How do we get the content we're teaching to stick in the minds of students for years to come? This episode is packed with strategies that work in the middle school classroom.

Topics Discussed

• Understanding memory and the brain
• Types of memory
• How can we help students remember content?

Resources

--> Take a look at this research study about the effect of sleep on learning and memory

Related Episodes

--> You may also enjoy our episodes on executive functioning, study skills, or color in the classroom

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Ellie 0:00

We often remember the relationships we had in school rather than specific lessons. But the lessons we do remember often have a special type of connection, whether it was something that tapped into our senses or it was a mnemonic device, something transferred it to your long term memory so that 30, 40, who knows how many years later you still remember it.

Brittany 0:27

You're absolutely right. I do remember learning a spelling lesson about only e's are buried in the cemetery, and I remember mock congress in eighth grade pretty clearly, like I was still there, and I remember some other things here or there, but the relationships are definitely clearer, right?

Ellie 0:50

Well, welcome to the teaching Toolbox Podcast. I'm Ellie, and I'm here with Brittany.

Brittany 0:55

Hello,

Ellie 0:57

and today we're tackling the topic of helping students improve their memory.

Brittany 1:02

In a couple other episodes, like using color in the classroom and a guide to study skills, we shared some tips for helping students remember information in this episode. We'll take some time to talk a little bit about memory and the brain, and then we'll jump into some tactical ways to help students actually improve their memory.

Ellie 1:26

So we know our brain is complex, and we aren't going to attempt to go into great depth about all the functions of the parts of the brain, because we are not brain experts,

Brittany 1:37

no,

Ellie 1:38

but we'll touch on a few brain parts or sections that are important for memory.

Brittany 1:44

First, we have the hippocampus, which is critical for forming new memories, particularly declarative, fact based, and episodic event based memories.

Ellie 1:55

The prefrontal cortex is involved in working memory and executive functions such as planning and decision making,

Brittany 2:03

And the amygdala is associated with emotional memories and helps to strengthen memories that are emotionally charged.

Ellie 2:12

Okay, so those are the couple parts of the brain that are used in memory. Maybe there's more, but those are the couple we're mentioning used in memory or recall, and we want to think about how we can access them as we try to help students improve their memory.

Brittany 2:28

When we're talking about memory, there are different types of memory as well. The first is sensory memory. It's the initial brief storage of sensory information that comes to us from using our five senses, and it only lasts a few seconds.

Ellie 2:47

And then there's short term memory, which actually holds the information temporarily for about 20 to 30 seconds and has a limited capacity, which is seven plus or minus two items.

Brittany 3:02

That's why they came up with phone numbers being seven digits.

Ellie 3:06

Yep.

Brittany 3:06

And then there's long term memory that stores information indefinitely and can be further divided into four different memory types.

Ellie 3:16

Those types are declarative memory, which is facts and events. Procedural memory, skills and tasks, episodic memory, which is personal experiences, and semantic memory, which is general knowledge. Now, if you asked my children which of those memory types I seem to have, the best kind of thing, it would probably be procedural memory, skills and tasks, because my episodic memory with personal experiences doesn't really seem to be there sometimes.

Brittany 3:51

My kids would probably say it's episodic for me, because I'm constantly going. I remember when. . .

Ellie 3:58

My kids are constantly going, do you remember when? And I say, No, I don't remember.

Brittany 4:03

Some of the differences between short and long term memory are that short term memory has a limited capacity and duration. It primarily involves the prefrontal cortex, and it is susceptible to interference - if you get distracted as somebody starts talking to you, you might just lose it what you were thinking about.

Ellie 4:26

And then long term memory has a vast capacity and duration. It involves the hippocampus for initial storage and cortical areas for long term storage, and it can be enhanced through consolidation processes such as sleep.

Brittany 4:43

I'm gonna jump in and say there was one time in eighth grade I was having a really hard time in science class remembering some information. I do not remember what information it was. I think it was about electrical currents, but I'm not positive, but I stayed up and I recorded myself. You know, I recorded myself, recording all the notes into my tape recorder, because I heard that sleep helps with information. And then I set the recorder. I don't think I could set it on a loop back then that was like the 80s. I then set the recorder to play me reading my notes as I fell asleep and I aced my test.

Ellie 5:33

Wow, that's awesome. I've listened to a few podcasts lately that talk about how important it is to sleep after you have been attempting to learn something, because sleep just seems to improve the memory. It gets it, it gets it into your mind. Yeah,

Brittany 5:51

I've heard it's better than actually cramming for a test.

Ellie 5:54

Yes, better than staying up all night, because staying up all night, you're not getting that sleep, recovering time that is helping your memory?

Brittany 6:01

Yeah,

Ellie 6:02

it's very interesting.

Brittany 6:03

So once information enters the brain, how can we move it from sensory or short term memory into that long term memory so we actually remember it? Well, one way is by encoding. In order to retain that information, encoding has to occur. So this is the process of converting sensory input into a form that can be stored in memory. Attention and focus are essential for effective encoding. Elaboration: connecting this new information with existing knowledge is one way we can do that. So if you can make some connection to your background schema, between the new information and your old information, that is one way you can make that connection and encode it.

