Getting Learners to Remember

Chapter highlights:

Critical differences between so-called good learners and poor ones Five metacognitive skills Six sets of cognitive strategies to facilitate learning and retention.

 

Careful structuring of training sessions, captivating content, and attention to adult learning principles—taken together, those elements should result in superior training. But despite the care with which we attend to all of them, we sometimes don’t achieve the learner transformation we (and often the learners) desire. We can lead the learners to training but we cannot make them learn. How well learners acquire the declarative or procedural knowledge we package for them largely depends on what they do if and when they receive it.

Enter chapter 7. First, we’ll consider key differences between “good” and “poor” learners; that is, those who “get” what we are training them on, retain it longer, and use it more appropriately, and those who don’t. That leads to a discussion of an important subject in cognitive psychology and practical learning application— metacognition.¹ Don’t be alarmed; we’ll make this impressive-sounding term approachable shortly. When we’ve dealt with metacognition, its importance for learning, and what we can do to help learners with less developed metacognitive skills, we’ll drill down further.

This chapter introduces six sets of cognitive (mental or information-processing) strategies that you can exploit to facilitate learning. Overall, you will take away from this chapter clear explanations of why some learners learn better than others; of things you can do about that disparity; and of how you can help all of your learners learn better, faster, and with long-lasting results.

Metacognition: The Executive Learning Controls

In chapter 4, we described three major influences on learning: ability, prior knowledge, and motivation. We now add to our list a fourth influence that is critical for successful learning: metacognition—the set of higher-level (meta = above, beyond) control processes that guide our deliberate information-processing activities. These executive-level processes come into play anytime we set mental or cognitive goals for ourselves, such as learning or solving a problem, and then attempt to meet them in an efficient way. We develop skill in using these higher-level processes at a young age and continue to improve them as we learn how to learn. Think of metacognition and the metacognitive skills as the mind’s operating system (a concept borrowed from R.C. Clark, 2008)² in charge of high-level supervisory processes. We engage these skills every time we learn something new.

Why Metacognitive Skills Are Important

Picture yourself wandering in a forest, alone and starving. You’re desperate to eat. As you enter a clearing, you spot a chunk of food. Your mouth waters. But before you can make a move, a tall, muscular, mean-looking person steps into the clearing, growls, and hungrily lunges for the food. Cooperation obviously won’t work here. It’s survival of the fittest. Who will be the survivor? The rough and tough big brute or you?

Nature has dealt you and “Brutus” different physiques. He is genetically gifted with great size, powerful musculature, and raw force. You aren’t. Who do you think is most likely to win? Place your bets on the outcome:

• Brutus wins. He eats. You starve.
• You win. Delicious!

Hold it! What if you are smaller and less muscled but have tremendous skill in the martial arts? Does that change the probability of your success? Will you consider changing your bet?

Although not exactly perfect, the analogy of raw ability to learn and well-developed metacognitive skills to size/musculature and martial arts skills illustrates the importance of highly developed executive-level thinking and planning capabilities. Studies conducted to examine the major differences between excellent and poor learners have highlighted the importance of metacognitive skills to establish learning goals, plan for them, execute them, and achieve positive results. The more unfamiliar the learning or problem to solve, the more beneficial well-developed metacognitive skills become. Research has demonstrated that, despite equal intelligence of subjects, variations in metacognitive skills lead to greater or lesser success in learning.³ This has tremendous implications for training. By helping adult learners strengthen their metacognitive skills we can enhance learning and retention, even for those who may not be as intellectually endowed as their colleagues.

What are these metacognitive skills? Researchers and authors describe them in different ways. We are comfortable with the descriptions of five such skills that are frequently mentioned in the literature in one form or another and how they operate to a greater or lesser degree in good and poor learners. Their descriptions are paraphrased and summarized in table 7-1.

