"The Necessity of Understanding Procedural Instructions"

Why Students Do Not Perform Well in Science and Math

President Obama recently encouraged students to enroll in science in math, stating that it was "cool" to do so. What is not understood with this statement is that there is a tragic paradox. There is a reason many learners do not enroll in these subjects. Most do not have enough underlying memory capacity to learn the complex information and then apply it.

Furthermore, assuming this, students are unable to understand and follow procedural instructions basic to conceptualizing mathematical and scientific information.

Why is this? Numerical arithmetic is taught in grades 1-3, and there is a major shift in the curriculum in grade 4. Right-brain spatial numbers shift into left-brain sequencing with advanced concepts. National test scores show that math scores, including advanced concepts, drop off beginning in grade 4.

Understanding science requires not only doing simple experiments and reading scientific stories out of textbooks, but requires procedural, stepwise learning.

Procedural learning requires the mastery of learning step-wise procedures. Following directions is usually taught with simple question and answer worksheets, or now, with online question/answer assignments laced with cartoons.

Nationally standardized test scores do not change for the better. Textbook companies scratch their heads. Innovators come up with practice applications. Still, "No Go."

Why do we fall behind other foreign countries -- how can these children encode-decode information while ours do not? Do they have more stringent learning practices requiring focus and sequencing of difficult material? Do they learn more foreign languages that require intrinsic symbolic encoding/decoding applications? Do they study more musical instruments that require focus, practice, with encoding/decoding? Both musical training and learning a foreign language trains auditory (listening) memory, critically needed for learning technical sequences.

What is missing?

If students are unable to listen to complex instructions (teachers spend hours daily repeating directions over and over), and students then work in teams where one member does the application "thinking" and fills out the responses - even on the computer, how are the others learning? Somewhat? Many are working in small tutorial groups with simple assignments far below grade level work.

The missing link is teaching students how to encode and decode sequential information, and expand their visual and listening memories an underlying requirement for conceptualizing formulas and mathematical equations.

This is done through cognitive skills training, although this is not available in the typical school classroom. Every student processes information differently, with different learning styles and capacities. The teacher can not begin to test and measure every child's cognitive skills, nor are they qualified to do so. It is also expensive and time consuming to have them measured and evaluated through private practitioners.

Assignments will not be learned as expected, and there is much time spent "How to take the interim benchmark tests, or "teaching to the test" for the final end-of-year nationally standardized achievement tests that include reading, math, and science scores. Classrooms spend hours teaching how to select and fill in multiple choice answers on the computer. Pressure is placed upon students who naturally lack the necessary "brain-power" to sequence and code instructions.

Is this fair? Of course not. We are training test-taking robots, not how to assimilate and learn science and math required for understanding and expanding our technological capacities.

How can we attack and get around this, if the necessary brain skills are not taught in schools or in most computer software skill drilling programs? Students are learning only pieces of the information, not complex series that are fundamental to learning science and math needed for technologies.

Parents can now help fill in this gap - the missing link. There soon will be more parent "how to" information readily accessible through internet learning. Applications will be pleasurable, scientifically tested, and learning will be fast.

The ability to encode/decode sequential information will be taught through specific, scientifically tested training regimens. It might be something for all of us to consider. Let's look to future possibilities.

Don't Fire the Teachers - Retrain the Kids' Learning Abilities

Teachers are in a hotbed now. Not only are salaries and teaching positions frozen, but many are being fired due to budget constraints. School Districts and Schools, not knowing how to get a handle on whom to show the door, have tied standardized testing classroom scores to teacher worthiness and instructional excellence.

Teachers are being asked to “re-teach” what children have not learned: like basic math facts, generally taught in the third grade. With specific curriculum requirements for each grade level, it is difficult to go back and continually review, and then have enough time to teach the necessary basic skills for that particular grade level.

To top it all off, teachers, grades four and up, are forced to spend several hours daily, four days a week, to teach the standardized test mechanisms. This is not subject matter-content instruction; it is merely test-taking mechanics on how to choose a multiple choice answer and move through the exam in a certain amount of time. Struggling students often sit with a higher-ability level peer and mimic test-taking actions, not understanding the concept.

What is not taken into consideration is that classroom student ability level composition varies from room to room. One class may have more “struggling” students than another, placing that teacher at a disadvantage compared to another class of higher ability students.

What is missing here is that each student’s ability level should be pre-tested in the early elementary grades, and carefully followed by the parents and teachers. That way, learning progress can be tracked.

Private assessment consultants can be identified for parents’ engagement, and brief group cognitive skills standardized test batteries can be administered by the school in early elementary years. Listening and visual deficiencies can be pinpointed as to severity. Classrooms can then have a fair distribution of ability levels dispersed between classes.

Any teacher should not be unlucky enough to inherit a classroom full of low performers, and then be fired because they were tough to teach and failed to obtain immediate test results.

My own research demonstrated that a classroom of low performing fourth graders did not obtain a change in standardized test scores immediately following a strong intervention. The results appeared a year later, when the students’ scores were reconfigured, and it was discovered there was sometimes a latency effect with slow learners. Two years’ later these two low-achieving classes passed up a group of gifted students, achievement score-wise because of my intervention.

Moreover, should we fire the unlucky teacher who had to wait a full year to see results from her own excellent teaching? And, ironically, the subsequent teacher receives applause and a bonus for the work the former teacher conducted?

Concurrently, students’ learning abilities are not predetermined, and the myriad of drill and practice subject matter computerized programs while they do some good, do not remedy the information processing shortcomings. That is why we are caught up in this academic achievement dilemma.

We spend time practicing the mechanics for standardized tests, do not learn the subject matter, nor are we retraining cognitive abilities so every child can be an efficient learner. With systematic early student ability retraining, teachers would be able to teach, students would learn what they are taught, achievement test scores would systematically raise, and teachers will not have to be fired.