Tip of the Week: Wax On Wax Off
Does the phrase, “wax on, wax off,” sound familiar? I didn’t think so. It’s a line from a popular but decades-old movie, The Karate Kid. Daniel, a young karate student is being mentored by a sensei named Mr. Miyagi. Instead of heading for the dojo, his mentor teaches him to make a precise circular motion. Then he has him start waxing his collection of automobiles using the circular motion.
After hours of waxing, Mr. Miyagi puts Daniel on a new project- sanding a floor, “side to side.” Then, following sanding, he asks Daniel to paint a large fence, again using precise motions- “up and down, up and down.”
Why?
The repetitive motions of waxing, sanding, and painting that Daniel is learning are fundamental movements he’ll use in the dojo when he practices karate. He doesn’t see the connection initially, but his muscles are memorizing the movements. They’re becoming second nature. This is called the principal of positive transfer in which something you’ve learned in the past helps you gain, develop and remember a new learning. Seeing the connection of the past learning to the new learning builds confidence and leads to an “I can do this attitude!”
For beginners learning to ski or snowboard, specific progressions are taught to them on flat and gently-sloped terrain. These first skills are practiced over and over again. They are skills necessary to getting on and off the chairlift successfully, an activity that most beginners find terrifying.
Positive transfer can also be seen and used when learning to:
- play musical instruments. Ukuleles, 6 and 12 string guitars, bass guitars all have similar learnings. Flutaphones, recorders, various woodwind instruments, another musical category, also have similar learnings. Past learning of how to play one instrument leads to successfully learning how to play a new instrument.
- write an essay. Skills used to write paragraphs positively transfer to writing five paragraph essays. Writing complete sentences, topic and concluding sentences, body sentence are common to both.
- do math. “Short division” and “long division”, simple multiplication and more complex multiplication require similar skill sets. Positive transfer is at work when a student uses simple operations to solve more complex operations. Another place in math where positive transfer is at work is seen when converting numbers to and from various bases. A good understanding of place value and our own base 10 system positively transfers to working with other bases.
The more similar learnings are, the more we get positive transfer from one to the other.
To increase positive transfer, teach the new by pointing out it’s similarity to what’s already been learned.
That’s the tip of the week!
Curt Bumcrot, MRE
Interested in enrolling into our diploma program? We’re currently accepting a limited number of applications for the 2020-2021 school year. Enroll now and pay in full in January and save $50.00. Click here for more information.