Why are these skills important to us as trainers, instructors, educators, or learning managers? They’re significant because we are only as successful as our learners. As hard as we may work to structure learner-centered, performance-based training sessions, if the learners lack the metacognitive skills—the ability to skillfully and strategically handle what we provide—our effectiveness—our success—decreases.

So what can we do? First, remember that our instruction is a compensation for what the learner lacks. Examine the information in table 7-2, which suggests remedial actions for learners who lack any or all of the primary learning influences.

With respect to metacognitive skills, conduct a learner analysis prior to planning your training. Identify beforehand how well prospective learners have performed or learned in the past. Examine learner records to identify where problems have occurred in previous training. Observe on the job what types of problems performers experience. Question supervisors. As you begin to train, watch for metacognitive weaknesses.

Table 7-3 suggests ways you can compensate for such weaknesses.

This section was not meant to turn you into a learning therapist. It is to inform you of some important learner characteristics that can facilitate or inhibit learning by taking into account the state of your learners’ metacognitive skill levels as a group or when you encounter an individual learner you want to assist. To help you see if you’ve acquired the essential points about metacognition, turn to exercise 7-1 and match a few learning situations that have metacognitive problems with their possible interventions. If you match most or all of them correctly, pat yourself on the back. If you miss any, we suggest going back over the explanations and suggested interventions on the previous few pages and try again. Metacognition is still relatively unknown among training practitioners, and your knowledge of this important aspect of learning puts you a step ahead of the pack.

Table 7-1. Metacognitive Skills in Good and Poor Learners

 

Metacognitive Skill	Good Learner	Poor Learner
Planning	Faced with new learning, reasons out what must be done, creates a plan to accomplish the learning, and organizes time and resources appropriately.	Faced with new learning, doesn’t know what to do. Randomly tries various approaches without prior planning. Uses whatever comes to mind and muddles through. Applies what has been used before, whether or not it worked or even fits the new learning challenge.
Selecting	Looks, listens, studies, analyzes, and sifts through the chaos to identify critical and focal elements of the new material. Separates the wheat from the chaff.	Doesn’t know where to turn. Everything is important; everything has to be learned. Is soon overwhelmed by the flood of new information and is drowned in the details. May make inappropriate or trivial selections.
Connecting	Continually seeks to build linkages with prior knowledge. Attempts to understand the new content and link it with what is already known. Creates personally meaningful analogies and mnemonics.	Views the new content as a mass to be digested and attempts to memorize it without linkages to known skills and knowledge. Isolates the new learning from previous experience and does not make useful connections with what has been mastered previously. May create erroneous or false analogies.
Tuning	As new information is received and the learner practices with it, he or she brings the new knowledge into sharper and clearer focus. Adjusts analogies and mental images to coincide more accurately with new learning. Discards erroneous assumptions or early helpful learning crutches that are no longer required.	Obtains a fuzzy understanding of the new learning, but cannot bring it into focus. Continues to add more information rather than to test, adjust, and eliminate. Cannot create a clear picture of the new knowledge and skills and thus makes errors or applies the new learning in an overgeneralized manner.
Monitoring	During learning, replaces unproductive or insufficient strategies with more likely-to-be successful ones. In applying new learning, makes adaptations to conceptual models and identifies limitations and the extent to which new learning can be applied. Constantly verifies understanding and application and adjusts accordingly.	During learning, uses known strategies whether they work or not. Applies more effort instead of taking a different learning tack. In practice, applies new learning in a rigid fashion, forcing what has been learned to fit each case. Practices with few or erroneous modifications. Does not monitor impact and make necessary changes conceptually or operationally.

