Crash Course in Learning TheoryThe long version...

• Talk to the brain first, mind second.

Even if a learner is personally motivated to learn a topic, if the

learning content itself isn't motivating, the learner's brain will do

everything possible to look for something more interesting. This

applies to both getting and keeping attention, as well as memory.

Remember, you can't do anything until you get past the brain's

crap filter! And to the brain, a dry, dull, academic explanation is

definitely CRAP (regardless of how much your mind cares about the

topic).

Learning is not a one-way "push" model.

Learners are not "empty vessels" waiting to be filled with content

pushed into it by an expert, blogger, author, etc. Learning is

something that happens between the learner's ears--it's a form of

co-creation between the learner and the learning experience. You

can't create new pathways in someone's head... your job is to

create an environment where the chances of the learner "getting it"

in the way that you intend are as high as possible.

• Provide a meaningful benefit for each topic, in the form of

"why you should care about this" scenario.

Learning is much more effective if the learner's brain knows why

what you're about to talk about matters. The benefit and/or reason

why you should learn something needs to come before the actual

content. Otherwise, the learner's brain gets to the end of what

you're telling them and says, "Oh, NOW you tell me. If you'd said

that earlier, I would have paid more attention..." This process of

not-paying-attention is not completely within the learner's

conscious control so, like I said, even if the person is motivated to

learn this thing, their brain can still tune out during specific parts

that don't start with a compelling benefit.

To find a "meaningful benefit", play the "Why? Who Cares? So

What?" game with someone else. Describe the thing you're trying

to explain, to which the other person asks, "Why?" Provide an

answer, to which the person then asks, "Who cares?". Provide an

answer, to which the person asks, "So?" At this point, when you're

nearly ready to kill them for not getting it, you probably have the

thing you should have said instead of whatever you said first (and

second). The most compelling and motivating reason/benefit is

almost always the thing you say only after you've answered at least

three "Yeah, but WHY do I care?" questions.

• Use visuals!

We are all visual creatures, and the brian can process visual

information far more efficiently than words. These pictures can

come in many forms:

* Info graphic or diagram

* Visual metaphor

* Picture of the thing being described, with annotations

* Picture of the end state

* Picture designed to create attention and recall

• Use redundancy to increase understanding and retention.

Redundancy doesn't mean repetition--it means "say the same thing

again, but differently." And "differently" can mean:

* From a different perspective.

* Using a different information channel (channels include things

like Graphics, Examples, Prose explanations, step-by-step

instruction/tutorial, case studies, exercises, summaries, bullet

points, commentary, devil's advocate, Q & A, personal POV, etc.)

Also, the more senses you engage, the greater the potential

for retention and recall. Even having a bowl of just-popped

popcorn or the smell of freshly-baked cookies while learning, can

make a difference. Bummer about web-delivered content, though...

Being terse is good for a reference document, but deadly in

learning content. The best learning experience considers the way

you'd learn that particular thing in real life -- but offers it in a safe,

simulated, compressed form. Real-life learning is never terse; it's

choas and confusion punctuated with moments of insight ("Ah-ha!")

and clarity. It's a wave, not a straight line. A learning blog, book, or

classroom shouldn't try to straighten it out!

• Maintain interest with variety and surprise.

• Use conversational language.

The brain pays more attention when it thinks it's in a conversation

and must "hold up its end." And there's evidence that suggests your

brain behaves this way even if the "conversation" is between a

human (you) and a book or computer screen (or lecture).

• Use mistakes, failures, and counter-intuitive WTF?

People usually learn much more from failures than from being

shown everything working correctly or as expected.

The most memorable learning experiences are usually those where

things are going along fine, making sense, etc. when you suddenly

slam into something that goes terribly wrong. Describing the things

that do NOT work is often more effective than showing how things

DO work. (We call this the "WTF learning principle").

But showing is even better than describing. And even better than

showing is letting the learner experience. Take the learner down a

garden path where everything makes perfect sense until it

explodes. They are far more likely to remember than if you simply

say, "Oh, and be sure you do it such and such a way."

It's tempting to want to protect the learners from the bumps and

scrapes experienced in the real world, but in many cases (with

many topics) you aren't doing the learner any favors.

• Use the filmaker (and novelist) principle of SHOW-don't-

TELL.

Rather than lecture about the details of how something works, let

them experience how it works by walking them through a story or

scenario, where they can feel the bumps along the way.

• Use "chunking" to reduce cognitive overhead.

Remember, we have very little short-term memory (RAM) in our

heads. The standard rule is that we can hold roughly 7 things

before we must either commit some of it to long-term storage or

toss it out to take in something new. And the things you hold in

short-term memory vanish as soon as there is an interruption. You

look up a phone number, and as long as you repeat it to yourself

and nobody asks you a question, you can remember it--usually just

long enough to dial the number. By the time you finish talking to

the person on the other end of the line, the number is long gone.

Chunking takes fine-grained data/facts/knowledge and puts them

into meaningful or at least memorable chunks to help reduce the

number of things you have to hold in short-term memory, and

increase the chance of retention and recall. For example, imagine

you were asked to take 30 seconds to memorize the following "code

symbols" for the numbers 1-10:

you'd be lucky to get 60% correct in a follow-up quiz given

immediately after those 30 seconds. There are simply too many

symbols to memorize in such a short time, and there's no instantly

obvious way to relate them to one another.

But... with one simple change to the way in which the symbols are

presented--and without changing the symbols:

30 seconds gets most people to 100% accuracy in the follow-up

quiz. In other words, by grouping the symbols into a meaningful,

memorable pattern, we reduce the number of individual (and

potentially arbitrary) things you have to memorize, and increase

the chances.

