Have you ever been introduced to someone only to have that person’s name slip your mind before the end of the conversation? Welcome to your brain. That’s how it works. We have very little long-term memory in the auditory modality.

Now let’s apply that simple reality to education. What’s the primary modality used for instruction in every subject area at every grade level? Whoops! We have a problem.

At the secondary level, we have lectures. But even in third grade, teacher presentations often run ten minutes or more. Too much talking. Too much sitting. Not enough doing.

Step one: Reduce the amount of stuff you give kids before asking them to do something with it.

Step two: Have the kids do something with it immediately before they have time to forget.

Successful instruction has a lot to do with packaging. There are only two ways to package student activity during a lesson. The first is the one we grew up with:

Input, Input, Input, Input Output

The second is the one that characterizes learning by doing.

Input, Output, Input, Output, Input, Output

Learning by doing focuses on performance. The teaching of performance is usually referred to as coaching.

You explain what to do next. You model what to do next. Then you have the student(s) do that step while you watch like a hawk. If there is error, you fix it immediately before it becomes a bad habit. You might repeat that step a few times to iron out the kinks. Then, when you are satisfied with performance, you proceed to the next step.

If lessons are packaged in that fashion, problems of cognitive overload and forgetting are nearly eliminated, while student engagement is maximized. In addition, assessment is continuous, not something that’s separated from performance and delayed until its relevance is lost.

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