Strategies That Enhance Memory

1. Memory and Memorizing

Memorizing invokes more than remembering facts, figures, and data sets. Memory is about attending to learning, linking information, using and triangulating hundreds to thousands of knowledge units. Why then does memory seem to be the only acceptable indicator of student learning in education? To begin to value and regard memory as more than rote recitation of facts, let’s look at why we forget, how information is processed, and strategies that work to enhance memory.

Information Processing

Our brain uses neutral networks to connect information, running it in and out of channels like a huge, sophisticated subway system (Woolfolk, 1998). It is an information flow that goes through many stages to climbing from one place to get to another. Sensory data convenes into recall, with information registering either in working memory (short-term), or procedural memory (long-term) (Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968; Jensen, 2007; Martinez, 2011; Woolfolk, 1998).

Sensory Registry

The first place information goes to when it is attempting to make contact with learning is our senses – through our eyes when we read or interpret visuals, our ears when we listen, our noses when we need to understand (or know) what we are about to eat. Constantly bombarded with this stimuli,this information doesn’t stay around for very long. Unless we are repeatedly exposed to it, we’ll forget it. Visual information lasts about a second, and doesn't stick around for much longer than that in memory – two to three seconds at the most (Henson & Ellen, 1999). Once information moves however, from the sensory register to short-term or working memory, it becomes more sustainable. Memory moves from sensory to working whenever something is paid attention to (Ormrod, 1998; 2008).

Once information is taken farther, as into some type of experience such as hands-on application, it moves to the procedural realm where there is unlimited storage capacity (Jensen, 2007; Martinez, 2011). Depending on the information movement, and the previous exposure to the information a learner has, will depend entirely upon how quickly it moves (and remains) into longer term.

Multitasking

Our brains weren’t designed to multitask much. Only a little information can be attended to at one time, and the more complicated the task, the less likely it is we’ll be able to multitask effectively. For instance, drinking coffee and driving requires two separate processes, but we drive so frequently and drink beverages so often and automatically, each process is almost intuitive. Reading directions for the first time however, and trying to navigate new terrain while speaking on a phone and listening to a book on tape can’t result in full attention to either; both will compete and the one requiring the most attention will likely get more at the expense of the other (Jensen, 2007; Ormrod, 1998). Every wonder how students can hear you and text at the same time? Ever try to do it yourself? Impossible – only one gets the majority of the attention.

Implications

Students need to pay attention to information in order to retain it. We need to get, and keep, their attention. Then the challenge becomes a matter of making sense of the information as it is mentally processed – all of this takes place in short-term memory (Ormrod, 1998). Short-term memory has limited storage capacity, procedural does not. Without something hands-on or without “rehearsal”, our short-term memories can only hold from five to nine items for only about ten to 20 seconds in adults (Gagne, Yekovich & Yekovich, 1993). This is reduced for children and adolescents.

How is information retained?

Moving information from short-term to long term requires active participation, otherwise it gets lost. Focused attention, working it in memory for more than 20 seconds, rehearsing the information, hands-on application. As information is repeated in multiple ways and formats, it steeps deeper into working memory until finally indefinitely – the procedural realm, where it then becomes a matter of maintenance rehearsal, or elaborate rehearsal.

Maintenance rehearsal is when we repeat the information over and over as many ways as possible. Remembering a plan, a shopping list, or a phone number are examples of maintenance rehearsal.

Elaborate rehearsal is what moves information to long-term memory (Woolfolk, 1998). Remembering the name of someone you met in person for instance, often goes into long-term because there is an association made with a real person versus from a name from a list. The more elaborate we can make rehearsal and remembering, the more likely our students will remember the information. Separating information into meaningful chunks also helps students remember better, and longer. Information becomes automatic after approximately 40 exposures in most learners, and about 200 exposures to students with learning disabilities or cognitive challenges (Sowell 1981). A learner’s prior knowledge makes all the difference in retaining information. The bottom line: the more active a learner is with information, and the more they do with it, the longer they’ll retain it.

The authors of this study make several suggestions for retaining information:

1. Use of Cues or Signals: A routine that alerts students to upcoming content, focuses them on pertinent information.

a. Teach students about the critical information forthcoming in a lesson up front. Provide a signal to them that lets them know when to “stop and focus.” These cues can be verbal or nonverbal, and should have an engaging factor designed in. For instance a teacher might warn students with, “Okay, this next thing I am about to show you is really cool – hang onto your hats!” or, “I need you to look up right now” or clap, play a musical note, beep a horn. The idea is to get their attention and focus it quickly. Using the cue procedure requires teaching, practice, and evaluation.

b. Regain students' attention when necessary by moving them around the room and walking up to them using proximity control. Calling them by their names, asking them for assistance are all ways to regain their attention.

