Timing Is (Almost) Everything in Presentation

As the old saying goes, “Timing is everything.”  As an Instructor, this aspect of teaching is more than crucial to greatly aid in the retention of your learning objective.  If you have taken the time to transfer your information to another person, then take the time to present it in a way that they will easily remember it. 

It’s not just how you say it, but when.

International Educational Consultant David A. Sousa wrote a great book called How The Brain Learns (2006).  In the section on Memory, Retention, and Learning he discusses the outcome of studies done on when new information should be presented, when the best time to mentally manipulate the information for better understanding, and even when to have fun!

1. Present new information first

Ö        Give a brief overview of the big picture.

Ö        Follow with all of your multi-sensory, multiple learning approaches with the new information to relay the details. 

Ö        The more “tags” you put on the information, the more “tags” your brain has to pull it back into working memory when needed.

Ö        Timing: use almost half of your time for the new information.  40 minutes total time?  Then spend just shy of 20 minutes with the presentation.

2. Practice time in the middle

Ö        “Practice makes permanent” so provide guided practice and rehearsal in order to organize the information correctly

Ö        Actively engage them in the process!

Ö        Review how the new fits in with the old learning experiences and knowledge.  Create links, associations and patterns to what they already know. 

Ö        Timing:  only 25% of the total time.  For a 40 minute lesson, practice is only the middle 10 minutes

3. “Ah Ha!” closure at the end

Ö        The second most powerful learning time!

Ö        All the previous practice gives way to understanding how to apply it.

Ö        Take a brain break before starting another learning session for better focus

Ö        Timing: the last 10 minutes of a 40 minute session

This has changed my presentation of information drastically, even in writing.  Previously, I explored by questioning what they already knew so that I could link it to the new information.  Unfortunately, that was giving way to inaccurate answers being recalled.  By providing the big picture first, I am accurately providing the framework and patterns for the new information.  It is in the guided practice downtime that I am providing quick feedback so that they practice the new learning correctly.  I am helping them to manipulate and link it to what they know during this time so that when we go back to closure, how to apply it is fresh on their mind.

In regard to practicing the presented information over a longer period of time, Dr. Sousa states that initially, new learning periods should be grouped close together and then distributed over time as review to increase recall. 

amazon.com

Top 5 Purchase Picks

There are books that I ILL (Inter Library Loan) and then there are books that I buy.  The difference is:

1. How much note taking I want to do
2. cost of photocopying # pages/diagrams for continued reference
3. amount of reusable activities or charts

Here are my overall Top 5 "purchase" book recommendations and links

• "There are 8 fundamental systems, or components, of learning that draw on a variety of neurodevelopmental capacitites....(to) develop effective strategies to work through or around these weaknesses" (book flap)
• amazon.com
• Mel Levine's website allkindsofminds.org

• Dyslexia as a processing system, with 4 major strengths detailed (MIND strengths)
• amazon.com
•  http://neurolearning.com/

• Table of Contents online: amazon.com
•  details the theories, models, practices and assessments

• Table Of Contents online: amazon.com
• Author's website:  radteach.com

• amazon.com
• Also wrote Smart But Scattered  online table of contents
• excellent assessments with target skill treatment plans outlined

the best from the best

I am a homeschooling mom of 4 kids who does not like to teach.  Sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it?

This all came about as my survival strategy to cope with homeschooling.  Two years into homeschooling, I was reading rote discussion questions to my oldest son and he was not “finding” the answers from the short text he had just read independently.  My response was for him to read it aloud to me so I could emphasize the answer as I read it with him.  Even with my exaggeration he was not “getting it.”  I was baffled.  Then it hit me: I had not taught him reading comprehension strategies that I used automatically.  I was the teacher!  Learning is not an innate ability that just materializes!  Even in writing this, it seems silly that I did not put two and two together sooner.  But I am a self-taught learner so I didn’t understand why he didn’t teach himself what he needed to know.  Isn’t this what most employers want in an employee? It had been my survival technique for all my job placements.  I then began to unravel how or why I am a self-taught learner so that I could teach my kids to teach themselves.  I have loved every minute of learning the best from the best.

