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Creative Teaching, Teaching Creativity, And A Forbidden Cramming Technique

November 14, 2017 / Oskar Cymerman

Creative Teaching and Teaching Creativity + Cramming

Witaj przyjacielu!

That means Welcome friend! in Polish. If you want to pronounce the first word: Witaj correctly the best way to do it is to think of the letter V and a neck-tie. So, next time you see a Polish friend you can impress them by greeting them with a V-tie followed by their name. To remember this word and it's pronunciation better just close your eyes and imagine a V-shaped necktie. Say it a couple of times. Got it?

If you made any kind of effort I bet you do. And, if you actually imagined the V-shaped necktie you are likely to recall the word quite easily next time you see a Polish person. It's because you used a few strategies that are not common practice in life or school.

A creative teacher might break down the word into V and tie the way I did. But how many teachers tell you to consciously use your imagination each time you try to remember something? How many understand how the brain learns and intentionally leverage that knowledge in the classroom to help their students learn better? How many observe their learners for who they are, not who they want to mold them into, and teach strategies that are unique, counterintuitive, but effective?

I don't know about your past teachers, but this is not who my teachers in Poland were. You see, communist Poland of my youth was a place where creativity was crushed and compliance compulsory. But this approach did quite the opposite. While many people appeared to comply with the demands of the totalitarian iron curtain regime at school or work they resisted them and everything the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) stood for in their minds and homes.

I remember the conversations my parents, uncles, aunts, friends etc. were having at the time. They were mostly about ways to circumvent the censorships, bans, and prohibitions. The artistic community, with the writers and the moviemakers leading the effort, was always able to create works that subliminally and cleverly ridiculed the system and its leaders. What happened was... the lack of freedom led to the increased craving for and the very expression of free will and freedom of thought.

And that's precisely the point! Tell a human she can't do something and she will prove you wrong. Forbid him and he might nod in silence, but as he's walking away his head begins to fill with ideas. Then their actions counteract your teachings.

This was the communist Poland of the 80s and before, but I am reminded of it often in conversations with students and colleagues. Creativity is crushed in American schools. Often quite unconsciously and unintentionally teachers crush student creativity.

Learning is prescribed all the while it should be created. Formal schooling is necessary. Compliance is compulsory but should be voluntary. We even teach them to control their breathing so they can hold it together and comply better...

But humans are hardwired for addictive behavior. Phone, Snapchat, YouTube, gaming, coffee, candy, forbidden things, YES I WANT MORE the brain screams.

Except that teachers the EXPERTS know better, right?

And yet the best way to learn is to teach it to yourself. Wanna learn how to fix cars? Pop the hood and fix the car. Maybe you'll find a better way to do it than what they showed on YouTube. Wanna learn how to cook? Find a recipe on Pinterest, buy the ingredients, and cook that chicken dinner! And don't forget to add your own flavor because you thought that it might taste better if you add a pinch of chili powder and a tablespoon of honey.

But this is not how we teach it. The formula in the book is always the same, so Learn it the right way or else you fail! we say.

Hey!

How about we teach students how to cram better? C'mon. Step over to the dark side for this one! I'll be your hooded and cloaked guide and we'll practice the dark arts in secrecy so no one knows we are teaching kids things the system says are W R O N G.

What say you?

We'll even tell them that others don't want us to teach this stuff. This way they'll learn it really well.

Psych!

So here's my...

Last Resort Cramming Technique

It is an excerpt from my latest project, an upcoming all-in-one book, guide, and workbook Crush School Notebook: 12 Weeks To Better Learning.

The crazy thing about the strategy above is that it uses spaced repetition all the while you're cramming. It's still a far cry from spacing out studies over several days or weeks, but beats studying just once on the night before a test.

Use it or don't - the choice is yours. I'm just throwing it out there to see what you think.

Peace. Love. Thanks.

Oskar

You have the power to change lives. Use it often.

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Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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categories / Teaching
tags / focus, deep work, productivity, teaching teens, parenting teens, CRAMMING, procrastination, deeper learning, learning, teaching

How To Stop Procrastination (+ A FREE Lesson To Teach It)

October 26, 2017 / Oskar Cymerman

Hi!

Today, I'd like to share with you a lesson I created on helping students (and other procrastinators) stop procrastination.

As I am writing this I am realizing I am procrastinating. I am taking a break from designing my 12-15 week brain-based program to help students learn faster while retaining more. I am putting it all in my new project Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier I plan to finish by July 27, 2018. It is a series of engaging lessons parents can buy for teens to use on their own or teachers can use in their classrooms to help students become better learners.

The book will contain brain-based and accelerated learning techniques to help students train their brain for optimal performance. It's the stuff we don't traditionally teach, but should because knowing how to learn and apply information quickly will be the biggest determinant of our students' future success.

Anyways, I figure I am about half-way through and would like your feedback on the lessons...

