Incorporate planned repetition of concepts.

Tip #44 from Chapter 7: Teaching Methodology Tips

Background

We saw in the introduction how students learn from a neuroscience perspective. From that point of view, it’s easy to see that our job as trainers is to help strengthen the new connections made in the neocortex. If we can support the process known as consolidation, learners will be able to recall at will what we teach them in class when they return to their jobs.

This strengthening of connections can occur in the classroom if we allow our learners to employ spaced practice: “studying information more than once but leaving considerable time between practice sessions.” 40

Certainly, the time gap we provide will be limited by the duration of our class. A three-day class doesn’t leave time for a considerable gap, but the technique can still be successful.

Any training methodology you want to implement during class, including spaced repetition, begins with a plan and ends with the media responsible for transferring knowledge. The delivery format can include anything from notes shared by the instructor to a 500-page workbook.

Many trainers, especially those in high demand, find little time to prepare for their classes because they're constantly training. The result is a haphazardly put-together class with little thought given to pedagogical principles. The bulk of their efforts comprises preparing lab exercises and training materials. They don't understand or take the time to prepare each class from the learners’ point of view. Essentially, they’re preparing courses from their perspective. For example, trainers often prepare materials that present information without building into the courseware the checks and balances that ensure the student has assimilated the information correctly. Trainers may also present material out of order by starting with the details of a complex topic instead of the broader subject matter. In short, trainers provide new material with little thought to pedagogical best practices. Finally, when determining content or the course outline, the curriculum and delivery style must match up to the learning objectives from a business perspective. The worker needs to leave the class with certain skills intact and those skills should be given priority throughout the class.

What’s needed, even if at a very fundamental level, is a deep understanding of the learning process and the motivation for the class from a corporate training perspective.

How to do it

I'll very broadly define the steps to creating a learner-centered class. It’s only from this starting point that you can begin to implement planned repetition of concepts. There are volumes of work done on class preparation (see ”Resources” below). In the interest of brevity, I'll define basic steps here:

• Assess the training needs: Why is training necessary? What is the problem the training is expected to solve?
• Define the performance of objectives: What should the learner know how to do after the class is completed?
• Write the course outline: What outline meets the learning objectives?
• Write individual lessons: Do the exercises agree with the course outline? Does each individual lesson build upon prior skills?
• Confirm that these lessons satisfy the performance objective: Do the lessons effectively teach the skills addressed in the performance objectives?
• Refine the learning approach: Are the lessons taught in the correct order? Do any of the tasks presuppose knowledge that the course has not yet addressed?
• Support consolidation: Do the lessons allow enough time for some degree of consolidation?

Let’s look more closely at a few of the challenges in meeting these objectives. First, understand the performance objectives of the class. Many trainers overreach in terms of what can be accomplished within a given period. It took me a long time to understand this: In an effort to make sure I left no stone unturned in my classes, I inadvertently delivered too much material. Too much content has the potential to leave a learner confused and overwhelmed after class. It also makes planned repetition nearly impossible because there is not enough time.

Therefore, the first question to be considered while creating courseware is, “What kind of information do our learners need to be able to do their jobs?” The answer is rarely, “all of the information that can possibly be supplied.” Something amazing happens in virtual technical training when it’s done right—our learners are captivated and eager to learn. Now, give them just enough to keep them engaged and allow enough time for spaced repetition. The more time you spend delivering ancillary or extra background information, the less time you have for consolidation to take place. You want learners to experiment on their own, both mentally with concepts and hands-on with concrete tasks. Put anything helpful but extra in the appendix of your courseware or in a job aid or handout.

Now that you’ve planned for spaced repetition during the course preparation phase, let’s look at how to implement it by using the ideas expressed above.

In “How Learning Occurs” in Make It Stick, the authors describe consolidation:

An apt analogy for how the brain consolidates new learning may be the experience of composing an essay. The first draft is rangy, imprecise. You discover what you want to say by trying to write it. After a couple of revisions, you have sharpened the piece and cut away some of the extraneous points. You put it aside and let it ferment. When you pick it up again a day or two later, what you want to say has become clearer in your mind. Perhaps you now perceive that there are three main points you are making. You connect them to examples and supporting information familiar to your audience. You rearrange and draw together the elements of your argument to make it more effective and elegant.41

Apply this to writing your training materials. If you approach your lessons with the same mindset, you'll naturally add spaced repetition:

• By revisiting ideas during the revision process, you connect your ideas seamlessly.
• When you reevaluate, reexamine, and reconsider, you're repeating.
• When you allow for time gaps between these ideas, you're spacing the learning.
• The gaps between these main points can be filled with brief lectures, demonstrations, question and answer periods, and so on.

