Reflections on Strategies for Unforgettable Learning with Marcia Tate

The Learning and the Brain conference is an overwhelming experience.  That’s not a complaint.  It’s the best professional development I’ve ever participated in.  It’s overwhelming in the way a magnificent artwork is overwhelming, just too much to take in.  It’s overwhelming in the way meeting a beloved public figure would be overwhelming, just wanting to remember every part of the moment but also knowing that you won’t.  I have attended this conference twice now, and I have come away both times with the same mixture of feelings.  First, I feel mostly affirmed that much of what I and my colleagues are doing is in line with how student's brains work.  Even though much of it has been developed through trial and error or intuition, we seem to have done a lot right.  Second, there are some changes we need to make to some of our practices.  Holding those two thoughts simultaneously weighs down my luggage on the trip home.

The only way I have found to deal with the sheer volume of information I get from this conference is to reflect on parts of it a little at a time while I figure out how I might like to apply them.  Since this blog is for me to reflect and process my thoughts and let you read them if you wish, I’ll be dealing with those here for a while. They might come out in weekly posts or I might post several over the course of a few days.  Who knows?  If you just want straightforward notes (with a few personal thoughts because that’s how I take notes), you can find them at these three posts (Friday, Saturday, Sunday).  These posts will be both more and less than the notes.  More because I will be working out my own thoughts but less because I will likely choose small parts to reflect upon.

Marcia Tate is a woman of boundless energy and humor.  If you ever have the chance to see her, you should.  She used 10 of these twenty techniques during her 1-hour presentation.  She talks about the following twenty strategies, which have been shown to help your dendrites grow spines and reach out toward each other. 

1. Writing - The brain remembers what it writes, but it doesn't mean you should ask your students to take copious notes, especially WHILE listening to your lecture.  Some note-taking is needed, but it is more valuable as retrieval practice.  Periodically, ask students to write what they know.
2. Storytelling - The brain remembers stories, especially ones that contain emotion.  If you can make your content into characters, you will keep kids' attention and make them want to know what happens.  This works especially well in English and History, where you have characters kind of preset for you, but it would also work through metaphor in math and science.  (The elements in a reaction are dating and then break up and start dating other elements, tons of drama.)  While typing this, I remembered this TED Talk, in which a science teacher encourages us to focus less on perfect accuracy (especially in middle school) and use story to draw kids in.  Once they are in, you can make the adjustments for detailed accuracy and teach them the jargon.
3. Mnemonic devices and hooks - Did you take music lessons?  You probably still remember what "Every Good Boy Does Fine" means.  You may not remember how to apply PEMDAS from your math class, but you likely remember what it means.  Did you learn the colors of the spectrum by calling it ROY G BIV? (Setting aside that Indigo is not actually part of the spectrum, it's a great tool.)  Giving these to kids works great, but having them come up with them is far more powerful.
4. Visuals - Dual coding was addressed in an earlier post, but we all know that visuals help.  It's just common sense.
5. Movement - The human body was designed to move.  One of the things I appreciated most about Marcia Tate and John T. Almarode was that they practiced this advice.  I don't think I was in the same part of the room for longer than ten minutes.
6. Roleplaying - When I teach ionic bonding.  I have a students come up and put on a t-shirt that has 8 pieces of velcro.  I assign them to be sodium or chlorine.  Then, I ask students how many valence electrons each has velcro that number of flowers (the cheapest thing I could use because you buy a stem at dollar tree with 6-8 blooms on it) to the shirt.  They can then see that chlorine has a velcro spot open that sodium can give to it.  In college, I remember a biology professor making each of us the part of the cell that copies and divides during mitosis.  Then, we looked like square dancers as we underwent cell division.  I can't call it perfectly to mind right now, but if I had to learn it, it would take less time for me to re-learn it.
7. Visualization - This is not the same as using visuals.  This is asking students to paint a mental picture.  Our imaginations are incredibly powerful.  
8. Metaphor, analogy, simile - These can be used as part of storytelling or not, but I have found that it to be a very powerful tool.  Sometimes, it is too powerful because they remember the analogy better than the actual concept.  When I ask kids to explain dissolving on a test and get answers that start with "It's like when a couple goes to a party," I know that I have done a good job telling the story, but a poor job connecting it to the material.  When done well, however, this is a great tool.
9. Reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning - The efficacy of cooperative learning is lower than most teachers think (although I do believe collaboration is a skill they will need in the future - It's not always just about the material).  Explaining something to someone else, however, works very well.  Why?  Because it is retrieval practice.  
10. Music - Elementary school teachers have a song or chant for just about everything.  If you wonder how powerful music is for memory, think about how many times you still hum the alphabet song when you need to alphabetize things.  Content related music helps memory so much that I sometimes have the quadratic formula song pop into my head while I'm watching TV.  You can write your own songs, but there is also a plethora of content-related music on youtube.  
11. Graphic Organizers - Used alone and disconnected, they do not work.  Taught in the context of chunking information, they can be great.
12. Drawing - Drawing causes brains to engage in analogy and visualization.  An elaborate drawing can be used for the mind to engage in storytelling.  It can be powerful for dual coding as well.
13. Humor - Barbara Oakley's talk on focused and diffuse modes of the brain.  One of the ways to allow the switch is to give the hippocampus a rest.  Telling a joke or taking a moment to laugh in your class allows the brain to go from focused attention to diffuse attention for a bit.  It's not a distraction.  It's a powerful tool.
14. Discussion - One student’s idea triggers another student’s idea.  As these thoughts travel through the brain, it constructs relationships between each idea, creating a third, richer idea. 
15. Games - Like humor, it lets the brain go into diffuse mode.
16. Project-based or Problem-based Learning - Challenging the brain to solve problems causes activation in multiple parts of the brain.  Solving it releases dopamine, which is helpful in memory formation.
17. Field Trips - These usually involve storytelling, and they for sure give the brain things to visualize later.
18. Manipulatives - There’s a strong connection between the hands and the brain.  Some people can't talk without using their hands.  This is especially useful when something consists of related parts, like anatomy and math. 
19. Technology - Appropriately timed and applied, technology can give visuals, role-playing, and storytelling.  It can allow creation and discussion.
20. Work-study - Apprenticeships and internships cause real work for real audiences.  The stakes make the brain strengthen the dendrite connections.