Juli
Kendall's
2004-05
READING/WRITING
WORKSHOP JOURNAL
Entry #22
Jim's Journal – The 10% Solution
Everyone needs someone they can talk to. Someone who can help them sort things out and get on with the business of living. There are doctors, lawyers, therapists, best friends, co-workers, and then there is Jim. For more than 30 years, he has helped me talk through the big ideas. His capacity to summarize and synthesize is amazing. Somehow, he has the ability to help me figure out what it is that I know — about education and about life.
Several years ago, after a conversation about how to help all kids learn, he created a graph called the "The 10% Solution: Compound Learning." It's posted on the Resources page for the Reading/Writing Project. It's based on the work of Vygotsky and states, "Research shows that learning best occurs with many lessons presenting no more than 10% new material and lots of practice." It illustrates how students who know very little can make progress and actually catch up with others. Recently, I received an email from Jim. It's a really great example of how he helps me think through what I know and make a difference for all kids, so I want to share it with others. Let's just call it, "Jim's Journal — The 10% Solution." Jim wrote: At the Y this morning, I saw a young woman working out who used to work at the Y as a Fitness Director. She finished her education, became a teacher, and now teaches PE and coaches the girls' softball team at a private school...high school age students. We were talking about her team, about teaching, etc. I mentioned your work and some of the things you have to deal with. She says the students at her school aren't economically well off, that many speak Spanish as a first language, and that many come unprepared for high school level work. I described "The 10% Solution" (curve of optimal development), small group instruction, etc. She was interested and said that she's at a point where she's trying to learn all sorts of things about teaching. When I went to shower, I started thinking about how the problems you face might manifest themselves in high school students...girls...such that you could apply your techniques in a PE class. Here's what I came up with. A high school PE teacher wants her students to play softball. She has students with a wide range of physical abilities. A significant number of the students, even those athletically inclined, have never played or participated as fans in baseball or softball. On Monday, the teacher hands out a multi-page listing of softball rules to all students. She directs them to take the list home, study it, and be prepared to ask their questions on Wednesday. They will be tested on the rules of softball on Friday. What would you expect to happen?1. Students who have played or been fans of baseball or softball (we'll call them "players") will read quickly through the rules and look for items they have not previously learned or that differ from what they thought they knew. The new or different rules will probably consist of 10% or less of new material. 2. Players will study only the new material, thus almost all their time is spent on a small amount of material. 3. Players will tend to have specific questions about the more unique rules of softball (things like when you can lead off or steal, the "infield fly rule," etc.) Having clarified their few questions, they have even less to study for the test...merely "brushing up" on what they have already learned and their newly acquired information. 4. Students who have not played baseball (who we will refer to as "nonplayers") will have to carefully study the rules, trying to make sense of this extensive list of new material and place it into a meaningful context. Those with some experience with sports or at least the playing of games may begin to see general patterns about the game or at least begin to develop the specialized vocabulary used in the game. Nonathletic nonplayers will find most of what they read disconnected and relatively meaningless. 5. Athletic nonplayers may ask a few general questions, depending on whether they are brave or not. Knowledgeable players may laugh at the simplicity of the questions. Of course, if the athletic players don't speak English very well, they may sit respectfully and say nothing or act out rather than show that they don't know anything. 6. Nonathletic nonplayers will ask no questions. 7. On Friday, players will answer most or all of the questions, scoring across the upper end of a bell curve, depending partly on their reading ability and their ability to take tests.
8. Nonplayers will mostly receive non-passing grades. 9. Nonplayers who have studied very hard and have good memories may pass, though they will miss questions that do not essentially duplicate the rule as stated in the handout. 10. The teacher will feel that the lesson was a success because the players have generally mastered the material and some even mastered the new or more difficult rules. 11. The nonplayers will be considered lazy or uncooperative, criticized for not studying, for not asking questions when they had the opportunity, or for refusing to learn our culture. I know some of this is probably exaggerated a bit, but I'll bet it's pretty close to reality. If you take different cultures and different languages out of the equation and deal with it solely as a PE issue, it still holds together, and it shows that the problems faced by students are more an issue of trying to cover too much at too difficult a level than one of intelligence, comportment, or study habits. Some of your "audience" may actually see themselves in the group of nonplayers and develop some sympathy for those of their students who are nonplayers in the English reading, writing, and 'rithmatic game. Just some meandering thoughts...
Juli Kendall is co-author of a new book from Stenhouse Publishers, Making Sense: Small-Group Comprehension Lessons for English Language Learners.
Resources page for our Reading/Writing Project
