The Architecture of

Teaching & Learning

Peter Morville, IA Summit 2016, Atlanta

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“Think Until Your Brain Hurts!”

The Architecture of Teaching & Learning

Why Care? Practices Conversation

Planning

e t r i e v a ln t e r l e a v i n ga r n i s h i n gr g a n i z a t i o ne f l e c t i o n

RIGOR

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D e s i r a b l e

D i f f i c u l t i e s

L e a r i n g i s d e p e r

a n d m o r e d u r a b l

w h e n i t ’ s e f f o r f u l .

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To Learn, Retrieve

•  we rapidly lose 70% of what we read or hear

•  re-reading texts (massed practice) is common, ineffective

•  students who read passage, then took test, retained 50% more

•  give quizzes before and after lessons; not multiple choice!

•  cumulative learning accrues like compound interest

A B B

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Researchers initially predicted that massed practice in identifying painters’ works (studying many examples of one painter’s works before moving on) would best

help students learn the defining characteristics of each artist’s style. The researchers were wrong. The

commonalities proved less useful than the differences.

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To Learn, Interleave Your Practices

•  mixing skills, subjects, problem types (interleaving)

•  in one study, it boosted test performance by 215%

•  what kind of problem is this? (assess context)

•  feels slower, so it’s unpopular, seldom used

•  sleep enables memory consolidation (spaced practice)

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Add Meaning by Making Connections

•  Explain new material in your own words

•  Connect new ideas to what you already know

•  Frame new knowledge in a larger context

•  Memory is like Velcro (tiny hooks + loops)

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Organize Ideas into Mental Models

•  a set of interrelated ideas, a sequence of motor skills

•  extract key ideas è organize into mental model è connect to prior knowledge è better learning

•  experts struggle to teach novices; different precision durability transfer

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To Reflect, Look Back and Within

•  what you did, what worked, how might do differently

•  spaced retrieval, new connections, visualization

•  what we know about what we know, and how we learn

“People who as a matter of habit extract underlying principles

or rules from new experiences are more successful learners than

those who take their experiences at face value.”

Peter Morville @morville � Apr 26

I’m planning to write a book about planning. And I’d love your help! intertwingled.org/planning-book/

Like search, planning is a literacy that’s not taught in school. Yet, it’s a key to success in life and work. We plan for births, weddings, careers, retirements, and deaths. We plan events, trips, projects, and systems. We do it all the time, but we make the same mistakes.

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“One of the most common myths of agile software development is that agile teams don’t plan. In fact, agile teams do a much more thorough job of planning than many traditional project teams.”

short iterations, pairing, daily standups, last responsible moment, tests, fail fast, feedback, reflection

“Planning is a skill, and the only way to get better is to practice.”

MAKE PLANNING VISIBLE

GoalPathHere & Now

Risks, Estimates, Metrics

Play, Practice, Prototype

Feedback, Reflection

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The Architecture of Teaching & Learning

Why Care? Practices Conversation

Planning

e t r i e v a ln t e r l e a v i n ga r n i s h i n gr g a n i z a t i o ne f l e c t i o n

RIGOR

Thank You!

@morvi l le