over two or three learning episodes a few days apart accelerates the learning process. Also helpful is the use of structured practice discussed in Part 3.
12. Whole – Part – Whole.
By demonstrating and explaining the entire cast we show the student the whole (explain and demonstrate), then we need to break it down into parts (See structured practice in Part 3). After the parts have been mastered, we put it together by smoothing out the transitions between the parts (See guided practice in Part 3). Thus we get back to the whole. Independent practice consolidates the whole (See Part 3).
13. “Say-See-Do” or Trimodal Teaching (From Fred Jones).
Concerning ourselves with learning styles is a valuable goal. However, the idea that we need to develop different lessons dependent on a person’s individual learning style has been rebuked by modern research. Instead, researchers have found that a lesson using all the senses more or less simultaneously works best for virtually all students. The IFFF has long embraced, and rightly so, the need to consider audio, visual and kinesthetic modalities while instructing. As a result, the IFFF has promoted the idea of Explain (auditory), Demonstrate (visual), “Now you do it” (kinesthetic), as a default teaching methodology.
By simply expanding the dynamic and methodology of the “now you do it”, we have a very powerful teaching template. More of this will be discussed in the section on Lesson Plans and specifically in Structured Practice. Without Structured Practice, there is no ‘Part’ in “Whole – Part – Whole”.
The main point here is that individualizing instruction based on the perceived dominant learning modality of the student, does not lead to increased achievement. As a matter of fact, it will lead to decreased results as it crowds out the use of superior methodology. Don’t worry about separating the three modalities or discovering a student’s learning modality preference. Simply teach by using all modalities simultaneously.
The say-see-do lesson plan template in Part 3 takes advantage of all modalities.
The 13 rules of basic learning theory combined with the information in the next two sections are what guide instruction when optimal results matter!
