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Introduction to the brain

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Finally getting there

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Busted, Plausible & Confirmed - Self-Assessment

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Whew!  I am dizzy learning all this stuff.  I am not that good at technology.  Getting there, however, I hope.

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Whew!  I am dizzy learning all this stuff.  I am not that good at technology.  Getting there, however, I hope.

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OLC_NEB_Readings_Reimagining the Role of Technology in Higher Education

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Definition of Terms and Abbreviations, MRI, CAT Scan, etc.

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Definition of Terms and Abbreviations, MRI, CAT Scan, etc.

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Enlightening!

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These are the five primary methods of scanning the brain for structure and function.

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https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lobe.html

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The 4 Underlying Principles of changing your brain

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The 4 Underlying Principles of changing your brain

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The 4 Underlying Principles Of Changing Your Brain

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It is a commonly held belief that once we reach adulthood our brains are 'hard-wired' and incapable of dramatic change. However, recent research has suggested that our brains are in fact much more malleable, flexible and able to shift physically and psychologically than we first thought.

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Current trends and Online learning opportunities

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How the Brain Supports Learning

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Hmmm.

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Once upon a time, the old man (and his old man) were dashing young rakes who got all dressed up and spit-shined before going out on the town. These were a few of the vintage grooming products that he used to look and smell his best.

1. Brylcreem

The secret to achieving shiny patent leather hair à la Clark Gable or Tyrone Power was Brylcreem. Apparently, nothing drove women wild back then like a head that Exxon could use to pump 20 barrels of oil a day. The company's slogan was "a little dab will do ya," but judging from the way their hair stayed plastered in place, it appears that most men were overdoing the dabs.

2. Vitalis

Even after Clark, Tyrone, Cary, et al. had been replaced onscreen by Marlon Brando and James Dean, Brylcreem was still embraced by younger men who constantly combed the stuff through their ducktails. (Those Fonzie-types weren't called "greasers" because they ate a lot of deep-fried food.) When Brylcreem started to get identified with teenage hoods, the makers of Vitalis water-based hair tonic had a brainstorm and launched an advertising campaign disparaging grown men who still used that "greasy kid stuff." The phrase went viral and was even the topic of a 1962 novelty tune by Janie Grant.

3. Groom & Clean

Another water-based pomade, Groom & Clean's main selling point was that, with regular use, you could just run a wet comb through your hair to remove unsightly oil and dandruff. Because God forbid you should try shampooing more than once a week.

4. Afro Sheen

Men who wanted to blow out their hair to Clarence Williams III-size proportions turned to Johnson Products' Afro Sheen Blowout Kit. The kit was so popular it helped cement Johnson Products as one of the country's biggest African American-owned businesses, and it was the first African American-owned company to be traded publicly on the stock exchange.

5. Dry Control by Vitalis

Once men started growing their hair longer and feathering it, they needed something manly to protect it from the elements. Plain ol' Aquanet would have done the trick, but professional athletes don't want to go around smelling like a beauty parlor, do they? Gillette introduced The Dry Look in the early 1970s, and once it proved to be successful, Vitalis followed suit with Dry Control. Legendary pitcher Nolan Ryan, quarterback Bob Griese, and NBA Hall of Famer Pete Maravich all appeared in TV commercials for the product, thus providing it with some definite testosterone credentials.

6. Wildroot Cream Oil Hair Tonic

In the 1920s, the makers of Wildroot advertised it as a treatment for "falling hair"-that is, it would help to prevent baldness. Once the Federal Trade Commission started getting picky about such claims, Wildroot was promoted as a tonic in the same vein as Brylcreem. The secret ingredient was lanolin, which certainly held one's hair in place; it also tended to cause acne-like eruptions around the hairline among the more sensitive-skinned folks.

7. Aqua Velva

When Aqua Velva aftershave originally hit store shelves in 1937, it was the color of straw and had a fairly high alcohol content. In fact, during World War II, military base exchanges couldn't restock the product fast enough. But soldiers and seamen weren't buying Aqua Velva for its skin-bracing effect-they were drinking the stuff! It was cheaper and more readily available than liquor. The Ice Blue variety was a result of the WWII abuse-the government asked maker J.B. Williams to add something to their product to discourage anyone from drinking it, and the bittering agent the company used turned the product bright blue without changing the fragrance. But military types weren't dissuaded: They simply poured the product through a slice of bread before drinking to remove the bitterness, essentially filtering it. Civilian males, meanwhile, started buying up the product because of that cool blue color.

8. Hai Karate

Hai Karate aftershave launched in 1967 in an effort to capitalize on the burgeoning martial arts craze. Thanks to his role as Kato on TV's The Green Hornet, Bruce Lee had become a name in the U.S. and chop-socky movies were gaining a cult following. Hai Karate's success was mainly due to an imaginative advertising campaign, wherein any male who used the tantalizing fragrance (which actually had a sort of sickening patchouli incense-type smell) would immediately attract so many sex-crazed women that he'd have to resort to taekwondo to fend them off.

9. Lectric Shave

Aftershaves tend to get all the attention, but Williams Lectric Shave is a before shave product. Electric shavers were quick and efficient, but they just didn't give the close cut of a traditional razor. Enter Lectric Shave, which contained enough alcohol to close the facial pores and lift the whiskers away from the skin a tad, as well as some isopropyl myristate, which acts as a non-greasy emollient that helps the skin retain moisture.