• Since stress/anxiety can reduce focus and memory, do

everything possible to make the learner feel relaxed and

confident.

That does not mean dumbing-down the material, but rather letting

the learner know that -- "This IS confusing -- so don't worry if it's

still a little fuzzy at this point. It will start to come together once

you've worked through the rest of the examples." In other words,

let them know that they aren't stupid for not getting it at this point.

For especially difficult and complex topics, let the learner know

where they should be at each stage, and help them decide whether

they need to go back and repeat something. Make sure they know

that this repetition is part of the normal learning process, not

something they must do because they failed.

If you're worried about being patronizing, then don't patronize. Just

be honest about what it takes for people to learn that content. But

you can't do that unless you know how hard it is for a beginner to

learn it. As experts, we have a tough time remembering what it was

like NOT TO KNOW, so if you're not sure, do the research. One of

the best ways to find out what newcomers struggle with is to visit

online discussion forums for beginners in your topic. This is also a

great way to come up with a table-of-contents or topic list, because

what you THINK should be a no-brainer might be the one thing

everyone gets stuck on, and what you think would be confusing

could turn out to be easy for most people.

The point is, YOU are not necessarily the best judge of how your

audience will learn the topic. And empathy rarely helps -- you

cannot truly put yourself in someone else's shoes unless their brain

and background are a very close match for yours. You have to find

out what your learners are struggling with, and suspend any

judgement about "This should be a no-brainer."

Those who have taught a topic have a big advantage writing about

it--they've fielded the questions and watched people struggle. They

know how things should be "weighted" according to how

difficult they are. But you can learn almost as much simply by

lurking on beginner discussion forums (or attending user group

sessions for newbies).

• Use seduction, charm, mystery to build curiosity.

We're hard-wired to pay attention and pursue things we're

attracted to. This isn't about selling them on an idea--it's about

helping them stay engaged and learning. Knowing what--and

when--to withold is one of the most powerful tools you have. If

you're writing reference material (like this post), witholding will

just piss people off. But in a learning experience, you want a page-

turner. And don't even think about suggesting that "page-turner"

doesn't apply to, say, technical material. If the purpose is learning,

the learner has to stay engaged. It's up to you to craft an

experience that keeps them hooked. This engagement might be

within a single post, or you might offer little cliffhangers or teasers

to keep them engaged across multiple posts, if that's what it takes

to cover a topic.

• Use a spiral model to keep users engaged.

Game developers know the importance of "The Next Level", and

learning experiences must do the same. Each iteration through the

spiral should start with a meaningful, motivating goal, followed by

the interaction/activity/reading that moves you toward that goal,

followed by a meaningful payoff. Ideally, the "meaningful payoff"

leads right into the next motivating goal.

For example, in a game the payoff for completing a level might be

"You Get A New Weapon". But now that you have that new weapon,

here's the cool new thing you can do that you couldn't do before.

Learning doesn't need to be any different. "Imagine you want to do

X on your website..." is the goal that starts the topic, but when the

topic is complete, the learning content can say, "Now that you have

THAT new [superpower capability], wouldn't it be cool if you could

do Y?" And off they go into the next round of learning.

• Don't rob the learner of the opportunity to think!

Rather than simply spelling everything out step by step, ask

questions, pose multiple and potentially conflicting viewpoints,

show the topic from different perspectives, and set up scenarios

(and possibly exercises) that allow the learner to use deeper brain

processing. Things that encourage deeper thinking are those that

cause the learner to categorize, organize, apply, infer, evaluate,

etc. Don't be afraid to pose questions that you don't answer right

away.

Think back to those teachers you had who would ask a question

then immediately answer it, as opposed to those who would answer

a question then just sit there... waiting...

• Use the 80/20 principle to reduce cognitive overload.

It's far more important that they nail the key things than be

exposed to everything. Be brutal, be brave, be relentless in what

you leave out. Knowing what NOT to include is more important in

learning design than knowing what TO include.

• Context matters.

Try to place facts, concepts, procedures, examples in a bigger

context. Even if you've already discussed the context, don't be

afraid to repeat that context again. For example, instead of always

showing code snippets, show the code within the larger context of

where it usually appears. Highlight the code you're focused on by

bolding it, putting it in a box, etc., so that the learner is not

overwhelmed by the amount of code, and can focus on just the part

you're talking about, but still be able to see how that new code

relates to the rest of the code. Our rule of thumb in our books is to

show the same code context two or three times before switching to

just the snippets (although this rule varies greatly with the type of

code).

• Emotion matters!

People learn and remember that which they FEEL. Look back at

what you've written and if it's dry and lifeless, try to inject some

energy. Dry, academic, formal, lecture-style writing is usually the

WORST form of learning content.

One of the many ways to help tap into emotions (and increase

attention and memory) is to use the brain's reaction to faces.

Almost any kind of face with a strong expression evokes a part of

the brain reserved just for processing faces. The ability to

accurately recognize faces and read facial expressions is a key

element of survival for the brain...

• Never underestimate the power of FUN to keep people

engaged.

The act of having fun is also an emotion, so anything associated

with fun has a greater chance of being remembered.

• Use stories.

Humans have been learning from stories for, well, a really really

really long time. Millenia longer than we've been learning from

lectures on just the data and information. When we say "stories",

we don't necessarily mean actual fictional "John's network went

down just as he was plugging in the...", although those do work.

But a "story" can simply mean that you're asking the learner to

imagine herself wanting to do a particular thing, and then offering

an experience of what that would be like if she were actually trying

to accomplish it, with all the ups, downs, false leads, etc. (but

again, with less of the actual pain she might experience in real life).

