Repetition

One of the most underused teaching techniques is repetition. I suppose many teachers consider it appropriate only for children in the classroom who are required to learn things by rote. But that fact is that adults and teenagers alike learn a good chunk of things by repetition. Adults in the choir learn a choral piece through repetition. Actors learn their lines through repetition. Teenagers learn adeptness at sports through repetition in drills. The most effective curriculum involves a spiral design which repeats concepts at various stages and levels in the course of study. The fact is that we hardly ever learn anything the first time around. We all need repetition in order to learn.

Here are three pointers for using repetition from educator Barbara Gross Davis:

• Stress important material through repetition. Students’ attention wanders during class. Indeed, research suggests that students are focally aware of the lecture content only about 50 to 60 percent of the time. To underscore the importance of a point, you will need to say it more than once.
• Use different words to make the same point. No single explanation will be clear to all students. By repeating major points several times in different words, you maximize the chances that every student will eventually understand. In some disciplines you may be able to develop the same point in two or three different modes: mathematically, verbally, graphically. In others, you may want to say things twice: formally and colloquially.
• Use redundancy to let students catch up with the material. Students will have trouble understanding a second topic is they are still grappling with the first. Give students a chance to catch up by building in redundancy, repetition, and pauses.

SOURCE: Barbara Gross Davis, Tools for Teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993) p. 123.