Chapter VIII Methods and know-how of memory

The day before the final exam, the students came into the classroom full of excitement. Today is the final review, and everyone can't wait.

Me too. Teachers and students have worked hard for a semester, and we both know each other well. I asked them to stand up and study the Bible together for a semester. Then we sat down and began to time. To this day, I can still hear them singing happily:

The Bible has 66 volumes, which are divided into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament.

There are thirty-nine volumes in the Old Testament and twenty-seven volumes in the New Testament.

The Old Testament is divided into three parts:

Seventeen volumes of history books, five volumes of poetry books and seventeen volumes of prophets.

They continued to sing, and when these fresh people finished reviewing, they began to cheer, clap their hands and cheer. They recited all the important truths I taught them in one semester for 27 minutes without interruption!

The final exam paper has six pages, but only one page is blank. There are many people who get high marks in the class. But as soon as the dean saw the score, he immediately called me into his office. He said, "Bruce, it is impossible for everyone in your class to get such a high score." 」

I have butterflies in my stomach, but I've been looking forward to this moment for a long time, and the answer is ready: "Can I show you the final exam paper to let you know if the topic is too simple?" 」

He spent two minutes quietly reading six questions. Then he said, "Do you use this paper to take the freshman exam? This is more difficult than my seminary final exam. Do they really know the answer? 」

"yes! Do you think I should pawn a few people? " He smiled, and I was finally relieved. The grades remain the same.

Most importantly, these students have learned something, and they love this course, because this course is not a threat, but an exciting and fast learning experience.

[method of memory]

Merola put it well: "The church should keep in mind three things: first, understand your teaching materials; Second, know the people you want to teach; Third, we must teach them well. "

"Teach them well" is the main idea of woodblock printing. This is the first time for me to share the quick teaching method of "browsing the Bible" in words. These are fascinating secrets. This innovative method has been used all over the world, from new york to the most remote Indian villages. Because the way of memory and the way of God's revelation of our thoughts cooperate with each other, these ways are completely super-cultural and immediate.

Teaching materials should be partly changed in thinking and memorized.

Memories of learning to lose weight and losing weight group

Examination, selection, simplification and memory are skillful.

Be ready, prioritize, package and practice at any time.

There are five stages in memory methods, and I find that they can make people teach quickly and produce amazing results. As long as you know them, you can absorb all the information in seven ways that are consistent all over the world, so that students can write down the most essential parts with joy.

[Phase I: Teaching Materials]

Teachers must work hard to "study" and "investigate" the whole topic in order to accumulate data and "prepare" teaching materials.

The better the soil, the better the plants grow in the garden. The better the foundation is laid, the stronger and higher the building will be. The better the textbook, the stronger the influence when the class begins.

When I was writing this chapter, I was also preparing a speech to answer: "What does the Bible say will happen in the Middle East before the Lord comes again? 」？ I have too much information, but I only have 40 minutes to speak. Half of the people I talked to don't often attend parties, and most of them have never heard of the eschatological scene mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 24. So when I prepare lessons, I will take three steps:

1. Browse topics

2. Organizational theme

3. Summary theme

The theme of browsing is to have a bird's eye view of the content as soon as possible, browse encyclopedias, textbooks and catalogues, and don't stop to read intensively. At this stage, your mind should start to input the main information and think about how to arrange the content so as to make it clear on the stage.

Secondly, it is the organizational theme. Summarize the content by category and look at it step by step. Check out some of the best data sources to learn how to divide data. Make a list of big items. You don't need to evaluate them before making them. You just need to brainstorm and list what comes to mind. Wait for the list to complete, then start the evaluation, and code each topic as follows:

Part "A" is what you think is essential.

Part B is helpful, but not necessary.

Part "C" is helpful to students, but it is not necessary.

Part "d" is not very helpful to you.

The "F" part doesn't help at all, and even confuses students.

Mark this section, make a priority list, and then you will start to have a little idea of some broader concepts.

