Quarantinotes Series #5 – Curriculum Bloat, Interleaving, and the Forgetting Curve

I will share with you two strategies to consider for both mitigating drift/bloat, as well as helping students actually learn. (By learn, I mean remembering the information AFTER your class is over, not just acing the final and forgetting it all.)

Those College Students Don’t Look Like They’re Learning Anything

Here we are in 2018, at some of the most “elite” institutions in the country, with an 11-year-old pointing out an obvious, but unchanging truth.  “Those college students don’t look like they’re learning anything.”

We Treat Learning Like We Treat Weight Management (12 minutes)

Most companies never ask for a transcript, and for the few who do, it is only for those seeking their first job out of college.  (Working inside education may be an exception.)  After that, grades mean almost nothing.  What companies instead seek are the things that grades, which become so easily gamed by both students and teachers, can diminish.  After all, if the grade is all that matters, then trying new things and failing (actually promoting learning) will be negated.  Teaching to a test, jamming information into short-term memory only to be lost a few weeks later will be the norm.  Critical thinking will be lost.  Problem solving based on context will be supplanted with algorithm practice absent of context.