Learning Requires Deep Time By Maren Schmidt
Research shows that to master a subject requires 10,000 hours of concentrated practice. At 40 hours per week, 50 weeks a year, we’d need 5 years to become a master. Ratchet that time down to 20 hours per week and we are looking at 10 years. Ten hours a week of practice, we’ll need 20 years to reach master status.
Becoming good at something requires time and practice, and the time to practice. Most of our children’s school days are interrupted by short whole-class instruction times, short practice times and no time to explore and research connections and possibilities. A visit to a first-grade classroom a few years ago showed me a “pod” of four classrooms changing teachers every 25 minutes. There was no time in the day for children to be reflective and have deep learning occur. Children shifted learning gears every 20 minutes instead of having time to learn “how-to-learn.” Research indicates that there are desirable tasks that help optimize our ability to learn new skills.
Effective learning or skill building occurs when we can maximize these factors: • • • • • • •
We have the ability to focus our attention on the task at hand. We have control over the choice of the task. The task if meaningful to us, and we understand how to do it. We have adequate time to practice the task, which research shows to be 60 to 90 minutes per day. We control feedback, which is accurate and timely. We have the opportunity to repeat the task daily or many times per week. We have overnight rest between practice sessions.
