Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. Isaiah 28:9-11
In the passage above, the Lord refers to His people's inability to grasp and assimilate covenantal ethics and likens them to children whom teachers must give instructions in only small increments. Here, God's prophet not only warns us about slowness of heart, but also gives an insight into an educational principle that some call "chunking" (breaking information into smaller chunks).
Chris Biffle puts it this way:
Now here is a curious fact that I and other Whole Brain Teachers have discovered. Disciplining yourself to speak in units that are 30 seconds or less and then having your students repeat your message to each other allows you to cover more material, not less. When you have become adept at . . . [it], you will have eliminated all the non-educational chaff from your presentation, all the wandering, redundancy, stumbling, verbal fumbling about. You present a few points; your students repeat them to each other; you present a few more. In the little periods when students are talking, you take mini-breaks to organize your thoughts for your next few sentences. We call this approach micro-lecturing. Micro-lecturing is not an easy skill, especially because most teachers love to talk and talk and talk. But remember our Whole Brain Teaching rule:
As you disciple your charges, think about what you'd rather do. You might lecture for 30 minutes and have them walk away with maybe one or two concepts, or you could build one small concept upon another, punctuated by their teaching those concepts to each other, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, so that they come away with the big picture as well as its parts.
In the passage above, the Lord refers to His people's inability to grasp and assimilate covenantal ethics and likens them to children whom teachers must give instructions in only small increments. Here, God's prophet not only warns us about slowness of heart, but also gives an insight into an educational principle that some call "chunking" (breaking information into smaller chunks).
Chris Biffle puts it this way:
Now here is a curious fact that I and other Whole Brain Teachers have discovered. Disciplining yourself to speak in units that are 30 seconds or less and then having your students repeat your message to each other allows you to cover more material, not less. When you have become adept at . . . [it], you will have eliminated all the non-educational chaff from your presentation, all the wandering, redundancy, stumbling, verbal fumbling about. You present a few points; your students repeat them to each other; you present a few more. In the little periods when students are talking, you take mini-breaks to organize your thoughts for your next few sentences. We call this approach micro-lecturing. Micro-lecturing is not an easy skill, especially because most teachers love to talk and talk and talk. But remember our Whole Brain Teaching rule:
The more we talk, the more students we lose.
As you disciple your charges, think about what you'd rather do. You might lecture for 30 minutes and have them walk away with maybe one or two concepts, or you could build one small concept upon another, punctuated by their teaching those concepts to each other, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, so that they come away with the big picture as well as its parts.
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