How can Sequencing be used as a Strategy to Improve Student Learning?

Sequencing is a strategic tool to help students develop a specific skill in the classroom and improve student learning.

The human brain tends to physically change and expand to accommodate new tasks. It continues to do this as long as the task requires new connections and newly recruited neurons. Sequenced tasks do not let expansion of the brain coast to a stop. The capacity is increased at a rapid and continual rate.

While working on building specific cognitive skills in students, training is generally sequenced. Related tasks are grouped to follow one another in logical and progressive steps. Sequencing is part of every good training procedure and brings about confidence and big changes. Effective sequencing involves setting up challenging but achievable steps of increasing difficulty in the training task.

If the task is too hard, it tends to get frustrating.

If the task is too easy, it can becomes boring.

If the task is sequenced properly, it is just right.

Training procedures should be designed so that the student, with his or her trainer, experiences each procedure at an increasingly demanding level, and often at a faster pace. Thus, the accomplishment is satisfying and serves as an incentive, pushing the student to attempt the next level of difficult. Video games are a familiar example in which isolated skill sets are developed through sequencing.

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Discuss Here: What are some strategies that you have used in your classroom to improve student learning?