Last week my family played a game to see if we could name all 197 nations in 15 minutes or less. In our first attempt, we reached 136 – our baseline. We wanted to improve. So we decided that the fastest typist in the family should enter data.
[Sidebar: That led us to another competition: highest words per minute (wpm) with acceptably high accuracy, for which we used TypingClub.com for baselining.]
After four same-day family attempts, we topped out at 190 of 197 nations in 15 minutes. (A week later, we reached 194. We still have yet to achieve a perfect score.)
It turns out that I don’t know Oceania. So I opened up the Maps of our World app and did the “Training” version. The app identifies 17 countries/island chains in Oceania. If you locate each correctly on the first attempt you get a score of 17. My score on my first attempt?
-3
My baseline knowledge of Oceania was so low that I couldn’t even achieve a 0. But a baseline is a starting place. And when you’re at -3, the only way is up. Well, I guess I could have made it further into negative territory, but it sure felt like a low starting point.
After a week of light practice? 14. Then 15. Then 17. Repeatedly. All it took was a little practice.
Start with your baseline
Every week, I lead learning is learned experiences for middle schoolers. This week we established a baseline for arithmetic skills using this web app. The beauty is that you can set your digit range, duration, AND your operations: make it as simple or challenging as you want.
The students know that forced, spaced, interleaved retrieval is a foundational principle of learning. This app elegantly provides forced, interleaved retrieval practice and delivers a score – the number of successes in a set period of time. And if students use it throughout the week, they add spaced retrieval practice as well.
I wasn’t prepared for how low the baseline of math proficiency would be. The students struggled with frustration and shame. I was grateful for my recent experience with Oceania. I shared with them that my baseline was -3. They laughed. It is a pretty low starting point. Yet in a week, I raised it to 17 with a little forced, spaced, interleaved practice. If they would use this math app for a few minutes every day, there’s no reason that they can’t see similar progress in math skill.
Learning is learned. They’re proving it. So am I. . . starting from -3.