How do you get a lesson to stick?
I recently read Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It was the last in the perfect trilogy of books I read this summer which also included The World Is Flat and A Whole New Mind. It is a book on why some ideas die, and others thrive. They explain how to make an idea “stick.” I wrote many notes as I read the book changing the context of their writing to be more in line with helping me plan a lesson rather than a marketing campaign. All of the ideas in the podcast and PowerPoint are from the book. I decided to type them onto a file so that I would not misplace them and that turned into a PowerPoint document. I am going to post the PowerPoint with music on teachertube.com under the title “How do you get a lesson to stick?” While I don’t consider it done, I know with school starting it is probably as finished as it ever will be and decided to post it as is. Hope it helps make your lessons “stick” this year.
29. It is easier for kids to learn a new concept by tying it to one that they already know.
30. Connect new concepts to schemas they already have. Schema is a collection of generic properties of a concept or category. Schemas are lots of prerecorded information stored in our memories.
31. Schemas help kids create complex messages from simple materials. Utilize the schemas the students bring with them.
32. Teachers are tempted to tell students everything, with perfect accuracy, right up front…
33. when they should be giving students just enough info to be useful, then a little more, then a little more.
34. A great way to avoid useless accuracy, and to dodge the Curse of Knowledge, is to use analogies. Analogies derive their power from schemas.
35. UNEXPECTED The most basic way to get student’s attention is this: Break a pattern.
43. Unexpected lessons have surprises that are not predictable…but to be satisfying they must be postdictable.
44. The twist makes sense, but it is not something you could have seen coming.
45. No gimmicks! Your unexpected ideas will produce insight when they target an aspect of the students’ minds that relate to your lesson’s core message.
46. Think of lessons as mysteries. Mysteries are powerful. They create a need for closure.
47. The Aha! Experience is much more satisfying when preceded by the Huh? experience.
48. Teachers can use mysteries not to just heighten students’ interest and curiosity in the day’s material but to train them to think as scientists and historians.
50. It is the intellectual need to answer questions and close gaps.
51. Story plays to this universal need by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening situations.
52. That gap causes them pain…they want to know something but don’t, it’s like having an itch that you need to scratch. To make it go away, they need to fill the gap.
59. Knowledge gaps create interest. But to prove the gap exists it might be helpful to highlight some knowledge first. Here is what you know. Now here is what you are missing.
60. When students are close to a solution of a puzzle curiosity takes over and propels them to finish.
82. Statistics are a good source of internal credibility when they are used to illustrate relationships.
83. When it comes to statistics, use them as input, not output. Use them to allow students to make up their mind on an issue.
84. Don’t have students make up their minds and then go looking for the numbers to support their choice– that’s asking for temptation and trouble.
85. The most obvious sources of credibility – external validation and statistics – aren’t always the best.
86. A few vivid details might be more persuasive than a barrage of statistics.
87. EMOTIONAL Belief counts for a lot, but belief is not enough. For people to take action, they have to care.
88. Mother Teresa once said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
89. The goal of making lessons emotional is to make students care. Feelings inspire people to act.
90. How do we make students care about our lesson’s message?
91. To make them care you don’t have to produce emotion from an absence of emotion. Piggyback on emotions that the students already experience.
92. Emphasize benefits, not features. Tell the kids what they will get from the lesson instead of all the features of the lesson.
93. Each teacher should answer WIIFY before the start of each lesson or unit. W WHAT’s I IN I IT F FOR Y YOU
94. It is the tangibility rather than the magnitude of the benefits that make students care.
95. You don’t have to promise riches and beauty and magnetic personalities. Promise reasonable benefits that students can easily imagine themselves doing.
110. Stories are effective teaching tools. They show how context can mislead people to make the wrong decisions.
111. Stories illustrate casual relationships that students hadn’t recognized before and highlight the unexpected, resourceful ways in which people have solved problems.
113. It works because students can’t imagine events or sequences without evoking the same modules of the brain that are evoked in real physical activity.
115. Create lessons that fit into one of the three basic story plots: Challenge Connection Creativity
116. The key element to a Challenge Plot is that obstacles seem daunting to the protagonist.
117. Challenge plots are inspiring in a defined way. They inspire students to work harder, take on new challenges, overcome obstacles.
118. Connection Plots inspire students in social ways. They make them want to help others, be more tolerant of others, work with others, love others.
119. Connection Plots are all about relationships with other people.
120. The Creativity Plot involves someone making a mental breakthrough, solving a long-standing puzzle, or attacking a problem in an innovative way. Guy faces obstacle and overcomes it.
122. Stories are almost always concrete. Most have emotional and unexpected elements.
123. The hardest part of story is making sure that they are Simple – that they reflect the core message of the lesson.
124. It is not enough to tell your kids a great story; the story has to reflect your agenda.
125. Stories have the amazing dual power to simulate and to inspire…
126. …and most of the time we don’t even have to use much creativity to harness these powers --
127. -- we just need to be ready to spot the good ones that life generates everyday.
128. Components to a sticky lesson: Unexpected Pay Attention Concrete Understand and Remember Credible Believe and Agree Emotional Care Stories Act Simple…can help at any stage
129. “ That’s the great thing about the world of ideas – any of us, with the right insight and message, can make an idea stick.”
130. Made to Stick Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die By Chip Heath and Dan Heath Random House Books 2007 This slide show inspired by the book: