The Learning Pyramid

Last week I started my Fall ’10 quarter. For the many who read my blogs rarely, I have been going back to school since Spring ’09 earning at least an AA degree in Accounting and planning to transfer to a four year college. My classes so far are hit or miss in terms of good or bad instructor and how interesting the class. Almost all of my classes are boring.

Almost all of the classes I took while an undergraduate at San Jose State were not boring. That’s weird. All of my major classes, minor classes, and most GE classes were not boring. Why was I not bored? My answer is being naive. I was a robot—read the material, study, do homework, and take the test. Another answer is I had a boring college life. I spent most of my time studying. I had no college life. I just spend my time reading the books.

My Intermediate Accounting professor handed out a Learning Pyramid sheet on the first day of class. (My instructor has a Ph.D. in Accounting. He’s my first instructor in junior college with a doctrine degree.) I looked at the sheet. There was no surprise. Lecture and Reading, two most common teaching methods in schools, scored a 5% and 10% average retention rate, respectively. I agree with the percentages. Most of my classes and readings are boring. Some instructors believe in group work or students working together in class solving problems. They want to satisfy the 50% Discussion Group rate. Group work rarely works because most of the time students talk about other stuff.

Yesterday, I read and completed the homework for Chapter 1 in Intermediate Accounting. Boring. Just boring. Some of the material was a review from Financial Accounting I. I forgot most of my accounting classes from Fall ’09 to Spring ’10. The homework took a long time to complete. I spread out my time completing the assignments to prevent going to sleep.

I also agree with Practice By Doing at 75% and Teach Others/Immediate Use at 90%. Almost everything I learned at San Jose State was useless at the companies I worked at. I learned everything on the job. On the job training was critical. There was practice by doing and whatever I learned something I used it immediately. I remembered almost everything the next day.

The traditional classroom lecture and reading continue in schools and colleges. I have a better understanding when students at any educational level from grade school to high school to graduate school say their classes are boring. My work experience speaks for itself. People apply and retain what they learn and its exciting learning hands out by doing it and doing it immediately. Teachers who apply Practice By Doing and Immediate Use should be promoted superintendent of their school district or dean of their college.

Finally, why am I bored with most of my classes at De Anza? I can become a robot again, but I’m not. I think back of my work experiences. My on the job training by practice and using it immediately were effective learning compared to my lecture and reading today. I have other activities and many hobbies outside the classrooms. And I realized there are better ways to learn.

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