"What it is is up to us." — Howard Rheingold
"Having teachers run classes doesn’t help students learn the way they’d like to learn. The teachers already know the material, so doing things their way is ineffective." — Deanna H., student
“Before we begin the first real skills-based homework, I want to explain something about how I am going to build the problems we are working on from simple to ever more complex structures.
Once again, my students are sitting in randomized groups at the lab tables. As always, they have introduced themselves and are ready to work together.
“Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked several times about the idea that if everyone is going to learn as much as possible, we can’t all do the same thing at the same time, that you need to be able to make choices about how you are learning. Technically, in teacher talk, this is called “differentiation”.
“Years ago, I read this book,” I hold it up, “called The C-Zone. It was written by a man named Robert Kriegel. He created a system for thinking about in corporate management, but it applies directly to any situation where new skills are being learned. “I want to show you a modified version of his ideas that I hope will show you a way to think about making good learning choices.
“I’m going to draw a graph to show you how you learn.” There are several groans, and one student actually asks, “Is that really necessary?” to some laughter.
“Well, it’s not necessary, but it’s an example of how physics works: we use all kinds of symbols to simplify and clarify how we think. Watch this one, and see if you don’t think it’s useful when we’re done.
I draw a vertical and horizontal axis on the board. “On the vertical axis, we’ve got the level of challenge you are experiencing in learning something new. Down at the bottom it’s easy, as you go up things get more challenging."
“On the horizontal axis, we’ve got your level of expertise, how well you understand the new topic. Here, on the left, you don’t get it, and off to the right, you could do it in your sleep.
“Now let’s consider several scenarios you might find yourself in.” I draw a point high up and close to the “level of difficulty” axis.
“Talk to your neighbor - what do you think is happening there? See if you can come up with some situations where you experienced this state.”
The usual hubbub breaks out. Everyone seems to know something about this.
“Okay,” I say, “what is happening at this point?”
“Well, you’re in over your head,” Jasmine says. “It’s too hard and you are unprepared.”
“And what examples didyou come up with?”
“Last year, my biology teacher put this whole complicated chart about photosynthesis on the overhead, talked about it for fifteen minutes, then gave us homework about it.” Jasmine says. “I had no idea what she was talking about, and after a few minutes on the homework, I just gave up, I was so frustrated.”
“A test I took last week in history had some questions on it that were so hard,” Mark says. “ I swear we had never talked about that topic, and I didn’t even know what they were about.”
“So my question is, how do you feel when you are in this position?,” pointing to the chart.
“Overwhelmed.” “Freaked out.” “Angry.” “Terrified.”
“So I’m going to call this part of the graph “the Panic Zone.” Just to be clear, how well do you think you will do at learning new stuff when you are feeling like this?”
Everyone agrees that this is a totally counterproductive experience.
“Now, let’s look at this part, where you have a lot of experience, but not much difficulty. What’s going on here? Can you come up with any examples?”
“Yeah,” Tom calls out, “It’s called boredom, and an example is my algebra class.” It takes a while for the laughter to die down.
“But seriously, what is happening here?”
“If you know something that well, everything turns into busywork all the time.”
“I’m going to call this part of the graph the “Drone Zone” - too much experience, not enough challenge - endless busywork. How does all that feel?”
“It’s tedious.” “Boredom.” “I get angry”
“Okay, so here’s where you want to be, somewhere in the middle of the graph, right? You want the amount of challenge to be right for you - not too much, but also not too little. What’s important to recognize is that this graph is different for each person. What’s very challenging for one of you might come easily to someone else. Your comfort zone (C-Zone, get it?) is specific to you. This area in the middle is where you are going to do your best learning. It is the Learning Zone.” I finish writing on the graph.
“So now let’s look at how we learn a new skill in this class, like the kinematics problems that you are working on right now.
“We always start here, close to where the two axes meet - you don’t have much experience, so the challenge shouldn’t be too great. I introduce a new type of problem - that’s a vertical arrow, where I’m making the challenge harder. My job is to make sure that when I introduce new, more challenging material, I don’t hit you with something so challenging that you get bumped into the Panic Zone.
“When I’m done introducing new material, you do a problem set at that level of difficulty. Practicing at that level is a horizontal arrow, like this. You practice until you’re ready to try something harder.
“If you master the skill quickly, to keep practicing would mean you’re doing busywork and you have entered the Drone Zone. You all know what that feels like, and you don’t want to go there. I don’t want you to go there. It’s a waste of your time, and it drains your motivation.
“But someone else may need to have a longer horizontal arrow, more practice, until they feel ready to move on to the next level of complexity. That is something you are going to learn how to do - make good choices about how much practice you need.
“When everyone is ready, I introduce that next level, another vertical arrow, and you practice it, another horizontal arrow, and so on. You’ll notice that as this progresses, everyone gets more experience and handles more challenging work. And how you get there is something that you will steer for yourself by choosing what work you are going to do.”
“By the way, take a look at this graph now and see if you get the meaning of it. How many words would it take to describe what you see here? That’s why we use Algebra and graphing and all those other things that you might want to groan over at first. They simply clarify complicated things so that we can see them clearly.”