Don’t make your learning experience 100% awesome

Think of a favorite class you had growing up. Do you remember every day of it? Half of it? Surely not. But do you remember a few key moments? Probably. Chances are there were a handful of moments that stood out. This is due to the peak-end rule.

The peak-end rule is a psychological heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt during its peak (i.e., its most intense point) and at its beginning and end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.

Example (from the legendary Daniel Kahneman): People were asked to put their hand in ice-cold water for a period of time. Group A got to remove their hand after minute. Group B had to leave their hand in longer, but the water was made slightly warmer, although still uncomfortable. Group B, surprisingly, reported less discomfort, even though they were uncomfortable for longer, because the end of the experience was better.

We can’t remember everything about an experience, so we tend to use peaks and ends as a shortcut for our memory. Think about your last job — you probably remember your first day, your last day, and a few key moments (good and bad) in the middle. These moments have an outsized place in your memory. ( The Power of Moments is a great book digging into this concept, among others.) This rule can be incredibly damaging — just ask airlines! When people ask you how your flight was, do you talk about the book you read the whole time, or the 20-minute wait you had at the gate?

So. How can we leverage this tendency to create better educational experiences?

1. Create an awesome beginning to your school or class. Don’t just start the first day like any other day. Put some thought into either the lecture or the online experience — either by making the learning content itself extraordinary, or creating a really warm introduction that makes learners feel engaged, challenged, safe, etc.
2. Understand that the beginning will have an outsized representation in a learner’s mind. My grandmother was a schoolteacher and she was strict as possible the first week because she knew that would stick, and then she could loosen up later. The reverse, being loose and then getting strict, is hard to pull off.
3. Try to maintain a high level of quality, but overweight the effort put into a few key lessons that you really want to stick. Don’t just spend more time on teaching the content, put more time into creating a few revolutionary, attention-grabbing moments.
4. Health class in high school was one of the most boring I had. But I remember one, and only one, lesson from it. To drive home the point that potato chips are really bad for you, the teacher cut a thin slice of raw potato, ate it, and then downed a shot glass of vegetable oil. It was disgusting. But I remembered it. (Whether it led me to eat fewer potato chips will never be known.)
5. Celebrate milestones, especially the end! It’s a big deal when people complete things. I think online education products are really bad at this. Sure, there’s a “congratulations!” screen at the end, and maybe even a follow-up email, but they could do so much more. Have a mock graduation. Create a YouTube graduation video that reads off people’s names (opt-in, of course). Do SOMETHING to make the milestone stand out.

It seems a little counterintuitive to say it’s ok for some lessons to be intentionally mediocre, but it might be wise if you have some objectives that are more important than others. We know not everything will stick, so follow the peak-end rule to craft what will.