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4 Laws of Learning

According to Jennifer Gonzalez, creator of Cult of Pedagogy

1. Keep the GPS on - Providing learning criteria and feedback

2. Classify, Connect, and Compare.

  • Concept Attainment: This strategy has students study Yes and No examples of a concept until they can begin to define that concept, then refine their definition by looking at more examples.

  • Graphic Organizers: Using these naturally gets students to classify, compare, and make connections between concepts. For graphic organizers to work best, teachers should explain their purpose, model their use, and for complex material, partially complete them (Hall & Strangman, 2002).

  • Inductive Learning: This strategy has students group chunks of content into categories and label the categories prior to learning about a new topic. Once their minds are primed from doing this work, they are then presented with the content in a more traditional way.

3. To Learn, We need to Churn.

  • Note-taking

  • Movement

  • Cooperative Learning

4. Better to Retrieve than Receive.

  • Low-Stakes Quizzes: Give students regular quizzes on your course content. Because these quizzes are meant to be practice, they should either be ungraded or given a minimal amount of points.

  • Flashcards: Teach students how to create and study flashcards, then set aside class time for them to study.

  • Brain Dumps: Give students a few minutes to write down everything they can remember about a topic they’ve learned in your class, then let them check their response for accuracy and completeness with the text, a classmate, or both.

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https://www.socialtables.com/blog/attendee-engagement/audience-engagement-strategies/

Maximizing your audience engagement plays a key role in professional development and the retention of the material. 

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The Jigsaw Method

When students are given the opportunity to contribute to a group, they also learn life skills such as communication and working within a timeline. This method also promotes collaboration and discussion, as well as self-motivated learning strategies. Students who work together learn to ask questions to clarify their understanding and provide critical feedback in appropriate manners. In addition, the jigsaw method in education effectively produces academic gains in problem solving and analyzing, two important cognitive skills.

Culturally Relevant 
Classrooms

" successful second-language acquisition relies on effective, explicit instruction and extensive practice, all while leveraging background knowledge"

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