10. Bay Rum

Once upon a time every barbershop reeked of Bay Rum when you first stepped inside. It was the stuff the barber slapped on a man's face after giving him a good old-fashioned straight-razor shave. According to the label, it "invigorated and stimulated" the skin, which is marketing-speak for "it stings like a sonuvagun!" But it did smell good-so good in fact, that there are Bay Rum DIY guides out there.

11. Noxzema Medicated Shaving Cream

Sure, many men still regularly use this product each morning, but how many of them visualize former Miss Sweden Gunilla Knutsson seductively encouraging them to "Take it off. Take it allll off" while they scrape the stubble away? Shaving in the 1960s was a much sexier affair.
This story was updated in 2019.

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Test Your Memory With a Game Designed by Johns Hopkins Researchers

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Once upon a time, the old man (and his old man) were dashing young rakes who got all dressed up and spit-shined before going out on the town. These were a few of the vintage grooming products that he used to look and smell his best.

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https://institute.onlinelearningconsortium.org/mod/page/view.php?id=102910&forceview=1

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Basic Information on structure

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Neurons and What They Do ~ An Animated Guide

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Blue Sky Science: How does your brain form memories

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Blue Sky Science: How does your brain form memories

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How memories are formed and reshaped over time

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Effective Practice makes perfection possible

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Practice is a physical activity, of course, but it's also hard mental work - if you're doing it right. A new video published by TED Ed gets down to the scientific nitty-gritty of what good practice looks like, and what it does to your brain. (Think axons and myelin, not "muscle memory" - muscles don't have "memory.")

As Annie Bosler and Don Greene, the creators of this TED Ed lesson, point out, this advice can apply to everything from music to sports. They define effective practice as "consistent, intensely focused and target[ing] content or weaknesses that lie at the edge of one's current abilities." That's another way of saying: Don't waste your time practicing the stuff you already know, just to fill up those minutes.

More of their specific advice, with each point bolstered by research:

"Focus at the task on hand." Shut off all those digital distractions. No excuses.

"Start out slowly, or in slow motion. Coordination is built with repetitions." Get it right at a slow pace and then work on increasing your speed while still playing the music correctly.

"Frequent repetition with allotted breaks are common practice habits of elite performers." Do what many pros do: split your practice time into smaller, super-concentrated chunks, working multiple times a day.

"Practice in your brain, in vivid detail." Visualize playing your music without actually playing it. Put yourself through the music, note by note. Imagine what it feels like to press that key, or take that breath, every step of the way.

Of course, their advice about practicing isn't new; quite a bit of it has been floating around for some time now, like in a series of posts published here on Deceptive Cadence a few years ago. But having a better understanding why and how it works is inspiring - and helps you reinforce good habits.

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How To Practice Effectively, According To Science

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Want to boost those neural pathways? TED Ed offers practical suggestions: Practice in concentrated bursts, work through passages slooowly -- and step away from Facebook.

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Brain Basics: Parts of the brain and their functions

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Brain Basics: Parts of the brain and their functions

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Physical parts of the brain and their functions and results of injury

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Interactive Brain | How the brain works & the impact of injury

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Take an interactive journey to see how the brain works and what impact an injury can have

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Willis, J. (2009). What you should know about your brain. Educational Leadership. ASCD.
Shows how the brain learns: RAD-Reach, Attitude, Develop

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Learning and memory under stress:  Implications for the classroom

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Learning and memory under stress:  Implications for the classroom

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Learning and memory under stress: implications for the classroom - npj Science of Learning

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npj Science of Learning - Learning and memory under stress: implications for the classroom

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Miller Day 3 SOM Version with Captions (2) (Copy)

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Miller, M. D. (2015, June 26). Can millennials pay attention to classwork while texting , tweeting and being on Facebook ? The Conversation. 

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Miller, M. D. (2015, June 26). Can millennials pay attention to classwork while texting , tweeting and being on Facebook ? The Conversation. 

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Reading

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Should mobile devices be encouraged in class? Trinity College, CC BY-NC-ND

It's hard not to notice the connection of today's youth to technology.

Fused to their smartphones around the clock, they prefer screens to paper and text message to speech; they consider leaving voicemail an act of interpersonal aggression.

They seem to focus differently too: skimming and sampling their way through multiple streams of data, they look like they're taking it in all at once.

Some educators call them "digital natives," reflecting the idea that tech is at the core of who they are and how they function.

If living with technology really has rewired this generation for multitasking, what implications does this have for how we educate them? Should we tolerate - or maybe even encourage - mobile devices in class? And should we worry when we see students keeping an eye on social media or other diversions while doing homework?

Why attention matters for learning

As a professor who specializes in course design, I deal with these questions frequently as I help fellow faculty devise better strategies. In this work, I draw on my research background in cognitive psychology, a specialization focusing on mental processes such as reasoning, memory and attention.

Of those processes, attention is one that I tell teachers to be particularly attuned to. Research shows that memory - especially working memory, which holds information we're using in the present moment - is deeply intertwined with attention.

Without sustained focus, we retain surprisingly little, and that window of focus is much narrower than we may realize.

So, are the minds of digital natives - or any heavy tech users - better or worse when it comes to attention? It's a complicated question, partly because attention works in some paradoxical ways.

