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CITE SUMMARY: 5 Strategies to Demystify the Learning Process for Struggling Students
By Deborah Farmer Kris
1. The Hiker Brain vs. The Race Car Brain
Start by teaching students the difference between focused and diffused thinking. Diffused thinking occurs when you allow your mind to wander, to imagine and to daydream. Toggling is essential to learning, teachers and students need to build downtime into their day — time when learning can “happen on background” as you play a game, go on a walk or color a picture.
2. Chains and Chunks
In cognitive psychology, “chunking” refers to the well-practiced mental patterns that are essential to developing expertise in a topic. Teachers can help students identify the procedures in a unit of study that they need to master in order to take their learning to the next level — from the steps of the scientific method to fundamental drawing techniques.
3. The Power of Metaphor
The formal term for this is “neural reuse” — the idea that metaphors use the same neural pathways as the concept a metaphor is describing. So familiar metaphors allow a learner to draw on a concept they have already mastered and apply it to a new situation.
4. The Problem of Procrastination
This strategy uses a timer to help the learner work and break at set intervals. First, choose a task to accomplish. Then, set a timer for 25 minutes and work until the timer goes off. At that point, take a five-minute break: stand up, walk around, take a drink of water, etc. After three or four 25-minute intervals, take a longer break (15 – 30 minutes) to recharge.
5. Expanding Possibilities
You can broaden your passions enormously. And that can have enormous implications for how your life unfolds.
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