Teaching and Learning

• Concept: People remember things by linking them together. So we learn best and teach most effectively when we focus on understanding those links rather than merely memorizing the facts they connect.
• Procedure: Link-based learning.
  1. Identify the framework of knowledge for the topic you are trying to teach or learn.
  2. Tie this topic-level pattern into the broader framework of knowledge you or your students already possess.
  3. As each new fact is encountered, make sure you understand its place in the framework.
  4. Also strive to understand the links between each new fact and its immediate neighbors within the framework of knowledge.
  5. Thus, you'll be holding two trains of thought in your mind at once:
     • The local zoomed-in picture of how one small part of the universe works.
     • The global zoomed-out picture of where that small part of the universe lies within the overall framework of knowledge.
       

• Application: Link-based recall of knowledge.
  1. Identify where the problem of interest lies within your framework of knowledge.
  2. Use that insight to help recall the relevant facts.
  3. If you don't happen to remember them, or never knew them all in the first place, knowing their location within the framework of knowledge will allow you to look them up.
     • Topic headings from your framework can guide a web or journal search.
     • Adjacent facts from your framework can narrow the search results.


• Analogy: You are looking at the universe with two eyes at once:
  1. One eye has a telescope that lets you zoom in on details but gives you a narrow field of view.
  2. The other eye is looking out at the entire universe, telling you where you've got the telescope pointed.

This page was last updated by George Young on December 1, 2004