The Power of Novelty

The Power of Novelty

The best thoughts come at the most unexpected times.

On the drive to Wednesday night soccer practice, my 13-year-old son started to tell me about how the drive had him thinking about his science class and the things they were learning.  “Like right now, I’m thinking about inertia.”

No, this is not about to turn into a lesson on Newton’s Laws, and all the things that you have long since forgotten from your own science background.

And, YES!  This did quickly become a lesson from me to my son about brain science, pedagogy, and life.  Poor kid.  He never stood a chance!

After we clarified the meaning of inertia (and he reminded me about the importance of “wait time”… he got the meaning of inertia on his own, but I bit through my tongue for at least 3-4 minutes before it happened), I tried to explain to him how adults use the word inertia in colloquialisms. 

“Some guy is sitting on the couch watching football on a Saturday afternoon.  His wife comes in and says “I thought that we talked about you cutting the grass and washing the car?  You’re still sitting in the exact same spot I left you!!”  To which the husband shrugs and says “Yeah… inertia.”

Ok. Crickets, right?  I know.  But that’s where we are at right now in my humor development. 

Anyway, he then started telling me about things he wonders.  Would he really fly through the windshield if the seatbelt didn’t hold him back?  How long could he last in the woods with only beef jerky and a flashlight?  If someone else could climb into his body, would they experience the sensation of his back and bottom pressing on the car seat as pain?

Each and every one of them tempting, but I can’t resist that last one.  So I start to explain to him that there is a system in his body – the reticular activating system – whose job it is to decide what is worth paying attention to.  We talk about how there is a non-stop barrage of sensory information bombarding the brain from second to second.   The brain cannot possibly pay attention to all of it, so it throws most of it in the garbage can.  The RAS helps take care of that process.

The things that make it through this gatekeeper tend to be things that are either threatening (activating our fight or flight response) or novel!  We can drive past 100 telephone poles, and the RAS says “pole, pole, pole… who cares”.  But when one of those polls is one fire, or leaning over the street, or bright yellow, or has a red-tail hawk perched on it, NOW we are paying attention.

As teachers, we are up against significant competition for students’ attention.  Devices are omnipresent.  Headphones (earbuds? Did I date myself??) are semi-permanently attached to their heads.  The internet is everywhere.  So how do we make our content matter?  It has to get past the RAS.  Since threatening our students and activating their fight or flight should not be considered as one of our options, we need to remember the power of novelty!

Drop me a line and let me know your favorite ways to shake up the room, build curiosity, or grab their attention and get them wondering what on earth you are up to.  I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time, Do yourself proud. Be a leader.

Chuck

"Touches"

“One of the fastest ways to make a kid lose the passion for anything is not getting them involved,” says two-time USA Hockey Olympian Guy Gosselin.

If you want an athlete to stay engaged in practice, they need to get a lot of touches.  "Touches", for those less than athletically inclined out there, refers to contact with the ball/puck/whatever.  You need to scoop a grounder, take a face off, catch a pass, throw a pass, rip a shot, save a shot.  You need the ball/puck/thing around you to stay engaged.

In the classroom, we see the same thing.  The traditional "direct instruction" lecture, where I stand in the front of the room and grace my students with a 45-minute monologue that demonstrates my mastery of the content yields very few touches.  Students sit in a passive state.  Only the most motivated will stay engaged and learn.

How important is it to give your students touches?  Again, let's frame it in the context of sports:

“One properly-run practice is the equivalent of 11 games when it comes to puck touches,” 

says Ty Hennes of USA Hockey.

11 games!!!  

So what are the keys?  How does an educator ensure that his or her students are getting enough touches?  What if you throw the ball to them and they don't catch it?

Types of touches:

• teacher to student (this is you asking questions, checking for understanding, getting someone involved)
• student to teacher (students are now asking questions, posing "what if" questions, responding to questions, commenting on content)
• student to student (group work, feedback loops, turn and talk)

What creates opportunities for touches?

