To Improve Learning & Exam Performance, we must be able to Improve our Long Term Memory – so that we can recall important information that we’ve previously learnt – to use and apply in real life & exam situations –

Inside we’ll look into the science of memory; how we can apply the science in the classroom as teachers &  learners to improve memory, learning & exam performance – and how technology can aid us do that & its impact on memory & learning overall.

Contents:

• Key Words
• Importance of Memory To Learning
• How The Brain Stores Memories
• Factors Which Affect Short Term & Long Term Memory
• How to Implement These Factors Into Our Teaching & Learning
• Impact of Digital Media & Learning In a Digital Age on Memory
• Efficient Strategies To Improve Long Term Memory & Learning (Summary)

 

Through out we will reference to many key theories like: Michel Swan’s Connected View & CognitiveLoad Theory.

Key Words

• Cognition – the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses (Wikipedia, 2019).
• Memory – the ability to recall previously learnt information (Merriam Webster, 2019).

Importance of Memory To Learning

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning (Revised in 2001 by Anderson and Krathwohl) (Teaching.uncc.edu, 2019) looks at the six different stages of learning and cognition –

1. Ability to recall knowledge & information
2. Understand information
3. Use & apply it
4. Analyze
5. Evaluate and
6. Create new things.

Where stages 2 to 6 CANNOT be achieved if the student is NOT able to remember and recall key information.

To make progress and move to the next stage of Bloom’s Taxonomy, a learner must be able to perform the current, and all previous cognitive stages – e.g, to build the skill of evaluation, the student must first be able to recall, understand, apply and analyse – before moving onto this stage.

Thus, it is essential for students to be able to recall facts, in order to move onto higher level cognitive tasks like analysis and evaluation.

Bloom’s Taxomy Of Learning

(Revised in 2001 by Anderson and Krathwohl):

This is key, as the 6 areas of Bloom’s Taxonomy is what the GCSE exam tests our pupils on – the Smaller Mark Questions focusing on the students’ ability to recall, understand, use & apply; and Higher Mark Questions  focusing on Analysis and Evaluation.

(trend noticed from personal experience doing exam papers)

If students cannot recall key facts & procedures, they cannot understand or use & apply knowledge to answer the questions to pass the exam.

Thus, students need to be able to recall key facts & procedures in order to:

• Answer basic exam questions & build the skills of understanding & applying to pass the exams;
• Build the higher level cognitive skills (analysis and evaluation)

to answer higher mark questions and get the top marks.

Therefore, to improve student learning and exam performance, we must focus on improving their memory – their ability to recall key facts and information.

How The Brain Stores Memories

Step 1 – Encoding

When we learn something for the first time, it enters our short term memory (through one of the senses or combination of them: sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell). This is known as the encoding stage (Simply Psychology, 2019).

The more senses are stimulated, the more likely we are to remember something (Willingham, 2008).

Step 2 – Memory Storage

When a memory is made the brain creates a neuron path way. However that pathway can be weak and easily forgotten; especially as our Short Term Memory (STM) seems to be between 15 to 30 seconds long, and has capacity of storing on average 7 different pieces of information (5 to 9 is the range) – (Simply Psychology, 2019).

The amount of information we can store links in with cognitive load theory (later in the article), which is important as overloading the short term memory with information can impede learning (Teachthought, 2019).

However, information in our Long Term Memory can last a lifetime and be accessed whenever.

Stage 3 – Memory Retrieval

The way we store information affects the way we retrieve it (Simply Psychology, 2019).

Short Term Memory (STM) is stored and retrieved sequentially (Simply Psychology, 2019).

For example, if a group of participants are given a list of words to remember, and then asked to recall the fourth word on the list, participants go through the list in the order they heard it in order to retrieve the information (Simply Psychology, 2019).

Organizing information as we try to learn it can also help aid retrieval, (Simply Psychology, 2019).

Long Term Memory is stored and retrieved by association (Simply Psychology, 2019). Daniel Willingham refers to this as having a cue or a trigger that we associate with the memory, to call back and recall the memory. (Willingham, 2008)

For example, watching an old movie we used to love as kids, or listening to our favorite song from childhood instantly triggering many memories of our childhood – where the song & movie act as cues to the memories.

Even looking at a picture of ourselves from the past, brings back memories of what happened at that time in our life – the picture acting as the trigger.

If we can’t remember something, it may be because we are unable to retrieve it –

and not necessarily because we have forgotten the memory. (Simply Psychology, 2019)

Willingham mentions having poor memory is usually due to lack of triggers or ambiguous cues, and good memory is to having clear and specific cues (Willingham, 2008)

Therefore if we want to improves memory, we must create a trigger.

Factors Which Affect Short Term & Long Term Memory

---

VIEW FULL ASSIGNMENT

To view and download the full assignment, purchase the assignment below:

£9.99 – Purchase Checkout Added to cart