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Of course, schools and classroom practices need to be current -- what teacher or district leader would say that we should continue to teach the way we did back in the "good ol' days?" Can you show me a successful organization or business that prides itself on keeping things exactly the way they were?

We need to believe the adults delivering education services are capable of being innovative, adaptive and collaborative and welcome being accountable for student outcomes. Then we need to invest in this belief by providing both the professional development and the infrastructure to make this belief a reality for all students and all teachers.

Ultimately, it is about delivering core education in today's world by today's standards of success.

I believe this is the basic approach: Education needs to be more relevant and rigorous for students. Educational institutions need to be more engaging and empowering for teachers. A high school diploma needs to be more directly applicable and valued in the economy. These are attainable goals; all education investments should be measured against these objectives.

Rule #2: Concepts before Facts (95% of the time)

Patterns make concepts useful, patternless concepts tend to have a very limited use, so they aren’t studied that much.

But it needs more time to mature in the back of your head while you do other things. Worse, it utterly fails when put under intense stress or time constraints.

Rule #4: Concept Checklists are Useful

Then create a second-order list under each of the larger bullet points with sub-concepts.

Write out (I suggest on a word document, since it allows multiple levels of bullets) all of the major concepts covered in your course.

Heuristics for Learning Better

A concept checklist is a good way to handle those scary, “I don’t understand anything!” moments that many learners face. It allows you to dissolve the frightening implications of total ignorance into a step-by-step guide that can allow you to slowly conquer any subject.

Tactic #1: The 5-Year Old Method

Tactic #2: Metaphors

I recommend brainstorming for metaphors. Start with open-ended questions like: This idea reminds me of…? This idea is used in real-life situations, such as…? What phenomenon mimics this idea? If I wanted to tell a story about this idea, it would go like…?

Tactic #3: Visceralization

combine smell, feeling and motion into an image, not just a picture.

Tactic #4: Deep Linking

if you know you don’t actually have to deeply learn the material, going deeper into a subject can actually make the original idea easier to understand.

How to Learn Faster and Better