A flight simulator, for example, is a kind of story.You aren't just up

there learning the controls; you're actually flying in a particular

storyline.

If you're a software developer, another way to think about story-

driven learning is to map use-cases to learning stories. Base your

learning content around individual use-cases, and put the learner in

the center of the use-case. One easy trick for designing story-driven

learning is to start each topic with something like, "Imagine you

want to do..." and then walk though that experience. It makes the

learning organic and real, and helps make sure you get rid of the

stuff that doesn't need to be there. If it doesn't show up in a use-

case/story, are you so sure you should be teaching it?

• Use pacing and vary the parts of the brain you're

exercising.

Learning--and especially memorization--doesn't happen at an even

pace. Brains--or especially parts of brains--get tired and lose focus.

By varying the pace--and type--of learning content, you give a

user's brain the chance to let one part rest while the other part

takes over. For example, follow a heavy left-brain technical

procedure with a big-picture example/story that covers the same

topic. This helps the learner's memory in two different ways--the

redundancy means two different chances to save the information,

and the fact that you gave one part of the brain a break while

shifting to a different part keeps their brain working longer without

fatigue.

Think about it--if you hopped up and down on your right foot

repeatedly, that right leg would give up after fewer repetitions than

if you kept switching from right to left. Pacing--by frequently

switching which parts of your body (or in this case, brain) you're

using--lets you stay fresher for a longer period.

Also, recording something to long-term memory is rarely instant

(although the stronger the associated emotion, the faster (and

more likely) your brain is to record it). Memory is a

physical/chemical process that happens after you've been exposed

to something, and if anything interrupts the process, the memory is

not stored. That's why people with serious head injuries often

cannot remember what took place just prior to the injury--the

process of recording those things to long-term memory was

stopped.

If you want someone to remember something, you must give them a

chance to process that memory. Relentlessly presenting new, tough

information (like tons of code and complex concepts) without also

including chances to reflect, process, think, apply, review, etc.

virtually guarantees that much of the learning will be forgotten.

• Remember, it's never about you. It's about how the learner

feels about himself as a result of the learning experience.

Don't use learning content as a chance to show off your

knowledge--that virtually guarantees your content won't be user-

friendly. Use it as a chance to help someone's life a little.

A successful learning blog is about helping the readers learn and

grown and kick ass! Make that happen, and your stats will take

care of themselves. In contrast, the best way to ensure a low

readership is to assume that readers are into you. Offering users

nothing but your opinions, however well-reasoned, might not be

enough to make it worth their scarce time and attention.

"If you teach it, they will come."

Posted by Kathy on January 3, 2006 | Permalink

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One formula (of many) for a successful blog is to create a "learning

blog". A blog that shares what you know, to help others. Even--or

especially--if that means giving away your "secrets". Teaching

people to do what you do is... [Read More]

Tracked on Apr 25, 2006 11:20:21 AM

» Crash course in Learning Theory from live and let learn

Kathy Sierra has posted yet another pearler I always come away

thinking theres 10 things I want to focus on this year! The post is

Crash course in Learning Theory, and summerises a lot of stuff

from the Creating Passi... [Read More]

Tracked on Dec 15, 2006 10:04:03 PM

Comments

The most compelling and motivating reason/benefit is almost

always the thing you say only after you've answered at least three

"Yeah, but WHY do I care?" questions.

BAM! I instantly remembered a college-level database course I took

last year.

The first day of class was exceedingly boring. The instructor went

over getting SQL server to run, some basic syntax and finally got us

working with a small database.

It wasn't until five minutes before class ended that she said

something like,

Now this is a small database. But imagine if you had 1,000 records,

or 100,000 records! You could save yourself hours upon hours of

tedious and error prone work!

NOW YOU TELL ME! :)

I had a sneaking suspicion the entire class that she was going

about presenting the material the wrong way.

I had like two years worth of SQL experience coming into the class,

but there were some beginners in there, and I could tell they were

asking themselves, "Why the hell did I sign up for this?"

Awesome post Kathy. I'll be reading this several more times, as

well as printing it out for my employer.

Posted by: Rabbit | Jan 4, 2006 1:41:33 AM

Kathy: "Ome formula (of many)" , Ome? unless you mean something

like Ohm or the Indian "Om Shanti". I'm a king at typos so don't

take it too seriously ;-)

Rabbit: I have attended several SQL Server courses and I've had

instructors asking me if I *really* needed that course (After I told

them that I was/ have been an Oracle DBA). Blogs on other hand

will not only teach but will take over all forms of business life.

Blogs will evolve into THE medium of telling facts.

There's awful lot of precious information available on blogs.

Opinions which will change the face of our IT and all other aspects

of our lives.

Posted by: Tarry Singh | Jan 4, 2006 3:14:48 AM

Wonderful stuff. Thanks.

Posted by: L. | Jan 4, 2006 6:26:40 AM

This is perfect timing -- I was actually pondering making a request

to you for *exactly* this kind of overview.

Thanks (and don't stop!)

Posted by: Brett Porter | Jan 4, 2006 8:18:54 AM

Why do many teachers claim that they learned way more teaching

than they did as students? Many people would answer that

teachers spend more time with the material. This is true, but it

doesn't explain "why". In reality, the teacher has had to recall the

information way more than the student.

Recall is a muscle, the more it is exercised, the stronger it gets.

