Method of Loci

I’ve recently completed my seventeenth year as a math teacher, generally in the middle school grades.  Mnemonic devices are used often within the math classroom. Who doesn’t remember Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally??  However, even with all of the memorization required, the Method of Loci has rarely been one of the mnemonic devices to make its way into the classroom.  

The Method of Loci is a memory filing system that utilizes visual cues within a room matched to specific information.  It works well with large quantities of data that needs to be recalled and this what prevents it from being widely used in the math classroom.  Most math formulas and memorized information have few steps, or can be broken down to simpler steps. Moreover, math is largely about understanding, with memorization’s help.  

This isn’t to say that the Method of Loci, also known as the Memory Palace, doesn’t have its place within education, specifically instructional design.  The recent design, created for a middle school classroom, required multiple steps to be completed in order to finish a successful lesson. These steps need to be performed multiple times a week to finish a successful unit.  The instructor, or substitute (in my design), could associate each step of the design with an item in their memory palace. These memory palace items correlate with a step in the design which helps the instructor/substitute file the necessary steps into their memory bank.  This mnemonic device can help relieve the pressure of finding notes at the last minute, or trying to understand instructions after days away from completing the desired activity.  

Implementation and Evaluation

What changes will you make before implementation? Why? 

I had enough confidence, for better or worse, in my design to continue ahead with implementation.  The client had her own apprehension and hesitation regarding her preparedness; however, she felt the design was solid and covered all of her needs.  This made it easier to implement without making major changes to the design.

What did you ignore in the client’s feedback? Why? What did you ignore in your peer’s feedback? Why?

The client’s feedback was positive and excited.  She didn’t request any changes and was very happy with the outcome.  Her notes regarding tutorials gave me a few thoughts towards creating more of a visual example for both the instructors and the students.  However, with such a small window of time I won’t attempt that unless requested. The peer feedback suggested more detail for the substitute and I agree, which makes this something I WON’T ignore.  There were no other suggestions made.  

Instructional design is the necessary evil when it comes to working with other educators.  In my role as singular classroom teacher, I am able to wing it, work off the cuff.  The classroom is very fluid and it works as long as I have a general idea of where I want to end up.  The day can start with a topic and the students guide their learning from there.  This approach has been highly successful for a few years and I prefer it to sitting down, writing out lesson plans, creating specific activities, and standard assessments.  However, now that my instructor role has evolved into working with other educators, teachers that are less comfortable giving up control, I am finding that they are more successful with detailed instructional deigns.

The instructional design project has helped demonstrate the need for the initial step of brainstorming ideas and figuring out the best way to pass the content on to the students.  The development phase of the project has helped define the “how” and was an important part of showing the client exactly what ways the content would be transferred to the learners.

For an educator that prefers to let the student choose their next adventure, instructional design doesn’t come easy.  The ADDIE model has been extremely helpful in creating a step-by-step guide to the project.  Even though the client is a content specialist, the ADDIE model is necessary in giving an outline for each step of creating the blended learning unit. 

Combining the knowledge of the instructor (content specialist) with the process of the instructional designer allows the project to have the highest chance of success.  The content specialist has been able to demonstrate the information needed to be transferred while the instructional designer has been able to take the content and turn it into a working lesson plan.  The teacher has plenty of years of experience in creating her own lessons; however, the project is a much larger task, requiring outside resources, online tutorials, detailed scheduling, and unique assessments.  The combination of this many working parts can be overwhelming for an instructor, normally solely concerned with imparting the knowledge of adding or subtracting fractions. 

What do I think of instructional design so far?  It takes a lot of work and pre-planning; however, it is a necessary step to have a successful project.  Without it, the client may have dealt with a lot of trial and error throughout their lesson.

Part 1: What have you learned from the analysis? What are you planning to do with it?

The client meeting allowed me to fully understand the content coverage needed in order for the students to be ready to go when she returns from her leave.  However, as I began to analyze the notes and take into consideration her concerns, I noticed that the analysis offered insight into how the instructor wanted to shift her teaching focus overall.  The content was not difficult to grasp, I have taught her class before and understood the scope and sequence as a whole. The materials and activities were easy to work through since the items were readily available and the students were familiar with the routines we discussed implementing.  

What began to take shape was an instructional design that the instructor could use as a template for when she returns to the classroom.  My ultimate goals from the beginning were to ease any fears she had about giving up control, maintain content integrity, and hopefully give her the confidence to continue blending her classroom.  The design covered all of the content she wanted to be covered; however, it also gave her the confidence and motivation to try it once she returned. Those both eased her nerves about not lecturing every class.  

Part 2: How are analysis and design related for you? Think about it in the context the articles and chapters we have read thus far. How closely should these two pieces of the model connect? How does the Information R/Evolution video affect each of these?

As Piskurich hinted in chapter 4, I am all analyzed out.  While I understand the importance of analysis, I was certainly ready to move past the sit-down, the interview, and contemplation.  I wanted to design the curriculum, plan lessons and activities, and focus on the blended learning aspect. However, with any good design, there must be proper analysis and research.  Investigating the problems and the requirements is a must do before a conceptual solution can be formed.

In my situation, design is the creation of a solution to a problem.  Here, the instructor will miss class so we’ve designed a solution. Analysis is the process of applying my knowledge of the resources, the students, and the content to answer the problem. One can happen without the other, but in order to maintain success, the two need to happen together.

