Topic: What Is Learning?

10-second review: Proverb: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Source: N Quisenberry & M Willis. Language Arts (September 1975), 885. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: To the degree that students see the application of what they have learned, they will both remember and understand. Several years ago, I observed a 7th-grade science teacher who taught students the facts about the circulatory system from a textbook. The students were bored. She then distributed articles from Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report on the use of the circulatory system in today’s medicine. The students were amazed at how knowledge of the circulatory system was being applied in today’s medicine. They were also fascinated by the questions that arose from working with the circulatory system in modern medicine. They could not stop talking about it.

Suggestion: Before planning your lessons on a topic, check the topic on the Internet. You will be amazed at what you find, sometimes thousands of hits. RayS.