Ellie 6:54

And then next it goes, the information goes into storage, which is maintaining information over time. And this happens through repetition and rehearsal that helps to reinforce memory traces. And it happens through organizational strategies like chunking, categorizing, and using mnemonic devices. And then there's retrieval, which is accessing the stored information. And that can happen with cues and context. With context dependent and state dependent memories, we can enhance our retrieval.

Brittany 7:28

So how can we help our students improve their memory when it comes to their work in the classroom? Well, we've got eight ideas for you today. One is active engagement. Get your kids going and moving and participating. Encourage active participation and interaction with the material. This could be discussions, group work, hands on activities, even movement around the classroom while students are practicing concepts. I used to constantly tell my kids, the more senses you are using, the more you're gonna remember it.

Ellie 8:07

Absolutely and even, you know, if they're walking around the room working on their task cards, it might not seem like that's very helpful, but that movement they are they're using another sense, you know,

Brittany 8:18

Yes,

Ellie 8:19

repetition and practice, which we know kids need to repeat things. They need to practice it so regular review sessions and spaced repetition, so we're not just singing the same, maybe song all day long, one day to help them try to remember something, and then we'd ever do it again. It needs to be spaced repetition and cumulative reviews to reinforce previously learned material. I think this is where spiral reviews come in really handy, because you're revisiting the same concept, you know, maybe two days in a row, and then maybe a week later, and then maybe three weeks later, and then a month later, they keep coming back to it and keep getting those review sessions. So I think that's where spiral review is really, really helpful.

Brittany 9:03

Yes,

Ellie 9:04

and then elaboration techniques is another strategy you can use, using elaborative interrogation, like asking why questions to deepen understanding. I don't think I ever called it this, but when we would go over the answers to math problems, for example, I might ask them, you know, say they, this is my answer. Well, why? I would ask them, why? All the time, and to begin with, they thought that if I asked why, that meant they were wrong, and so they would change their mind. But I just, I would always, well, why do you think this? Why do you believe that maybe they were right, maybe they were wrong, but I think explaining the why always helped them.

Brittany 9:45

Some people call that Socratic discussion as well.

Ellie 9:50

And then another elaboration technique is connecting new information to students prior knowledge and experiences.

Brittany 9:58

Mnemonics and chunking is a fourth way. You can use mnemonic devices to aid memorization, such as using acronyms or rhymes and break the information into manageable chunks.

And I think we gave some really specific examples of those in the study skills episode that we mentioned.

Great. And then visual aids and storytelling is a fifth way. Incorporate visuals such as charts and diagrams and videos, or you doing examples and modeling or showing them different examples of maybe you show them how a cactus absorbs water or how the rain system works. Use those visuals and use stories and analogies to make abstract concepts concrete.

I don't know if this counts, but there are times that I would pretend I knew nothing. We'd write a problem on the board, and I would be like, I have no idea how to do this. You need to explain it to me. You need to walk me through it. And they would try, and if they would assume that I knew how to do something, I would either do it wrong or like, I don't know what I don't know what I don't know what that means. You have to explain it to me. And it's kind of like telling a math story, because they're trying to explain the process, but I guess I was the visual aid, because I was putting things on the board, and then they were trying to walk me through it. But they really had fun with it, and I'm hoping they would remember it, because they would end up laughing at the fact that I didn't know how to do something so simple, and it was in everybody's background knowledge, but I didn't know. So I think it added a little bit of fun.

I would do the same thing, but I would say, like, I'm a Martian, I've just landed and I know nothing. Teach me. And they'd be like, get the toast out of the to - And I'm like, What's toast, right? And they'd be like, well, go to the toaster. I'm like, What's the toaster?

So funny.

Yeah,

It's a lot of fun. A sixth thing you can do is use frequent assessment and feedback, you know, provide regular quizzes, and formative assessments, give timely and constructive feedback to guide learning. Sometimes you might give an assessment. If there's no feedback, they don't understand why something's wrong. It's not helpful. So they need that feedback, even though it takes some time to write that or to talk to them about it. And then we have healthy lifestyle habits encourage adequate sleep, proper nutrition and physical exercise. And as we talked about sleep is so important. We've heard about different studies that are done to measure the impact of sleep on memory and on job performance in different fields. Some researchers believe that memory consolidation occurs during sleep, as we said, and one article that we are going to link in the show notes says sleep may be so important to memory consolidation. And the quote from here is "possibly because sleep seems to offer optimal conditions for consolidation, providing periods of reduced external stimulation and increased levels of neurotransmitters that provide communication between the hippocampus and the neocortex". So there's a lot of interesting research out there about the importance of sleep, if you're interested in checking that out, and then if you have the opportunity teach students some stress management techniques to help create a conducive learning environment.

And finally, number eight is organization, keeping a well organized study environment and using tools like planners or digital apps to track your assignments and your deadlines can reduce cognitive overload. When students are organized, they can focus better and retain information more effectively. We talked about ways to help students with this in our executive functioning episode, which we will also link in the show notes. By understanding the mechanisms of memory and applying these strategies, educators can enhance memory retention and learning outcomes for their students.

We hope you heard some tools you can add to your teaching toolbox. Make sure to follow or subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. We'll talk to you soon.

Bye.