How Can You Increase the Odds That What You're Teaching Will Actually Stick?
Debra Em
Do you teach a concept today and tomorrow it’s like 50 First Dates all over again?
If you don’t know the reference, I recommend grabbing a big bowl of popcorn and an equally big box of tissues, and say, “50 First Dates” into your remote.
This heart melting movie had me moved to blubbering tears when the main character finds her tribe and best life despite the enormous cognitive challenges she faced daily due to an accident that left her with a traumatic brain injury.
I’m sure observing my neurodiverse daughter navigate the complexities of each day created a crack in my heart for all that onscreen drama to squeeze right in.
Like Drew Barrymore’s character, what can you do when nothing you teach takes hold? I’m assuming here that we aren’t talking about learners with extreme memory issues like Drew’s character in this movie. Let’s focus on your stalled, struggling, or seriously disinterested students.
First off, don’t do the same things you’ve always done and expect a different outcome. That’s a common saying but it lands quite nicely here, and it’s midnight so I’m lacking the brain cells to come up with an original, clever line.
While there is an enormous body of scientific work focusing on how memories are made, stored, and retrieved, there is always something missing from these elaborate, impressive models. Do you know what that special something is? The body. Without it, there’d be no memories made, stored, or available to retrieve.
Everything is forgettable. Teach so its not.
I had a dream the other night where my business mentor, Marie Forleo, author of Everything is Figureoutable, visited me and said, “Emulate me.”
Then as quickly as she appeared, she vanished from my dream, leaving me with the message, “Everything is forgettable.”
Thanks, Marie for the inspiration! Yes, I actually asked her team if it was okay for me to change up her title without infringing on her brilliance or ticking her off. They gave me the thumbs up.
Marie’s great self-help book delivers a message we need more than ever in education today, “Everything is figureoutable.” So let’s take this concept and figure out how to make what we teach unforgettable.
Teaching with this concept of forgettability (not a word, but if Marie can make up her own word, well actually her mother did, so can I), how can you make what you teach unforgettable?
How awesome is the Awesome Arrows Activity on the Unforgettable Scale?
Let’s take one simple S’cool Moves activity from my Academic Coaching Manual., Awesome Arrows, and unpack why this lesson ranks high on the unforgettable scale.
You can download this activity and give it a go. The directions are included with the activity. To save some time here, I’ll let you read the full instructions but the skinny is that you or your students type or write in the boxes any words they’re learning whether it be for spelling, phonics lessons, or vocabulary.
As children read the words, they do the corresponding moves at the same time. Seems simple enough right? Well, yes simple but highly effective for moving up the unforgettable scale. Simplify to amplify.
Why is a simple movement activity like Awesome Arrows potentially unforgettable?
If you read my blogs, you know that I’m a broken record with the needle stuck in the groove that keeps on repeating the same words, “The body learns ten times faster than the brain and forgets ten times slower.”
Further evidence, I was listening to an interview with one of my favorite people on the planet, Deb Dana, author of The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, and she said that eighty percent of what we learn and perceive comes in from the body. The brain handles the other twenty percent.
How that aligns with the factoid often quoted that eighty percent of what we learn comes in through the visual system, I don’t know, but with Awesome Arrows, there’s a hefty dose of visual activity to go along with the body movement so let’s just go with it for now, and I’ll sort it out later.
At any rate, hypothetical percentages aside, the research is clearly on this side of the argument. If you want to change the brain, yup, you get what’s coming next, change the body or make sure the body is involved in any activity you want to make stick.
Let’s wind down this post with the seven top reasons why Awesome Arrows is worth integrating into your daily lessons. Faster than you can duck into the staff room and grab a slice of yesterday’s leftover birthday cake, your lessons become unforgettable. No guarantee for the stale slice of cake.
Top Seven Reasons Why Awesome Arrows is High on the Unforgettability Scale
Students are focused, moving, and learning in an engaging, nervous system-befriending way.
Reduced stress increases the odds that the information will be filed appropriately so the brain can retrieve it later when needed.
Bonus points for standing and getting thirty percent more blood flow to the brain.
Adding a visual and directionality component may increase memory recall by thirty-five percent.
For you OTs and PTs reading this, the arrow movement integrates the ATNR reflex essential for writing with ease which is an added plus but not related directly to memory or is it???
Co-regulating with the parent volunteer and other students in a safe learning environment makes the nervous system hum a happy tune and increases the odds of this activity being unforgettable.
It’s way more fun than flash cards or worksheets. Worksheets don’t grow dendrites, as the once very popular book expounds, but movement does grow dendrites. When learning is fun, the memory cells throw a dance party (safely with masks and distancing, of course).
An Ending that is Unforgettable
Not to give too much away in case you haven’t seen 50 First Dates and plan to, but the ending is absolutely beautiful and uplifting (but you’ll still need your tissues). Like Hollywood, you too can have your happy, unforgettable end to forgettable lessons if you teach with the body in mind. No longer is the body just the brain’s muse. On the contrary it might be quite the opposite!
Next week I’ll share my How We Learn video to continue this discussion. Until next Tuesday, wishing you luck making your lessons unforgettable. Hop back over to Mighty Network to let me know how it’s going. I love hearing from you.