 

Table 7-2. Remediating Learner Deficiencies

 

Deficient Factor Affecting Learning	Remedial Actions
Ability	• Break the learning into smaller chunks. • Simplify. • Use lots of concrete examples. • Eliminate nonessential content. • Provide sufficient practice for each smaller chunk of learning to ensure mastery. • Build slowly from the simple to the complex. • Illustrate.
Prior knowledge	• Create special learning sessions that focus on prerequisite skills and knowledge. • Build connections with familiar past experience. • Distribute materials that provide essential prerequisite material with practice exercises as needed. • Create tutorials and remedial sessions. • Pair individuals who have prior knowledge gaps with those who can help them out; share knowledge. • Create study teams with mixed levels of knowledge and make them responsible for helping each other.
Motivation	• Demonstrate the value and benefits of the learning to the learners personally and to others. • Show admired role models buying into the learning content. • Build confidence by providing guided and supported practice; reward success. • Include sufficient challenge to stimulate involvement. • Provide success stories. • Maintain an upbeat, positive atmosphere. Make learning fun and rewarding.

 

One last note on metacognitive skills: We tend to develop them over time, starting early in our childhood (as early as infancy).⁴ You may have noticed that some people you didn’t consider especially gifted did better in school than others who were supposedly bright.

Metacognitive skills may have played a strong role there. In your training of adult learners, remember that you can help those whose skills⁵ have not been well developed by doing what we have suggested. They will acquire proficiency with your content. Research suggests that if learners are guided to apply metacognitive skills and think about what they are doing, not only does learning of the content improve but so do their metacognitive skills. This is called reciprocal teaching.⁶ Imagine! By doing the right things by our learners in our subject-matter fields, we also strengthen and arm them for future learning adventures.

Table 7-3. Remediating Metacognitive Skill Deficiencies

 

Metacognitive Skill Deficiency	Remedial Actions
Planning	• Inform the learner of what it will take to succeed. • Provide checklists of required materials and resources. • Provide guidelines for preparing to learn, creating the right physical and mental environment, and budgeting adequate learning. Include a suggested learning/study timetable. • Review with the learners how to plan for learning success. Answer questions. Monitor performance.
Selecting	• Clearly indicate what is important in your instruction and all related materials. • Tell the learners where to focus their attention and energy. • Review important points with learners. • Provide cues to help select focal points. These cues may include bold headings and subheadings, underlined words and terms, tabs, page inserts with boxed key information, and reviews of important items. • Prepare learners to listen/read and select key points. Provide information as learners take notes. Review and verify what they have selected. Provide both confirming and corrective feedback. • Provide notetaking guides or blank figures and diagrams that cue and guide selection of priority information. • Create frequent exercises and tests that emphasize key learning elements.
Connecting	• Have learners recall relevant prior knowledge and link new learning directly to it. • Use familiar or easy-to-relate-to examples that render concrete novel or abstract concepts, processes, principles, and procedures. • Include analogies, metaphors, and other types of comparisons that build bridges between known and unknown knowledge and skills. • Draw on the learners’ backgrounds or observations to create connections between what they have seen or felt and what they are learning now.
Tuning	• Provide practice, examples, and cases that require learners to apply learning immediately. • Create practice that focuses on large, obvious differences with the familiar. Gradually include exercises and application activities that require increasing amounts of subtle discriminations and fine-tuning. • Vary practice activities that require different learning and problem-solving approaches. • Evaluate and provide confirming and corrective feedback frequently through self-tests, checklists, or observation and live intervention.
Monitoring	• Provide simulation experiences that require application of new learning in realistic contexts. Vary the nature of the experiences. Increase levels of difficulties. • Have peers monitor and observe each other during learning application. Use observation instruments and checklists to record application. Have peer learners debrief each other. • Observe live or videotaped application on the job. Question learners and debrief them. • Place learners in on-the-job learning/practice situations. Have them self-assess using structured assessment tools. Have experienced workers observe application of learning with structured feedback. • Question learners about their learning. Ask where they are having difficulties and jointly select different learning techniques.

