How Students Learn Most Effectively - MAX Teaching

Research suggests that we remember about 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, and 70% of what we, ourselves, say. How much do we remember of all the books we read in college? Is 10% a good estimate? We read the books and most likely did comprehend what we read and held on to the knowledge for a test, paper, or discussion. Most of that retention was momentary understanding but was not processed as personal knowledge for ourselves. Comprehending what you read and long-term retention are definitely two separate entities.

Research also tells us that “85% of the knowledge and skills presented to students in school comes to them in some form of language: teachers talking, materials to read, films to watch and listen to, and so forth.” If students only retain 20% of what they hear, then is frequent lecture an effective way to teach, and is it an effective use of learners’ time? If we remember 70% of what we say, is it any wonder that teachers who often lecture seem so knowledgeable?

Percentages aside, teachers, especially, know how beneficial it is to talk to someone else about the subject matter. As good learners, we know from experience that when we discussed with someone else, we clarified subject matter, made connections among points of the subject matter that we might not have realized before, and mentally and verbally interacted with the ideas of our partner(s) in the discussion.

These same concepts apply to our students. An interactive learning situation is superior to the passive reception of information of the traditional classroom. When students work cooperatively to construct the meaning from a piece of text, they learn more deeply, and they are helping one another learn how to learn. In order to motivate students to think about, learn, and discuss what they have read, we should use a framework of instruction that allows students to be active in their own learning.

Generally speaking, reading is not taught beyond the third grade in most school systems. If a student has not mastered reading comprehension skills by the fourth grade, the chances are that s/he will struggle with learning in grades four through twelve. Many middle school and high school students lack the ability to use communication skills effectively for the purpose of learning. Teachers and parents often assume that these skills will develop by themselves over time. The fact is that they rarely do.

One solution is embedded curriculum, in which learning skills are taught in conjunction with course content. Students need to be provided with appropriate modeling of language and thought processes, and, since this is often not accomplished in the home, then it must be done in the school. The problem is that most classrooms do not provide this modeling. Faced with the ubiquitous pressure of standardized tests, teachers often resort to rapid “covering” of the material they are supposed to teach, with little regard for whether students are developing appropriate brain programs for learning, thinking, and problem-solving. In most schools, the preferred pedagogical techniques are teacher lecture, worksheet skill drills, and reading to answer end-of-chapter comprehension questions. Teachers who use these methods can say that they “covered” what they were supposed to cover in the curriculum. The results are that students perceive school as a passive, often boring, learning experience in which they seldom see how different subjects relate to either reality or to one another, or even how what was learned last week in a given subject area relates to what was learned this week.

Textbooks are valuable tools. Though the textbook should not be the only information source in a class, the textbook is an often-neglected or misused tool for learning. The fact is that much of the content being measured by standardized tests is to be found in textbooks. The basic themes of a course and the vocabulary of the discipline are to be found there.

The problem is that, even though many of the questions on standardized tests require interpretive reading, most students are not being exposed to thoughtful interpretation of text. Worksheets and end-of-chapter comprehension questions require only the most basic decoding skills to answer. Students who process text through these methods rarely do the kind of reading you are doing right now – thoughtfully processing the argument as it was logically presented by the author. Instead, students often begin in the middle or end of the reading, flipping pages back and forth to skim for bold print words that might give them the clue as to where they might find “the right answer.”

Any person, regardless of age, can perform higher order thinking about even the most abstract ideas if s/he has a basic understanding of the concept. When teachers think that students cannot perform higher order thinking about subject matter, what they do not realize is that the problem really lies not in the students, but in the students’ preparation for the thinking. Once students have conceptualized the basics, they can more readily perform higher order thinking skills about the subject matter. Many teachers practice assumptive teaching – thinking that because they themselves understand certain concepts, the students will also understand them in the same ways. One important source of course-specific vocabulary and basic conceptual information about course content is a textbook. However, it is important that the textbook be used properly, and that other information sources are also used appropriately.

A framework of instruction for acquisition of literacy skills along with content area knowledge includes three steps that facilitate active engagement of students, allowing the brain to function at its highest levels. Before reading, teachers can motivate students by helping students to recall and add to their prior knowledge of the topic to be studied, and to set their own purposes for reading. During the reading, teachers can help students maintain their purposes and monitor their own comprehension while acquiring new information and new learning skills. After the reading, teachers can facilitate higher-order thinking by students, allowing for the thinking to extend beyond the text.

Interaction between student and self, student and teacher, and among students, in the context of the subject area is critical in developing these abilities. Emphasis is on learning through guided practice in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking. All these are practiced in the classroom on a daily basis, while students participate in an active process of learning from textbooks, from each other, and from other materials. Students of all ability levels, in all content areas, benefit from this form of deeper learning. In addition, the skills acquired in conjunction with the content instruction are transferable to other learning experiences because one important thing being acquired is the process of learning itself. Students thus develop naturally positive brain programs that they can apply in all future learning situations.

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1 Excerpted from Forget, Mark A. and Morgan, Raymond F. (1997) A brain compatible learning environment for improving student metacognition. Reading Improvement, v. 34, no. 4, Winter, 1997.