Supplementing everything Kathy has said with random recall points

will make the learning experience that much more efficient. Some

ideas:

- Quizzes

Short quizzes that force the student to recall older material. If you

can interlace different "aged" material in the quizzes, that makes it

even better. One example would be a quiz with questions on one

thing 5 minutes old, one thing 15 minutes old, and one thing 30

minutes old. The answers should be given out at the end for

confirmation and the learners informed of this ahead of time.

- Reverse roles

Let the student be the teacher for some things. Whether its as

simple as letting a student answer another student's question on a

previously covered topic or letting (making?) the student come up

and present on a topic with Q&A afterwards.

- Share the learning

Let the students get together in small groups and share what

they've learned. This one can be sort of magical because the

student will not only try and recall the information but will recall

the learning experience as well. "I really like the way she related

pointers to the postal address system." This is why I think seminars

are awesome for learning. People sit through various seminars and

in the breaks and pauses they will talk about it with the other

attendees. Bizang!

-------------------------------------------------

Could you please put some kind of divider between comments? Its

hard to tell where one comment ends and the next one starts.

Posted by: Bob B | Jan 4, 2006 8:26:46 AM

Very nice and useful post Kathy. Thanks

Posted by: Jan Korbel | Jan 4, 2006 8:46:37 AM

Great Stuff!

Where do you get all the photos for you graphic elements? I love

the faces.

Posted by: Matthew | Jan 4, 2006 9:31:11 AM

I was wondering the same thing Matthew was. And while I really do

want to keep reading your teachings I must confess that I have

often thought it would be way cool to invite you over for coffee

(seeing as I also live in Boulder.)

Posted by: Rachel Rosencrantz | Jan 4, 2006 10:08:37 AM

Two things worried me:

1 - Why the repetition of this 'kick ass' phrase? It doesn't trigger a

pleasant image, and the last thing I'd want to do is encourage

trainees to go round kicking each other, or anything else. Without

getting too PC, can't you find a less loaded phrase?

2 - Reading through I kept asking myself, "Yes, but how do we

know that?". There must be research on learning and teaching

methods (what are all these University schools of education

doing?). Why not link to some academic quantitative research to

back up your assertions (it would make them more believable). Not

that I doubt them, but they would be reinforced with some backup.

3 - (ok, three things worried me..) We are still getting arguments

and changes in policy (in the UK) at the simplest level of learning

i.e. HOW TO LEARN TO READ. If we don't really know that, how

can we know how best to teach people to do more difficult things?

Intuition is no help (as in the reading case).

W.

Posted by: Wally | Jan 4, 2006 11:26:28 AM

WTF!!!

Posted by: john | Jan 4, 2006 12:10:36 PM

Oustanding as ever!

Posted by: john | Jan 4, 2006 12:24:46 PM

I love the picture of the WTF girl. I know that look. I've *seen* that

look!

Not being from the UK, I can't help with a substitute for the "kick

ass" phrase. In the US it's perfectly acceptable. (Ok, maybe not at

my grandmother's house ;)

Wally, to your second point - Kathy has included links in the past,

but I'm guessing that due to the length of this post the links were

left out this time. But Kathy did say ...

"... I do have references, so leave a comment if there's something in

particular you want."

Posted by: Bill | Jan 4, 2006 12:54:33 PM

BOB: This is outstanding advice! Reverse-roles and share the

learning--something every classroom experience could use more of,

but even in an online forum, this is useful. Bert is always

encouraging beginners on the javaranch discussion boards to take

a chance *answering* questions for the reasons you give, and the

act of having to explain something makes it much more memorable

(and smokes out problems in thinking about it that you didn't know

you had). Of course, you have to make the people who are doing

this recognize that it's part of the learning experience and NOT

something they're supposed to be perfect (or even at this point

GOOD at). Thanks!

MATTHEW/RACHEL: most of the photos (except for the 50's pics)

are from one of two stock art collections, Hemerra and my

FAVORITE -- iStockPhoto.com. The 50's pictures are from a

Getty/Photodisc collection that periodically becomes available but

is often temporarily retired. Rachel, I'm always up for coffee! -

Send me an email : )

WALLY: I can always count on you to recognize when I'm being

especially lazy. Bill's right, most of the references are buried in

other posts, but I should have put the main ones in... so here they

are:

The 80/20 references (80% of what I talk about is covered by these

20% of the total references I have):

* Cognitive Scientist, early AI guru Roger Schank

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schank/schank_index.html

* Designing World Class E-Learning (by Roger Schank)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071377727/qid=1136405253/

sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/103-8742158-3923804?

s=books&v=glance&n=283155

* E-Learning and the Science of Instruction (by Ruth Colvin Clark,

Richard Mayer)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787960519/ref=pd_bxgy_text

_b/103-8742158-3923804?%5Fencoding=UTF8

(The book summarizes much of the research that's spread out

elsewhere)

* The Media Equation (Clifford Nass, Byron Reeves)

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=236605

(OK, yes, these ARE the guys who gave us Microsoft Bob -- but that

doesn't mean they don't have some of the best research out there

about human/computer interaction ; )

* Flow (by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060920432/103-8742158-

3923804?v=glance&n=283155

* The art of human-computer interface design (edited by Brenda

Laurel)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201517973/ref=pd_sim_b_3/1

03-8742158-3923804?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155

(Check out her book -- "Computers as Theatre", too)

* Mind Hacks

http://www.mindhacks.com/

(You can get to the book from their blog)

And while I'm here, another great reference for all this is the

Cognitive Daily blog:

http://cognitivedaily.com/?p=139

=====================

I'm not thrilled with the "kick-ass" phrase, or for that matter "I

Rule!" (which I also use a lot, because of their zero-sumness if you

take them literally--which we don't. But they're the best I can think

of for describing that "YES!" feeling you get when your code

compiles after intense debugging, or you sink the 3-point basket, or

make it down a mogul field in one go, or... but Wally's right that it

does rather imply that if you "kick-ass", then someone else is

getting their ass kicked. But here in the US, we don't necessarily

mean it that way. The only other one I have used is "rock", but

somehow it doesn't sound right to say, "You want to help your users

rock."