Last week, I shared the Spaced Practice Lesson I created for the book. You can grab it here. Please feel free to use it any way you want.

Today, I would like your opinion on my take on...

How To Stop Procrastination

Procrastination plagues many, maybe most people because our brain avoids doing things it perceives as unpleasant. Difficult tasks, overwhelming projects, and boring chores trigger negative emotions the brain wants to stop. Avoidance is our brain's automatic evolutionary answer. Procrastination ensues.

Willpower is hard. Making yourself do it sometimes works, but is not sustainable over time because grind-it-out approaches do not involve strategies that help us deal with negative feelings.

The best way to prevent procrastination is to understand why it happens and armed with this understanding, use strategies that allow our brain to minimize the negative and reframe to more positive emotions.

Free How To Stop Procrastination Lesson

The How To Stop Procrastination Lesson I use in my book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier involves teaching students why we procrastinate and how to create school project plans or plans of study to prevent procrastination. The lesson takes advantage of student smartphones (or other devices) as they learn using an infographic and 2 videos on procrastination.

You can grab the lesson here.

The book has become available on Amazon since the original writing of this post. Grab it here.

Enjoy!

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

BOOKS & TOOLS

Buy on Amazon

CONTACT ME

BLOG ARCHIVE:

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categories / Teaching
tags / focus, deep work, productivity, teaching teens, parenting teens, spaced practice, chunking, pomodoro, planning, free lesson

How To Teach Students Spaced Practice (FREE Lesson & Planning Tool)

October 20, 2017 / Oskar Cymerman

Hi!

It's been a while and I feel like I have not been living up to my promise to help you become a better teacher or mentor lately. Today, I plan to make up for it by giving you a lesson you can use to help students learn why spaced practice works and a tool to help them use it effectively.

You see... I am not blogging as much these days because I'm killing myself to get this new project done. Don't worry, I love this kind of killing of myself. It's just that between family, teaching, and my third love, writing, I am creating a 12+ week program to help students learn faster while retaining more. I am putting it all in a Workbook/Notebook any teacher can use with his or her students.

Essentially, it is a series of lessons that use brain science and brain-based learning to help students optimize their brain by training it. It's stuff we don't traditionally teach, but ironically it's the stuff that makes the biggest difference. I know: the story of our teaching lives...

Anyways, back to...

Teaching Spaced Practice

First, we must recognize the procrastination struggle is real. Students (and ourselves too) often put things that seem overwhelming off. Thus, to fight the urge to procrastinate, it is important to plan, chunk, and focus.

Planning makes it real. When we commit to doing something and put it down on paper our mind moves it from the land of imaginary to the realm of real everyday life.

Chunking makes it smaller. The idea is to trick out mind into perceiving the big project as one small task at a time. Seems simple, yet we rarely do it and trying to grind it out is what leads to procrastination. This is why planning a series of 25-minute time chunks, or Pomodoros, is effective in preventing procrastination and promoting productivity.

Focus makes productivity. Even though 1 Pomodoro seems small and sometimes too short to get much done, it is not. The key is to have one tangible goal for it; to know what we're doing before we start and do only that one thing for 25 minutes without stopping or distractions.

The learning magic happens when we allow the information to sit and our brain to form and strengthen connections. Then, the concepts can stick in our long-term memory.

You see, many students make the mistake of thinking that remembering and understanding is about how much they study. It is not. True learning; the kind that results in us being able to recall and apply the knowledge and the skills we learn, is about how much we study, how often we practice, and the time in-between the study sessions.

But it isn't just about remembering and storing information. Spaced practice is key to understanding. For the hard stuff to sink in, the brain must alternate between the focused and the relaxed mode. It needs smart spaced out practice and frequent breaks for neural connections to become stronger and to form new neural connections that lead to the formation of meaning.

The basics of this process of meaning formation or understanding are the same for everyone. What is different is the amount of time and the number of repetitions it takes. But, as often in life, this is something we all must figure out for ourselves because it is our brain and it’s unique.

And being unique is good.

But the approach we take to teaching our students must be one that guides each of them and allows each individual to come up with their own way to learn.

Free Spaced Practice Lesson & Planning Tool

The Spaced Practice Lesson I use in my upcoming Crush School Student Notebook: 12 Weeks To Better Learning involves teaching students why spaced practice works and planning for it. It also provides these 3 easy ways students can start to plan their learning:

Get a calendar planner and start using it.
Use your smartphone to keep track of due dates and plan your study/school work.
Use a google calendar on your laptop or tablet you carry in your backpack.

These might seem like no-brainers to adults, but I often find my students don't know about these simple ways of keeping track of school and life.

Grab the Spaced Practice Lesson here.

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

BOOKS & TOOLS

Buy on Amazon

CONTACT ME

BLOG ARCHIVE:

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categories / Teaching
tags / focus, deep work, productivity, teaching teens, parenting teens, spaced practice, chunking, pomodoro, planning, free lesson