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We sang this song at our last musical in fifth grade and still remember all the lyrics

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Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars) - Will Sparks Remix – Mark Ronson

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I actually had to memorize the lyrics to this song when I did singing lessons in grade school

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Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars) - Will Sparks Remix

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Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars) - Will Sparks Remix

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I performed a dance at a talent show in elementary school to this song

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This used to be my favorite song as a kid and I still know all the lyrics

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I probably listened to this song over 100 times when it first came out

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As we can now see memory is something we need and use everyday. Memory is majorly important since without it, people wouldn’t be able to function. Things like walking, eating, breathing, all come from memory. Also using problem-solving strategies are very important since they can be applied to majority of situations during your daily life. It’s important for everyone to understand the science of thinking and memory since having this understanding can help people benefit more from their memory.

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Spaced practice: An effective strategy for memory that involves spreading out practices rather than cramming them. This strategy is very effective when reviewing course material.

Ex: if you have a final in 4 weeks, instead of studying a day before the exam, study through out the week and spend at least 20 or some minutes each other day since this has shown better results for memorization.

Working Memory: the cognitive system that we use to hold info in our minds while we are consciously using it.

EX: when you are reading this you are holding onto the words as you are reading in order for this to make sense.

From this article it showed that space practice leads to greater learning than massed practice is a classroom setting and also that working memory resources are more depleted after massed practice.

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If you need another reason to love spaced practice, Ouhao Chen and colleagues (1) provide yet another one. They conducted two experiments to investigate the relationship between spaced practice and working memory depletion. First, I'll provide a primer on working memory and resource depletion, and then I'll describe the experiments and results.

Working memory is the cognitive system that we use to hold information in our minds while we are consciously using it. For example, as you are reading this blog post, you are holding onto the words as you are reading in order to make sense of them. When you solve algebra problems, you hold onto the components of the problem and actively update the values as you complete various operations.

There are a few features of our working memory system that are important here. First, working memory has limited cognitive resources; you can only hold on to, or "work with", so much information at once. You can, however, retrieve information from long-term memory into your working memory to use, and long-term memory has no known limit on its capacity. So, once you learn something well, you can retrieve it and use it without really taking up too many of your working memory resources.

Second, complex tasks that have a lot of elemental interactivity, or elements that need to be processed simultaneously, place a greater demand on our working memory. Chen and colleagues (1) provide a nice pair of examples of this in their paper. Learning to solve complex mathematical equations has high elemental interactivity. All the symbols within the problem need to be processed together to understand the problem as a whole, and if you are still learning how these symbols operate, then the task has a higher working memory load. Learning new vocabulary tends to have a lower working memory load. Even though the vocabulary terms are all new and the task may be difficult, they can be processed one at a time, and so the demand on working memory resources is lower.

We have limited cognitive resources, and if a task requires that we use a lot of those resources, then resource depletion can occur. What does this have to do with massing or spacing practice? With massed practice (cramming), engagement with the material is more continuous than when we space practice over time. With continuous cramming, working memory resources may end up depleting, which could result in less learning as we push through the cramming session. Chen and colleagues (1) tested this hypothesis with primary school children in their authentic classrooms.

Experiment 1

In their first experiment, ten-year-old primary school students (Year 4) in China learned how to add two positive fractions with different denominators (a new area for these students). They participated as part of their classes, so randomization was not possible. One class participated in the massed condition and the other in the spaced condition. (A quasi-experimental design; this is not as strong a design as a true randomized experiment. Experiment 2 addressed this problem.)

During the learning phase, students in the massed condition practiced solving all the problems in one sitting during class. Immediately after the learning phase, they took a working memory test and then a post-test to measure learning of the math operations. Students in the spaced condition practiced the same problems as those in the massed condition, but they were spread out across three learning days. Then, on a fourth day, the students in the spaced condition completed the same working memory test and the same post-test to measure learning.

The students in the spaced condition had higher performance on the working memory test and the post-test compared to those in the massed condition. The results showed a spacing effect (spacing led to greater learning than massing) and provided support for their hypothesis that massed practice leads to working memory depletion.

Experiment 2

In the second experiment, primary school students (Year 5) learned two discrete areas of algebra. The students learned problems in one area during week 1, and the other during week 2. This was done so that the researchers could counterbalance the learning materials and experimental conditions in a within-subjects design, resulting in more confidence that any differences between conditions is due to the manipulated variable (see this post on research methods). The overall procedure was largely the same as in Experiment 1, but one group of students learned using massed practice during week 1 and spaced practice during week 2, while the other group learned using spaced practice during week 1 and massed practice during week 2.