The rest are unwieldy... "You want to help your users learn and

grown and spend more time in flow" is what we're talking about,

but it's too tedious to keep saying that, and doesn't fit on a graphic

well ; )

I'm very open to suggestions and I'm going to keep in mind that not

everyone interprets this the way I do. Cheers.

JOHN: you made my day with WTF!

RABBIT: Recognizing what is and isn't working is the first step,

knowing WHY is even better. Of course my daughter Skyler has the

annoying habbit of pointing out to a few of her teachers all the

ways in which their classes do not support learning. But her history

and math teachers in 11th grade were awesome-- and had students

acting out important aspects of the topics, trading roles or playing

characters, anthropomorphizing, creating videos, all kinds of

interesting and interactive activities that made the topics come to

life. And these were big 'ol public school classrooms, too.

Posted by: Kathy Sierra | Jan 4, 2006 1:33:33 PM

Thanks for the post Kathy. Nicely summed up. There is stuff out

there to back up these points. I was glad to see the "why should I

care" section. How important to remember to ask that question

before we try to teach anything to any group. Put it in the big

picture.

Concerning the comment:

"Why not link to some academic quantitative research to back up

your assertions (it would make them more believable)."

Wally, I keep asking myself if that is what makes things

believable.We have so much quantitative research. It is coming out

of our ears and our kids are still not reading any better. Making a

big deal out of learning to read and quantifying it misses the point

of reading. Why spend years doing in school what a kid can pick up

in a few hours?

I come from the academic education setting, and maybe because of

that I am so skeptical of what mass schooling is capable of. At

home I have a "kick ass" nine year old reader who reads way

beyond her level, and a five year old just beginning to discover the

joy of being able to read on his own. He runs with his book and

reads to me in the kitchen, on the couch, and even in the bathroom.

Our house is full of books. I will never know what would have

happened if I had left the job entirely to school. We have been

reading to them since they could sit and hold their heads up.

Maybe the problem is leaving the reading to be taught in school.

We break it into measurable discreet units for the comfort of

teachers, for school board accountability records, and for bar

charts at the Ministry of Education. We teach those discreet units

instead of what fires up kids imaginations and gets them

emotionally involved. We write boring books with measured words

so we can neatly stack them in reading levels which will allow us to

do some "credible' quantitative research. While we are limiting the

variables and setting ourselves up to be able to conduct better

quantitative research, we are impoverishing the child's experience

and undermining their intellect. Unfortunately that doesn't do

much for the kids. They love complexity and grasping big ideas. We

must be kidding if we think we can dissect the bunny and in the

process find out what it would have been like to have it as a pet.

Then there are the attitudes to reading. We went to the Nutcracker

this Christmas for the first time. I could not help but notice that in

the scene with the opening of the presents, Fritz (Marie's brother)

got a book. He walked to the front of the stage, threw the book on

the floor and stomped on it. I am running into such attitudes to

books that are written with the purpose of hooking children on

reading.

So yes, we know good teaching when we see it, but then we try to

analyze it and quantify it and we make it worse. It is important to

approach some things with a sense that we do not have to

understand them entirely, even though it may be a worthy exercise

trying to.

What do you think?

Posted by: Daniela | Jan 4, 2006 2:38:01 PM

Excellent Kathy.

I'm now convinced you used to work for Toyota (or someone else

that applied the lessons of W Edwards Deming):

"The most compelling and motivating reason/benefit is almost

always the thing you say only after you've answered at least three

"Yeah, but WHY do I care?" questions."

This is their "5 Why?" technique in a parallel universe to you...

where they get down to root issues by the time someone's

answered the fifth "why?" question

As to "kicks ass"... this limey reckons it's the "Wow" factor. A

couple of times i've sold books on Amazon and - though serendipity

- discovered the buyers lived within 20 mins of me. The comments

you get back when they receive the book though their door inside

30 mins of order transmit that "wow" factor. People value speed -

especially when they are surprised by it.

But now back to apply the learnings :-)

Ian W.

Simplicity Sells!

Posted by: Ian Waring | Jan 4, 2006 3:23:31 PM

Wally,

I think that a lot of the problem with learning to read may really be

lack of interest. Many of the pointers in the above list could help.

I am reminded of the story of Lazerus and Hurricane Carter - in the

book Lazerus hasn't learned how to read - in part because of the

absolute stress of his home life and his inability to focus in class.

However he starts making progress when he is moved to a less

stressful environment, his self-confidence is boosted, and he gets a

book that interests him. Emotional response and interest took him

from stumbling over syllables to reading to writing letters, to

starting a whole chain of actions that changed other peoples lives.

I suspect that the reading isn't happening because it isn't

interesting and it isn't aimed at the children themselves. I don't

know how it is in the UK but in the US there is a lot of "teaching to

the test". You really want to teach to the student and the test will

take care of itself.

Why was it working before? Perhaps parents were more involved,

reading was more essential and/or the books used were more

topical to the students.

