Do you ever feel like you’re teaching the same thing over and over again and the students still can’t remember exactly what you said? I love how Cathy Shepherd, of the Music for Tots blog, explains her reaction to this realization in reference to teaching her students the definition of ostinato:
“I decided that it is not that my students are dumb—it’s ME. Evidently I’m not teaching the definition of an ostinato correctly.”
So she took action and devised a creative, “sticky*” approach that will probably keep the definition of ostinato fresh in her students’ minds well into retirement. 🙂
This is one of the reasons I love teaching so much! Every time a student doesn’t understand something or struggles to remember what came easily to us, it provides vast opportunities for creativity, resourcefulness, and more effective teaching approaches.
[*The term “sticky” is derived from the principles laid out in the fabulous book, Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. I wrote a brief review of this book in my post, 2009 Year of Reading in Review.]
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