The principle of exercise states that those things most often repeated are best remembered. It is the basis of drill and practice. It has been proven that students learn best and retain information longer when they have meaningful practice and repetition. The key here is that the practice must be meaningful. It is clear that practice leads to improvement only when it is followed by positive feedback.
The human memory is fallible. The mind can rarely retain, evaluate, and apply new concepts or practices after a single exposure. Students do not learn complex tasks in a single session. They learn by applying what they have been told and shown. Every time practice occurs, learning continues. These include student recall, review and summary, and manual drill and physical applications. All of these serve to create learning habits. The instructor must repeat important items of subject matter at reasonable intervals, and provide opportunities for students to practice while making sure that this process is directed toward a goal.
Read more about this topic: Principles Of Learning
Famous quotes containing the word exercise:
“They should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The most fruitful and natural exercise of our mind, in my opinion, is discussion. I find it sweeter than any other action of our life.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)