You know that feeling when you walk out of a
professional development seminar or maybe you
just closed a massive email thread about a new
strategy and you just feel heavy? Oh, absolutely.
It's a very specific kind of exhaustion. It is.
It's not just I'm tired from working. It's more
like I'm tired of being told how to work. It
feels like every six months the wind just changes
direction first It's all about you know direct
instruction is king and then wait no inquiry
based learning is the only way it's the shiny
object syndrome of the intellectual world and
it's so draining because You feel like you can
never actually get your footing right as soon
as you master the current best practice It gets
labeled as I don't know traditional or outdated
and a new acronym just takes its place exactly
And that is exactly where we're starting today's
deep dive. We've got this fascinating piece of
writing from Gary Ackerman from his site hackscience
.education. And honestly, reading it felt like
a therapy session. It really did. He puts a name
to this frustration. He does. He identifies a
core tension in the education and learning space.
And this applies to, well, everyone. K -12 teachers,
corporate trainers, even just us. as lifelong
learners. He talks about this bombardment of
innovation and he puts innovation in quotes.
That's important, right? Because a lot of the
time it's not really innovative. It's just different
packaging precisely. Ackerman points out that
we're constantly hit with these models from school
leaders, from vendors, philanthropists. Everyone
has something to sell you. But the real problem
isn't just the sheer number of ideas, is it?
It's what he calls divergent pedagogies. Yes,
that phrase is key. Divergent pedagogies. Let's
unpack that a bit. It sounds kind of academic,
but the reality is just messy. It's very messy.
Essentially, Ackerman is saying that leaders
will advocate for totally contradictory practices,
and they don't even seem to realize it. Like
what? So you might have a district leader pushing
for, say, standardized, rigid testing metrics
on a Monday. But then on Tuesday, they bring
in a consultant to talk about creative, student
-led discovery. And those two things just don't
play well together. They cancel each other out.
One demands uniformity. The other demands...
a bit of chaos and exploration. So the teacher
or the manager is stuck right in the middle,
totally paralyzed. Trying to serve two masters.
Yeah. And Ackerman says this leads to what he
calls the labeling game. Yes. This is where all
our energy goes. We waste so much time asking,
is this lesson constructivist enough? Or is this
training module agile? We obsess over the label.
Over the packaging. The packaging, not the actual
learning. It's like we're arguing about the font
on the menu instead of actually cooking the food.
That is a perfect analogy. And Ackerman's whole
point is, stop looking at the menu font. Because
if you stop chasing what's new and you actually
look at the deep research, he points to the Cambridge
Handbook of Learning Sciences, you find something
really surprising. Which is what? That underneath
all these different brands of teaching, you know,
Montessori, coding boot camps, online courses,
whatever, the underlying mechanics of how the
human brain actually learns, they're remarkably
consistent. There are common themes. Common themes
that just show up everywhere. And this is where
the cheat sheet comes in. Ackerman basically
says, look, I was going to write my own list
of principles, but then I realized someone else
already did all the heavy lifting. Enter MD Merrill.
MD Merrill. And we're going back in time for
this. We are. All the way back to 2002, Merrill
conducted what's called a metasynthesis. OK.
So he didn't just invent a theory in a vacuum.
He looked at all the major instructional theories
of his time, the real heavy hitters, and he just
looked for the common denominators. He asked,
what do all the successful models have in common?
And he boiled it all down to five things, the
first principles of instruction. Just five. And
Akramy's point. writing this years later, is
that these principles haven't aged today. They
are the DNA of good teaching. I love that. The
DNA. It doesn't matter if you're teaching with
a VR headset or a chalkboard. That DNA has to
be there. So our mission today is to walk through
these five principles. And for you, listening,
I want you to think about this selfishly. If
you're trying to learn a language or coding,
or how to bake sourdough, use this as your checklist.
If what you're doing doesn't have these five
things, it's probably not gonna work. Use it
as a filter against all the noise. Okay, let's
do it. Principle number one. Merrill calls this
problem -centered learning. And the definition
is pretty simple. Learning is promoted when learners
are engaged in solving real -world problems.
This feels obvious, but I think traditional education
gets this wrong constantly. We usually start
with a topic, right? Welcome to history. Open
to chapter one. Exactly. Or, you know, in a corporate
setting. Welcome to the cybersecurity seminar.
