How To Introduce New Knowledge So It Sticks
I am coaching my son’s tball team this spring. We’ve had a couple of practices and (if I may say so myself), they have gone very well. The players are having fun, getting exercise, and learning about baseball. Multiple parents have asked whether I am a teacher, which I of course take as the highest compliment.
But there’s one problem. I cannot for the life of me remember the players’ names. There are probably a lot of reasons for my forgetfulness, but I want to focus on two parts of the problem:
1. When the players tell me their names, I am experiencing cognitive overload as I try to wrangle the kids, remember my plans for practice, and keep an eye on my son. My brain is overwhelmed by too much new information. Without even thinking about it, I prioritize keeping the kids safe and the practice moving along. As a result, the players' names go in one ear and out the other.
2. The players all look, speak, and act fairly similarly and I’m not aware of any schema in my long-term memory to which I can attach each player’s name. I have no prior knowledge about them, their families, or their role on the team.
And that brings me to the topic of today’s newsletter. When we present new knowledge to students, we need to introduce it in a way that avoids cognitive overload and shows them how it connects to their prior knowledge.
Let me show you how I do this in my classroom.
First, we know that students’ working memory - the temporary sticky note in one's brain that holds new information so it can be manipulated and connected with other information - is limited. We also know there is both a visual and an audio component to working memory. When the audio portion of working memory is full, there may be an opportunity to present additional visual information without overwhelming working memory. (This is called dual coding.)
We should, therefore, use both meaningful images and concise, specific words (in the teacher's voice) to explain new information.
Here is an example of the slide I use to introduce the Proclamation of 1763. Note the clearly labelled images and the concise language.
Notice how I include a screenshot of the term, its definition, and the date "1763" as they appear on the knowledge organizer. These screenshots immediately signal to my students two things:
1. This knowledge is important. You must learn it.
2. I have a plan to help you learn this new knowledge.
At this point, I have introduced new knowledge in a clear and manageable way.
The next step is to show students how it is related to their prior knowledge.
To do that, I hold up my knowledge organizer and show them in which category the term belongs. In this case, as you can see in the image below, the knowledge organizer makes plain that the Proclamation of 1763 follows the French & Indian War (covered in the previous lesson) and marks the beginning of the conflict between the colonies and Great Britain that will eventually lead to the American Revolution (the subject of several future lessons).
Finally - and this is the most important part - we must understand that introducing new knowledge in this way is only the first step in the learning process. We need a systematic, replicable plan to provide students many more opportunities to retrieve and elaborate upon this new knowledge.
Next time, I will explain the next step in the knowledge-building cycle: daily retrieval practice.
If you would like to get started using knowledge organizers or applying the science of learning at your school, send me an email to learn more about how we can help you.
And please visit our website to view sample knowledge organizers and explore our AP US History resources.
Sincerely,
Ben Katcher