The function of attention is to prioritize where we put our limited cognitive resources at any given moment. One thing attention does is keep irrelevant information at bay. Like a bouncer at an exclusive nightclub, its job is to ensure that only the most important and relevant elements pass through into conscious awareness.

But at the same time, a well-functioning attention system has to stay open to information that's in the background and could be potentially useful. That mental bouncer has to constantly scan the crowd for anyone who might turn out to be a great addition to the party, pick them out and usher them inside.

What technology does to the ability to pay attention

Technology seems to have a bigger impact on that second side of attention.

Certain kinds of tech use - habitually consuming lots of online media at once, or playing certain kinds of video games - appear to boost the ability to efficiently pick up on peripheral information while keeping up with a main task.

And although long-term studies are lacking, there is a growing body of research on how tech-saturated environments shape the minds and brains of kids.

It's unlikely that video games or online media damage kids' ability to pay attention. But comparative research across high-tech and low-tech societies suggests that information processing is different in kids who grow up working with digital rather than physical tools. Neither group is better or worse across the board, but this research suggests that high-tech kids may be less inclined to learn by watching for extended periods of time.

That said, we should be cautious about concluding that today's students have developed the ability to juggle as much technology as they want. Technology has not reshaped the basic ways in which our brains process information.

As cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham points out, the impact of things like video games is relatively subtle. All they can do is tinker around the edges of our mental systems, rather than altering them at the core.

As Willingham says, something as fundamental as attention couldn't be deeply reshaped without a major overhaul of the brain - something that would be a function of evolution, not life experiences.

All of this means that college teachers should be skeptical of claims that their game- and tech-obsessed students process information completely differently. Compared to earlier generations, today's students are probably no more able to learn while simultaneously engrossed in Twitter, Facebook and texting.

College students and technology

There are other pitfalls to consider.

Research with young adults in college suggests that they are neither as enthusiastic about technology nor as adept at using it as we may assume. Sometimes, they intentionally opt for lower-tech approaches; in one study of California college students, most said that they preferred paper over a browser for their own studying.

This is something my faculty colleagues commonly observe as well - that although their students may use technology like social media casually throughout the day, it doesn't translate to other tech-based tasks, such as navigating a course's online homework system.

Students also get into trouble if they assume - because of the "digital nativism" idea, or simple lack of self-awareness - that they can master demanding coursework while engaged in digital distractions.

Evidence suggests that multitasking - such as tweeting in class - reduces learning, or at the very least makes it take longer.

Even sitting next to a classmate surfing the web on his or her own laptop hampers learning.

In sum, despite that appearance of being fused to their devices, today's students aren't immune to the distraction those devices cause. And they don't necessarily want technology in every corner of their educational lives.

How college teachers can help

College teachers need to include lots of tech support for online assignments and other kinds of educational technologies, because even students who have grown up with computers still get stuck when using them in new contexts.

Teachers must also avoid the trap of adding tech to a class just because they assume digital native students want it. Educational technology can be highly effective, but only when it is tightly coupled to the teacher's goals.

Even better, teachers can help students understand for themselves how attention works - knowledge that everyone ought to have in today's distracting era. Without vilifying technology, teachers can work to raise students' awareness about how attention impacts learning more than we may realize, no matter what our age.

The effects of technology on cognition are intriguing, but they don't justify teaching millennials as if they were a new species. Teachers need to think twice about tolerating devices in class, except as part of structured activities that link to the lesson at hand.

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Can millennials pay attention to classwork while texting, tweeting and being on Facebook?

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From the look of it, the millennials appear to be very comfortable with technology. But are they as immune to the effects of digital distraction as some might assume - especially in the classroom?

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Attention Matters

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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Attention is how the mind prioritizes. The brain's attention circuits stay busy throughout our waking hours, directing on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis where our limited cognitive resources are going to go, monitoring the information that floods into our senses, and shaping conscious experience. Attention is one of the most mysterious and compelling topics in cognitive science. Years of research on the subject are now paying off handsomely in the form of recent advances in our understanding of how these mechanisms work, on both theoretical and physiological levels. And the more we learn, the more we realize that these findings aren't just important for theory-building -- they offer myriad practical applications that can help people function more effectively across all aspects of life. Teaching and learning is one area where attention research is especially useful for helping us get better at what we do.

In my book Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, I foreground attention as the starting point for everything designers of college-level online learning experiences should know about human cognition. Without attention, much of what we want students to accomplish -- taking in new information, making new connections, acquiring and practicing new skills -- simply doesn't happen. And thus, gaining students' focus is a necessary first step in any well-designed learning activity, whether online or face-to-face.

But how does this principle play out in a contemporary learning environment littered with tempting distractions -- the smartphones that accompany students to class, social networks that let us reach out to friends around the clock, the sites for games, media, and shopping that beckon every time we open our browsers? It's especially concerning given how overly optimistic people tend to be about their ability to juggle different tasks. As psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simon eloquently explain in The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, human beings are notoriously bad at knowing what we can handle, attention-wise. Essentially, we lie to ourselves about what we notice and what we know, believing that we take in much more that we actually do.

For our students, this adds up to a serious drain on learning. And as learning environments become more complex, it is a drain they can't afford. Consider, for example, some forms of blended learning in which students master foundational knowledge outside of class, usually through online work, then spend class time on focused application and interaction with instructors and classmates. A tightly scheduled and synchronized system like this can work beautifully, but doesn't allow much margin of error for wasted time and scattered focus.

