Memory Skills and Retention

In Writing lesson plan reflection and final thoughts from ScarbroughLearning for Life, Jennifer Scarbrough states,

“However, I didn’t learn as many strategies for memory skills and retention as I would have liked.”

So I decided to list some strategies that she might be able to use in the classroom.

Acrostic (or sentence) – Make up a sentence in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents the initial of what you want to remember. (ex. For math order of operations – Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. – Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication or Division, Addition or Subtraction.

Acronym – An acronym is a word that is made up by taking the first letters of all the key words or ideas you need to remember and creating a new word out of them. (ex. ROY G. BIV – colors of the spectrum)

Rhymes and alliteration – Rhymes, alliteration (a repeating sound or syllable), and even jokes are a memorable way to remember more mundane facts and figures.

Chunking – Chunking breaks a long list of numbers or other types of information into smaller, more manageable chunks. ( like remembering phone numbers)

The Number/Rhyme Technique  – This allows you to remember ordered lists. Start with a standard word that rhymes with the number (we recommend 1 – Bun, 2 – Shoe, 3 – Tree, 4 – Door, 5 – Hive, 6 – Bricks, 7 – Heaven, 8 – Gate, 9 – Line, 10 – Hen). Then create an image that associates each with the thing you're trying to remember. Such as a grocery list:  1- banana; 2 – bread (you would picture a banana in a bun and bread in a shoe)

Review - Practice explaining the ideas to someone else in your own words.

Rehearse information you’ve already learned. Review what you’ve learned the same day you learn it or reading your notes out loud.

Group things by likenesses. (My grocery list is broken into produce, meat, dairy, canned food)

Create a Song – Students remember the ABC because of the song. Some children learned the books of the Bible by singing a song.

Create a Dance – have your body tell the story or show the facts to others.

Do you have any other suggestions? Please share.

How Students Feel About Memorization

Recently Mr. Hoffman, a 6th grade math teacher at a middle school in Port Washington, New York, contacted me about an assignment that he gave his students. They read my article on Is Memorization Important? and wrote their feelings about it.  He then sent his students’ comments to me and I thought it would be fun to share them with you. I think it is truly amazing that the students not only read my article but took the time to comment about it too. I hope you enjoy them!

Aphrodite: “Wow. That is......wow. The person who wrote this has a point that many students think but never say. I think she wrote it out perfectly. Memorization sometimes can benefit and sometimes it can just annoy and frustrate you WITHOUT any benefits. If I was a teacher, I would do the same thing this person does. I would think to myself " Is this information going to be relevant in the future? Are the students every going to use this information again by memory?" This article makes me think how many things I have been forced to memorize that I will never need to know either by memory or at all. Not only that, but, in the time I used to memorize all those things, what could have I been doing? Great article.”

Shayne: “I fully agree with this article, and think that critical thinking is a vital part of education. Once in elementary school, I didnt get full credit for a MULTIPLE CHOICE question on a test, because I didnt "show my work well enough". I did write, however, that there was a related previous question, and I used process of elimination to find the right answer. Sometimes critical thinking doesn't have to be showing your work in the way relevant to the present topic, its just finding the right answer using the information given in the most efficient way, and implementing past skills. It shouldn't be punished.”

Max: “I agree with this author in thinking that momorizing everything isn't useful. You have to memorize some stuff you learn in school though. Just not as much as we do now. If I were a teacher and I could do things differently then I would make it so that the students wouldn't necessarily stop making students memorize, but make them memorize less. You have to memorize many things so you succeed in life BUT you don\'t have to memorize so many things that happened in Ancient Greece.”

Jonathan: “I personaly feel memorizing facts doesnt help with anything. Here's why. If you forget the facts even though you memorized them (it happens to me all the time) you will have no idea what to do. But if you actually know how to do the problem using critical thinking you could anwser it instead of just memorizing every thing.”

Javiera: “First off this WAS a GREAT ARTICAL !! I that memeroizing things is important but i also think that its important to memorize things that will actually help us in life as said by the person who made this artical. if i was a teacher and i wanted my students to memorize something i would explain to them why and how it will help them. Just like Mr. hoffman does.”

Julia: “I think that is important to memorize certain things, such as multiplication tables, personal info, etc. but there are a lot of things that are pointless to memorize (unless you are pursuing a very specific career) like the periodic table. If you were planning on becoming a scientist, then it would be important for success. If I was a teacher I would make sure there was a good reason to make kids memorize something before I forced them to memorize it.”

Check out Mr. Hoffman’s site: Hoffkids

Memory Tricks

In Interactive Monday is back!! from Learn Me Good, Mister Teacher asks,

“So now I turn it over to you. What memory tricks have worked for YOU? “

Mnemonics really works for me. The first one I remember ever learning was how to spell Arithmetic (A Rat In The House Might Eat The Ice Cream). I loved the way I can make sentices like that. I have always loved spelling and letters so anything I can relate to words and letters, usually helps me remember things. I learned notes on the scale form Every Good Boy Does Fine and FACE. I learned metrics with King Henry Died Monday Drinking Chocolate Milk.

