I remember one of my strongest students asked me to give her
an example of a concept which we had just went over. I thought for a while and then gave her an
example in which I thought perfectly demonstrated the concept which we just
learned.
After I was finished speaking my student looked at me and
said, “I hope you do not think that helped me” I was surprised, I thought the
example was perfect, yet she thought it was of no help. How can two people be so far apart? Does this happen in day to day conversation?
This was in the back of my mind when I read about this
research. The psychologist set up a game
in which there were two groups of people.
One group was the tappers and the other group was the listeners. The tappers were given twenty-five well known
songs (happy birthday). Each tapper was
asked to pick out a song and tap out the rhythm to the listener.
The listener’s job was to guess the song based on the
tapping (you can do this with friends). During
the experiment 120 songs were tapped out and the listeners guessed 3% (3/120)
correctly. Before the listeners guessed
the name of the song the tappers were asked to predict the odds that the
listener would get it correct. They
predicted 50% would get it correct.
So, what happens is that when the tapper taps they hear the
tune in their head so that they think the listener can hear the tune. The tappers are amazed that listeners cannot
get the tune correct. Just as I was
amazed at how my student could not follow my example. It made perfect sense to me so I thought it
would make sense to her.
How can we overcome this problem? Keep your message simple. When I was working for Domino’s Pizza our
message was 2,000 or more in 84. Our
goal was to have 2,000 stores by the end of 1984 (more than double the size of
the company at the start of the year).
This message was simple in that it allowed everyone from the CEO to the
drivers at the stores to understand the goal of the company. It also made decision making easy because no
idea was approved unless it helped us build more stores. Achieving the goal was complex but the
message was simple.
Now thinking back to my example, was probably too complex. Now I try to just answer questions in the
simplest way possible.
Oh maaaAAANNN am I learning this lesson HARD in my directing class!! Storytelling is such a valuable skill but not an easy one to learn!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree
ReplyDeleteI think this concept has to do with the perspective and the life experiences of one person to another. I've had this happen to me in class where I asked for an example of a relationship in a book we were reading, my teacher was very clear and concise with his response but I had no idea where he was coming from.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this happens in certain classes a lot. All teachers have a different style of teaching that doesn't necessarily match the learning style of the student. Some students may not understand certain topics while other immediately get it. I think the student could use different resources and even other teachers to see topics from a new perspective.
DeleteI agree Jack that prior knowledge has a lot to do with understanding and communicating. Might be my blog for next week.
ReplyDeleteFantastic article, yet again.
ReplyDeleteI believe that everyone perceives everything in their own particular way. This can be a very problematic or beautiful thing depending on the situation. Take for example the 8th grade Calvert Hall challenge that I attended. My group of 4 had to solve a variety of problems and i believe that our ability to perceive each question and problem in a different manor allowed for us to come to an answer that we wouldn't have been able to come up with on our own. This can also be a bad thing like working with a group at your job that you dont seem to work well with. Perceiving "tones" differently can make it difficult to work as a team.
ReplyDelete-Vincent Young
When I heard your example of the learning separation between you and the student I immediately thought of one thing. When I record myself talking I hear myself sounding a certain way. When I play the recording back the voice is almost unrecognizable. So I can understand why you thought you were giving the student great advice just for her to say that it did not help her at all. Just like my voice sounds one way to me but completely different when it is played back through recording. It is very important for students to let teachers know if the advice they are given doesn't help them because the teacher will think that they are helping the student but in reality, they could be hurting the student's learning ability.
ReplyDeleteStephen Ryan 441-2