So what can we do about this situation? One strategy is to educate students about the limits of attention and just how much they miss when they choose to multitask. This, however, is easier said than done. Incorporating a learning module on attention is straightforward enough, but what would it take for such a module to be effective? First, it would need to be brief and to the point, reinforcing just a few crucial take-home messages without a great deal of history, theory or other background more appropriate to a full-length course in cognition. At the same time, quality control would be a major concern, especially for the module to be usable by an instructor without academic training in cognitive psychology. Just Googling for materials on attention brings up at least as much pseudoscience as reputable work, and without this solid scientific grounding, a module on the dangers of multitasking could easily devolve into a "Reefer Madness"-style experience, more laughable than persuasive.

Keeping these caveats firmly in mind, I've worked with my instructional designer colleague John Doherty to create a free-standing, one-shot online learning module called Attention Matters that instructors can drop into existing courses as an extra credit or required assignment. Besides being scrupulous about the science, John and I prioritized interactivity and use of the multimedia capabilities of online learning -- enabling us to show students, not just tell them, what distraction can do to performance in different contexts. Too many online learning activities consist essentially of glorified PowerPoint slides, so although there is a certain amount of text within our module, we put most of the emphasis on media, demonstrations, self-assessment and discussion.

As an example, we used a demonstration we called the "Selective Reading Challenge" to show students how attention mechanisms constantly filter incoming information, and also, how little we remember of information we don't attend to. The demonstration consists of a page of text, alternating lines of bold and regular typefaces. Students are instructed to pay attention to only the bold lines, ignoring everything else, then proceed immediately to the next page. In the "to be ignored" text, we hide a few stimuli that may break through to awareness -- a couple of common names (Michael, Emily, Stephen, Christina), that if they belong to you, will probably pop out, as well as a few attention-grabbing emotional terms (911, murder). After completing the "selective reading," students are invited to go back review the entire page of text -- bold and regular -- to see what they missed, and what they (likely) don't remember at all even though it was well within the field of vision.

Other demonstrations illustrate the dramatic slowdown in processing that takes place when we multitask among competing activities. We present an online version of the classic "Stroop effect" to illustrate how distraction -- even from other mental processes going on at the same time -- can make a simple activity slow and inaccurate. The task involves naming the colors of a sequence of multicolored words -- not a difficult task, except when the words are themselves color names. red, green, blue, and so on - that contradict the colors they are printed in. Lastly, we pulled in several video clips from around the Web to drive home the multitasking point. One shows a prank "driving test" in which unsuspecting students were told to text while navigating a practice course, with predictably disastrous results. Another classic clip called "The Amazing Color Changing Card Trick," created by psychologist Richard Wiseman, dramatically illustrates how attending to one part of a scene causes us to miss major developments going on in practically the same location.

These videos, activities and demonstrations form the anchor for brief, impactful student learning activities throughout the module. Students respond to discussion prompts asking them whether the demonstrations worked on them as predicted, and what they may mean for everyday attention. They also complete self-quizzes with feedback that target the different learning outcomes for each part of the module. At the end, they revisit what they have learned in a brief self-reflection and survey on attitudes and beliefs about attention and its importance for learning.

Attention Matters is an exciting project, offering us the opportunity to apply cognitive science in a novel and - we hope - useful way. The project also has a research component, through which we will be gathering data on student attitudes and beliefs about their own attentional capabilities, as well as on the frequency of different multitasking behaviors in their own lives.

There's another important side to Attention Matters, and that has to do with the collaboration between an instructional design expert and a Subject Matter Expert, or SME. Much has been written about the virtues of instructional design experts' pairing up with SMEs, and yet, such collaborations remain fairly rare within higher education. We hope that this project demonstrates the real benefits to be gained - perhaps motivating others to take the plunge.

It's still too early to know what the long-term impacts of Attention Matters are going to be, or to predict exactly what we might discover about student attitudes and behaviors around multitasking. But I do foresee that as seismic change continues to occur in higher education, we will see more educators entering similar new territory - collaboratively creating focused, technologically delivered learning modules that live outside of traditional courses and use learning theory and cognitive science as the basis for design. And in our case, we may be able to add to our arsenal of strategies for getting students to become better stewards of their own attention.

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Essay calls for professors to start teaching students about distraction and attention

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It's time for professors to move beyond complaining about how students are distracted by social media, writes Michelle Miller. Faculty members need to teach about why attention matters.

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Selective Attention

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Description, Anatomy, and Examples from real life

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Disclaimer

The simplified model presented here is just one of many ways to categorize types of memory. There are other models too, and some of them use slightly different definitions for some of the terms used here.

This model highlights just a few of the key brain regions involved in different memory functions. Since no part of the brain exists in isolation, most types of memory include more areas than the ones listed here. The big idea to take away is that different areas of the brain have different functions.

If you wish to delve more deeply into the types of memory or the brain anatomy involved, we encourage you to explore the references linked at the bottom of the page.

When we learn, our brain takes in information about the world that causes us to change our behavior in some way.

For example, a young baby doesn't understand that fire can hurt them. But thanks to learning, if they touch a candle flame even one time, they will probably not do it again. The information that feeds into the brain-candle, flame, hot, pain-is physically recorded in the connections between cells. And those connections influence our future behavior-don't touch!

