Speed Learning

My wife is a pretty smart lady. A quick learner. Today, she stopped by a new burger joint in town that was very busy due to the fact that it is new and unique. She made the comment that, as she stood in a long line waiting to order, she watched others struggle with the process of ordering. How hard can it be to order a hamburger? Evidently, it posed a challenge to some. But rather than bide her time in line simply waiting to order, my wife carefully listened to the people in front of her bumble their way through the ordering process. When it came her turn, she ordered flawlessly and it stunned the girl taking her order to the point of pausing and makinig a "look" at my wife as if to ssy, "How did you do that?". She couldn't believe someone had finally ordered without error.

The lesson here is that watching somone else practice while getting feedback (the person taking the order was correcting the patrons as they made errors) provides the learner with a demonstration of what is--and what is not--the correct way to do something. If you are not using realistic scenarios to teach your students, you are cheating them out of a wonderful learning opportunity.

--Sherm