Sticky Teaching →
As teachers we rely on the fact that human beings are fundamentally curious creatures. Additionally, people tend to have a natural curiosity about themselves and those around them, which gives psychology teachers an excellent advantage in the classroom. Despite this advantage, many of us see our students again in higher-level classes and wonder why the lessons we know we taught them did not stay with them. We wonder, why didn’t my teaching stick? We all know that it’s far easier to recall the contents of a Discovery Channel program than a two-hour topical lecture, but few of us understand why this is the case. Malcolm Gladwell and Dan and Chip Heath have looked to the business and advertising worlds and discovered six concepts that are surprisingly relevant to making ideas “stick” in peoples’ minds: Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotion, and Stories. These ideas can be applied to teaching, and in this essay, I will show you how you can apply them in the classroom.
A great read if you have a few minutes.
