Recently, there are moments when I stop and ask myself “Is home school working ? Is my child learning?” These questions usually develop when we are reviewing previous concepts and my child stares at me with a blank expression. They also arise when my child is taking a test and fills with emotion while yelling “I don’t know this. You didn’t teach me this.” Really? We just spent four weeks on this topic! Time for me to reevaluate my teaching strategies.
According to the Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning, “learning is a process that results in a change in knowledge or behavior as a result of experience.” But “understanding what it takes to get that knowledge in and out (or promote behavioral change of a specific kind)” to optimize learning is a daunting task and not something with which many college instructors are familiar. College instructors are taught to be experts in their field. Rarely are they exposed to teaching and learning strategies to grow their students knowledge. Similarly, K-12 teachers are immersed in “pedagogy” (the method and practice of teaching), but the practices are often not grounded in learning theory, rather hinging on “learning myths” (for more on this, see the report by The Learning Agency).
In an effort to reconnect with learning theories, I pulled out three of my favorite books on the subject: Learn Better by Ulrich Boser (also the founder of the Learning Agency), Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel, and Small Teaching by James Lang. All three reminded me that I need to slow down, present small bits of content, discuss the new bits to connect them to old bits, and space out / mix up practice with the content. I have been so focused on getting through the content, wanting to prepare my child for next year that I forgot about how to do things this year.
As a result, I have re-examined my weekly lesson plans to discover ways to incorporate the six learning strategies (see below) that have been shown to improve teaching practice (Bosner, 2019). I have also reflected on ways I might share these strategies with my child so they can become part of their effective study habits. We have a long journey before us. Luckily, homeschool allows us the time and the ability to practice these strategies.
1) Elaboration: the linking of new information in the mind to other information in a meaningful way
2) Retrieval practice: the active recalling of information that we want to remember
3) Meta-cognition: reflecting on one’s own understanding and problem-solving strategies
4) Spaced practice: spacing out practice over time to promote long-terms retention to make learning more efficient
5) Interleaving: mixing up problem types to facilitate the ability to apply the right procedure to the appropriate problem
6) Dual coding: integrating visuals and texts or audio in a way that facilitates conceptual understanding