The last step is to summarize the topic. Review these categories and show them in a logical way step by step. As you get to know the textbook better, you can change the contents of "A", "B" and "C". After the major event is completed, you can repeat the above three steps and add dots under each category.

When you finish the textbook stage, you will have a new textbook outline.

[Phase II: Basic Part]

Now we need to concentrate on the content. You've studied it, and now you have to "simplify the complex". After investigation, we should now "choose" suitable teaching materials and actively list "key points".

This stage is unusual at first glance, but it is indispensable for effective teaching. At first, you will find this step very challenging, because we mistakenly think that teaching more content will be better than learning more content. When you focus on what you want students to learn, you will have different ideas.

More than 20 years ago, when I started the seminar "Walking through Jesus' Life", I studied everything Jesus did-including every place he went, every word he said and every miracle he did. There are almost more than 300 such incidents. I remind myself that I only have one and a half hours to teach the life of Jesus, but many people don't know him very well. What should people know to say "I know the life of Jesus"? I selected three most important categories from my priority list.

The second stage is to let you delete some things from the first stage textbook. Remember that not all lectures are equally important. Most of them are things that students don't have to write down or even discuss. At most, just for a general understanding.

At this stage, teachers generally don't control themselves, so they talk more and teach less. A good teacher is good at choosing content, and will go to the weeds to save the green.

Someone asked a master sculptor how he turned decay into magic and carved this spectacular work with ordinary stones. He replied that he just cut off all the stones that did not belong to him. If he is a horse, cut off all the parts that don't look like horses.

How do you choose the most important ingredients? Three keys to the formation of teaching materials: first, the audience; The second is the available time; The third is the purpose of class.

If you focus on the life of Jesus, there are three kinds of audiences you want to teach:

1. Girls in Grade Six

2.25 years old married young man

3. Doctoral students in theological seminaries

Will it be effective if teaching is equal? The textbook you choose depends on the students you teach.

Secondly, the content you choose is also limited by the teaching time. If the teaching time is limited by the following three periods, what teaching materials should be arranged in your teaching plan?

1 .20 minutes of meditation

2.50-minute class

3. Courses lasting 13 weeks

Third, teachers should choose teaching materials according to the teaching purpose. What do you want students to achieve? If you teach the same Bible with three different purposes, you will choose three different contents:

1. Check the life of Jesus.

2. Prove that Jesus Christ is the Jewish Messiah.

3. Respond to Jesus Christ with worship.

When you list the priority of teaching materials according to the characteristics of the audience, the length of time and the purpose of teaching, you must consider how much students need to know about the teaching materials.

Students often ask us this question. Educators have long known that "knowing (understanding) a subject" has many stages. For ease of application, the following are the three most beneficial stages:

1. Shallow understanding: "I've heard it before, and I think I know a little."

2. a general understanding: "I have studied it and know roughly what it looks like. 」

3. Overall understanding: "I know very well. Here are ten main points. 」

You want students to realize that at that stage, they not only have to teach in different ways, but also take exams in different ways. If you only stay at the superficial stage of understanding, you should use multiple-choice test; If it is an intermediate stage, it is necessary to test it with true or false questions or intermediate questions; If you are in the stage of overall understanding, please list the complete facts and discuss the main components and applications.

The law of memory insists that teachers should be responsible for the following activities:

1. Pick out the teaching content.

2. Decide which stage students should recognize.

3. Tell students not only what they should know, but also according to the degree.

4. Teaching methods should make students eager to learn.

5. According to the textbook test agreed by teachers and students, the correct understanding announced by the teacher shall prevail.

The teacher didn't focus on the right teaching materials and didn't teach at the right stage, which wasted a lot of students' time.

Never treat your students like this! On the contrary, you should explain those facts and concepts clearly so that students can understand them. This indispensable basic part must be clarified and practiced repeatedly. Make sure that every student studies, otherwise the teacher can't be counted as teaching. Remember, if students can't learn, teachers can't teach well!

At the end of the first issue of the textbook, it is necessary to clarify the teaching content and list the outline. Usually, lesson preparation stops here.