 

Exercise 7-1. Remediating Metacognitive Deficiencies

 

 

Learning Situation

Metacognitive Problem and Possible Intervention

1. “Boy, am I confused. All these words— so many details. Everything looks important. What a lot to study and learn!” 2. “I can’t quite get it. Sometimes I’m right on. Then the next time I’m a bit off. I’m somewhat lost. I feel like I’m close, but not right on target.” 3. “Everything seems so new. All these strange ideas and words. New concepts and new procedures. Nothing feels familiar. It’s really abstract.” 4. “Well, this is going to be a heavy course from what I can see of the outline. I’ll just do what I’ve always done. Just plunge in and play it by ear.” 5. “I dunno. I keep on doing the same thing. Why can’t I learn it? Sometimes I seem to get it right. Then they tell me I’m not going about it correctly or you can’t apply it in this case. I’m just not getting better.”

a. Connecting problem—Build a bridge to what the learner already knows. Use analogies and vivid examples. Show how this relates to familiar content. b. Selecting problem—Explicitly point out what is essential to learn. Provide cues and highlight key content. Provide a study map or guide. c. Planning problem—Point out what it takes to organize for success in the course. Provide suggested amounts of learning and study time. Hand out a recommended study schedule with suggestions for gathering resources and/or preparing a personal learning environment. d. Monitoring problem—Suggest alternative learning techniques. Provide simple application practice in low-fidelity simulations. Give feedback on performance. Increase variations and complexity with comprehensible feedback. Confirm appropriate behaviors and results. e.Tuning problem—Clarify subtle distinctions. Provide more practice and specific feedback to bring concepts, principles, and procedures into clearer focus. Probe for gaps and misunderstandings and clarify as needed.

Cognitive Strategies: How to Build Learning Faster, Better, Cheaper

When creating products and services for an organization, there is a saying: “Good, fast, cheap—choose two.” In other words, if you want it fast and good, it will cost you a lot. Is it fast and cheap you desire? Then the quality of the result will suffer. Are good and cheap your choices? Sorry, but you won’t get it quickly; we’ll do it when we can. In this section, we offer all three. We introduce you to six cognitive strategy groupings that you and your learners can apply. These strategies have been shown to help speed up learning, make it stick more powerfully and longer, and actually cost less in time and energy for both teaching and learning. You will be able to develop learning activities that take advantage of all of these benefits.

First, what are cognitive strategies? We borrow both definitions and much of what follows from three author-researchers at the university of Illinois: Charles K. West, James A. Farmer, and Phillip M. Wolff (1991).⁷ Cognitive strategies are the mental methods we use as we study and learn. Unlike metacognitive skills, which are higher-level, executive skills we deploy for any learning, cognitive strategies form a database of thinking and learning packages that we can apply to specific learning situations. They enable us to organize a piece of learning so we can internalize and recall it more easily. Let’s apply a simple example right now. We’ll come back to its underlying foundation later. Examine the two Lincoln pennies depicted below.

The correct answer is A. We’ve tried this test with thousands of American adult learners and, amazingly, 60 to 70 percent of them select B although they have seen the coin numerous times. They just weren’t paying attention. When we ask our audiences if they would bet $10,000 on their selection before we reveal the correct answer, we find few takers.

So how do we ensure that we remember which direction Lincoln faces? Here’s a statement to help: “Our great president, Lincoln, always did right by the people.” Will you remember now? Probably. But what about the nickel, dime, and quarter? Which way do the presidents on those coins face? Here’s a cue: “All the other presidents were left behind.” Yes, they face left (except for the new Jefferson nickel that faces three quarters right in relief).

What’s the point of this coin discussion? It’s simple. You now probably will remember this set of not very useful facts for the rest of your life. Associating some arbitrary (hence hard to retain) facts with a mnemonic device that’s easy and familiar (“… did right by the people … were left behind”) is a powerful means for grasping and retaining information. It is part of a cognitive strategy that is good (learn and retain well), fast (you learned it quickly, didn’t you?), and cheap (two simple sentences—not much mental storage and retrieval cost).