As the brain takes in any information and stores it, there are physical changes to the connections between brain cells. And those connections influence our behavior.

Neurons that fire together wire together

The brain is an enormous interconnected network of specialized cells called neurons and supporting cells called glia. To transmit information in the brain, neurons pass signals to one another. This passing of signals can cause physical changes to the connections between cells.

When we learn a skill (like riding a bike) or new information (like multiplication tables), we are building brain connections. The more we use those brain connections, the stronger they get. It's the reason "practice makes perfect."

In the activity above, you can read about how injuries to certain brain areas cause certain memory functions to stop working. But just as important are the connections between them. If two brain areas can no longer communicate, then learning and memory can break down.

Like trails through the wilderness, brain connections get stronger the more they're used

Learning is a process that relies on long-term memory systems in the brain. People who study learning typically divide it into 4 steps: attention, storage, consolidation, and retrieval. These steps dovetail with the Types of Memory described above, and they provide a slightly different framework for thinking about what happens when one or more of these steps go wrong.

Attention - Our sensory systems are constantly bombarded with information, yet most of it fades before we are even aware of it. Attention is like a filter that lets important information into the brain while keeping the irrelevant information out. Without attention, we would remember very little.

Encoding - As sensory information comes in, the brain processes it. Strings of sounds become words, flashes of light and color become images. The brain begins connecting this new information with what it already knows about the world. Some information that is encoded will fade, and some will stick around.

Storage - Long-term storage of information requires new brain connections. The brain has its own way of rehearsing experiences (there's evidence that this is what dreaming is all about), which helps strengthen brain connections. But we can also consciously repeat information or skills to help the brain form strong memories.

Retrieval - Retrieval is the process of accessing stored memories. We use it when we recall a fact or reimagine an experience. But we also use it when we take in new information. It's part of what helps us connect new information to old.

Even when memory systems function normally, memory is imperfect. To learn more about the fallibility of memory, visit The Seven Sins of Memory.

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The simplified model presented here is just one of many ways to categorize types of memory. There are other models too, and some of them use slightly different definitions for some of the terms used here. This model highlights just a few of the key brain regions involved in different memory functions.

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Overview on Memory: Michelle D. Miller

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Miller Day 3 SOM Version with Captions (2) (Copy)

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Learning to think: Michelle Miller

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online learning consortium institute: workshops: log in to the site

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Online Learning Consortium Institute: Workshops

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The surprising habits of original thinkers

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy

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Adam Grant: The surprising habits of original thinkers

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How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals -- including embracing failure.

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Operation ARA: A computerized learning game that teaches critical thinking and scientific reasoning

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Operation ARA: A computerized learning game that teaches critical thinking and scientific reasoning

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Halpern, D. F., Millis, K., Graesser, A. C., Butler, H., Forsyth, C., & Cai, Z. (2012) Pages 7(2), 93–100

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Operation ARA: A computerized learning game that teaches critical thinking and scientific reasoning

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Operation ARA (Acquiring Research Acumen) is a computerized learning game that teaches critical thinking and scientific reasoning. It is a valuable le...

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Doing better

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Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

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Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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I was wrapping up a presentation on memory and learning when a colleague asked, "How do we help students learn in courses where there's a lot of memorization?" He explained that he taught introductory-level human anatomy, and although the course wasn't all memorization, it did challenge students' capacity to retain dozens of new terms and concepts.

The question itself is tricky because most teaching professionals are heavily invested in the idea that learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam. We also worry, and with good reason, that emphasizing rote learning steals time and effort away from the deeper thinking that we want students to do. But in my work I've come to realize that memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, acquiring content knowledge doesn't have to detract from critical thinking, reasoning, or innovation-rather, it can complement all these. Cognitive scientists are making new discoveries all the time about the connections between memory and processes such as drawing inferences, making predictions, and other skills that make up the ability to think like an expert in a discipline.

So what techniques target this specific teaching and learning challenge? We're all familiar with mnemonics such as the first-letter technique-using a word such as RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) or a catchy phrase (Every Good Boy Does Fine) to remember a sequence of information. Mnemonics are one good tool, but what else can we offer?

Learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam, but memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise

For starters, we should convey to students (and keep in mind ourselves) that memorization challenges nearly everyone because the mind simply isn't set up to take in reams of disjointed facts. Our memory systems evolved to be picky about what we remember, selecting the information that is most relevant to our goals and discarding the rest. Understanding this helps us and our students have realistic expectations about the level of effort needed to succeed.

It also helps to understand how we create memories for words, because many memorization tasks involve scientific terms, foreign language vocabulary, and the like. How we do this has been hotly debated among researchers, but one view is that we rely on a special piece of mental machinery called the phonological loop that holds speech sounds.

If you've ever muttered a phone number to yourself while you ran around looking for a pencil to write it down with, you've experienced the phonological loop in action. But recycling phone numbers isn't the phonological loop's main reason for existing. Rather, its real job kicks in when we run into a word we haven't heard before. When this happens, the phonological loop grabs onto the sequence of sounds and keeps it fresh while other memory systems set up representations of what the new word means. The catch is that phonological loop capacity varies fairly substantially from individual to individual. This means that words of three, four, or more syllables overwhelm some people's ability to learn new words on the fly.

