Information Management: The Superiority of 5W1H Learning Technique for Students
Quite apart from individual student profiles which can be and are usually quite diverse, I will tell you what has worked for me.
I don't subscribe to the view that teachers should primarily be environmental facilitators rather than lecturers.
I'm in favour of the teacher as the primary driver who is engaged in the prising open of student minds so that at the end of the lesson, individual students will be able to retain for life what the curriculum stipulates students should retain in their minds.
I'm a believer in education for life meaning whatever techniques students learn in school, they are expected to use whatever they have learned in the school outside of the curriculum.
What was the profile of my target audience? The program catered to students at the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder.
My lessons would be what one would call remedial classes.
This learning strategy is applicable to all subject areas and stands above them all.
For mathematics, I used lateral thinking methods, mixed addition and multiplication using multiples of 10 as the stepping stone to solving problems.
English classes: I delivered, and promoted, content-based instruction over the situational syllabus and other kinds of instructional strategies. I subscribe to the view that drills - and these come in a plethora of varieties - must form the bulwark of education in school. Only after students have the pre-requisite mental constructs sunk into their consciousness that learning can begin. Learning is hard work. Very hard work.
Learning can be made easy by using appropriate techniques.
I would incorporate other learning strategies for my students depending on whether it added appropriate variety or not to my lessons, and whether it would reinforce learning or not.
The key to great retentive powers is the quality of reinforcements and connections in one’s mind. These can be learned.
I did deliver two distinct lectures to the entire cohort in my program which also included learning activities in situ to both academic levels based on the 5W1H learning technique, the same technique which I had used to deliver my regular classes.
As far as I'm concerned, the superiority of the 5W1H learning strategy is in its hack into human intuition. Human intuition by and large conforms to non-linearity which is how the human mind works whereas the delivery of lessons is very much a time-dependent linear affair.
The 5W1H method of information posits bits of information into an accessible data structure to be easily called and subsequently manipulated at will. The 5W1H can and should be used in project management too: How to plan projects with 5W1H approach -
https://medium.com/techcatch/how-to-plan-projects-with-5w1h-approach-8cab17ec5513Always at the back of my mind, whenever I prepared my lessons, I kept thinking about how and what kind of data structure would lend itself to be easily ingested and digested in the minds of my target audience.
There is a saying which goes: Give a person a fish and s/he would feel full after one meal but teach a person how to fish using a net and s/he would never go hungry.
The 5W1H learning technique has the advantage of linear absorption on the back of nonlinear mental processing from which data is called. Using this technique, one is able to view a mind map of a set of data within the data structure.
Using this technique, the picture that the mind of the learner is conscious of - in the form of a mind map - is a table of information, which is linear and easily accessible mentally that corresponds to a subconscious nonlinear absorption of information, which has an "octopus" structure of call data.
The devil is in the linearization arrangement of data that the learner has conscious access to and that the learner understands lies within a subconscious data structure setting.
An analogy can be made here using the rules of linear algebra. Using the power or at least one of the most powerful topics in mathematics, in students' minds, how data is ingested and digested helps in their retention and manipulation.
During my regular sessions, I was tasked to deliver lessons to primary-level students. The whole year, I drummed in this learning technique in many different ways. My students enjoyed my lessons and practised diligently during class time under my watchful eyes.
Before I became a teacher, I was a journalist for a couple of years. While writing reports on commodities, I learned and made use of the 5W1H technique which was the standard way to manage information. I carried over the use of this technique which I had used during my stint as a journalist into my classroom.
I’m of the view that whatever we have learnt in school should and can be applied outside the classroom.
For ten years I was a classroom instructor teaching mathematics and English to primary students until I was diagnosed with colon cancer. In general, the time I spent with the students was very fulfilling.
It gives me great satisfaction to know in my heart that many batches of students have learned much and learned well using the 5W1H method of data management which I had imparted to them.
In fact, the program administrators took notice of student enthusiasm and feedback while I was teaching and they invited me to address both the entire primary and secondary levels in the program.
Quickly: the 5W1H are the basic questions: What, who, where, when, why, how or the Kipling Method (named after English poet Rudyard Kipling) of cause and effect analysis. At every level from individual words to the paragraph, essay and beyond, the 5W1H dimensions exist as communication cues between the presenter of information and the audience.
Ultimately, students eventually have to present their work to the examiners, namely myself and other teachers. Students will have to learn that they are not writing nor presenting to themselves but to others.
Learning for oneself is for the sake of a meaningful life whereas learning for extraneous reasons is usually for the sake of vocation.
The best kind of learning is learning to communicate with oneself before one communicates with others. To make sense of life in school, work in the community, participation in the world, and our place in the universe, one will not only make use of data but also arrange data into a harmonious whole, that is, arranging data into a non-contradictory system of information that is satisfying to oneself.
Usually, one will have to use some form of data management technique or what is known as a mind map to help make sense of the myriad of information.
Examples of mind maps are in order.
5W&1H is the central idea with peripheral supporting ideas linked to it. This is the essence of the fractal structure, which can be viewed as a hub-peripheral elements structure. The central element-tentacles structure in the diagram above is a fractal structure.
The diagram above shows a "Things to do" centre connected to tentacles of differing tasks.
"
The diagram above uses a center with "Things to pack for my trip" centre linked to a list of details of tasks associated with it.
All three mind maps above exhibit the fractaline structure: one central idea with subordinate ideas linked to them.
The above methods must sink into the mind of the student. Ultimately, and hopefully, they will use these techniques throughout their lives. Feedback and information check is a built-in feature of 5W1H. For every problem that they confront, they will use the above methods, consciously better than subconsciously.
A mind map engenders algorithmic thinking and gives flow to ideas on top of opening new doors to ideas for deeper exploration.
Mind mapping practices and making connections can and should be done during curriculum time while the teacher is available to guide students at that time.
Outside the classroom, students will have to accumulate data for themselves in order to develop their own direction in life. Education continues when school ends.
I usually end my classes on a high note usually through friendly competitive quizzes between two groups just before curriculum time ends: team A versus team B or boys versus girls. 1 point is given for the correct answers and negative 2 points for wrong answers. S-m-i-l-e. It’s an activity that incorporates learning with fun.
Finally, children must be given time to be with themselves away from structured learning in order to develop their own ideas and philosophies. This time is the formative period for children: time with themselves (and their friends).
Here's a write-up supporting the use of 5W1H for primary level composition: [Education] Using the 5W1H for better Primary English compositions - https://marcusgohmarcusgoh.com/education/education-using-5w1h-better-primary-english-compositions
Those who manage information regularly would use this technique subconsciously as a matter of routine rather than apply conscious effort to manage information.
Initially, the student will grapple with rearranging information in a logical way before making presentations, be these in the form of essays or verbal presentations.
The 5W1H technique of information management will be a major part of the students' repertoire of skills on the road to maturity of thinking.
Further reading: How to Research a Topic with 5W1H Questioning Technique - https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/5w1h/how-to-research-topic-with-5w1h/
Creating a fractal-based quality management infrastructure (in healthcare and patient management) - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25241601/
Najman Hussain
Former MENDAKI-SENSE Tutor
18/1/2023