2. Use of Contrast: helps students focus on specific content by using contrasts to arouse and reorient attention when needed.

a. Change their physical environment, such as desk arrangement or seating.

b. Use novelty such as props, jokes, costumes – something outrageous and appropriate to the content being taught.

c. Change voice tone, tempo, inflection, accent.

d. Surprise them with an unexpected event or guest.

e. Ask them questions that arouse their curiosity.

f. Create novel noise, like music or other background sounds relevant to content being taught. A unit on the Middle East for example, could include background Arabian music, or a unit on South Africa would include music indigenous to that culture.

3. Create Emotion: Emotions are central to learning, and as important as the senses. They chemically charge the brain and that aids recall (Jensen, 2007). Using emotion to engage students increases the likelihood they’ll remember it, and moves information quickly into long-term (McGaugh et al., 1995). Using emotional hooks can include the following:

a. Telling your own version of a story, or revealing your own personal story as it aligns with what is being taught.

b. Center the learning around a celebration, such as Day of the Dead in Spanish class, or cleaning up the school yard on Earth Day.

c. Stir up healthy debate around controversy or recent news, current events.

d. Use drama.

e. Introduce artifacts to help students visually connect to learning.

f. Model enthusiasm for learning the content, tell them how much you love the subject!

4. Establish Purposes for Learning: Help students understand why they are learning something, and its relevancy to their own lives so they are not left wondering why they are learning it, and what it might ever have to do with their lives. The following strategies help students establish purposes for learning:

a. Make the goals and objectives clear. Engage students in their development, and discuss them prior to introducing new material.

b. Generate future use of the learning; help them see a future for the learning through brainstorming, discussion, further research.

c. Allow for learner choice in content, timing, peer partner, process, environment, resources used. Engaging them in this way will invest them in their own learning.

d. Field questions prior to the learning: Why is this important? How will you use it in the future? What strategies might you use as we move forward?

e. Provide students with constant feedback about their process, their movement toward goals, and critical feedback.

5. Organize the Learning: Introduce students to the Big Picture, or the “gist” of the learning before you introduce the smaller pieces, starting with the end in mind and teaching to wholes versus parts (Jensen, 2007). When students can see relationships among key ideas, they will make sense of the information and remember it longer. Use:

a. Advanced organizers to aid them in the process

b. Checklists to aid their working knowledge and application

c. Rubrics or scoring instruments for the task

d. Strategy guides to guide their learning and integrate prior knowledge

e. Advanced organizers to organize prior knowledge before learning new material

f. Metaphors and analogies to allow for prior knowledge and cognitive connections

Other Memory Enhancing Strategies:

• EPR – Every Pupil Response technique, which allows learners to respond individually or in groups to demonstrate or confirm learning using signals such as hand gestures, finger signals, whitebaords, poll responses or electronic check-ins. This allows the teacher to determine who learned how much, and where to reteach immediately. Handheld devices and polls on smartboards work well for EPR.
• Cooperative learning allows for peer reinforcement and group accountability.
• Reciprocal teaching/learning allows for active participation in multi-functional classrooms, pairing high learners with below-level learners to summarize, ask questions, make predictions, and clarify. All students are held accountable in reciprocal teaching, and responsible for filling in their own learning purposes.
• Debates on projects with students taking a position and defending it.
• Pattern-making; our brains are pattern-detectors (Jensen, 2007), and using patterns found in graphs, charts, music, literature and poetry aids in recall.
• Hands-on learning and manipulatives that invoke active involvement for meaning-making and understanding.
• Comprehension-monitoring strategies using study guides, note-taking procedures such as double-column notes, Cornell notes, SQ3R, and so forth.
• Build as much writing in as possible. There are strong links between writing and thinking. Writing helps learners focus and process information, organize clusters and hierarchies. It also provides wonderful assessment fodder for teachers in evaluating whether students understood, made sense of, and/or retained information.
• Drawing and illustrating information and ideas.

References:

Gagne, E. D., Yekovich, C. W., & Yekovich, E R. (1993). The cognitive psychology of school learning (2d ed.). New York: HarperCollins.

Jensen, E. (2007). Teaching With the Brain in Mind (2^nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Martinez, M. E. (2010). Learning and Cognition: The Design of the Mind. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

McGaugh, J. L., Cahill, L., Parent, M. B., Mesches, M. H., Coleman-Mesches, K., & Salinas, J. A. (1995). Involvement of the amygdala in the regulation of memory storage. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum and Associates.

Ormrod, J. E. (1998). Educational psychology: Developing learners. Columbus, OH: Prentice Hall.

Ormrod, J. (2008). Human learning (5th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.

Strategies To Enhance Memory Basedon Brain-Research. Banikowski, A. K.. Focus on Exceptional Children, 0015511X, Oct99, Vol. 32, Issue 2

Woolfolk, A. E. (1998). Educational psychology (7th ed). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

2. Memory and the Cognition