Now that you have been introduced to cognitive strategy, let’s continue tuning your understanding. Cognitive strategies are collections of methods that help people learn. Good learners have a larger repertoire of these strategies and use them more naturally, frequently, and appropriately than do poor learners. They also obtain better results. Although there are many ways to organize and discuss cognitive strategies, we will adapt and present highlights to help you integrate cognitive strategy use for transforming your learners.

Six Types of Cognitive Strategies

• Clustering: Different ways to arrange information for easier perception, understanding, retention, and recall.
• Spatial: Visual displays of information that lay out a large number of elements in a manner that is easy to comprehend and to retain or recall.
• Advance organizers: Organized, short introductory information packages that set an expectation or build a vision. They help the learner picture what’s to come and how it relates to prior knowledge or to content that has come before.
• Image-rich comparisons: Analogies, metaphors, and literal comparisons that build bridges between what the learner already knows and the new learning.
• Repetition: Activities that allow learners to rehearse content they have encountered and practice it in organized ways until it sticks in the mind.
• Memory aids: Groups of easy-to-remember letters, words, or images that help store and retrieve more complex material.

What follows are more detailed discussions of those six cognitive strategies, with examples and suggestions for use.

Clustering Strategies—Organizing Information

Here are 20 words for you to remember. As usual, we give you only a limited time to do it—30 seconds. Ready? Go!

tennis, leopard, checkers, Australia, rice, tag, pasta, turkey, dog, Holland, orange, hopscotch, iguana, popcorn, billiards, ostrich, Denmark, bear, China, bagel

 

Now cover those words with a piece of paper. In the space below, write as many of the words as you remember.

 

Uncover the word list and enter the number of words you got correct in the box below:

Now study the next set of 20 words for 30 seconds. Ready? Go!

 

 

As before, cover that list and write the words you remember in the space below. Check your answers and record the number of words you correctly recalled.

Was there a difference in your two scores? Most likely your score was higher with the second set of words because the words were clustered by headings. Any form of logical grouping facilitates perception, comprehension, storage, and retrieval. Clustering strategies can take many forms: classifying (as we did here), listing a procedure logically in a recipe, sequencing events on a timeline, organizing objects in a logical arrangement like describing a house room by room, and even inventing a code from a logical set of numbers as we did at the outset of this book (pp. 3 and 4).

Anytime you cluster declarative or procedural knowledge into logical, easy-tounderstand groupings, you employ a highly successful cognitive strategy.

Spatial Strategies—Visually Displaying Information. Laying out information to be learned in some kind of visual manner often helps learners see how things relate. This form of spatial organization is another way to trigger and foster successful learning. Figure 7-1 depicts one type of spatial representation. Notice how all the subtasks for packing a suitcase are laid out. With that form of map, learners can see at a glance all the necessary and sufficient things they have to do. It facilitates learning, monitoring, and remembering.

Another common spatial organizer is a flowchart, which is excellent for helping learners visualize a sequence of steps and practice and retain the steps. In the sample flowchart depicted in figure 7-2, notice the diamond-shaped boxes (discriminators) that trigger a decision. Flow diagrams can become much more complex, but when working with novice learners, a simple representation with limited explanation helps the learner see what is involved in an entire procedure.

One other common spatial organizer is the matrix. We’re going to teach you a little more French using a matrix to assist. Here is how to conjugate a regular French verb:

1. Take the infinitive (example: donner = to give).
2. For the present tense, drop the “er” (donn) and add the endings listed below.
3. For the future and conditional tenses, add the endings below to the infinitive (donner).

Person	Present	Future (will)	Conditional (would)
Je (I) Tu (you, singular) Il, elle (he, she) Nous (we) Vous (you, plural or formal) Ils, elles (they)	-e -es -e -ons -ez -ent	-ai -as -a -ons -ez -ont	-ais -ais -ait -ions -iez -aient

Example: Je donne (I give); tu donneras (you will give); elles donneraient (they [all females] would give).

Does the information organized in a matrix format work? Try it for yourself.

Il parl____________. (He speaks.)
Nous march_____________. (We will walk.)
Vous dans_____________. (You [plural] would dance.)