At the end of the second stage of the "basic part", you should re-evaluate and reorder the teaching content. You have listed the facts that everyone should know, as well as the most important outline and minor parts in the outline. You admit that not every fact has the same weight, but to have that kind of wisdom, you must set priorities when preparing lessons.

When you compare the outline of the textbook with the new outline of the "basic part", you will be surprised at the difference. You know that to make a good outline, you must separate the main and secondary things.

The outline of the "basic part" is the "essence" you want to teach, but you haven't presented it in the best way. You only have the best raw materials, but you must pack them well so that students can study happily.

Stage 3: Make the brain easy to accept.

Now it's time to transfer your ideas from textbooks to students' ideas. You have chosen the textbook, and now you should choose the right way to teach it so that students can remember it.

Unfortunately, only a few teachers have taken this step. Too many teachers think that teaching is to finish teaching the facts, but they don't think that teaching is to let students write them down before calculating! Once our teaching is student-centered rather than teacher-centered, we will immediately find that the current teaching methods are too inadequate.

When the "Seven Laws of Learners" is burning in your mind (you should inspire students to really study textbooks), you should immediately find a better way to let them learn the essence instead of following the book as usual.

This is a difficult process to achieve! When I was studying, most teachers didn't think it was their responsibility to motivate me to study, it was my responsibility!

Since teachers want to stimulate students' learning, they must teach in the most effective way, so that students can study in class, not after class.

I searched the dictionary, but I couldn't find a word to describe this process properly, so I invented a word "mindeasy" to explain this process. At this stage, you have to rearrange, simplify and package the teaching materials, so that students can learn and enter his mind. It is not difficult at all. How do we do this? The following can be seen.

Do you still remember the time when you "rote (K book)" before the exam? As long as you think that the materials will be tested in the final exam, you will try every means to put together irrelevant materials so that you can understand them, so that you can remember that part in the exam.

Since it works when you are a student, why not when you are a teacher? When you are teaching, why don't you help the students write it down while teaching? Think about how happy students will be in the next exam after class!

To achieve this goal, you must use creativity to extract the essence and modify it, so that students can write it down easily. Skilled teachers at this stage will make their teaching content meet two requirements:

1. Easy to understand

2. Easy to remember (easy to remember)

Let's think about the degree of understanding first. Recently, my son complained that his math textbook was too difficult. He said that last year's textbooks were easier to understand, and this year's textbooks may be written in foreign languages.

Have you ever read an article that made you more confused about a subject than you knew before? But then you thoroughly understood the same content from a difficult article?

This method of measuring the difficulty of books, magazines and articles has existed for a long time. For example, Reader's Digest is a sophomore in China, and Harper Magazine is a sophomore in high school. China read People magazine in the first year and Scientific American in the third year of high school. Even the version of the Bible can be read at different levels: the international children's Bible is read in the third grade of primary school, the new international-Dinner version is read at the domestic level, and the new King James Version is read at the domestic level; "Revised Standard Edition" is an advanced edition. The reading level of the New American Bible is higher; The King James Edition was read in senior three.

If teachers want students to learn something, they should simplify the textbooks as much as possible and don't hurt the original appearance of the textbooks. Textbooks should be rearranged for the audience. A good teacher will simplify the most difficult concept into something that even children can understand! If you had such a good teacher's class, you wouldn't be at a loss at all. Poor teachers will drain students, and poor teachers will confuse students; Profound is not necessarily complicated, but simplified.

Don't believe what others say: it's too difficult to simplify, which is simply wrong! Some concepts are really difficult to understand, but that doesn't mean that a good teacher can't use technical methods: students can not only understand, but even don't know that the teacher is teaching a complex concept!

The second part of this stage is the degree of memory. Teachers should make textbooks easy to understand and students easy to remember. Teachers should design textbooks so that students can remember them unconsciously.

