How can we get enough repetition in our classes?
This years Super Bowl commercials paid $90,000 a second to try to get you to buy their products. What is their goal? To help reinforce their product to you by repetition. They are trying to get enough repetition and not bore the audience. It must work. Because a lot of companies paid the 2.7 million dollars per 30 second spot.
We need to translate this to HS math. If I have an important point to make in class, I need to find creative ways to have it emphasized. Maybe I need to have the students discovery the idea. Then I will have them see it worked out with another student at the board. Then I might have a video of the same topic. Then I could give some practice on their own. It could be that they use individual white boards to go through the problem. I love Senteo clickers for the Smartboard so maybe I could use those to get the point across.
The average person needs 10-12 repetitions to learn a new concept. I think I need to remind myself and my students that it is OK to repeat a topic in different ways. This is comforting to students that they don't have to pick it up the first time. They are not slow for needing a few repetitions of the same topic.
2 comments:
I was curious as to why you included the link to the giftedkids.about.com article on mental health days for kids at the end of an article about the ways to repeat a concept in many different ways. As the author of the article you linked to, I can say that the endless repetition of a concept already understood is one of the reasons I had recommended that parents give their kids a day off of school. An average person may need 10-12 repetitions, but a highly gifted kid needs only 1-2.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that the link does not go along with the essence of the post. I have taken the link down.
I know that I need to accommodate all levels of learners in my classroom. This is the reason why differentiated instruction is so important today. I need to facilitate the person who gets it after 2 tries and keep them challenged, as well as give the 8-12 repetition learner their just due.
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