Effortless learning is a dangerous illusion
Via TES magazine
Mary Pat Wenderoth stops herself mid-lesson and asks her class a question about the day’s work. The students turn to their notes but she stops them. “Don’t look it up. Imagine your brain is a forest and your memory is in there somewhere. The more times you make a path to that memory, the stronger that path becomes. Try to figure it out.”
Wenderoth is a principal lecturer in biology at the University of Washington in Seattle, US. She keeps close tabs on research into how humans learn and knits the findings into her teaching methods. One of the most fundamental conclusions may appear contradictory:
The best way to make learning stick is to focus less on getting knowledge into the brain and more on getting it out.