Our subconscious thoughts are usually known faster than our conscious memories. For example, just look at how an immigrant family learns Chinese. The children mingle with other children in the village, while their parents spend eight hours in intensive classes every day. After the same period of time, children will perform better than their parents. Parents concentrate on memorizing that language, while their children learn it at will.

The degree of memory can be divided according to the difficulty. The harder the textbook is to remember, the harder it is to remember; The easier you remember, the better you learn!

When you have teaching content that is easy to remember, remember that students will only accept what they can accept. Students' brains can't understand what is taught in unfamiliar words, and you can't expect your brain to accept illogical and irrelevant facts; Nor can it be expected to accept facts beyond its understanding-just like trying to teach calculus to second graders.

You can only expect students to write down the facts that have been specially processed and can be quickly and permanently remembered in their minds. Do you remember some poetic songs? Every good boy does a good job? How long ago do you remember? What happens if you remember the order of the letters e, g, b, d and f? So teachers make some design arrangements, which will make the facts easier for students to remember.

Maybe you are full of ideas now, dreaming that this revolutionary way will have a great influence on your students. You are very creative, thinking about how to arrange the content in the most effective way and make it easy for students' brains to remember. Don't worry, after careful research and testing, we found seven secrets of memory, which will be mentioned later in this chapter. These seven tips can make teachers' teaching content easily recorded by students. But before that, please focus on the fourth step of fast teaching.

[Stage 4: Remember]

The first to third stages all take place before class, which is the teacher's private preview work. In the past, you paid attention to dealing with content information, but now you should pay attention to passing on the truth to students.

The goal of mnemonic method is to make students "remember" what you think is important. If you want students to remember, you must "review" and let the textbooks "remember" in students' minds, you must "practice" repeatedly until students remember.

The goal of this stage is to change thinking, from short-term memory to long-term memory. We should constantly push forward the materials so that students can remember them without thinking.

Many teachers mistakenly think that they will teach new things all their lives, so that they will not waste students' time, but maybe that is wrong. From a new perspective, Jesus taught many new things in the gospels. You will find that he teaches the main content over and over again, teaching the same idea in different ways. He directly stated a principle and emphasized it with miracles or metaphors. He kept repeating the same idea.

Modern education rarely does this. If teachers want to take on the responsibility of inspiring students to learn, they should be involved automatically. This commitment is often accompanied by high-priced brands. But that brand will buy a sense of satisfaction and let you know that you will affect your students' future life. This commitment will not only improve their performance, but also improve their appearance and attitude.

Dedicated teachers should take the initiative to believe that if students are willing to cooperate, they will certainly learn the indispensable basic parts. This kind of teacher's input is unusual, but it will be widely appreciated and cooperated by students.

What should the teacher do if he only remembers the things in the exam, and the scores prove that he didn't understand the textbook after the exam? Whose fault is this? Do you want to take the exam as a reflection of your performance? As long as you understand that the teacher's main role is to stimulate students' learning, you will look at things from different angles. What's the use of poor grades? The point is not how the students did in the second and fifth exams, but what they learned.

Grades do not mean that some students learn faster than others, but do you understand?

We must guide students from complete ignorance of a subject to mastery of the basic part of the subject, or even to a higher level. Before that, we must let students go through a series of stages of understanding and memory.

The key for students to remember textbooks is review. Whether review can be "the mother of all learning" or "the father of all boredom" depends entirely on the skills of teachers. Here are seven main principles for effective review:

1. Review is the main way for everyone to remember everything.

Review will be effective only when the teacher fully understands the textbook.

3. Review should be done step by step and say the same sentence until the students write down the essential parts that cannot be deleted completely.

4. Review is more compact and smooth than the first teaching.

I often review, but as time goes by, I remember less and less.

Review should continue until all students can fully grasp the necessary parts.

7. Review should be conducted in different ways.

How do you know that you have reviewed enough? Wait until the whole class remembers the basics. The last stage of memory mode is to make students fully proficient in this subject-from memory to mastery.