Posted by: Rachel Rosencrantz | Jan 4, 2006 10:02:14 PM

Regarding the issues of literacy, this is a piece that I wrote some

time ago - concerning the re-shaping of the American Education

system - based on the work of John Taylor Gatto. Some of his

findings make for alarming reading.

http://www.blather.net/shitegeist/2005/06/welcome_to_the.htm

Posted by: damien | Jan 5, 2006 3:33:34 AM

I raised the issue of 'learning to read' because it seems to bring out

the cognitive/pattern recognition dichotomy in training quite

nicely. And (it spite of what Daniela seemed to be saying) once we

in the UK started to measure progress (against the opposition of

teaching uninons as I recall) it was clear that many children were

NOT learning to read, and were functionally illiterate still at age

11, when moving from primary to secondary education. Our first

reaction was to define a period during each day for teachers to

engage with the children specifically in reading practice. Most

technique was left to the teachers. Progress was made, but now

although there are fewer children unable to read well at age 11,

there are still too many. We need another push. All this focus on

the problem brought out that reading was not natural like walking,

it needed method and practice and teaching. Dyslexia added

another dimension to this; it recently came out from research that

it isn't a condition people are stuck with at all, just a general

problem for slow readers. I feel sorry for policy makers and

legislators when our education research is so poor that such

important questions are still controversial.

We know so little about how the brain works and develops that the

kind of methods used based purely on anecdotes about what

worked for some in the past are not likely to be useful when applied

across classes and social groups and ages and ranges of

intelligence.

W.

Posted by: Wally | Jan 5, 2006 5:32:09 AM

This is terrific information - however to print the material out takes

42 pages. Can you provide a print version without the frames?

Posted by: Karryne | Jan 5, 2006 7:01:27 AM

I agree with Karryne - This is great info. Can you please provide a

print version.

Posted by: Phil | Jan 5, 2006 7:05:42 AM

Last Christmas, my son had a "Nutcracker"-reaction to receiving

books and I told him exactly what I thought of that. He loves books,

he just didn't want one of his gifts "wasted" on getting them. This

year, every gift he opened was greeted with

"Awesome!" ...including the package of books. He even made

remarks like "I love this one... We have this one at school... etc." So

he either learned the proper way to accept a gift, adjusted his

attitude toward books, or I just picked better books to give him this

year! :)

Either way, I think that even if the schools were doing a superior

job at teaching and practicing reading skills, it's like Daniela says:

it has to be encouraged at home as well. UK's second push, then,

should be to encourage parents to read to their children.

junior

Posted by: junior | Jan 5, 2006 8:38:58 AM

Hi Kathy,

This one is in the same category as Strunk and White's "Elements

of Style" and Steve Krug's " Don't Make Me Think" - read regularly

and keep working towards the standards you've all set. Thanks!

Posted by: Cathy | Jan 5, 2006 11:19:21 AM

Thanks, i love your blog and this was one of the best and inspiring

posts i read here so far!

Posted by: jay | Jan 5, 2006 2:01:12 PM

Wow.

Oh... hold on... My printer just ran out of paper.

Posted by: olivier blanchard | Jan 5, 2006 8:24:15 PM

Great Post! It's a keeper!

Posted by: Aaron | Jan 5, 2006 11:25:36 PM

Very interesting post ! And thanks for the "not-too-much" academic

style of your writing.. :)

--

jere

Posted by: jere | Jan 6, 2006 2:50:19 AM

Kathy! Wow, I LOVED this post. Surfing blogs at 4:00 a.m. can be

productive. As an educator myself, I try to adhere to all these

principles. And I agree with "if you teach it, they will come!" My

blog's about what I learn from each day, too - my observations,

reflections, ideas - along with what I see and capture with my

camera. I'll be adding you to my blog links, and will be visiting your

site from now on. :) Keeblogging!

Posted by: Joey | Jan 6, 2006 3:07:40 AM

Hello,

This is one of the best posts that i read recently. It's well written,

fun to read and has funny pictures ;-). Also of course the topic is

very intresting

keep up the good work!

Posted by: Nils | Jan 6, 2006 10:16:46 AM

Awesome post, Kathy. We dub you an honorary neurologist. You hit

it out of the park.

Posted by: Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide | Jan 6, 2006 11:46:48 PM

I just started writing my book yesterday, on a blog. :) Then I was

forwarded this site. It's a good set of reminders, no doubt.

Posted by: jerng | Jan 8, 2006 5:56:35 PM

Great advises! THANK YOU!!!

Posted by: Elena | Jan 10, 2006 10:05:13 AM

Wow! This is awesome! A great example!

Posted by: Doj | Jan 11, 2006 11:27:00 AM

This is a great post, and really full of excellent information. Thanks

for sharing!

Posted by: Chris Brogan... | Jan 12, 2006 9:20:29 PM

Heard about this post from another blog-- Full Circle Online

Interaction Blog:

http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/2006/01/kathy-sierra-crash-course-

in-learning.htm

It's so good (and fun) I'm featuring it in my blog...

~ Alex

Posted by: Alexander M Zoltai | Jan 14, 2006 5:09:24 PM

Actually, Nils (above) phrased his praise (sounds good that!)

exactly the way I would ... hey, are our names related (Nils <>

Niall/Neil)?

Nils wrote: "This is one of the best posts that i read recently. It's

well written, fun to read and has funny pictures ;-). Also of course

the topic is very intresting."

I've read it at least 5 times so far, bookmarked it on Delicious and

Furl, forwarded it to my boss and colleagues and promoted it in my

blog. If you ever travel to Hong Kong, please look me up and let me

take you for a coffee or any other poison you nominate ...

Finally ... I'd just like to add: I LEARNED lots from this posting ...

and isn't that the point? :)

Posted by: Niall Rigby | Jan 16, 2006 5:50:10 AM

Al Salam Alikom,

Hi,

One of the best articles that i read. Thank you.

