The Psychology Behind TNA
The whole reason behind TNA is that it was a kick-ass mnemonic to use -- only if its overall effectness (primarily the attention getter) is concerned. It's so horribly disgusting that it's incredibly hard to forget its application and use to a given concept ... which is why I told my students that business anyways. They all loved it, though I really don't know whether they digested that information fully or just had a good laugh at my own expense. I guess if I'd explained it in a more cut-and-dry fashion, devoid of jokes, the students would fall asleep ... which would leave me to throw chalk and erasers at them, and if that didn't work, crack those boyfriend/girlfriend jokes that gained Clarence Antoine notoriety.
I avoid teaching the students the actual concepts and techniques; instead, I prefer to teach a watered-down version filled with formulas, charts, graphs, and the like -- during the class, I'm basically TPR's spokesman. Many students will actually learn and understand the concepts better when you try to make them more interesting and a bit easier (the Average Pie, Ratio Boxes, etc. give you a place to put every number down) for them to handle. Most students didn't understand ratios until I introduced the ratio box. The whole point of Princeton Review's class is to increase students' scores, not necessarily increase students' knowledge - because the tests just measure how well you take them, not how much you know. The methods I've mentioned are reasonably foolproof and are guaranteed to give you the right answer since you're organizing your information and data into a neat layout that's fairly easy to understand, thereby decreasing the chances of carelessness. And, when you're working with kids who score a composite (yes, math and verbal scores added) score in the 500-600 range, it's tough - you want to do as much as you can to raise it their scores.
The end. Congratulations if you've read my first LJ rant-only post.