[Stage 5: Proficiency (Proficiency)]

In this last step, you should lead your class from acquiring knowledge to applying knowledge. This process begins with discussion, so that students can write down information. Now you should lead them to the climax of the learning process in a creative way: self-ability.

After completing this stage, students will become the masters of this textbook. They will write down what you teach them, and they can use what they have learned skillfully.

To master, we must consider four aspects, which are mostly related to the teaching process:

1. An indelible memory

Step 2 learn more about it

3. Integration of intuition

4. Independent applications

When students know the lecture content like the back of their hands and write it down firmly, this information will become their indelible memory. Teachers must often review the contents of lectures, so that students can have a long-term vision. In the end, those facts will become memories they will always remember.

What is five times five? 1773 what did American citizens throw into Boston harbor? Because you often review the first question and the second question is not common, you know the answers to these two questions. In fact, you have kept it in mind. When you teach the basics, you hope that students will never forget it, so you must review it often so that everyone can blurt out the answers anytime and anywhere.

In-depth understanding is to go beyond the superficial level and let students understand the true meaning and importance of those facts. In order to make students understand the meaning of facts, class discussion and paper report are helpful.

If you know that tea was thrown into Boston harbor, but you don't know why or why, then even if the information is important, it is worthless to you. After all, how many job applications will ask Boston Tea Group?

Intuitive integration occurs when the whole class knows how to apply facts to things other than books. You must guide students to think about principled facts and familiarize them with intuitive reactions.

My recent speech at a Christian education conference was aimed at this step. I hope to teach people how God the Father teaches people. I don't emphasize what God said, but the way he conveyed it. I will give ten examples of God's teaching methods, so that listeners can read more and know the principles of God's teaching methods.

When I asked them to integrate the same principle in the next class, no one moved or spoke. Everyone has seen the value of this aspect, but they can't immediately understand what they have learned. Therefore, I must go back to the previous step, let them have a deeper understanding, and list examples of integration. Finally, at the dawn, everyone who listened knew the trick, but for a while, it was a challenge for each of us!

I told my audience that I knew it was difficult for them to think, which reflected their bad habit of "meditating" in life. After class, someone came to me and said something that I will never forget: "You said we couldn't think, that's right. We stopped meditating years ago. Now we all look for answers from books instead of thinking. 」

The Bible says that this stage is from "knowledge" to "wisdom". If students just know and can't use it, it's all in vain to learn those things. Maybe you don't agree, but I firmly believe that it is worthless and time-consuming to learn a lot of knowledge without using it.

Independent application is the real goal of education. If you are not present and the students have no external pressure, will they still apply what you teach? Students have really learned it, so should they use it in their lives?

I call this process "life-changing teaching". The purpose of your teaching is not whether the students have studied or reviewed before the exam. The real purpose of education is to teach and train students so that their words and deeds can be changed.

When you think about the four steps of the "mastery" stage, understand that you can use class time and homework to make students fully proficient. Memorizing facts and understanding facts should be the function of the classroom, and integration and application are the focus of homework.

This may be a radical approach for you, but it is incredibly different from your previous teaching philosophy. This is the real value of teaching. We often ask students to remember the contents of the lesson plan in class, thinking that students will succeed if they rewrite it word for word in the exam.

Few teachers think that the purpose of teaching is to bring lasting changes to people's lives, not temporary knowledge accumulation.

Recently I helped a young man solve his algebra problem. He said angrily that he was glad that he didn't have to take algebra class after this semester. I asked him if the problem of this equation can be used in real life. He smiled-the idea was absurd to him. He believes that this subject is only one of the contents that the school forces students to learn.

I told him how to solve problems in real life equally. It took him a long time to understand the value of algebra and intuitively understand its importance to real life.

But unfortunately, it's too late. The semester is almost over, but he still fails.

What is the reason for it

Maybe his teacher only taught algebra and never inspired him to learn algebra. Maybe his teacher doesn't understand that the purpose of algebra is to help the young man live a better life.

In my opinion, the person who fails more than this student is his teacher!

