H1.—Honor student diversity and development. To me, this means I need to understand the diverse ways in which students learn, and apply that information so as to provide learning experiences that optimize student growth and the acquisition of knowledge. One way of attending to the needs of students, specifically relating to the ways in which their brains are developed to absorb information, is to follow Medina’s (2008) suggestion to continually re-expose students to information over time. Figure 1 shows a section of Medina’s (2008) chapter on “Long-Term Memory” and provides a description of why delivering information in “deliberately spaced repetition cycles” is an effective and fixative way of helping students remember, and later retrieve, what they have learned (p.132):

Figure 1

This passage is a small portion of the assigned reading I completed as part of EDU 6132. I highlighted a few different sentences in the section because much of what is learned is quickly forgotten in the first couple hours after class and this passage suggests ways to combat that. Knowing how my students’ brains function directly informs my teaching strategies, as Medina (2008) suggests that memorable and effective lesson planning requires creating a time and place for “deliberately spaced repetition cycles” (p.132). I have given thought to what “deliberately spaced repetition cycles” might look like in the classroom and it has extensive implications for teachers. Teachers must not only repeat information, but do so slowly and over the course of days, weeks and months to help students retain information and slowly build on their existing knowledge base. An example of repeated exposure is to have students read and restate objectives at the beginning of a lesson, self-asses personal progress or understanding of the objective during the lesson, and then paraphrase or evaluate the objectives at the conclusion of the lesson. This type of repetition cycle would be concluded over the course of a day, but is deliberately spaced out and allows students repeated exposure to and interaction with the key components of a lesson. On a larger scale, when designing a unit, the first lesson may begin with a detailed description of a general concept while subsequent lessons re-expose students to the concept, and include explanations of the relationships between the concept and increasingly detailed information, examples or applications. To further increase memory and the effectiveness of spaced intervals of repetition, it is beneficial to present the most important information at the

beginning of a lesson or lesson segment because students will likely become disengaged after about ten minutes unless something deliberately done to regain their attention (Medina, 2008, p.89-90). The more our brains pay attention, the more likely we are to absorb and retain information, so this information about development should also be taken into consideration as part of designing lessons that are worth remembering.

Reference: Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.