Smart Practice: Using Repetition to Improve Memory

 Sarah Lynn 2013.1.1Sarah Lynn

 We forget 90% of what is taught in class within 30 days.

Over a hundred years ago the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885) came to this conclusion after painstakingly exposing his human subjects to list of words.   He also discovered that most of this forgetting occurs just hours after being exposed to the new material.  It is called the curve of forgetting.

When we encounter new information, neurons in our brain activate, but the stimulation lasts only up to 90 minutes unless it is reactivated (Squire, Kandel, 1999).  We begin to commit the new learning to memory when we first practice it, but for learning to endure in our memory, we must return to it at intervals and in different ways over weeks, months, and even years.

Quick Learning

A popular model in education is “teaching to mastery”.  We often interpret this to mean that students need to practice a language point intensely until it is burned into memory. Indeed, while students are practicing, they demonstrate an easy fluency with the material.  That is because it is active in their working memory.  Teachers and students alike prefer this intensive kind practice because it produces rapid, if ephemeral, gains. Quickly students gain confidence in their control of the material.  It feels familiar and known.  If tested immediately after intensive repetition and in a way that simulates the rehearsal, students score well.

Quick Forgetting

It turns out, however, that intensive repetitive practice leads to quick learning AND quick forgetting.  (Dunloskey, 2013).  If students are tested on that same material just a day later, their scores drop precipitously. The challenge is to have students put the material aside and then return to it. Inevitably they will have forgotten some of the material, and that is ok.  The effort they make to retrieve and reconstruct the information each time they practice it anew will strengthen their memory. Continue reading

Brain-based Research:
Strengthening Learning and Memory

Sarah Lynn 2013.1.1 Sarah Lynn

“If you’re just engaging in mechanical repetition,
it’s true, you quickly hit the limit of what you can retain.
However, if you practice elaboration,
there’s no known limit to how much you can learn.”
~ Brown, Roediger, McDaniel (2014)

Elaboration is essential for you to commit new learning to memory. Elaboration is when you explain new information in your own words. Once you begin to add examples and details, or make connections to other experiences and knowledge, you are enriching the new learning and making it more memorable and more  transferrable to new contexts.

Thinking Please wait

Elaboration involves the thinking strategies of paraphrasing, summarizing, creating analogies, answering questions, and describing connections. Elaboration activates the frontal lobe of your brain and brings your new learning to a higher level of awareness and articulation. Continue reading

Using our Brains:
TEACHING WITH MULTIPLE MODALITIES

Sarah Lynn

“Our senses are designed to work together, so when they are combined . . . the brain pays more attention and encodes the memory more robustly.”

                                                                                            ~ Medina 2014
Multimodal Learning

Study after study show that memory improves when more than one sense is stimulated at the same time. The early pioneer in multimodal learning, Edgar Dale found that people learn better from pictures and words than from words alone. In more recent years, Richard Mayer has established that learners who receive input in a variety of senses have better recall than learners who receive input that is only visual or auditory. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%. (Medina 2014)  Furthermore, people who receive information via multiple modalities are more creative in their problem solving by 50% to 75% (Newell, Bulthoff, Ernst 2003).

The ultimate expression of simultaneous and multimodal learning is learning by doing.  When we learn by seeing and hearing, we remember 50% fourteen days later.  But we remember 90% if we actually experience it.  (Dale 1969)   This means that simulations, such as role plays, are very effective in helping students remember the new language they learned. Continue reading

Teaching Transition Skills with Video Vignettes

SarahLynn1Sarah Lynn

In adult education today, we need to teach English and foster transition skills so our students can be successful in their work and post-secondary studies. Our students need to be able communicate on diverse teams, think creatively and flexibly about a variety of situations, and think critically to solve problems in work and academic settings.

How can we teach English and also develop these essential transition skills?  A technique I’ve found to be effective is using video vignettes in the classroom. You can exploit a short (1-2 minute) video vignette of a social or workplace encounter for many levels of learning and skill development. Continue reading

Study-Skills Tune-Up

SarahLynn1Sarah Lynn

What are the most effective ways to study?  Teach your students these four simple principles.

1: Study one thing at a time.
Multitasking doesn’t work.  Research has shown that multitasking actually depletes your ability to learn. If you are not fully paying attention to new information, you cannot move it into long term memory.

Teaching Tip:  Remind students to turn off electronics when they study.   Check out the app SelfControl.

2: Study a little bit every day.
Research has proven that distributed learning (studying a little bit every day) is much more effective than studying a lot in one or two sittings.

Teaching Tip:  Get students to look at their weekly calendar and commit to 20-30 minutes of study every day. Continue reading