The main focus of the chapter is
about memory and the different processes/stages in making memories for just a
second or many years. There are four
main steps that make up memory: input, sensory memory, working memory, and
long-term memory. Input is any sensory
information that causes a signal from your nervous system to your brain. The next is sensory memory. This is when all the memory that you pay
attention to is retained, but the memories you do not pay attention to is
lost. Working memory is as basic as
conscious thought. Usually a person can
hold 7-10 bits at a time in this process.
The best way to make working memory is through chunking and
rehearsal. Long-term memory is any
memory you hold for more than a minute.
A memory becomes a long-term memory through encoding working memory, so
it is working memory before it becomes long-term until it is learned. So a teacher needs to know that it has to go through
all of these processes before a student learns the information.
Do some strategies work better for
some people than others? For example
does organization work better for someone while elaboration works better for
another?
Learning is all about making
connections with what you are learning and your other senses. This is the best way for students to learn
that fastest and make their memories into long-term memories.
People forget things because we do
not have enough space to remember everything.
We only remember things that we pay attention to.
To answer your question I think that the strategies all depend on the child in which you're teaching to. Some students are better with words and using mnemonics while others tend to focus more on visual imagery. But I don't think I would necessarily say that a certain strategy is better than other. Solely due to the fact that everyone learns differently and every child has their own way of memorizing and retaining information.
ReplyDeleteIn class we talked about how learning strategies (visual, auditory, etc.) don't really exist. However, I think this is a little different - for example, some students might perform better on a test by connecting the information to previous knowledge, and other students might perform better on a test by creating acronyms or making other associations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sarah just from my personal experience. I could never get hooked on using mnemonics for a learning process. Like the video clip we seen in class about how Michael Scott would relate personal experiences to remember certain things. I always thought that method was too confusing for me. I grasped information the best by using visual imagery.
ReplyDeleteEven though were told that learning theories like visual or auditory or verbal don't really exist, I agree that some students are better at processing information in certain ways than others. I think it all boils back down to how we've learned to process all the stimuli we take in and then we favor that stimuli if it registers better with us. No one way is better than the others, but yes I think different strategies work better for different people. If we all learned in the same way using the same strategy, you wouldn't have had to ask the question because there would only be one way.
ReplyDeleteI think that separating out 'input' from sensory memory will just be confusing.... Just think of them as the same thing (they are). Any sensory information that's surrounding you (that you're able to process even unconsciously) is in sensory memory. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteYour claim that people don't have enough space to remember things is a bit strong. LTM capacity is unlimited (in theory), so we should have space to store 'anything'. It's true that working memory capacity is the thing that is limited, so we'd have to use good strategies to draw attention to particular aspects of the information and use good encoding strategies to make connections to long term memory (and store new information there). Making connections is important!