How do you name the steps?
“Name The Steps” require instructors to identify the steps, name the steps, and design the steps. When learning a new process, students should meticulously focus on what to do next and on how to do each step. The teacher can name the step and provide a mnemonic device so students are able to easily recall the process. First, teachers must identify the steps to solving a problem in the most clear and concise way possible. The steps should be consistent and flow in in a story-like manner. Because people generally cannot memorize more than seven items in a row, there should not be more than 7 items in the steps. After identifying the steps, the instructor presents the information to his or her students in a memorable way through naming the steps, creating mnemonic devices, or a story. The steps can decorate the walls of the classroom for students to constantly refer to them. Also, students should understand why and how the steps were created, or the instructor can derive the rules with the students. At the end, the students must prove they can apply the steps to other problems. One way for students to prove their mastery is for them to narrate the process on a new problem. Another way to test students’ mastery of the concept is to reverse roles with the students. Solve a problem and allow students to explain the steps as you solve it or make a mistake and ask them what went wrong. Students should get to a point of mastery in knowing the steps that they could teach them to someone.
Similarly to the “Break It Down” method, “Name The Steps” provides appropriate scaffolding for students. Scaffolding provides the necessary assistance, tools or structure for a student to complete a task (for more information, go to Break It Down). Also, teaching the steps to a problem brings the task into the students’ Zone of Proximal Development or ZDP (go to Break It Down). When a student can complete a task only with teacher instruction, the task is within a student's ZDP.
Similarly to the “Break It Down” method, “Name The Steps” provides appropriate scaffolding for students. Scaffolding provides the necessary assistance, tools or structure for a student to complete a task (for more information, go to Break It Down). Also, teaching the steps to a problem brings the task into the students’ Zone of Proximal Development or ZDP (go to Break It Down). When a student can complete a task only with teacher instruction, the task is within a student's ZDP.
What does your Brain think about this?
Students with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) and ADHD especially benefit from the practice of naming the steps because the process simplifies tasks that these students might find overwhelming. However, the strategy helps non-special needs students as well by logically organizing the steps in their brain.
“Name The Steps” aids the process of learning in the students’ brains. Memory saves the mental location of information previous learned into the brain. The storage process places new information into memory. When individuals learn new things, they encode the information or change the format as it becomes stored into memory. Encoding gives meaning and interpretation to new information. Then finding the information stored into memory is the process of retrieval. In order for students to learn the assigned subject, the information much reach their long-term memory, where knowledge and skills are held for a long time. “Name The Steps” helps encode the leaning message, store it into long-term memory, and retrieve information from memory.
With “Name The Steps,” students learn the information in the form of declarative knowledge, and then it becomes procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge concerns general world knowledge and includes the nature of things in the present, past, and future. “Name The Steps” incorporates declarative knowledge when the students help derive the steps and when they solve problems by thinking through the steps. Also, connecting or using previous knowledge to create steps make the learning more meaningful to the students. Meaningful learning is the most effective way for students to store and retrieve information in their long-term memory. Also, mnemonics, another method within “Name The Steps,” is a retrieval cue considered to be the next best way to learn and retrieve concepts. Instead of using meaningful learning, mnemonics provide memory tricks to help remember specific information.
While declarative knowledge is information about how to execute a procedure, procedural knowledge is the ability to execute the procedure. When students are able to perform the task quickly, efficiently, and effortlessly, the knowledge becomes procedural. Also, in order for knowledge to be considered “procedural,” students must be able to use the information to solve other problems. Teachers’ goal for students should be for the process of solving a problem to become automatic (For more information on automaticity, see “Format Matters”: An Environment for Language). However, in order for the process to become automatic, the information must make it to the previously mentioned stages of memory. When appropriately executed, the “Name The Steps” process eventually guides the information to the right location in the brain, the procedural knowledge.
“Name The Steps” aids the process of learning in the students’ brains. Memory saves the mental location of information previous learned into the brain. The storage process places new information into memory. When individuals learn new things, they encode the information or change the format as it becomes stored into memory. Encoding gives meaning and interpretation to new information. Then finding the information stored into memory is the process of retrieval. In order for students to learn the assigned subject, the information much reach their long-term memory, where knowledge and skills are held for a long time. “Name The Steps” helps encode the leaning message, store it into long-term memory, and retrieve information from memory.
With “Name The Steps,” students learn the information in the form of declarative knowledge, and then it becomes procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge concerns general world knowledge and includes the nature of things in the present, past, and future. “Name The Steps” incorporates declarative knowledge when the students help derive the steps and when they solve problems by thinking through the steps. Also, connecting or using previous knowledge to create steps make the learning more meaningful to the students. Meaningful learning is the most effective way for students to store and retrieve information in their long-term memory. Also, mnemonics, another method within “Name The Steps,” is a retrieval cue considered to be the next best way to learn and retrieve concepts. Instead of using meaningful learning, mnemonics provide memory tricks to help remember specific information.
While declarative knowledge is information about how to execute a procedure, procedural knowledge is the ability to execute the procedure. When students are able to perform the task quickly, efficiently, and effortlessly, the knowledge becomes procedural. Also, in order for knowledge to be considered “procedural,” students must be able to use the information to solve other problems. Teachers’ goal for students should be for the process of solving a problem to become automatic (For more information on automaticity, see “Format Matters”: An Environment for Language). However, in order for the process to become automatic, the information must make it to the previously mentioned stages of memory. When appropriately executed, the “Name The Steps” process eventually guides the information to the right location in the brain, the procedural knowledge.