 

The correct answers are il parle, nous marcherons, and vous danseriez. Bravo if you got them right. If not, review the matrix. It should be a big help for learning, application, recall, and self-evaluation.

By the way, in that example we actually combined both a logical procedure and a matrix. Combining cognitive strategies is itself an excellent strategy.

A matrix also can be used as a central focus for a lesson. Learners can participate in constructing it and then use it for studying, for recall purposes, and even for application. For example, an instructor or an e-learning lesson may be used to introduce new bank branch personnel to the four major accounts that new customers are offered. As each account type is presented, it can be placed in a matrix such as the one shown below, with key information filled in by the instructor/ instruction and the learners as the lesson progresses.

Account	Key Features	Key Benefits	Limitations
Current
Money market
Savings and checking
Bonus savings

 

The matrix organizes essential information and helps learners make logical comparisons and discriminations. It can be used to teach; as a gameboard for recall; or as a job aid, first with simulated cases and later with real ones back on the job.

Advance Organizers—Looking Ahead to Future Information. A lot of research has been conducted on the use of advance organizers for facilitating understanding, learning, recall, and even transfer to the job.⁸ All in all, the results of appropriate use of this type of cognitive strategy can be powerful. An advance organizer is usually a brief introduction made prior to getting into a new topic or set of skills that gives the learner a heads-up about what’s coming. It is almost always short. Most times it links prior knowledge to new material and makes comparisons and logical linkages. It may outline the new content and prepare the learner mentally to approach it with the proper mindset.

Chapter 1 of this book is something an advance organizer for what has followed, albeit an unusual and lengthy one. Each chapter of this book has a form of advance organizer in the introductory bullet points that enumerate the chapter highlights. Below is an example of a more typical advance organizer for a new unit of learning. Ideally, it would also include a rationale for the learner to increase learning readiness.

Advance organizer example for a chapter on procedural knowledge

You’ve had the opportunity to play with different aspects of declarative or “talk about” knowledge in the last chapter. You saw that this type of knowledge is largely treated and stored in the neocortical areas of the brain. It is our newest form of knowledge. You also practiced techniques for recognizing and recalling declarative content. This chapter introduces you to our “do” knowledge. It’s called procedural knowledge. Unlike declarative knowledge, we share the ability to acquire this form of knowledge in large measure with all other animals.

Basically, just like an abstract for an article, an advance organizer situates the learners immediately and gets them thinking about what is up next. You can use it at the front end of a course, module, lesson, or unit. By building the link between known and new, setting out key highlights of what’s to come, and packaging it in a clear and enticing manner, advance organizers prepare learners, increase understanding, and enhance application to the job.

 

Image-Rich Comparisons—Analogies, Metaphors, and Comparisons. As children we were introduced to stories such as Aesop’s fables or the biblical tales about the loaves and the fishes or the prodigal child. Plato taught us the allegory of the cave to describe the relationship between the real and the ideal worlds. Throughout our lives we have been taught with image-rich comparisons. We use metaphors in our daily speech: “She’s a peach!” or “He’s a skunk!” Our computer interfaces are built on metaphors. We have a “desktop” on our screen along with menus and icons.⁹

Image-rich comparisons are extremely powerful for learning and retention. If you just remember that “a stitch in time saves nine,” you will know that preventive maintenance saves us dollars, time, and resources while it helps us avoid personal disasters.

The strength of this cognitive strategy lies in the bridge (connection) that is established between what the learner already knows—the familiar—and what is yet to be learned. Table 7-4 is a list of performance objectives for various modules or lessons and a few possible metaphors to help facilitate learning that new content. There also are some blanks for you to test your imagination. Try your hand at coming up with a metaphor for each blank. There are no right answers. We’ll share our suggestions for the last three objectives after you’ve given it a try. Go ahead now.

After much discussion, for the last three objectives we settled on the following metaphors: design a course—building a house, organize files—spring cleaning, and create and manage teams—sports or theater production. There are many possibilities. Ours are feasible. Most likely, so are yours.

