bruce wilkinson 7 laws of the learner: law 4a_retention

8/8/2019 Bruce Wilkinson 7 Laws of the Learner: Law 4a_Retention

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The Law of

Retention

Pages 203-233

Thursday 4 November 2010


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The essence of the Law of

Retention is in these threewords:

master the minimum.The teacher should enable all

students to enjoy maximummastery of the irreducible

minimum



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Most teachers teach at too slow a rate.

How can teachers increase their teaching rate?Wilkinson goes back to the flood and suggests thatwhen God wanted us to remember something he useda picture - a rainbow. And there are other methodsGod uses which we will learn.

This is not for every time you teach - only when youhave to teach facts or chunks of content.



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Retention Mindset

This law looks at how to teach the student the mostinformation in the shortest amount of time with theleast effort (for the students that is) and for the

greatest retention. It deals with two primary issues ofthe teaching-learning relationship.

Effectiveness - is the teacher teaching the rightmaterial?

Efficiency- is the teacher teaching in the right

manner?



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Deut 6:4-94 Hear, O Israel: The LORD ourGod, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your

God with all your heart and with all your souland with all your strength. 6 Thesecommandments that I give you today are to be

on your hearts. 7Impress them on yourchildren. Talk about them when you sit athome and when you walk along the road,

when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tiethem as symbols on your hands and bind themon your foreheads. 9 Write them on the

doorframes of your houses and on your gates.Thursday 4 November 2010


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Do you want to be a greatteacher - firstly then, love God,this has a domino effect ontoother things. Secondly, the wordsGod speaks need to be in ourhearts - the subject is in us.

Then you are ready to get it into

your students hearts - and thetext tells us 4 ways to do that:



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1. Teach - formal school-typeteaching

2. Talking - this is fluid, casual two-way - this opens up difficulties etc.

3. Personal reminder -

nonverbal, maybe something you

wear, a sign which acts asrepresentation, a token, bowing yourhead, fish symbol...

4. Public recognition - thedoorframe of your house, somethingpublic, sign...

The most effective teachers use all 4

of these teaching levelsThursday 4 November 2010


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Retention Model

Teach (formal) Information

Talk (infomral) Incarnation

Personal Reminder Impress

Public Reminder Influence

Student

Love God

WordsIn Heart

Teacher

Love God(Who he is)

Words

In Heart(what he

said)



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There is a progression in the 4 approaches - movingfrom interior to exterior of your life, from formal toless formal.

Teach and talk are the tutor level - direct and verbal.

Personal and public reminders are testimony - indirectand nonverbal.

The clear teaching of the Bible is that we are to pass it

on in such a way that children, students etc. come toknow and love the truth too



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Retention Maxims

The law of retention presentsrevolutionary principles and

methods to speed teachfacts. When applied itachieves amazing results forthose who bravely move

beyond the way it has alwaysbeen done - to boldly go...

Here are the 7 principles:



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Maxim 1: retention of facts by thestudent is the teachers responsibility

Teachers have to accept theirresponsibility to cause the studentto learn - not to dump material

on them. It is not enough that astudent copies down the materialyou give and try to learn it later.

The teacher has to give 100% - andso does the student! Studentsuccess is the ultimate measure ofyour teaching ability.



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Maxim 2: retention of facts is effective

only after they are understood

It is not enough to present thematerial just because it isrequired - it needs to beunderstood.

Is it right a student hires aprivate tutor to help themunderstand?

Students retain moreinformation if they understand it- teachers are not the deliveryboy, they must help with

understanding.Thursday 4 November 2010


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Maxim 2: retention of facts is effective

only after they are understood

It is not enough to present thematerial just because it isrequired - it needs to beunderstood.

Is it right a student hires aprivate tutor to help themunderstand?

Students retain moreinformation if they understand it- teachers are not the deliveryboy, they must help with

understanding.

