Module 11 Post 1

The major ideas that come from Module 11 are the three stages of information processing: sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory.  Sensory memory is all the insignificant things your brain observes during the course of a day, like how many chairs are in a room or the color shirt one of your friends was wearing.  You probably won't remember most of this information at the end of the day because your brain registered that it wasn't important enough to remember.  Working memory is something we are conciously thinking about and comes from a stimulus.  An example of working memory is studying something and remembering it during an exam the following day.  You probably won't remember the information from the test a month later, but it was still in your working memory the day of the test.  You can keep information in your working memory as long as you conciously think about it, so as soon as you stop thinking about the information for the test, you most likely won't remember it.  In order to remember something fully, the brain must encode it in the long-term memory.  There are several different ways to encode information and put in in your long-term memory, such as rehearsal. Finally, long-term memory allows us to hold the most information for the longest amount of time.

It is very important for teachers to understand how learning works because it will influence whether or not students really learn the material.  For example, many students will simply memorize information for a test and forget it the next day (short-term memory).  But if the teacher teaches it in a way that connects the exam material to something they've previously learned or a common experience shared by the students, they will be more likely to remember it (long-term memory).  The module also mentions that information we repeat over and over is more likely to be retrieved than information that isn't repeated.  I think this is also important for teachers.  For example, if a teacher tells her class that the US gained its freedom in 1776 only once the day before the test, the students would be less likely to remember it than if the teacher mentioned it every day leading up to the exam.

I am a little confused about the network and schema theories.  I think I generally understand the basic principles, but network theory doesn't really make sense to me.  The example given in the book was "Sarah is wearing my new raincoat," but how does pairing Sarah with new raincoat help you remember it better?

According to the Information Processing Theory, learning can be defined as a concious process of storing information.  Information you want to learn can be learned, and information you do not want/need to learn is easily forgotten.

Why is it that you can hear your name in a crowded room, even when you were previously having a separate conversation?  You can hear your name in a crowded room when you were having a separate conversation because of your sensory memory.  You sensory memory basically absorbs everything around you even though you might not be concious of it (for example, someone else's conversation).  You only become concious of the other people's conversation once you hear your name.  Once you are concious of something, it goes to your working memory.  This means if you wanted to join the conversation, you could remember it later.