With these two points in mind-that memory doesn't handle disjointed facts well and new vocabulary hinges on one sometimes-shaky mechanism within memory-here are some ways to help students manage memorization:

Emphasize context and purpose. Ask yourself why students are being asked to memorize these facts in the first place. If students can readily answer that question and if they can picture future situations in which they will use the information, they will be better primed to remember it.

Break down new vocabulary words, especially those that are more than two syllables long. Allow time to rehearse and remember the first couple of syllables before tacking on later ones. Also keep in mind that this process will be easier for some students than others due to wide variation in phonological loop capacity; you may want to design in a "mastery learning" or other individualized approach for vocabulary so that students can move through at their own pace.

Visualize information. For most people, imagery is highly memorable, perhaps because so much of the brain is devoted to visual processing. Memory champions, such as the ones populating the best seller Moonwalking with Einstein, use elaborate visualization strategies to achieve incredible feats of memorization. Similarly, strategies such as the keyword mnemonic work by linking word sounds to images (such as using an image of a cowboy on a horse to remember the Spanish word "caballo," which sounds a bit like "cowboy").

Take advantage of the "Big Three" applied memory principles-testing, spacing, and interleaving. Briefly, these refer to the facts that quizzes are a great way to study and that we do best when we spread out our study sessions and alternate between different topics. Tackling a big memory project such as human anatomy means we need every advantage we can get, and dozens of research studies have supported these three as producing the biggest memory payoff for the time invested.

Avoid the rereading trap. Students tend to fall into passively reviewing material, and in doing so they miss the key advantage of techniques such as testing: retrieval practice. Retrieval practice strengthens memory, but it works only when we actively challenge memory. Flash cards, a favorite student strategy, are fine as long as students use them to actively quiz themselves.

It's okay to expect students to learn the facts and terms needed to become experts in a discipline. With an understanding of memory and some strategies to share, we can make this side of learning productive and maybe even painless-but certainly at least less painful.
Michelle Miller is a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Northern Arizona University.
Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 28.9 (2014): 3. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved.

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Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

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Although there is more to learning than regurgitating facts on an exam, memorization is an important route to building content knowledge and expertise.

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Is it time for teachers to move on?

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How well do students learn when a lesson is mainly in PowerPoint? Henrik Berger Jørgensen, CC BY-NC-ND

For a brief period in the history of teaching, using PowerPoint automatically qualified you as a tech-savvy professor - an innovator who wouldn't settle for the usual combination of staticky black-and-white overhead films and hand-scrawled chalkboard notes.

Now, it's hard to believe that PowerPoint was once considered innovative by anyone. Popular criticism includes everything from tongue-in-cheek comments about death by PowerPoint to serious claims that it fundamentally degrades how we think and communicate.

But much of today's college instruction isn't in face-to-face classrooms, a setting in which PowerPoint was traditionally used. It's in the burgeoning field of online learning.

So if more learning is moving online, does that mean that teaching with PowerPoint is becoming a thing of the past?

Surprisingly, the answer is no.

Passive learning through PowerPoint?

Even though there's little research that directly addresses whether PowerPoint affects learning in college students, critics have questioned its value in educational settings.

Some ask whether PowerPoint might indirectly undermine the quality of teaching by reinforcing a passive learning approach.

We know that lecturing is less effective than alternative methods. It therefore makes sense for teachers in face-to-face classrooms to question how much of their class time ought to be spent on slideshows.

But the fact is "slideshows" remain a popular method for presenting content in today's online courses.

Technically, these are often not PowerPoints, but decks generated using other types of specialized programs.

And they may differ from standard in-class PowerPoint presentations in important ways.

For example, taking advantage of the increased flexibility of the online environment, they give students more control over how quickly to go through the material and when to backtrack. They can also have more interactive features, such as quizzes, that ask students to apply material while they are learning it.

Even so, the basic - and flawed - idea is the same: put the material in front of students, and learning will happen.

What's wrong with slideshows in online courses

As a psychologist specializing in teaching techniques and course design, when I talk to faculty about teaching effectively with technology, I sometimes tell them to follow the ABS principle: anything but slideshows.

I'm only half-kidding with that blanket statement.

After all, we learn with the same brains in online environments as we do face-to-face; the principles of learning don't change just because the medium changes. And today's learning theorists agree: active involvement trumps passive viewing.

Students need to grapple with challenging problems, practice skills, discuss and defend viewpoints. But for this kind of active learning to happen, instructors need to ensure they do not rely too heavily on slides.

There are alternatives: simulations, problem-based learning, even educational games are all proven methods for drawing students in. They also transplant well into online learning.

Using slideshows the right way

So do slideshows have any place in a well-designed online course? Possibly.

They can be used strategically for things they are best at: giving students an overview of new material, or providing a refresher on concepts students will need for an upcoming activity.

Slides are also great for for integrating visual illustrations. This is important because visuals - diagrams, figures, photos and the like - have a powerful impact on learning.

Visual information is almost always more memorable than sound, text or other modalities.

This isn't because of the now-debunked idea that some people are "visual learners," but more likely stems from how the brain codes images. There are separate systems for representing verbal and visual information in the brain. When we save information in both places, it is easier to recall.

Teachers don't have to stick with static images, either. Even basic animations can illuminate conceptual relationships - such as cause and effect, or the unfolding of a process over time - in ways that text can't.

Furthermore, as University of California, Santa Barbara researcher Richard Mayer has discovered, visuals and the spoken word pair up in powerful ways, so that audio plus visuals produce better learning than either alone.

