Help Students Develop Deep Knowledge
“How much of what we teach our students today will they retain two weeks, two years, or twenty years from now? ”
Research has shown that students forget about half of what they have learned in classes even when tested just weeks or months later (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Certainly, with this in mind, we must create an environment in lessons to allow students a shot at gaining a deeper understanding of the material that we are teaching. Deep knowledge, meaning being able to connect ideas, apply learned concepts to other conditions and situations, and recognizing patterns seems to be the key to retaining information (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).
Something that is very clear is that this kind of learning is much more effective than simple retention and recall (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Memorizing dates and equations, figures and facts is not the most important skill for today’s students. Facts change as we learn more and information is readily available on the internet, so understanding how to get and make sense of the mass of data should be the goal (Matsuoka & Tatsuoka, 2004). Goodwin and Hubbell have given us The Six Essential Cs for Learning to aid us in this task.
Curiosity - Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) explain that “...human beings are naturally curious–investigating our environments appears to be hardwired into our DNA” (p.142).
Connection - New knowledge is processed by connecting new information to prior knowledge (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). This is called assimilation in the constructivist view of learning (Speaker, 2015).
Coherence - This refers to the tendency of our brains to arrange information into meaningful patterns (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Eric Jensen (2017) calls the brain a “Meaning-maker and a meaning seeker” (np). Humans search for patterns and meanings in everyday and even mundane events. This allows us to deal with and even make predictions about events (Jensen, 2017).
Concentration - In this context means allowing time in the lesson to spend time thinking about what they are learning (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).
Coaching - Practicing new skills when learning procedural knowledge and opportunities to retrieve declarative knowledge (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).
Context - Students never extend or apply the concepts they have learned without the last C of context (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).
Deep Knowledge Resources
References
Goodwin, B., & Hubble, E. R. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: a checklist for staying focused every day. ASCD, McREL International.
Jensen, E. (2017). Principles of Brain-Based Learning. Retrieved from http://www.jensenlearning.com/principles.php