Here is the definition of phishing. The problem
with that is it's abstract. The brain is just
sitting there going, why does this matter? Where
do I file this? So Merrill's saying flip it.
Start with the problem. Start with the whole
task. Don't just teach the little components
in isolation. Show the learner the complete problem
they need to solve. Give me an example. If you're
teaching someone to fix a car, don't start with
a lecture on the history of the combustion engine.
Start with, the car won't start. It's making
this clicking sound. How do you fix it? That
immediately engages a totally different part
of your brain. You go from passive listening
to like detective mode. It creates a cognitive
gap. The learner thinks, oh, I don't know how
to do that. And that gap creates curiosity. It
creates a reason to learn the content you're
about to share. And Ackerman connects this back
to all those innovative models. He says they
might use fancy tech, but if they aren't centered
on a real -world problem, they're just... Solutions
looking for a problem. Right. If you're using
an iPad just to use an iPad, but you aren't solving
a real problem with it, you're violating principle
one. Okay, so we've got our problem. That brings
us to principle number two, activation. Learning
is promoted when existing knowledge is activated
as a foundation for new knowledge. Foundation.
That feels like the key word there. It's everything.
Think about building a house. You can't start
with the roof. You have to build on what's already
there. Activation is about respecting the fact
that the learner is not a blank slate. But let
me play devil's advocate. Yeah. What if I am
a blank slate? What if I'm learning something
totally new like quantum physics? I have no existing
knowledge there. Uh, but you'd be surprised.
You might not know the math, but you understand
concepts like energy or movement or uncertainty.
A good teacher finds those metaphors. They'll
say, OK, you know how a spinning coin is kind
of both heads and tails until it lands? Hold
that thought. That's a little like a superposition.
Ah, OK. So activation isn't just a quiz on yesterday's
lesson. It's about building a bridge from the
old world in someone's head to the new world
you're trying to show them. Exactly. You're warming
up the neural networks. If you just dump new
information on top without connecting it to anything,
it just slides right off. There are no hooks
for it to grab onto. And the teacher's job is
to help you find those hooks. Right. Sometimes
we know things, but we don't realize they're
relevant. The teacher helps organize our own
prior knowledge. And if you skip this step to
save time, you're actually slowing everything
down. Makes total sense. OK, on to principle
three. This is one that I feel is missing in
so many online courses. Demonstration. Learning
is promoted when new knowledge is demonstrated
to the learner. The classic show don't tell.
It is, but let's go a little deeper. Because
telling is the default setting for most instruction,
isn't it? Lectures, text, bullet points. Merrill
is saying, no, for learning to stick, there has
to be a portrayal of the skill. But it's not
just about showing the perfect finished product,
is it? No, and that's actually dangerous. If
I only show you the perfect final result, I'm
hiding the entire process. Demonstration means
modeling the thinking. Showing the messy middle.
The messy middle. For example, let's say I'm
teaching a team to handle difficult client calls.
Telling is giving them a script. Demonstration
is me role -playing a call, but, and this is
the key part, I vocalize my internal monologue.
I say, okay, notice how his voice went up there.
I'm feeling defensive, but I'm going to pause,
take a breath. And now I'm going to ask a question
instead of arguing back. Oh, that's powerful.
You're making the invisible thoughts visible.
Yes. You're demonstrating the cognitive moves,
not just the outcome. Otherwise, the learner
sees the end result and just thinks it's magic.
They don't see the mechanics. And this ties back
to Ackerman's frustration. A lot of these new
frameworks are all theory. They talk about learning.
They talk about learning instead of just showing
how to do the thing. Merrill cuts right through
that. Just show me. If you can't show me, you
aren't teaching me. So we have the problem. We've
activated what we already know. We've watched
the expert do it. Yeah. So now it's my turn.
Principle number four. Application. Learning
is promoted when new knowledge is applied by
the learner. This is the shift from passive to
active. This is where the rubber meets the road.
You simply cannot learn by watching. You can
gain awareness, sure, but you cannot build competence.
