It is the fact that human absorption doesn't work so well when you cut the time between lessons
? This . Right . Here. ? There has been study after study with respect to human learning that has shown that cram study simply doesn't work. The human mind is not like a hard drive where you can write once and it's there. On average, it takes seven exposures to the same datum before it is recorded into neurological memory. It's said that the human mind retains, maybe, just 7% of what it is exposed to in an academic setting. This is why terms are stretched out longer - to give that cool down and refresh time for data. And I know as my mind gets older, it's not as spongy as it once was - I have to go over things again and again to cement that in.
Personally, I believe the old adage of the five day boot camp to teach the uninitiated is a concept that refuses to die. I know a lot of training houses out there rely on it for their marketing forecasts and need that learn churn and burn, but if our business is to actually educate students and prepare them for IT work, then it stands to reason that boot camp model should only be reserved for those people who have been through the material before and need a refresher.
...Students were expected to read ahead and prepare questions.
Active learning requires that students take lead on their learning. What I have observed from nearly 15 years in the classroom is that less than 10% of students that sit in the seat are actually for engaging in learning the material. Perhaps it's different with a professional training house, then it is a college. But since the dawn of time, students have winced at the idea of homework. But, as the dead horse in the paragraphs above would indicate, students definitely need to have multiple exposures to that information in order to retain it. And to go further, they need exposures using different learning styles, such as auditory, visual, or kinesthetic. Although a student may have a dominant learning style, they need the exposure in the other learning styles in order to cement that information into their memory.
I don't mean any disrespect and when I'm going to say next, but if the training organization's goal is to make the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time, then by all means five-day boot camps, collect that bank, and move on to the next. But, in the end, at least as far as I'm concerned, that does a disservice to the student who is relying on that organization to properly train them for work. Granted the student has to bring their "A" game to the game everyday, and many of them don't. But, this is totally what I see, particularly in IT education today.
/r