Research also tells teachers some things not to do with visuals. Instructors should avoid purely decorative graphics, as these can actually hamper learning.

They should also eschew reading text verbatim, instead using a conversational, natural speaking style for voiceovers and verbal explanations.

What this means in the larger context of online learning

In sum, slideshows can be a useful part of online instruction, when used for the right things and designed in the right way. But they shouldn't be the main, or the only, method of instruction - any more than lectures should dominate face-to-face classes.

But it's not just instructors who need to hear this message.

Publishing and educational technology companies, who provide many of the tools that educators rely on, can do more to develop products that push beyond familiar formulas and draw on the latest learning science.

We need tools that make it easy to create assignments that ask students to apply what they have learned, in scenarios that are as realistic and challenging as possible.

These learning tools also need to be adaptive, adjusting the material and pace to the individual learner. This kind of educational technology does exist, but far more can be done to expand the available options.

Teaching in the age of technology comes with its own set of opportunities as well as challenges. And online education presents educators and tech developers with a rare opportunity to fundamentally rethink what we do.

Will we use it to explore new avenues for learning, or will we fall back on the the same old techniques that don't work well in face-to-face classrooms?

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Learning from PowerPoint: is it time for teachers to move on?

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Slideshows, when designed right, can be a useful part of online instruction. But they shouldn't be the main, or the only, method of instruction.

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A powerful way to improve learning and memory

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A powerful way to improve learning and memory

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Karpicke, J. D., PhD. (2016, June)

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Jeffrey Karpicke, PhD, is the James V. Bradley associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. He received a BA in psychology from Indiana University and a PhD in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. Karpicke's research sits at the interface between cognitive science and education, with the goal of identifying effective strategies that promote long-term learning and comprehension. Karpicke's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. Karpicke was the recipient of the Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from Association for Psychological Science, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Author website.

The movie "Inside Out" (2015) takes us inside the mind of its young protagonist, an 11-year-old girl named Riley, and depicts memory in a way that is sure to resonate with many people. In Riley's mind, her memories are objects - globes colored with emotions - that are stored in a mental space, just as physical objects are stored in a physical space. When Riley experiences an event and creates a new memory, a new globe is produced in her mind, rolling down a ramp like a ball returning in a bowling alley. When Riley re-experiences a past event, a globe is placed in a projector and events are replayed, projected on a screen in her mind. Cognitive psychologists refer to the mental processes involved in the creation of new memories and the recovery of past memories as encoding and retrieval, respectively.

The depiction of the mind in "Inside Out" follows centuries of thought on how mind and memory work. Throughout history, scholars have used a common metaphor to talk about memory: The mind is a vast storehouse or space; memories are objects stored in that space; and retrieving a memory is akin to searching for and finding an object in a physical space (Roediger, 1980). To learn something new, according to this view, the challenge lies in getting knowledge "in" one's mental space. Getting it back "out" when needed is important, too, but learning is usually identified with the encoding of new knowledge in memory. Retrieval is assumed to be neutral for learning; retrieval is needed to assess what a person has learned, but retrieval processes themselves are not thought to produce learning.

Recent advances in the science of learning and memory have challenged common assumptions about how learning happens. Specifically, recent work has shown that retrieval is critical for robust, durable, long-term learning. Every time a memory is retrieved, that memory becomes more accessible in the future. Retrieval also helps people create coherent and integrated mental representations of complex concepts, the kind of deep learning necessary to solve new problems and draw new inferences. Perhaps most surprisingly, practicing retrieval has been shown to produce more learning than engaging in other effective encoding techniques (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011). This approach, which recognizes the central role of retrieval processes in learning and aims to develop new learning strategies based on retrieval practice, is referred to as retrieval-based learning.

Retrieval Creates Learning

Research dating back a century has shown that retrieval contributes to learning (for a historical review, see Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a), but the past decade has seen a renewed, intense focus on exploring the benefits of retrieval for learning. This recent research has established that repeated retrieval enhances learning with a wide range of materials, in a variety of settings and contexts, and with learners ranging from preschool ages into later adulthood (Balota, Duchek, Sergent-Marshall & Roediger, 2006; Fritz, Morris, Nolan & Singleton, 2007).

A word-learning experiment illustrates some key points about retrieval-based learning. In the experiment (Karpicke & Bauernschmidt, 2011), students learned a list of foreign language words (e.g., Swahili vocabulary words like "mashua - boat") across cycles of study and recall trials. In study trials, the students saw a vocabulary word and its translation on the computer screen, and in recall trials, they saw a vocabulary word and had to recall and type its translation. The students studied a list of vocabulary words, then attempted to retrieve the whole list, studied it again, retrieved it again, and so on across alternating study and retrieval practice blocks.

There were several different conditions in the experiment. In one condition, students simply studied the words once, without trying to recall them at all. In a second condition, students continued studying and recalling the words until they had recalled all of them once. After a word was successfully retrieved once, it was "dropped" from further practice - the students did not see it again in the learning session.

Other conditions in the experiment examined the effects of repeated retrieval practice. Once a word was recalled, the computer program required the students to practice retrieving the items three more times. One repeated retrieval condition had the three recall trials happen immediately, three times in a row. This condition, referred to as massed retrieval practice, is akin to repeating a new piece of information over and over in your head right after you experience it. Finally, in the last condition highlighted here, the students also practiced retrieving the words three times, but the repeated retrievals were spaced throughout the learning session. For instance, once a student correctly recalled the translation for mashua, the program moved on to other vocabulary words, but prompts to practice retrieval of the translation for mashua would pop up later on in the program. In this way, the retrieval opportunities were spaced throughout the learning session.