Understandingmust always

precedememorisation



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Maxim 3: retention increases as thestudent recognises the contents relevance

Learning goes down if the studentdoesnt think the material has any

relevance.Irrelevance (lack of relevance)produces apathy and frustration

Relevance develops motivation andconcentration - this is then focussedthrough good delivery and content.



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minimum



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Maxim 4: retention requires the teacher tofocus on the facts that are most important

Not all facts are created equal.

If you teach for memorisation youhave to take responsibility for

saying which part is mostimportant. Sift the information forthem.

Wilkinson suggests that God doesthis in the Bible, heavy contentcovering some events and othersare simply skipped over.



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The more important a fact - the more attention (time)it should get.

In business this is reflected in the Pareto Principle: The

80:20 principle

80% of a companies profits usually come from about20% of its products.

80% of a companies business comes from 20% of itsclients

20% of people in a church give 80% of the money

80% of your effort produces 20% of your resultsThursday 4 November 2010


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In a class 20% of your contentcarries 80% of the real benefit to

the student. Identify that and changepriorities to reflect it.

If 80% of your time is spent on 20%of what you desire to see achieved -

what a waste!

Teachers should identify the factsrequired by a student in order toknow the subject. This is calledthe Irreducible Minimum and shouldbe understood and mastered by allstudents - it would then guarantee

all students success.Thursday 4 November 2010


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what a waste!


all students success.Thursday 4 November 2010


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what a waste!


all students success.

The average

student panicsbefore a test

worried about

what a teachermight ask - and the

teacher acts as ifmaking the studentguess is important.



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Maxim 5: retention arranges thefacts so they are easy to memorise

Do you give your students a bigsack full of information and expect

them to sort through it forthemselves?

What you need to do is effectively

download all the data from you tothe student without any loss ofdata.



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You cant just place a book on a students head and saymemorise and it is done. The material needs to beformatted for the mind to retain it.

In fact God created our minds with just a few ways toreceive and retain information easily. In the next sectionwe shall learn 7 primary ways to reformat material.

Teachers need to make material easier to memorise -

so they remove the problems and prepare the way forthe students.

Teachers make learning the information as efficient and

easy as possible for the student.Thursday 4 November 2010


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Which is better for a

student?Give them eggs, flour, butteretc. and tell them to make itfor themselves?

Give them the cake and tellthem to enjoy eating it?

Both have the same

ingredients - but which willbe enjoyed and digestedmore readily?

Why do we act as if

making learning difficultis to be admired?



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Which is better for a

student?Give them eggs, flour, butteretc. and tell them to make itfor themselves?

Give them the cake and tellthem to enjoy eating it?

Both have the same

ingredients - but which willbe enjoyed and digestedmore readily?



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Maxim 6: retention strengthens longterm memory through regular review

God made us with short term andlong term memory capabilities.

What sort of things do you use

short term memory for?Cramming the night before an examretains info for a short while - but

what if the exam is postponed

for a week?

Material needs to be in long termmemory for students to reallyknow it.



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Most students do not knowmaterial a month after they study it.

Wilkinson suggests the only way toget info into long term memory isto review it. Review and review the

material with the students until theyget it - this then places it in longterm memory.

Covering the material only gets it

into short term memory.

You have to get the core materialinto the LTM of all students.



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Maxim 7: retention minimises time formemorisation to maximise time for

application

Whilst it is good to be ableto teach more in less time

- the ideal is to be able toapply that material into thelife of the students - howthey use it.

If content is of no use whyteach it?



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Format content for ease of

understanding and memorisation -then apply it, show how valuable anduseful it is. The more relevantmaterial is the more motivated

students will be to learn it.

The law of retention strives to helpteachers to teach more in less time

- to be more effective in teachingcontent. This then leaves more timefor application.



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minimum



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Discussion Questions

1. Many teachers tell students oftheir poor study habits and lack ofcompetence. Yet a teacher causesstudents to learn.

Shouldnt the teacher be the onebeing corrected?

2. If you have to cram the night

before an exam have you been trulytaught?

3. Is it wrong for a student to ask,Do we really need to know this?



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