I also find that I remember things if I write them down and have a visual to look at later. Just hearing it does not work for me because I’m not an auditory learner. Seeing it visually helps me but seeing it after I have written it really helps me remember it. Later on I can picture it in my mind and actually visualize myself writing the answer.

Putting things in some kind of pattern or rhythm also works for me. When I need to remember numbers I am always looking for some kind of pattern. It might be connected to some other pattern that I can link it to and that helps me visualize it in my mind later. Songs have a rhythm to it and they help me remember things. I remember learning the ABC song when I was little. I know many people who remember the books of the Bible because they learned it as a song.

So now I ask readers of my blog, what memory tricks work for you?

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original image: 'Bridge'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99707788@N00/2621376164 by: Andrew Mitchell

Is Memorization Important?

After reading The "old way", the "new way" and the ethics of bar trivia from Stop Trying to Inspire Me by Tom, he had me thinking about how I felt toward memorization.

He states,

“Katie's comment about moving on from stopping cheating to teaching kids how to access facts, etc. is one that I've heard quite often from people both in and out of education. So much focus nowadays is on memorizing what's necessary for standardized tests that kids actually don't learn any real skills, such as problem solving or critical thinking. And I agree for the most part: the high-stakes testing focus has put so much focus on what the right answer is that examining the question or appreciating the process by which you find the answer isn't as important.

However, to go completely in the other direction and say that memorizing anything isn't necessary is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Because I don't know about you, but I find that the memorization and retention of particular facts, processes, procedures, functions, etc. are vital in the real world and not just in bar trivia or at the DMV [to which I say, you'd better have that stuff memorized at the DMV. I don't want you looking at your iPhone at a stop sign to figure out what that stop sign means]. When you learn anything, you very often commit the most basic parts of it to memory mainly because what comes next uses those basic parts or assumes you know them.”

I think that schools have put way too much emphasis on memorizing certain facts and information and not enough about others. I feel that memorizing things are as important for exercising the brain as much as physical activity is important for exercising the body. Yet for both exercises, we want to do it in the most efficient and effective way so that we can reap benefits from this. Also, some exercises may be so boring and useless that I will give up before I ever see any benefits.

I think students do need to memorize certain things in order to function successfully on a daily basis. Personal information (name, address, date of birth, phone number) should be memorized at an early age. There are many things that we do on a daily basis that we have memorized over time. I think basic math facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division should be memorized. Sure, you can use a calculator but memorizing these facts is more efficient than the time it takes to take out a calculator and input the numbers to find your answer. I know I memorized a lot of vocabulary words when I was learning a new language but unfortunately when I didn’t get to practice them or use them, I quickly forgot about them.

There are some facts that I found useless knowing and when I hadn’t needed this information, I have forgotten them. That makes me feel that it was a waste of time even learning the information. For instance, I had a teacher who made us memorize the Presidents in order. Now I can honestly tell you that I have never needed to come up with that information in order to function in daily life (I’m not talking trivia contests). It seems like we spent forever learning this information and it makes me wonder how much time was lost when I could have been learning something valuable. I have never needed to know the geological timeline for everyday life but I remember spending a week learning about it and being tested on the order and dates. I’m not saying this information hasn’t come in handy when I’ve needed it but knowing how to find the information was more important than just memorizing the information.

On my own, I felt it benefited me to learn the dates of different events in American history because when I learn something new in history, I can relate it to the dates that I know to give it a place of reference in my mind. No one had me memorize these dates (or if they did, I don’t remember) but I found myself doing this a lot so eventually I remembered them. We travel to a lot of national parks and historic sites so when dates are given for events or when it was established, I can relate it to other events that were going on during the same time. Sharing this with students may help them take the same interest in learning information like this.

I believe that when I have students memorize things, I need to think about the purpose for doing this. I need to be able to explain to them the rationale for memorization and have them understand that it will help them be more successful in life. If I can’t do this or even convince myself of this, I need to stop and rethink about having them memorize this information.

How do you feel about memorization? What do you feel is important that our students memorize?

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original image: 'This is my brain'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42901313@N00/304439098 by: Kenny Stoltz

Importance of Knowing the Facts

The other day I wrote about how important critical thinking was compared to rote memorization. Then I realized how I use a lot if information that I had memorized from my school days.

As we walked along the Mississippi River in front of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, I noticed how high the water was. Then this nice man stopped to talk to us and mentioned that it was very higher than usual and showed us the road which was now under water. He said that people usually drove their cars along that road when the water is low. When I asked him what was causing the high water, he said that the snow was melting from North and South Dakota which flows into the Mississippi River. Now, of course I knew where these states were located because of the years that I had to memorize the 50 states. Without knowing this, I would not fully understand the impact of the snow melting and that the water was heading to the Gulf of Mexico.

This nice man also mentioned that the Eads Bridge was very famous. It was built in 1874 and predated the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. The date made an impression on me because I knew it was built soon after the Civil War. I also knew where the Brooklyn Bridge was and what it looked like because I grew up in New York and we traveled across the bridge many times. Again, I remember having to memorize dates when I was in school.

So, now I realize that it is important that we have students memorize certain facts that they may use later in life. I think it is very important to know the continents, oceans, states, important dates in history, multiplication and division facts, and basic fractions. What other things do you think are important to memorize and why do you think students should know this information?