PLANNING.  Just like any coach has a well-planned practice, teachers need to own the fact that planning and student engagement go hand in hand.  You might be able to wing it here and there and get away with it.  Heck, some of my most brilliant moments as a teacher were "wing-its"!  But it should not be your modus operandi.  There's too much at stake, and they deserve your best.  

Plan the content you intend to cover, and think a LOT about how it will be done.  When you see the lesson happening in your mind's eye, it should be full of student "touches".

COMMUNICATION. Tell them what they are going to do.  Show them how to do it.  Then get out of the way and let it happen.  If a correction needs to be made, step in, re-demonstrate, then back out again.   Use quick, targeted feedback.  

PERSEVERANCE. You will be tested.  There will be awkward silences.  Don't give up.  There's not a kid out there that wants to fail.  Stay close, listen, and help them find a way to succeed.

NOVELTY.  Keep in mind that the sensory systems are flooding the brain with information every microsecond.  There is far too much to process, so most of what comes in gets ignored.  Including YOU!  Make sure that you are reaching out to their brains by placing novelty into your lessons.  Yes, procedures and routines are valuable tools in their own right.  But to find be their guru, you need to inject novelty into the day-in, day-out of your classroom.

To quote Bobby Howe, Director of Coaching Education for the U.S. Soccer Federation, "having fewer players on the field:

• Reduces the size of the "swarm";
• Creates more touches;
• Does not allow players to "hide" or be excluded from the activity;
• Presents realistic but simple soccer challenges;
• Requires players to make simple but realistic soccer decisions;
• Realistic Experience + Fun = Improvement in Play"

Sound like things you would like to say are happening in your classroom?

Sound like a way to get kids "more touches"?

Sound like a way to 

increase engagement and learning?

Get in there kid!  

You're in the game!!!!

60secPomodoro2

This video is the follow-up to the original 60 Seconds to Scholarship.

In this clip, you will be introduced to how this timer app can increase your productivity.



Leave a comment and let me know what you think!



CK

60secPomodoro

Oh Captain, My Captain!

Recently I was asked to schedule a conference with my son’s soccer coach.  Much like the conferences I had just attended at his school, it was to include the coach, my son, and his parents.  We would review his progress, listen to any comments or feedback from my son, and set some goals for his future growth.

A little background:  It’s a travel team, which plays year round.  When he’s not playing the game himself, my son follows a team in the British Premier League with fervor.  Their crest decorates his room, adorns his clothing and school backpack, the their app is forever alerting him to their progress.  He even styles his hair in the fashion of the players he admires!  To be sure, he’s “all in”. 

In the course of the discussion, the coach reveals that he intends to name my son as a captain of his team for the coming season.  My son, while quiet and reserved, is clearly stoked!  He dutifully sits through the rest of the conference, listens to feedback, and questions from his parents. 

Near the end of our time, to my son I asked, “Do you know what it means to be the captain?”  He was sure he did.  Being the captain, he said, meant running warm-ups for his teammates, helping the team stretch out before a game, and interacting with the referee for coin toss and such during games.

“Not at all,” says his coach. “It’s just the opposite of all those things you said.  Being captain means continuing to do what you have been doing so far.  The things that earned you a chance to be captain in the first place.”  He went on to say that being captain meant working hard, all practice, every practice.  It meant having high standards, and never giving up.  “All those things you said, about running stretches and referees… that’s just what you get to do because of the rest of it.  It’s not about that though.  It’s about effort, consistency, and dedication.”

As a dad, I’ve said these words to him countless times.  But I know well enough that it comes through a different channel when someone else says it.  How thankful I am that there are other adults in his world to reinforce the lessons that mean so much to me. 

Real effort impresses the heck out of me… much more so than talent.  Dedication matters.  A lot.  Doing the best that you know how to do every chance you get, and being humble and open to learning how to do it better from those around you that can. 

These lessons, this potential for impact…it’s why I teach, and what I hope comes across to every student I encounter.  In the earlier years, it’s probably more important than the content of any given course.

Great job, son.  I’m really proud of you.