Ted Talk: Spiraling the Curriculum to Get Sticky Learning

If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend you watch Kristin Phillips', Ted Talk on “Spiraling the Curriculum to Get Sticky Learning.”

I personally found it so fascinating and informative. When she first mentioned her car time analogy, I thought that was such a clever way to introduce “sticky learning.” She mentioned even though she changes her time twice a year, whenever it comes time to change it, she never remembers how to. She then asked a question that struck my thinking; “how to teach in schools to get sticky learning.” I really had to pause and think critically about that question because I always found myself doing well in a unit at school right after learning about it, but if I ever had to go back to the lesson or material, I would be completely lost as if it was never taught to me to begin with. She mentioned a “try something new, no one will die” approach to teaching, which although made me laugh, also intrigued me and I was so eager to know what her new approach was. She had suggested returning back to difficult concepts multiple times throughout the year because the curriculum doesn’t specify at what month in the year the students must master the unit, it only says they need to know by the end of the year.

This is what she called “spiraling the curriculum,” which is a change in the “normal” way of teaching which is to teach the unit, test the students and move on to the next. I never really thought of a teaching strategy such as this one and I feel like it makes so much sense especially because the majority of students learn through repetition as I do as well. She backed up her teaching approach with two pieces of research.

One of them spoke about the term “spaced practice” which explained that in order for information to stick, the child needs to learn in a “teaching, waiting, teaching, waiting” pattern. Going back to the material helps the child to remember what was taught.

The second piece of research looked at the term “interleaving” which explained learning multiple areas of the curriculum in one week and repeating the same topics the following weeks after but interchanging the days of the week that topic is taught.

Personally, I wish that teachers had used these methods of teaching when I was in school because I never seemed to remember anything after we completed a unit, both in elementary school and high school. As a future educator however, I definitely plan on using these new found strategies on my students to ensure that the information they retain sticks with them throughout the entire year and possibly the years after as well. Overall, I really enjoyed this Ted Talk and definitely learned and took a lot from it. I look forward to applying what I've learned in my future teaching career. 

By Teresa G@NU (OTECC)