The secret of memory-if you teach more, you will learn quickly. 〗

No matter how much students want to learn textbooks quickly and thoroughly in class, the key to mastering this process is the teacher.

Learning well depends on how quickly teachers can motivate students to learn. How much students learn depends on how well teachers prepare lessons and lead students to learn. The value of learning depends on the teacher's mastery of students and the effect of practical application.

In the part of memory law, it is mainly about what tricks teachers use to stimulate students to learn facts. The seven methods listed in this section can double or triple you. Even four-letter textbooks are instilled in students' minds from your notebook. It will also cut your usual teaching time by half, so that you can spend twice as much time on applied courses.

These seven methods are the main ways for teachers to make it easier for students to remember the course content. We didn't invent these methods. These principles have existed since the beginning of mankind. They are universally applicable only because they are consistent with the way God created man. God created human beings with consistent thinking patterns and senses.

Being able to hear and recognize sounds is the basis of producing music, so as long as people exist, they will communicate with music. If a teacher teaches with music, he is working in the process of communicating with God.

In any era and culture, music is one of the typical methods for rapid teaching. Do you know what is the most effective way to teach children ABC letters with advanced space and technology in America? Yes, it's ABC alphabet song. There is no other way to compare this way, because it comes from the learning mode set by the creator.

Before reading this part, you will know six learning modes that God has already rooted in people's hearts. When you read them, they will appear immediately. In fact, although you know them unconsciously, you already know them.

God not only designed the thinking mode of human beings, but also endowed us with the senses to receive all kinds of information. If new information is not often added to the mind, then the thinking mode is almost useless. If we can't accept new information, we must live by imagination.

These senses are often called our "perception". They are a part of the body, through which new information can enter our current thinking mode. If we don't have hearing, music can't help us study, and if we don't have vision, pictures can't help us study.

Therefore, if teachers want students to learn faster, they must make good use of the tricks of sight, taste, hearing, smell and touch. Our life experience is the result of interaction with these senses. For example, the collection of these senses will let you see the categories of musicians or amateur performers.

We seldom use the senses to describe the experience, but use the results of the senses to describe the experience. Like visual enjoyment, beautiful and charming; Make the hearing uncomfortable like terrible noise; Make the sense of smell uncomfortable and stink.

Make good use of one or more senses to absorb information, and you will remember more. If teachers know how to make good use of it, it will promote students' learning process. You can combine them at any time. They are catalysts that can speed up your teaching.

Because the combination of these perceptions should work in coordination with the thinking mode and the five senses, it is not limited by culture, time, space and teaching materials. I use these skills all over the world, and I find that they speed up my teaching, whether in Bolivian forests, on the coast of Brazil, in villages in Alaska or in apartments in new york.

The seven secrets of memory are cross-cultural, cross-information and cross-generation, and can be used flexibly. They are necessary tools for teachers who want to speed up their teaching.

[Hint 1: Explain the truth or facts with pictures]

Pictures will play a great role in students' memory, which is why people take pictures and put them in photo albums. A picture often reminds people of many related facts, not only in front of them, but also 25 years later.

Where did we learn the secret? From the great teacher Jesus, do you remember that God set a rainbow in the sky? This is to remind everyone of his promise not to destroy the world with floods.

The effect of teaching with pictures is great, because pictures are visible, super-cultural and non-verbal, and the connection it produces is instant, connecting many landscapes, sounds, smells and feelings. Recently, when I saw the photo of President Gantundi's assassination, I immediately remembered where I was when the news was made public and what the date was. I was very sad. A photo reminded me of countless memories.

If you want students to remember your lecture, you should design a picture to connect them. You can choose pictures or hand-drawn pictures to arouse students' memory.

Many teachers help students write scriptures with pictures. Speakers use different pictures to emphasize the key points of the speech, and it is easy to recall the content of the speech. The husband will remember to buy five or six things he wants to buy at the grocery store and stack them with the imaginary map.

In the organization of "browsing the Bible", we start with cartoons to help people remember the contents of each volume of the Bible immediately. For example, the picture below represents St.