Table 7-4. Making Metaphors

 

Performance Objectives	Metaphor
• Access a database • Service a piece of equipment • Sell luxury items • Select a vacation • Provide effective customer service • Design a course • Organize files • Create and manage teams	• Smart yellow pages; library • Medical diagnosis • Fine restaurant • Exploration/adventure • Receiving guests at home • _____________________________________ • _____________________________________ • _____________________________________

 

Drawing once again from research and experience, the point is that image-rich comparisons fire the imagination and facilitate learning. They are fun to use, enjoyable to generate (to involve the learners in creating image-rich bridges between prior knowledge and new material), and incredibly effective as cognitive strategies for learning.

Repetition—Practice, Practice, Practice. This catchall collection of cognitive strategies doesn’t sound glamorous. Nonetheless, repetition and rehearsal in their various forms can be immensely effective, especially for long-term, hard-wired learning. Do you remember how long ago you learned to recite the alphabet? All these years later, do you ever get the sequence wrong? Do you ever forget a letter? What about the multiplication tables? Here are four examples. Can you complete these in less than 10 seconds? Go!

    7 × 5 = _______   6 × 6 = _______   9 × 9 = _______   8 × 6 = _______

When we try these with adults who say they haven’t done multiplication for several years, many spout all four responses in less than five seconds! Whether declarative (capitals of Europe, parts of an engine, or steps in a process) or procedural (run an air-brake test on a locomotive, dance a tango, or verify an audit report), learning is involved and organized for repeating/rehearsing to store and recall. Table 7-5 presents some suggested repetition techniques with examples of their application.

Table 7-5. Repetition Techniques

 

Technique	Application Examples
Repeat the words or steps. Give it a rhyme or a beat. Rap it.	• Classes of hazardous goods • Procedure for disassembling and assembling a piece of equipment
Read/listen to content. Take notes. Convert each point to a question. Keep on asking the questions until you get them all right. (Can be done in teams.)	• Policies that must be internalized • Product features and benefits • Emergency shut-down procedures
Make up test questions (or have learners make up test questions) for a body of material. Test until perfect.	• Professional body of content for certification (e.g., law, accounting, network engineering) • Security measures for various contexts (e.g., physical, intellectual property, antiterrorist)
Create notetaking guides. These can be lists with keywords that require explanations or elaborations, unlabeled diagrams or matrixes or flow diagrams with empty boxes. Learners fill in as content is provided, then compare with models. Study. Repeat until perfect.	• Technical course with lots of processes and new vocabulary • Course on body language with illustrations of postures and meanings • Actions to take for different types of fires

 

One of the tried-and-true methods of studying for comprehension and retention is the SQ3R: Survey, Question, Read, Review, Recite method. Recently we visited a famous university where we observed a study course for freshmen. The students were practicing SQ3R with a variety of content and were delighted with the results. Although developed in the late 1930s and early 1940s, SQ3R was miraculously new to those freshmen.

Study, memorization, practice, rehearsal, self-test, and test all have demonstrated the power to assist learning. The keys to all of these are organization, meaningfulness, and systematic application. Over time, content acquisition improves, as does efficiency in learning.

Memory Aids—Tools for Retention.¹⁰ We saved the best for last. This cognitive strategy, also known as mnemonics, is a favorite for remembering. It is so powerful that students in technical programs, the military, law, and medicine memorize hundreds of mnemonics in their studies. Essentially, a mnemonic is a memory crutch—a group of easy-to-remember letters, words, or images that help learners store and retrieve more complex material. We’ll examine four kinds of mnemonics here, all of which you can use to help your learners retain key information. You can also encourage them to create their own.

• Acronyms: This is everyone’s favorite. You take the first letter of each item to be remembered and create a meaningful word or phrase. One of the most common is HOMES for remembering the five Great Lakes of North America: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. We’ve created one for the six cognitive strategies: I SCRAM (image-rich comparisons, spatial, clustering, repetition, advance organizer, and memory aid). It may not be great, but because we created it we remember the strategies more readily.
• Acrostics: Acrostics involve creating a meaningful phrase to represent something to be memorized. A common one is, “Every good boy deserves fudge.” The first letter of each word represents the names of the lines on the musical staff:
• Rhymes: People have developed numerous little rhymes to retain hardto-remember facts. A well-known example in the English language is “30 days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have 31….” Few people remember the rest of the rhyme, but that’s enough for most people to work with.
• Key words: These are important words embedded in phrases or sentences that are easy to recall. We demonstrated this with the Lincoln penny (“… right by the people”) and the other coins (“… were left behind”).

There are many other mnemonic techniques and a large variety of books on how to create and use them to improve memory. Several of those resources are provided in the end notes.¹¹ Remember that you can help your learners by creating mnemonics, encouraging them to generate their own memory aids, and then having them practice them to strengthen both declarative and procedural learning and recall.

Cognitive Strategies—A Final Word

All the cognitive strategies presented in this chapter are packages of thinking modes that we can deploy whenever we wish to learn something. As trainers/ instructors/educators, our mission is to create learning success. It would be wonderful if all of our learners were endowed with high ability, deep prior knowledge, and powerful motivation to learn, and all possessed well-developed metacognitive skills along with a large repertoire of oiled and efficient cognitive strategies to cover every specific learning situation. We simply could lay out the learning goals, provide the resources, and stand back. But that’s not reality. Our learners come to each learning event with a broad range of strengths and deficiencies, and our job is to structure learning for successful transformation. To do that, we use the five-step model, compensate for metacognitive skill needs by attending to each of its components—planning, selecting, connecting, tuning, monitoring— and apply a wide variety of cognitive strategies to strengthen learning.

Remember This

Let’s end this chapter with a final repetition of some key points. Please correctly complete the statements that follow by crossing out the inaccurate word or phrase in parentheses.

1. Well-developed metacognitive skills (can/cannot) overcome ability deficiencies.
2. We are (born / not born) with our metacognitive skills fully developed.
3. Clustering, memory aids, and repetition (are / are not) metacognitive skills.
4. Planning, selecting, and connecting (are / are not) metacognitive skills.
5. As trainers, we (can/cannot) compensate for metacognitive weaknesses in our learners.
6. President Franklin Roosevelt faces (right/left) on the U.S. dime.
7. As trainers, we (can/cannot) use cognitive strategies to help our learners acquire, store, and recall required skills and knowledge.
8. Learners (can/cannot) develop their own cognitive strategies.

Here are the answers:

1. Well-developed metacognitive skills can overcome ability deficiencies. They can help learners make maximum use of their innate abilities to learn and remember.
2. We are not born with our metacognitive skills fully developed. We begin in infancy to develop them and continue to hone them as we learn.
3. Clustering, memory aids, and repetition are not metacognitive skills. They are cognitive strategies.
4. Planning, selecting, and connecting are metacognitive skills along with tuning and monitoring.
5. As trainers, we can compensate for metacognitive weaknesses in our learners. This is a major part of our job. Information transmission is not.
6. President Franklin Roosevelt faces left on the U.S. dime. We threw this one in for fun.
7. As trainers, we can use cognitive strategies to help our learners acquire, store, and recall required skills and knowledge. We exploit these strategies and strengthen them in our learners through the activities and materials we provide.
8. Learners can develop their own cognitive strategies. Assisting them through use of these strategies is called reciprocal teaching. They learn our content and strengthen their ability to learn other content by acquiring the cognitive strategies we employ.

This chapter focused on the mental skills and strategies our learners need to learn effectively and how we can create our instruction to help them in that task.¹² The next chapter presents four overall approaches to training and includes a cornucopia of learning activities you can build into your training sessions. Take a break here. We’ll meet you again in chapter 8.