The result is planned spaced repetition.

Now for the science

The process of learning something often starts out feeling disorganized and unwieldy; the most important aspects are not always salient. Consolidation helps organize and solidify learning, and notably, so does retrieval after a lapse of time because the act of retrieving a memory from long-term storage can both strengthen the memory traces and, at the same time, make them modifiable again, enabling them, for example, to connect to more recent learning. 42

Use this to your advantage by intentionally planning for and employing spaced repetition.

What does spaced repetition look like in the classroom? There are several ways to achieve this vital objective. In a typical technical training course, concepts build upon one another. Database design, for example, may begin with first understanding the purpose of the database (a rather broad subject) to finding and organizing the required information, dividing the information into tables (a new concept), and then slowly working down to the details of creating columns, specifying primary keys and relationships, and perhaps ending with the idea of database normalization.

Rather than go from topic to topic at a quick pace, spaced repetition can be achieved by deliberately returning to a previous topic before, during, and after introducing a new one. Allow time to pass, then return to the previous topic (pop quiz anyone?). Mix up the delivery style when returning to an earlier topic. Make it a challenge by applying desirable difficulties. How might you do that? Put a spin on the original lesson; throw a monkey wrench into the actual scenario. Ask questions like these:

• “Where do you see this working? Where do you see this not working?”
• For our database example, you might ask, “What would happen if you named this table [insert a poor name here]?” or “What would happen if you used one table to hold all the domain values here?”

Another technique is to provide simple quizzes after each topic where several questions on the quiz revisit a previous topic. If you don’t feel you have the time to introduce a formal quiz, try some verbal quizzing.

Alternatively, let the group know that you'll be going around the virtual room, presenting each learner with a topic. They must then cite one thing they know about the subject. This is an incredibly challenging, and therefore effective, retrieval practice method because you're not giving them any clues. For example, here’s a possible dialogue from a beginning JavaScript class:

Trainer: Joe, tell us one thing you know about variables?

Joe: They are placeholders for information.

Trainer: Sue, your turn.

Sue: You can declare them with the keywords “var” or “let.”

Trainer: Steve, what can you add?

Steve: If you don’t provide a value, the variable is considered “undefined.”

Sometimes, the learner’s answer will be wrong, and this is where you help facilitate the correct answer, but you don’t provide it. First, ask the learner to rethink their response and, if necessary, provide a clue to help them figure out where they went wrong. Oftentimes, this is all you need to do. If the learner is still struggling, try another clue before putting the question out to all learners for them to respond.

Finally, when practicing spaced retrieval, ensure you’re not practicing memorization (resulting in the illusion of subject knowledge). Memorization does not indicate that your learner has learned or will recall the material later. This is why a simple question with a simple answer is not as effective as adding a twist to the question that requires some critical thinking.

That's not to say that simple queries and responses are ineffective in some cases. Programming syntax is a terrific opportunity to reinforce simple facts. You must, for example, end your code statements with a semicolon, capitalize this letter, and so on. Flash cards work great here, but you can implement the idea of a flash card in a class by frequently asking your students to fill in the blank or suggest the next step in a process or write the following line of code and so on. Even after your learners have answered these questions correctly for some time, don't stop asking the same questions; just put a little more space between the questions.

Note: You may want to remind your students that you're not asking as a form of assessment. You're not trying to “see if they get it.” You’re using the questions to support more profound understanding and retention.

Challenges

• How do you plan for the repetition of concepts within your class?
• How do you know if you're overdoing planned repetition?

?For more tips like this, check out "75 Practical Tips For Technical Trainers," available at Amazon.

40 P. Brown, H.L. Roediger III, M.A. McDaniel, make it stick, (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), p. 74

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41 P. Brown, H.L. Roediger III, M.A. McDaniel, make it stick, (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), p. 74.

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42 R. Barr, Notes for Make it Stick, https://scaling4growth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Makeit- Stick.pdf.