Spiraling the curriculum to get sticky learning | Kristin Phillips | TEDxKitchenerED

Kristin is a school principal who is passionate about working with teachers to help students learn in a way that sticks through spiralling curriculum. Through her funny and engaging talk, she shares the power of recursive teaching in math with some phenomenal results for student learning through changing teacher practice.

Kristin Phillips has a passion for educational change. She works closely with teachers and administrators at the school and board level to bring about pedagogical change based on current research and practices.

Her current interest is "recursive teaching" in order to better engage students and promote learning that "sticks". She is currently a principal at a grade 7-8 school in Kitchener, ON.

[myronsilver]

Sticky learning works very well for elementary school math when using a chess set. Fold the board in half to teach the 4 times table. You can also talk about fractions, area, rectangles, and squares. Introducing chess notation on the 8x8 grid with rows 1 to 8 and columns a to h is a great introduction to the Cartesian coordinate system. Math should be fun and chess can help kids have fun with math in many ways. It provides a perfect opportunity to apply Sticky Learning.

[myronsilver]

Following Kristin’s talk has been one by U of BC brain researcher Dr. Lara Boyd. Her research on neuroplasticity may help explain some of what is necessary for sticky learning to take place.
Boyd describes how our brain can change in 3 basic ways to support learning.
1) Chemical: Transferring chemical signals between neurons triggers a series of actions and reactions. Learning can occur rapidly as our brain increases the concentrations of chemical signaling. This is what is taking place in short term memory or short term improvement of a motor skill.
2) Altering brain structure: Over time the physical connections between neurons changes as long term learning takes place. Without changes in brain structure, learning will not stick over time.
Long term learning requires brain regions to change structure and enlarge to accomplish specific tasks and become integrated networks.
3) Alternate function: Increased use of a brain region makes it easier to use that region. With learning whole networks of the brain change in concert.
Boyd concludes that learning requires practicing tasks with increasing difficulty and that these tasks will vary significantly between individuals requiring individualized learning. “Study how and what you learn best. Repeat those behaviors that are healthy for your brain.”

[bluebilberry]

This is absolutely correct - my biggest gains have been in those situations where I have been able to arrange the curriculum to be not just spiralled but properly and fully spaced, interlaced, relational and interleaved.

[kashmiramorar]

people learning, in which ever level of study will forget information learnt because it is not completely important or not completely interesting to them in living their everyday lives. so it goes to their short term memory and any information probably first goes to the short term memory, because only if we keep learning the same information in the same sentences, then it will be easier to remember. and there's such as lot of information to study that we have to make memory for it. so we forget. we only remember a little about some subjects. and it will continue to be that way, which is fine, because there's no improvement which may be done which is not already being done in schools.

[MarciaArleneDebra]

It is a most inefficient method. What happens with spiraling: the teacher starts to teach something, it is not taught in its entirety, the evaluation following the unit reveals that the students do not have a thorough understanding, but they move on with the intention that they will return to it when they teach another aspect of the topic. At the beginning of the next step up, a review will be given of the unit which was previously covered-the previous knowledge is now required for an understanding of this new unit- the teacher tells the student that is a review, and reminds them that they have done that before. Most of the students cannot remember because it was not learned to mastery. A superficial review will be done, but that review will not be sufficient for students who never had a deep understanding. They begin a more advanced aspect of the topic, and the children will not understand, and they move on again with the same intentions that it would be reviewed when the time comes.
I witnessed a fraction lesson once. At the start of the lesson a worksheet was given for a review of what was previously taught. The first teaching involved adding fractions with different denominators, but sharing common factors which made it easy to find the Lowest Common Denominator(LCD)- inspection- to convert the fractions into equivalent fractions with a common denominator; there were also denominators that required the computation of an LCD using prime factorization. This method which is a generic method that can be used in solving any addition or subtraction was never taught before. The students could not do the questions that required the use of primes, because they never learned it. However, the lesson continued and they moved to problem solving using a pizza that was to be divided and each person needed different toppings. In order to solve this problem you needed to find the LCM- to calculate the number of slices- and no one including the teacher understood this. She got the number of pieces required from the answer book which did not give an explanation. The question also required that 2/3 of the people requiring mushrooms wanted double cheese, and pandemonium ensued. The truth was, they never mastered fractions, and the things that were asked needed to have been taught specifically. There are very few students who can thumb the depths of a topic without extended teaching.
Teaching problem solving requires mastery of content, and students needs to be given different representations of the content and how it could be used. When a topic is taught, it is presented in a limited way, and over specific using familiar situations. However, problem solving requires cognitive flexibility, and transfer, and both situations require awareness of the full scope of the use of how what is learned can be used. Regular teaching that takes place in school is not structured to provide flexible thinking. This requires reaching beyond the basics, and showing students the full extent of the use of what is learned. Transfer is not automatic.
Spiraling is not the same as the techniques for concretizing things in the mind that is promoted by Robert and Elizaberh Bjork-interleaving, spacing, massed practice. The study cited was carried out on people taking a test after using different methods of study. People were being tested in things they had learnt and were trying to reinforce. Many years ago there was an article in a BC newspaper with the headline "Things don't add up in the BC classroom." It told about the devastating effects of the spiraling curriculum on BC's math performance. It compared Quebec's math performance with that of BC, and concluded that Quebec's math curriculum was linear, and was responsible for its stellar performance. Bjork's methods were recommended for studying to remember, and it is very effective for that purpose.
Students do not remember because they are not taught to mastery.

[rmb]

She already looks older than a lot of grandmothers I know. The lady she keeps using in the picture is like a great-great grandmother.

[sophiemoconnell]

What an engaging, funny and informative talk. Thank you, Kristin.

[scottphillips]

This is great information for ANYONE who teaches ANYTHING!

[theresamuschkat]

I really enjoyed your TED Talk and I am fascinated by this concept! Where do I get more information? I'm looking for resources for Gr.7.

[aileenfelsher]

I would like to see an example of a spiralled long range plan for math.

[humbertogarcia]

Thank you, superb explanation of this very interesting concept.

[fraslex]

Spiral curriculum is the oldest form of curriculum. But everything old becomes new in curriculum theory!

[Mr.H-xyqm]

Honestly, this talk is a lot of common sense. Psychology has proven countless times that learning is done through frequent repetition, increased complexity and integration of the senses and various brain lobes. Asian populations have been doing this for some time, however they also have a culture that simultaneously highly respects and emphasizes education. Regardless of that, I have yet to understand why people act as though this is some "break through" in learning and in Western Culture. It's really not, it's common sense. We should have been doing this from the start as soon as a student enters education. Also..."sticky learning?" We can't come up with a term that doesn't sound like a 7 year old created at the playground?

[LindaDwyer-fn]

got bored 3minutes in....should i push through the boredom?