Limit (Chunk) Information

The brain can only hold about seven pieces of information at a time in short-term memory. What this means is that, if we teach for 20 minutes and we’ve given students more than seven things to remember, it’s too much. The only way we might (sometimes) get away with more than seven facts is if they are written in a very large font, or if we ‘chunk’ related information by color.

The brain can process information quickly off an overhead or from a PowerPoint presentation if we’ve chunked it with color. For example, five facts about short-term memory might be green, five facts about working memory could be brown, and five facts about long-term memory could be black. We chunk related information by color.

Paraphrase Immediately

Another strategy to enhance short-term memory so information isn’t “gone” in two seconds is to have a student paraphrase what we just taught. For example, after you’ve taught something important, ask a volunteer to paraphrase that information for the class. Most likely, your students will not relate the information in the same words you used, which will be novel to the brain. This strategy takes only seconds to do, yet it lets your students hear the information again, in a different way, with a different voice. The brain likes novelty and will remember the information better.

Paraphrase One Hour Later

Ask your students to paraphrase information that was shared earlier in the day. When they take something that you taught an hour ago and bring it back into “play,” it returns to short-term memory and is then pushed into working memory. Using this paraphrasing strategy in your classrooms will help students to remember what you are teaching. Memory Tricks: Feed the Brain Small Chunks at a Time.

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Excerpted From Memorization and Test-Taking Strategies

For Memory Strategies To Reach ALL Learners In Your Classroom Get this DVD program Now! Gain more knowledge and strategies to reach ALL learners Get Susan Fitzell’s program Now. Don’t waste any time Memorization and Test Taking Strategies on DVD! Want quality professional development you can afford? Save time with this popular PD option! Bring Susan to your campus! Featured seminar – Memorization and Test Mastery

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Most students, parents, and teachers know a lot about managing their time to include homework, studying, and other activities, but many overlook the importance of also learning test-taking time management skills.

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Click on the picture to get this poster for YOUR school! ACHIEVE SUCCESS for your students with this VISUAL REMINDER

Many students do not think much about how to budget their time on a test and just jump right in.  However, in order to do their best on tests, they must learn how to think about how much time they have and how to budget that time when testing.

Test taking time management strategies for student success:

1. Have them count the number of multiple choice questions and calculate how much time they have for each question.
2. When there are essay questions too, have students set aside time for the essay(s) and then calculate their time per question for the rest of the test.
3. On a multiple choice-type test, teach them to answer the easy questions (the ones they know) first.
4. Tell students to cross out obviously incorrect responses to minimize the distractions such responses offer.  This will save them even more time.
5. Then, after they’ve answered all they know, THEN, answer the difficult ones next (and skip the ones they don’t know at all).
6. After they’ve done their best on all the questions they think they could answer, then quickly guess the rest (as long as it won’t count against them). It’s best to pick one letter and guess with the same letter throughout the test. It statistically improves the chances of guessing more right. Remember, “When in doubt, pick C!” It doesn’t have to be C. It just has to be the same letter every time.
7. In general, students should answer multiple choice questions FIRST and then focus on essay questions LAST.  There are often clues to other questions in the multiple choice parts of a test.

How Often Do You Find Yourself Saying: “I Wish I Knew How To Ace A Multiple Choice Test”

Watch this video to reinforce these steps!

For more information about study strategies for your student, see Susan Fitzell’s book, Please Help Me With My Homework. Available in both print and electronic versions!

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Effective Strategies, Dynamic Presentation
Engage Educators in Quality PD

Disability, Difference, and Diversity

Program Description:
There’s a world of difference between those words, particularly when they are applied to students and how they learn.  It’s all too easy (and common) for people who merely learn differently to be branded as “learning disabled,” “hyperactive,” “ADHD,” or “unteachable,” and shunted into the educational backwaters of Special Education. If ever there was a time when society needed their rich diversity of intelligence and fresh ways of thinking, this is that time. We can’t afford to let the ideas and abilities of our different thinkers go undeveloped simply because they don’t fit into one narrow educational model.

Too many classrooms still rely solely on verbal linguistic teaching methods — lectures and verbal instructions delivered by one person standing in front of a roomful of more or less attentive children. Many kids can and will learn  in this type of classroom, but too many others will lose their joy of learning and start to dread going to school.

Differentiated instruction involves a flexible, dynamic, and interactive teaching model that doesn’t expect all children to learn the same way, at the same pace, with cookie-cutter results. Students learn the same content and standards based curricula, but the path to learning is much more varied and responsive to the different learning styles and levels of the students in the classroom. Students who learn best through words or who think in more logical-mathematical ways, or those who respond to visual cues as well as the more physically and mechanically gifted students can all be engaged effectively in learning when we differentiate instruction. We reach the listeners, the talkers, and the introspective thinkers.

Once the basic concepts are understood, though, there are many simple and effective techniques for implementing differentiated instruction in the classroom. Introducing pictures and images, movement-based exercises, cooperative projects, and color-coded instruction aids are four teaching strategies that target the special needs of diverse learning styles, while still benefiting all the students in the classroom.

In the weeks to come, I hope to talk some more about the background issues and practical methods I have explored in depth in the second edition of my book, “Special Needs in the General Classroom: Strategies that Make it Work  2nd Edition (2010).”*

Though it may be challenging at first for teachers to learn these new strategies, differentiated instruction has the potential to bring much greater satisfaction, and fun, back into the classroom for the teacher who embraces it as well as the children who will benefit from it.

For Thousands Of Tips To Teach… So Your Students Are Top Performers Get this Book Now! Gain more knowledge on differentiation strategies to reach ALL learners Get Susan Fitzell's book Now. Don't waste any time Special Needs in the General Classroom, Strategies That Make It Work. Available in both print and electronic versions! Want quality professional development you can afford? Save time with this popular PD option: A Professional Development Kit, for all teachers, with a Graduate Credit Option! Bring Susan to your campus! Featured seminar – Differentiation Strategies to Reach ALL Learners in the Inclusive Classroom

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Last Friday, I did my “Differentiated Instruction Strategy Blast” seminar at Gilmanton  School. Not only was a treated to breathtaking foliage on the way to this New Hampshire town, I spent the day with a motivated, positive staff who truly care about helping their students succeed.

Here’s the first indicator: The front tables filled up first! When I saw that happen I knew that I was in for a great day! Ok, it’s true, we presenters are partial to people who are willing to brave the front row.

• For students to build vocabulary skills at home, suggest to parents that they turn on the closed captioning on tv.

• Use the sign language alphabet to have students practice spelling words. We used it very successfully with special education students in grades 4-8. One first grade teacher plans to use it as a center. Idea contributed by Amy Small

• A great website for building vocabulary and doing a good deed is www.freerice.com – grammar, foreign languages, multiplication, vocab, science elements. Idea contributed by Erika Langlais

• For pictures to connect to vocabulary for visual vocabulary review cards, try  http://www.makebeliefscomix.com  –  This site is a wonderful tool for teachers and students alike!

• Lastly, here is a a free online tool that has the potential to meet the needs of more than just the students with learning disabilities for whom it was intended. Read the Words — http://readthewords.com “Originally designed for students with disabilities, ReadTheWords accepts multiple input formats such as MS Word, PDF, or html for users to create readings. Output is a synthesized speech file in one of fifteen voices that can be heard online, downloaded, saved, and shared. If you download the toolbar, you can convert text in a web page to speech without having to go to ReadTheWord.com”

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