You have to do the thing. But this is also where
it gets scary, right? Because the first time
I apply it, I'm going to be bad at it. You are,
and that's part of the process. But Merrill talks
about scaffolding here. The application phase
isn't just, OK, good luck, figure it out. Right.
It's a guided process. It's like training wheels
on a bike. OK, I get that. First, you try it
with my help. I'm right there to catch you. Then
I step back a little bit. Then a little more.
The coaching slowly fades as your competence
grows. I feel like in the corporate world, we
skip this constantly. We do the lunch and learn,
watch the PowerPoint. And then we go back to
our desks and never actually apply the new skill
until the stakes are really high. And then we're
surprised when the training didn't stick. It
didn't stick because the neural circuit was never
actually fired by the learner. They never had
to retrieve the info and use it. You can call
your classroom student -centered, but if the
students are just sitting there listening, they
aren't applying a thing. It's the difference
between watching a workout video and actually
doing the push -ups. Exactly. Only one of them
builds muscle. Which brings us to the final step,
the one that sort of circles everything back.
Principle five, integration. Learning is promoted
when new knowledge is integrated into the learner's
world. How is that different from application?
They sound pretty similar. They are, but there's
a crucial shift in context. Application is practice,
usually in a safe environment, like the classroom
or the training session. Integration is transfer.
Transfer. It's taking that skill and walking
out the door with it into your real life. So
application is hitting golf balls at the driving
range. And integration is playing a full round
on the actual course. Or, even better, it's deciding
to go play golf on your weekend because you want
to, without your coach telling you to. It's when
the learner takes ownership. The so -what factor.
That's it. If the learning stays in the classroom,
it wasn't really learned. It was just memorized.
Integration is when you use that skill to solve
those real -world problems we talked about back
in Principle 1. I see the circle now. We started
with a real -world problem, and we end by integrating
the solution into our real world. And if you
start with a fake problem, like a worksheet,
you can't integrate the solution because it doesn't
fit anywhere in your actual life. This whole
framework, it's just so cohesive. It's like a
chain. And if you break one link, The whole thing
just falls apart. That's the beauty of it. And
that's why Ackerman is arguing so passionately
against the labeling game. He's saying, look,
we have the map. Merrill gave it to us in 2002.
Why are we trying to reinvent geography every
single school year? It really does solve that
divergent pedagogies problem, doesn't it? It
does, because you can have a project -based classroom
that follows these principles. You can even have
a lecture -based classroom that follows them,
as long as the lecture is the demonstration and
it's followed by application. The labels don't
matter. The mechanics matter. So if I'm a listener,
say I'm a manager trying to upskill my team or
I'm a parent helping my kid with homework, how
do I actually use this tomorrow? You just treat
it as a diagnostic checklist. As you're planning
something, you ask yourself, one, have I identified
a real problem they care about? Two, have I connected
it to what they already know? Three, am I showing
them how to do it or just telling them? Four,
do they have time to try it themselves with my
help? And five, how will they use this next week
when I'm not around? And if the answer is no
to any of those? Then you have a hole in your
boat and no amount of innovation or fancy tech
is going to fix that leak. It's actually really
liberating to hear that. It gives you permission
to stop worrying about being cutting edge and
just focus on being effective. That's Ackerman's
message in a nutshell. Decide what we should
do and just do it. We waste so much energy debating
the theory that there's no energy left for the
actual practice. It goes back to what you said
earlier about the noise. If we filter everything
through these first principles, the noise just
quiets down, becomes very quiet and very focused.
I want to leave everyone with a final thought,
something to chew on that really comes from Ackerman's
frustration. We've established that Merrill identified
these principles in 2002. Ackerman is writing
about them again in 2018 -2024. The science hasn't
changed. The DNA of how we learn is stable. It's
one of the few things in the world that really
is. So here is the question. If we have had the
recipe for good teaching for over 20 years, why
does the entire system schools, corporate training,
universities continue to obsess over innovative
labels and divergent models instead of just mastering
the basics. Why is the new thing always more
seductive than the effective thing? That's the
million dollar question. Maybe because mastering
the basics is hard work and buying a new model
just feels like a shortcut. But as we've learned
today, there are no shortcuts. No shortcuts,
just first principles. Thanks for diving in with
us today. Go out there, ignore the labels, and
just learn. We'll see you next time.