Over
the years, I have argued often on this blog that one of the really weak spots in
education was the failure of students to close the holes on what I call “Swiss
Cheese Knowledge.” Thus, on the first day of
class last week, I drew a block on the board and put holes in it. I then explained the drawing to my students.
When you leave
class every day, your knowledge looks like a block of Swiss cheese. It appears entirely solid. However, it is full of holes—things you
missed, things you misunderstood, things you did not quite catch. I know the knowledge feels solid, but it
really is not. If you do not take
action, those holes just get bigger as time passes and your memory begins to
fade. Having taught for nearly 50
years, I know where the holes are likely to be. I can and will write test questions to
expose those holes. In many ways,
testing is just an attempt to measure the quantity and size of the holes in
your knowledge.
How well you do in
this course is very much dependent on what you do after each class to close
those holes before they simply get too big to manage. I think this is the part of learning that
most students either do not appreciate or simply choose to ignore. You
have to close those holes in your knowledge or I will find them on the tests. Then, you will come to me after the test and
say, “I knew the material perfectly until the test started and then I just
froze and couldn’t answer any of the questions.” No, that is a popular student story but it
is rarely true. The knowledge looked
and felt solid to you but it was really full of holes and I found them.
There are many
things you can do to close the holes but I want to suggest two. First, I will send you practice exercises
throughout the semester that will begin, “Here is a practice question based on
what we covered today in class. I wrote
it so you could determine if you had any holes in your knowledge. The answer is X. If you get that answer, then move on. I am not worried about you. But if you cannot get X, come by and see me,
sooner rather than later. We need to fill in that hole.”
The second thing
takes more discipline. As soon as
possible after class, write out a memo on everything we covered today. Assume you were writing the memo to a friend
who missed class and needs to know what we covered in a very clear and
organized way. Class moves very quickly
and has a helter-skelter feel to it.
Nevertheless, if you look closely, you will begin to realize that there
is a fairly well defined organizational structure. By writing out a “friend memo,” you’ll start
seeing the whole picture. That’s a good
way to start noticing some of those holes in your knowledge so that you can
take action.
From
my experience, students are good about doing practice questions because they
are curious as to what I thought was important and whether they can do it. Writing “friend memos,” though, is
tougher. It is not as much fun and
takes some time. As one student said, “That
much thinking makes my head hurt.”
So,
the holes are never filled.
I
think we often fail to realize how much guidance our students need. We can tell them but, in most cases, we need
to show them as well. For example, during the second
day of class, we spent the entire 50 minutes talking about a lot of liability
questions – Why is this a liability? Why
is that not a liability?
Immediately
after that class, I wrote out a detailed memo and sent it to the students. “It might not have seemed like we covered
much today and it might have all seemed rather random but here’s exactly what
we did. We covered a whole lot of material.” I very much wanted to show them exactly what
a class memo could look like. They need
that modeling. I cannot over emphasize that one sentence.
I
will not do that again this semester. I
wanted to do it once to show them what I meant. I have made my point. Now, it depends on them if they have the
ambition needed to do the work. I felt
like I needed to impress on them the problem of Swiss Cheese knowledge and two
important steps needed to fill in those holes.
I
think teachers often think all learning problems originate during class. I am much more inclined to believe that many if not most problems happen in the day or so immediately following class. That is why I focus so much attention on that
time period.