In the Addie model, analysis and design occur one after the other, connected directly in the design process.  Not only does one come after the other, but after completing the design phase, the designer has the potential to revisit the analysis phase to make adjustments.  The analysis phase becomes the foundation for every other phase; however, the design phase utilizes the products generated from the analysis phase. This relationship needs to be closely connected.  While each remaining phase will connect to the one before it, the analysis and design refer back to each other throughout the formation of the entire design.

I was excited to work with this instructor, and on her project, because I have long wanted to help her push the engagement level and collaboration aspects of the classroom.  I felt this was a key opportunity to show her the potential success and connections she could make by trying something different than what she had done the last 30 years of teaching. 

The instructor’s typical lesson plan for these units consisted of daily lectures, note taking, worksheets, and standardized assessments.  I knew a sit-down and analysis would be extremely important to make sure she understood my plans, but also so I would understand her expectations.  Throughout the meeting I realized that a secondary benefit to the analysis was that I was able to ease her discomfort at giving up so much control.

With her entire career leaning towards a sage-on-the-stage method of teaching, she was apprehensive about placing the learning in the hands of the students.  Her biggest concerns were, “what if the students don’t watch my videos? What if they fast-forward the whole thing?  What if they just ask each other what happened?”  We were able to plan accordingly and address how those concerns can be handled and avoided. 

We paced the entire unit and walked through best-case and worst-case scenario.  At the end, she felt confident that the students would rise to the occasion and take ownership of their learning.  Our analysis gave me the information needed to make sure all of the instructor’s content was covered thoroughly, it allowed us to finalize a timeline, and to confirm the resources available for the unit. 

The definition of learning has long been discussed; however, a single, clarifying statement has never been universally agreed upon.  How learning occurs is too complex of an issue for most to define in one way, there are several common elements among most definitions that create an umbrella effect, covering most definitions.  Thomas Cleland, author and professor of psychology at Cornell University, believes that most disciplines consider learning to be the processing of information derived from experience (Barron et al., 2015).  Under this umbrella definition, there are four main theories that prevail throughout different disciplines, behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism.

Having been an educator for nearly two decades, beginning in my early twenties, I’ve run through my own personal definitions.  Starting out in an all sixth grade, brick and mortar classroom, teaching math, I felt the only way to get my students to learn was to lecture them while they took detailed notes.  This behaviorist theory was centered around my belief that the classroom needed pre-defined goals, regular formal assessment, and rote memorization. I became bored as a teacher, and noticed my students dozing off in class often.  

I moved from a middle school brick and mortar classroom to an online school, teaching third through eighth grade.  The wide range of ages, and the inability to physically engage with the students shifted my ideas on how learning occurs.  The students would seek me out as a guide on the side. No longer the one to dispense information, I became the facilitator.  The students didn’t stop learning once I quit imparting my wisdom. Quite the opposite, they used their access to more knowledge to dive deeper into their learning.  The cognitive side of learning made sense, but I wasn’t sold. The students lacked the social interactions and chances to learn from each other.

My time in a private school setting, with smaller classes, holistic grading, and no standardized testing to take up precious hours, led me to really explore my views on learning.  I worked on having a balance of every theory. With my students all learning differently, I sought to reach of them on their terms, with their preferred way of learning. The assignments differed from project based collaborations, to creative design.  It wasn’t always perfect and it didn’t always work; however, the ability to be flexible, and adjust, helped guide my attitude towards learning.

Barron, A. B., Hebets, E. A., Cleland, T. A., Fitzpatrick, C. L., Hauber, M. E., & Stevens, J. R. (2015). Embracing multiple definitions of learning. Trends in Neurosciences,38(7), 405-407. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2015.04.008

As a teacher I tend to examine instructional design in the real world, often critically even.  I view the designer’s goal and wonder if the instructions were some that my own students could follow, or how would I teach them the same instructions if it were a part of a lesson.  My wife thinks it’s silly, I feel it gives me opportunities to grow and learn. 

As I left Target earlier this week I decided to use the self-checkout option, hoping it would cut down on my time in the store.  While I find myself observing other’s instructions, I don’t often follow them.  Usually I swipe an item and look for an error, or an all-clear indicator.  From there I look for a large PAY button.  It works for me half the time. 

This time through I closely looked at the instructions given by the machine to see if they would change my interactions.  The goal of the design was to allow the basic user the ability to scan their items, pay, then leave, saving time (and money for the store).  The instruction does dive deeper into discounts, payment types, and product differentiation; however, the basic design is to alert the user as to how they scan their merchandise and how they pay. 

The design was effective, relying on large, colorful icons to guide the user on their next step.  The machine was intuitive and would highlight the button it thought the user needed next.  I related this to my classroom, specifically when I draw instructions for my students instead of writing them out on the board. 

Poking around within the instruction I learned that the self-checkout offers more options that I had considered.  I normally avoid that area if I have items without barcodes, foods, or discounted items.  However, after reading through the instruction I realized that those processes are all easy to work through. 

While trying to think of a second option of instructional design in the real world I remembered as a kid, trying to operate the blood-pressure machine at the local grocery store.  I went to the closest Albertson’s and sat down at the machine.  The instructions were very simple:

            – sit

            – place your arm in the sleeve

            – press the red button

            – wait 90 seconds

            – view your readout when the machine has finished

These instructions were easy to follow and very effective.  This was another example of the machine being intuitive and able to function without written design; however, the instructions did offer details on how to read your blood pressure test accurately. 

As I look towards creating instruction for my students I find it’s important to offer both clear and concise direction.  Creating an intuitive setup that is easy to follow also enables the user to feel comfortable with their learning.  The blood-pressure machine had multiple steps, but only one button to press, the self-checkout only has a few steps but many buttons; both were easy to follow, instructionally and intuitively. 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton