FYELearnPyramid

Average Learning Retention Rates Per the Learning Pyramid

	What I hear, I forget What I see, I remember What I do, I understand Confucius

The Learning Pyramid information on average learning retention rates comes from the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine. It indicates that simply listening to a lecture or reading a text is not the ideal way to learn information. One should tune in to his individual learning style to promote maximum retention.

Learning Pyramid Summary
Activity	Average Retention Rate
Lecturing	5%
Reading	10%
Audio Visual	20%
Demonstration	30%
Discussion Group	50%
Practice by Doing	75%
Teaching Others	90%

Selected passages from Mel Silberman's Active Learning
(Do you agree?)

There is a whole lot more to teaching than telling! Learning is not an automatic consequence of pouring information into a student's head. It requires the learner's own mental involvement and doing. Explanation and demonstration by themselves will never lead to real, lasting learning. Only learning that is active will do this (IX).

What makes learning Active?
When learning is active, students do most of the work. ...Active learning is fast-paced, fun, supportive, and personally engaging. Often, students are out of their seats, moving about and thinking aloud (lX).

Above all, students need to "do it" - figure things out by themselves, come up with examples, try out skills, and do assignments that depend on the knowledge they already have or must acquire. (IX).

Most teachers speak about 100 to 200 words per minute. But how many of those words do students hear? ...If students are really concentrating, they might be able to listen attentively to about 50 or 100 words per minute, or half of what a teacher is saying. That's because students are thinking a lot while they are listening. (1)

One study demonstrates that students in lecture-based college classrooms are not attentive about 40 percent of the time (Pollio, 1984).

The time required to present a concept is reduced up to 40 percent when visuals are used to augment a verbal presentation. (1)

Our brain asks questions like these:
	Have I heard or seen this information before? Where does this information fit? What can I do with it? Can I assume that this is the same idea I had yesterday or last month or last year?
The brain doesn't just receive information - it processes it (3)

When learning is passive, the brain doesn't save what has been presented...Our brain needs to test the information, recap it, or explain it to someone else in order to store it in its memory banks (3).

Real learning is not memorization (4).

Learning can't be swallowed whole. To retain what has been taught, students must chew on it (4)

Learning is not a one-shot event. Learning comes in waves. It takes several exposures to material to chew on it long enough to understand it. (4)

Without the opportunity to discuss, ask questions, do, and perhaps even teach someone else, real learning will not occur. (4)

Placing students in groups and giving them tasks in which they depend on each other to complete the work is a wonderful way to capitalize on the social needs of students. They tend to become more engaged in learning because they are doing it with their peers. (6).
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Silberman cites other educators:

While students retain 70 percent in the first ten minutes of a lecture, they retain only 20 percent of the last ten minutes (McKeachie, 1986)

Student attention decreases with each passing minute
It appeals only to auditory learners
It tends to promote lower level learning of factual information.
It assumes that all students need the same information and at the same pace [in the same way]
Students tend not to like it (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991)

Adding visuals to a lesson increases retention from 14 to 38 percent (Pike, 1989)

Grinder (1991) notes that in every group of 30 students, an average of 22 are able to learn effectively as long as a teacher provides a blend of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic activity.

According to john Holt (1967), learning is enhanceded if students are asked to do the following:

State the information in their own words.
Give examples of it.
Recognize it in various guises and circumstances.
See connections between it and other facts or ideas.
Make use of it in various ways.
Foresee some of its consequences.
State its opposite or converse. (3)

Abraham Maslow taught us that human beings have within them two sets of forces or needs - one that strives for growth and one that clings to safety (5)....The need to feel secure must be met before the need to reach out, take risks, and explore the new can be entertained (6).

"Each step forward is made possible by the feeling of being safe, or operating out into the unknown from a safe home port" (Maslow. 1968)

Additional Educations Quotes
Do you agree?

Teaching is the highest form of understanding. Aristotle

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward

Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. - Roger Lewin

Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire. --William Butler Yeates

What I hear, I forget
What I see, I remember
What I do, I understand
Confucius

The aim of education is the knowledge not of fact, but of values. Dean Wiliam Inge

While we teach, we learn. -Seneca

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.
--Mark Van Doren

All learning is in the learner, not in the teacher. ~ Plato, Phaedo

"Passive leaning is an oxymoron; there is no such thing."
K. Patricia Cross

"Learning is not so much an additive process, with new learning simply piling up on top of existing knowledge, as it is an active, dynamic process in which the connections are constantly changing and the structure reformatted."
K. Patricia Cross

Teaching is the achievement of shared meaning.: D.B. Gowin, 1981, Educating.

Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three. Conficius

It's not what is poured into a student that counts, but what is planted.
Linda Conway

A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. Plutarch

The secret of education is respecting the pupil.: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Understanding is the knowledge of the general. Judgment is the application of the general to the particular. Reason is the power of understanding the connection between the general and the particular. ~ Emmanuel Kant, Thoughts on Education

If education is to develop human nature so that it may attain the object of its being, it must involve the exercise of judgment. ~ Emmanuel Kant, Thoughts on Education

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. - Tennyson

Education to be successful, must not only inform but inspire.
- T. Sharper Knowlson

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
- Gail Godwin

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. B. F.Skinner

I hear and I forget. I see and I believe. I do and I understand. Confucius

Being clear about what teaching is matters vitally because how teachers understand teaching very much affects what they actually do in the classroom. ~ Paul H. Hirst, "What is Teaching?"

Memorization is what we resort to when what we are learning makes no sense. Anonymous

Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived," but there is nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student's life.: B.F. Skinner

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. Lily Tomlin as "Edith Ann"

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Italian physicist and astronomer.

Sometimes the last thing learners need is for their preferred learning style to be affirmed. Agreeing to let people learn only in a way that feels comfortable and familiar can restrict seriously their chance for development.: Steven Brookfield

I remember how he used to teach this idea in the Group Process class back at Brandeis. I had scoffed back then, thinking this was hardly a lesson plan for a university course. Learning to pay attention? How important could that be? I now know it is more important than almost everything they taught us in college. Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie)

Education is a transformative experience - both for the teacher and the student. Wayne Silver Professional Development Day 2002

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. - Malcolm Forbes

Education has for its object the formation of character. Herbert Spencer

I like to be human because in my unfinishedness I know that I am conditioned. Yet conscious of such conditioning, I know that I can go beyond it, which is the essential difference between conditioned and determined existence. ~ Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom

Skill to do comes of doing. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Students learn what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them . . . Barbara Harrell Carson

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
Ben Sweetland

Professors known as outstanding lecturers do two things: they use a simple plan and many examples.-W.McKeachie

"Students learn what they care about . . .," Stanford Ericksen has said, but Goethe knew something else: "In all things we learn only from those we love." Add to that Emerson's declaration: "the secret of education lies in respecting the pupil." and we have a formula something like this: "Students learn what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them . . .": Barbara Harrell Carson, 1996, Thiry Years of Stories

Information cannot replace education.: Imparato and Itarari

Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood. Emerson

Curiosity in children is but an appetite after knowledge ~ John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education

The natural temper of children disposes their minds to wander. ~ John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams

Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. ~ William James, Talks to Teachers

What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing. Aristotle

Other quotes http://www.edsurf.net/edquote/teachers/edteacher.html

All learning is in the learner, not in the teacher. ~ Plato, Phaedo

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Henry Brooks
Adams.

Tell me and I'll forget.
Show me and I may remember.
Involve me and I will understand. Chinese proverb.

Write an encouraging quote on the board each say. Someone may build his life upon it. Anon

Sometimes a simple, almost insignificant gesture on the part of a teacher can have a profound formative effect on the life of a student. Freire

If a student cannot learn the way you teach, teach the way he learns.

Sometimes intently listening with your eyes, ears, and hearts will speak volumes to your student.

To teach is to learn. Japanese Proverb

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. I am not a teacher, only a fellow student. Soren Kierkegaard

Thought flows in terms of stories--stories about events, stories about people, and stories about intentions and achievements. The best teachers are the best story tellers. We learn in the form of stories. Frank Smith

Effective teaching may be the hardest job there is.: William Glasser

A timeless gift to give to others is good quotes followed by good example.

One of the key failures of our education system is that we do not teach people to define and measure their outcomes. I hear a great deal about teaching children to 'communicate',
and about the importance of 'process', but I hear very little about the importance of actual, measurable results. In the real world, only results matter. Coach@philiphumbert.com

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life.

One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." To corroborate, he turned to another guest, "You're a teacher, Sarah," he said. "Be honest. What do you make?"

Sarah, who had a reputation of honesty and frankness, replied. "You want to know what I make? I make kids work harder than they thought they ever could. I can make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor and a B+ feel like a slap in the face if the student did not do his or her very best. I can make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence. You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them criticize. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them write. I make them read, read, read. I make them spell 'definitely' and 'beautiful' over and over again until they will never misspell either one of those words again. I make them show all their work in math and hide it on all their final drafts in English. I elevate them to experience music and art and the joy in performance, so their lives are rich, full of kindness and culture, and they take pride in themselves and their accomplishments. I make them understand that if you have the brains, then follow your heart...and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you pay them no attention.

You want to know what I make? I make a difference.

http://www.tcde.tehama.k12.ca.us/pyramid.pdf

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