It wasn’t until I started teaching my only daughter, the third child, how to read that I really internalized someone’s struggle to learn and the feeling of self-defeat.  The basic skills of reading (of which I had no clue) that my boys seemed to grasp without difficulty were just not coming together for my daughter.  I also knew that she has always had ear issues.  I scheduled an ENT appointment and over time I summarized that her hearing was unreliable due to changes in fluid.  At the time of her wanting to read, most of the time she could hear, but because of so many issues, she did not trust her ability to hear.  So I did what I do best to fix "it:" I started researching.   

I love the public library: free education from access to the state’s database of books all at my fingertips!  And, I have a great librarian, Ms. Sue, whom works with me in processing all of my requests.  I started with what I know: Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences model (bluewafflebreakie.wordpress.com) and then I let the website search engine guide me to new book discoveries that spun off of that topic.  I spent hours every night when the kids were sleeping pouring over books from the 1950s through to this decade amassing a huge repertoire of knowledge long forgotten.  I ingested scientific studies, college course load texts (taken from online syllabuses), training manuals, psychological cases, vocational methodology (an interest from my previous career), and online websites.  My initial goal was to find compensatory strategies to assist my daughter in whatever disability I was sure she had due to her learning issues.  I became so focused on self diagnosing her so that I could find a curriculum that would teach her to learn to read.  Then, I became so discouraged that I didn’t even want to teach her for fear of making “it” worse. 

About that time of year, I went to the annual homeschooling convention (a home school mom’s mini-vacation resort destination) and listened to the speaker Candace H., a neuro-developmentalist (Liberty Consultants).  Previously, I had started reading about brain based learning practices so my pump was primed for her methodologies.  What she said startled me: any learning issue is an issue of disorganization. Her CT based business specializes in finding where the brain has detoured or stopped progressing through the developmental processes and then they rewire it with structured activities so that it becomes organized.  That took me a while to digest.  I had focused my research on compensating, not correcting.

I began my process for working through things: staring at the trees and walking the gardens in my yard.  Over a period of a year, the connections were forming in my mind on how it all goes together to impact a person’s learning, from preferences to processes.  I began to study more intensely memory and where each process was occurring in the brain.  I will be doing more research on my theory that if you feed the brain region with the nutrients it needs to optimize the learning experience, then you will be doing less work more effectively.  No longer was this self directed project about learning and applying compensatory strategies to correct or bypass issues, it emerged to form a big picture with details on how to learn effectively and efficiently in any domain.  Without realizing it, my journey had followed what I have found to be the best “map” for learning!  Somewhere along the way, I had subconsciously assimilated and taught myself to learn how to learn.  My one caveat I have found, however, is that I am deficient in retrieving information from my memory. Therefore, my hesitancy to share this journey was stifled by my inadequacy to share confidently my research due to the embarrassment of not being able to remember the details.  I am, by the way, a thirty five year old self discovered dyslexic!

The progression of this blog is intended to mirror how to learn.  I will include all of my research and given credit to every author along the way because this information is not new.  I’ve used my dyslexic insight and material reasoning to connect and organize it in a manner that maximizes learning anything.  The first section will give the big picture.  I will preload key words and topics and then end the section with a fine detail script.  The second section will focus on what I have found to be the foundation for all learning.  I will discuss the sub-skills and the developmental process for mastery of each skill.  Neuroscience will highlight the nutrition and brain regions.  The third section will focus on the tool needed for effectiveness, or automaticity.  Here I will describe and provide strategies for the disorganized brain.  Lastly, a detailed, visual outline will show how to increase efficiency.  In other words: learn comfortably, easily, and quickly from the best, for the best.