Posted by: Moataz Al Ariny | Jan 16, 2006 10:51:17 PM

I am surprised about the way this article explain every step.

Posted by: Manuel | Jan 18, 2006 5:24:07 PM

Kathy, this is one of your best posts, ever!

The comments are fantastic, too, and I love the way your "students"

help answer each other's questions (the way people on javaranch

do).

After career chapters in academia and industry research, I've been

trying to learn sales, and alot of what you wrote about reminded

me of what I'm learning about sales ... and in some ways, I suppose

teaching might be viewed as "selling information" ... and perhaps

the entire education experience could be improved if students were

viewed as customers.

With respect to letting students make mistakes, I was reminded of

my "university professor" chapter in the 1980s, when our

department acquired two PCs, two carts and two transparency

projector overlays that could be used to mirror the contents of the

PC display on a big screen in a classroom. I would invite the

students to propose solutions to programming problems, type them

in on the screen, and we could all see the results ... and watching a

program go into an infinite loop or hit a run time error was far

more powerful than my simply telling them "don't do X, or Y will

happen." It was also a great learning opportunity for me, as they

sometimes proposed solutions I never thought of!

This got me thinking about a recent general thread I've been

pondering for a while. Perhaps because of my computer science

teaching background, I often view life through a computer

metaphor, and think about my range of actions in the world as

some blend of input, processing and output. Some comments by

you and others allude to how much more powerful a learning

experience can be when one [plans to] teach it. I mapped this onto

my current thread, and thought about how, as a teacher, I would do

input (learn information), processing (figuring out how to convey

the information [more] effectively), and output (teach), and so

maybe the extra processing and output stages are what help

reinforce the learning. But then it occured to me that students also

are doing input, processing and output (tests, homework, etc.) ... so

something about the output for students requires less processing

(and thus, often, results in less effective learning). I don't have this

very well worked out, but thought I'd mention it in case others have

(and want to share) greater clarity about this.

I _love_ your use of "kick ass" and "I Rule!" (one of many aspects of

your style that regularly brings a smile to my face). To me, these

are short, pithy and irreverent expressions of an exultant feeling of

triumph, and I agree with you that it need not be triumph over

another person (literally kicking someone's ass) but can simply be

the sense of triumph in solving a problem, or rising to meet some

challenge. I hope you won't stop using them, as I think they are

very much a part of your "signature".

And this brings me to the last issue I wanted to raise (about the

first issue you raised). I disagree with your assumption that "you're

just not that into me". I do agree that what draws many people to

this blog is what you write about (i.e., what you teach), but I also

believe that you are one of the most authentic people in the

blogosphere, and that you are not just about creating passionate

users, you are about creating passionate people (and creating

passion), and you model what it means to be a passionate person

and a fantastic teacher (and, on the flip side, great student). So I,

for one, come to this blog not _only_ because of what you write

about, but because of what you _are_ about (and who you are).

I'm glad you are taking time off, and I hope you continue to take

good care of yourself, because I care just as much about you as I do

about the great stuff you write about.

Posted by: Joe | Jan 19, 2006 3:43:18 PM

you are right!!!!!!!1......everything has to be done in a fuuny

way...sort of speaking......thank you for taking your time to teach us

something new.......

Posted by: jose duarte | Jan 23, 2006 7:35:43 PM

Nothing fancy or rational to add - just YEEOOWW! An utterly

brilliant post Kathy! Wd make a fantastic Change This manifesto??

Posted by: Steve Pearce | Jan 25, 2006 11:40:37 PM

I guess the best way to learn...is to teach!

Infact, learning and teaching are two sides of the same coin. Happy

teaching-learning!!

Posted by: Balakrishna.S (Balu) | Jan 26, 2006 12:12:03 AM

Wonderful article! It's really conversational and probably makes us

wonder what great learning possibilities we could have through

experimenting with some of these important components that are

highlighted in the article.

Actually I did also bring up many of the issues in my 52 minute

babling presentation (though far from the quality of this creative

master piece) some time ago, which I would like to share for fun

(knowledge sharing is power):

Title: Reflecting the Future e-Content Development Evolution in

Higher Education

URL: http://breeze.unitarklj1.edu.my/future/

Duration: 31 slides (Approx. 52 min) (Please forward those areas

that might bore you :))

(Which I presented 9th December during the ASEAN e-Learning

Seminar at Sunway Lagoon Resort, Malaysia)

Have Fun! We got to get together (virtually I suppose)some time to

share ideas and thoughts :)

That would be wonderful!

Warm Regards,

Zaid

Posted by: Zaid | Jan 26, 2006 4:28:22 AM

Thank you for this!! It has such incredible implications for music

educators! I put you in my new blog http://orff-field.blogspot.com/.

Posted by: OrffCub | Jan 30, 2006 6:59:55 PM

You are truly amazing! I have attended your presentation at

CUSEC 2006 and I can say that your presentation alone made the

whole conference worthwhile.

Having been inspired by your presentation, I started a software

library documentation wiki project to try out your ideas and

hopefully come up with more wonderful ideas to share.

This post will be so useful to the documentation project that I have

decided to make it a top reference material for the project

contributors.

I wish all of my university teachers had a chance to read this post.

Posted by: Kal | Feb 4, 2006 3:45:44 PM

very enjoyable and a great help in an emergency!!

Posted by: ger | Feb 7, 2006 2:39:11 PM

Great post! Really excellent.

Have you had a chance to take a look at a book called Presenting

Magically? It contains a couple of things that could be combined

very neatly with the stuff you are so eloquently sharing here.