The results from Experiment 2 supported the results from Experiment 1. Working memory performance was higher for students in the spaced condition than students in the massed condition, indicating that massed practice led to more working memory depletion. Students in the spaced condition also showed greater performance on the post-test than students in the massed condition. The students in this experiment were also asked how difficult they thought the working memory test was. When students were in the massed condition during week 1 and the spaced condition during week 2, the working memory test felt a lot easier during the second week (after spaced practice). When students were in the spaced condition during week 1 and the massed condition during week 2, the working memory test felt a lot harder during the second week (after massed practice).

Summary

Overall, these experiments show that spaced practice leads to greater learning than massed practice in a real classroom setting with primary school children, and show that working memory resources are more depleted after massed practice. Avoiding working memory depletion could be one reason why spaced practice is beneficial! When sitting down to engage in a spaced practice session, working memory resources are more likely to be fresh and ready to go. These experiments also provide objective empirical evidence for what many of us have probably experienced: cramming for long periods of time can feel really draining.
To read other blogs that cover spaced practice, check out this constantly updating list of blog posts tagged "spacing".

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Even among the top effective, evidence-based study strategies that we write about, spaced practice is one of the best. Spaced practice is all about when you engage in practice. It is better to spread practice out over time, rather than massing (cramming). This is true whether you are reviewing ...

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In this article it shows the effects of Drawing on memory.

Studies found that strategies like drawing a picture illustrating a word instead of just writing out the word or making a mental image was more beneficial for memory.

This article suggests that this type of strategy could be implemented into the education system as it has show beneficial effectiveness with memory.

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We have looked at the benefits of combining text and visuals for memory and learning - see dual coding - in many previous posts. A new series of experiments has investigated the effects of drawing specifically and whether drawing improves memory for the to-be-learned material compared to other strategies (1). The research is so new that it is currently only available as a preprint and in the process of being submitted for publication. The upside of this is that the paper is already available publicly and that you can provide the authors with feedback on it. The researchers wanted to test whether drawing increases memory performance more than writing or mental imagery. In three experiments they pitched different conditions against each other to explore this topic.
Drawing vs. Writing vs. Doodling: Single Words Recall
In the first experiment, participants studied a list of words. Each word was presented individually to the participant followed by one of three prompts: drawing out the word, writing out the word repeatedly, doodling something unrelated. In the final memory test, the words that were drawn were remembered better than the words in the other conditions. So, a clear benefit of drawing the words was found.
Drawing vs. Writing: Word Pairs
In the second experiment, participants studied a list of unrelated word pairs. This time each word pair presentation was followed by one of two prompts: drawing a picture illustrating both words of the pair versus writing out the word pair out a couple of times. Memory performance on the final test showed a benefit of the drawing strategy compared to the writing strategy.

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We have looked at the benefits of combining text and visuals for memory and learning - see dual coding - in many previous posts. A new series of experiments has investigated the effects of drawing specifically and whether drawing improves memory for the to-be-learned material compared to other strategies...

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Mental set: Tendency only to see solutions that have worked in the past

Ex: In a basketball game you do a behind the back pass to your teammate and it works. Next play you decide to do the same thing and now you turn the ball over

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One problem strategy obstacle would be Functional Fixedness.

Functional Fixedness: The tendency to think of things in terms of their usual functions

Ex: you need to sharpen your knife but all you have is a teacup and no knife sharpener. Except actually you could use the teacup as a knife sharpener.

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Heuristic:  Problem solving shortcuts that reduce the number the number of steps to solving a problem.

- Examples:
- working backwards

- breaking a problem down into smaller parts

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Algorithm: A fixed set of rules or procedures that will guarantee a solution

Real-life Example: During a math test to find the hypotenuse of a triangle the best algorithm to use is Pythagorean Theorem which will guarantee the solution to finding the hypotenuse

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Another memory trick that can be useful is Creating flash cards to something you want to learn and memorize. Although this method will require some Effortful Encoding, it is a very useful trick.

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One trick I use that helps with memory with things that I know Im going to want to remember, is making up a sort of song or rhythm to whatever im trying to remember since this can help to recall information.

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Long-term memory EX:

Something that I will always remember is the time I ran at the Junior Olympics when my relay team medaled.

Another long-term memory I have is winning the championship in AHYBA in elementary school.

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Short term memory EX:

Yesterday I had a basketball game and we lost. I remember what the score was of the game now, but if someone asked me what the score was in a few days i probably wont remember.

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Types of memory:

Sensory memory= The brief, initial encoding of sensory info in the memory system.

Short-term memory= The part of your memory system that contains info you are consciously aware of.

Long-term memory= The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.

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3 processes of memory:

Encoding= The process of getting info into the memory system.

Storage= The retention of encoded info in memory over time.

Retrieval= The process of getting info out of memory storage.