How to help students learn and remember

Like many people, I am interested in how we learn and had these questions:

• How to help students learn concepts, apart from facts and problem-solving?
• How to help students remember what they have learnt?

Understand concepts in every classroom session

Eric Mazur, a professor at Harvard, found his lectures to be ineffective and devised a system for students to understand concepts. Though he applied his method to Physics classes, it may be modified to suit other subjects. After the system was used for ten years in various universities, it was modified based on feedback.

Watch Prof. Mazur explain his method (full video, abridged), or read his original article and the modified one. For convenience, I have summarized his argument and method below:

• Lecturing adds value only if the teacher is exceptional in engaging students - even a talented and experienced professor like Mazur could not cut it with just conventional lectures which is why he came up with the system.
• Students pass exams with rote learning and by memorizing problem solving techniques without understanding concepts well. Conversely, understanding concepts leads to better problem solving capability.
• In his method, the teacher no longer covers the entire lecture material in the class. Rather, the teacher explains a key concept and conducts a concept test.
• If most students answer correctly, he explains the answer and then goes on to the next concept.
• If a significant number of students haven't understood, he repeats the lecture at a slower pace, and conducts the concept test again.
• Students read lecture notes before class, and work out problems after class.
• The system could be adapted for lower classes to reduce/eliminate work done outside class.

Techniques used in the system

Spaced repetition: read this post which describes it and has links to related material. For effective use of spaced repetition, a semester must have at least one, or possibly two, mid-term tests. Otherwise, the student would have forgotten the first few lessons at the time of the final semester exams.

Another important aspect of the system is the immediate feedback that the student gets. Read this inspiring story of how good training and timely feedback helped kids from a humble background to win chess tournaments in the US.

In India, similar techniques have been used through the ages - in education, in the teaching of fine arts, Yoga etc.

Other learning techniques

Teachers could assign projects that test understanding of concepts (parents may help as long as children learn).

At home, students must revisit and recall what was learnt in class (Spaced Repetition again).

Students can also be asked to do the following:

• Create mind maps.
• Create learning material using flash cards or software like Anki, which can be used for Spaced Repetition.
• Explain the subject to oneself or to an imaginary student. Till the student is sure about the topic, it's important to check against the book to know whether the student got it right.

Parents too may use the same principles at home to help children learn and remember. Learning is a vast topic, there's a lot to discuss.