Keep up the excellent work! Thanks for this discovery.

Posted by: alex | Feb 24, 2006 12:00:26 PM

amazing! Thank you so much!

Posted by: great stuff! | Feb 27, 2006 5:02:36 PM

Kathy -

This is a great post. I've stumbled upon it late, yet it fits in perfectly

with a Bob Pike seminar I heard in November and several speakers

I heard in March. In fact, one of them, Neil Lasher, will be coming

in from the UK to give a seminar on Instructional Design and

making points very similar to yours!

(http://www.trainer1.com/trainer1_training_instructional_design_co

urse.html)

I can't wait to hear him, and I'm thrilled I stumbled upon your post

and your blog. Looks like there will be yet another quality RSS feed

in my morning reading. Thanks!

Posted by: Michelle | May 17, 2006 6:34:16 PM

One of the best study which I have come across to help develop the

skill of study and presentation.

Posted by: Abraham Vadana OFM | Jul 6, 2006 1:29:48 PM

love your blog and this post in particular - always intrigues me to

see learning theory being taken seriously outside of the classroom -

more seriously than many schools - and your amazon rankings

speak for the success of the approach

anyway, i thought i better point out theres a problem with the

permalink to this post in the past favourites index which appears on

every page (it doesn't point to this post)

keep up the amazing work

Posted by: rob | Aug 22, 2006 7:54:59 AM

Excellent article!! This has really shed light onto aspects of

learning theories, I never truly grasped before. Thank you for

clearing them up for me...

Posted by: Bjorn Holdt | Oct 10, 2006 10:39:54 AM

This is an excellent article! I also love the idea of using blogs for

learning -- that's exactly what my blog is all about. :) I'm glad I

came across this today. Bookmarked!

Posted by: LearningNerd | Oct 31, 2006 11:07:36 AM

I’ve taken a quick look at your postings, which are very interesting.

Lots of material and ideas! Congrats on being so focused!I always

find something new and interesting every time I come around here

- thanks.

Posted by: Larry | Nov 2, 2006 4:05:48 AM

Finally we got it! Now you can read an italian translation too:

http://nilocram.altervista.org/spip/IMG/pdf/sierra_crash.pdf

Thank you Kathy!

Posted by: nilocram | Nov 24, 2006 2:28:36 PM

The facial expression pictures gave me an idea...

When organizing notes on a computer, or when reading text that is

editable, perhaps it'd aid recall if you stuck a little picture of an

attractive or cute face next to each section, or important bits.

Posted by: Jon H | Dec 10, 2006 11:37:32 PM

I found this post via Donna Benjamin's blog getting Planeted by

Linux Australia.

Other than getting the impression of you being beautiful and witty,

I feel impelled to say that this post illustrates what it’s saying so

very well. It’s amazing how much mental construction a wavy line

and some labels can add to a block of text. (-:

Thank you for putting it together for us.

(Leon Brooks, computer support, Perth, Western Australia)

Posted by: Leon Brooks | Dec 20, 2006 7:09:46 PM

This is a great article. I have studied educational theory, but I wish

my tutors had broken it down the way you have. I like this post

because it illustrates the points you are making.

Posted by: Sharon | Jan 17, 2007 8:35:21 AM

I completely agree with all that you've posted. I started an English

language institution in China whose basic tenants revolve around

the learning theory practices you are advocating. To learn English,

or any language, you really need to use it, experience it, make

mistakes, use it in context, have fun.

The state of language learning (or any learning for that manner) in

China is still very rooted in the one-way teacher->student model.

Kids sit in class, study English books and take tests on what they've

learned for 15 years of their lives. In the end, they enter society

with a large vocabulary and grammar rules bank but can't hold a

decent English conversation with foreigners.

Anyways, I'm glad there is some proven scientific theory to back up

learning theory in what we've created out here in China. You learn

by doing, by speaking, by experiencing. You can check it out here

at http://club,.talkdatalk.com (most of it is in Chinese - we're

translating to English ASAP)

Posted by: jim | Jan 29, 2007 12:39:11 AM

The easiest way to remember things: Transform them creatively

into a sexy, funny, violent, absurd, unnatural, comic strip like story

in which YOU are performing all of the actions (hitting, biting,

throwing, etc.) and reactions (laughing, crying, - wild emotional

swings). The transformation from items to be remembered to

tangible, sensory rich (smelly, noisy, tasty, feely, heavy, gross,

ridiculously colored...) physical items is by the SOUNDS of the

items spoken aloud: LINUX becomes a huge, talking piece of lint

wearing a tuxedo, acetaminophen becomes a "donkey" or "ass"

whirling a laso in the shape of an "@" sign - with a "minnow" (or a

"Minotaur") riding him holding on to the "fin" - in the shape of a

"pen" - growing out of his back! The highly imaginative story is the

"glue" that gives order to the items on the story's timeline.

Alternatively, you could imagine walking through any familar

building or space and encountering the "items" as you go - and of

course performing a completely absurd, humorous, violent or sexy

action with each and then reacting to the eventful encounter with

an emotion!! Now teach your story to someone else!!

We are designed to record and remember - and RELATE - unusual

things that happen to us in reality which are more likely to effect

our survival - scary, strange, sexy,humorous INTERACTIONS!!

Posted by: James Graff | Feb 19, 2007 8:45:11 PM

Nice article.. practical tips. I was wondering if you've visited

Learning Theories knowledgebase/webliography before? It'd be

interesting to see how this overlaps with some of those theories

and models.

Posted by: Ron | Mar 15, 2007 2:09:39 PM

its a good one ,,,

many things r here 2 lrn

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