The key question in this research was, how well would students remember the vocabulary word translations in the long term? Figure 1 shows the proportion of translations that students remembered one week after the initial learning session. Merely studying the words once without ever recalling them produced extremely poor performance (average recall was 1 percent, barely visible on the figure). Practicing until each translation was recalled once was much better. But what about the effects of repeated retrieval practice? Massed retrieval - repeating the translations three times immediately - produced no additional gain in learning. Repeated retrieval enhanced learning only when the repetitions were spaced, and indeed, the effects of repeated spaced retrieval were very large. In a single experiment, simple changes that incorporated spaced retrieval practice took performance from nearly total forgetting to extremely good retention (about 80 percent correct) one week after an initial learning experience (see also Karpicke & Roediger, 2008; Pyc & Rawson, 2010).

Figure 1. Data from Karpicke & Bauernschmidt (2011).

Retrieval Practice is Underappreciated as a Learning Strategy

If retrieval practice is such a potent learning strategy, one would hope that many learners would practice retrieval to learn many different things in many situations. However, as noted earlier, retrieval is not typically considered an important part of the learning process, and unfortunately, many learners do not practice retrieval as often or as effectively as they could.

An emphasis on getting knowledge in memory shows up on surveys of students' learning strategies. In one survey (Karpicke, Butler & Roediger, 2009), college students were asked to list the strategies they use while studying and to rank-order the strategies. The results, shown in Figure 2, indicate that students' most frequent study strategy, by far, is repetitive reading of notes or textbooks. Active retrieval practice lagged far behind repetitive reading and other strategies (for a review of several learning strategies, see Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham, 2013). A wealth of research has shown that passive repetitive reading produces little or no benefit for learning (Callender & McDaniel, 2009). Yet not only was repetitive reading the most frequently listed strategy, it was also the strategy most often listed as students' number one choice, by a large margin.

Why don't learners use repeated retrieval practice more frequently? Many students view retrieval as a "knowledge check"; they test themselves to see if they know something, rather than out of the belief that practicing retrieval itself will help them learn. This means that many students will use a "one-and-done" strategy: If they can recall something once, they believe they have learned it, so they remove it from further practice. Many students study this way when they regulate their own learning (Karpicke, 2009), even though their long-term learning will not benefit from repeated retrieval practice. Instead, a one-and-done strategy will produce long-term performance similar to the recall-once condition in Figure 1. There is some evidence that instructing learners about the benefits of retrieval leads students to report using retrieval practice more frequently when they study on their own (Einstein, Mullet & Harrison, 2012), but the best ways to influence students to practice retrieval remain to be discovered.

Practicing Retrieval Promotes Meaningful Learning

Perhaps another reason retrieval practice is not used more widely is because repeated retrieval may seem like "rote learning." Rote learning - simple memorization based on repetition - is short-lived, poorly organized and does not support the ability to transfer knowledge, make inferences or solve new problems. The outcome of rote learning is obviously not what students and educators aim for. Meaningful learning is essentially the opposite of rote learning: It is long-lasting and durable, coherent and well organized, and supports transfer, inferencing and problem solving. In fact, the past decade of research on retrieval-based learning has firmly established that retrieval practice promotes meaningful learning.

Retrieval-based learning may be a more effective means of achieving meaningful learning than other popular active learning strategies. In one example of this (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011), students studied educational texts about science topics using one of two strategies. In a retrieval practice condition, students read a text, then set it aside and spent time recalling and writing down as much as they could remember from it (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006b). They then reread the text and recalled it a second time. In a second condition, students created concept maps while they read the texts. Concept maps are node-and-link diagrams that require learners to think about the relational and organizational structure of materials (Novak, 2013). The students spent the same amount of time studying in the two conditions; the difference was whether they created concept maps or practiced actively retrieving while learning.

Figure 3 shows the results of two different final assessments given one week after the learning session. On one assessment, students answered two types of short-answer questions aimed at measuring meaningful learning: verbatim questions, which assessed concepts stated directly in the texts, and inference questions, which required students to make new connections across concepts. On another assessment, the final assessment involved creating a concept map, because concept mapping is often used as an assessment of the coherence and integration of students' knowledge. On the final verbatim and inference questions and on the final concept map assessment, practicing retrieval during learning produced the best performance, even better than studying the material by making concept maps.

Several additional studies have established that retrieval practice promotes meaningful learning. Retrieval practice enhances the learning of educationally relevant materials, including educational texts, multimedia presentations, material explained in classroom lectures and a variety of other complex concepts (Jensen, McDaniel, Woodard & Kummer, 2014; Johnson & Mayer, 2009; Larsen, Butler, Lawson & Roediger, 2013; Lyle & Crawford, 2011; Roediger, Agarwal, McDaniel & McDermott, 2011). Retrieval practice also supports students in making inferences, solving new problems and transferring knowledge (Butler, 2010; Chan, 2009; Hinze & Wiley, 2011; McDaniel, Howard & Einstein, 2009; Smith & Karpicke, 2014). Retrieval-based learning is an effective method for improving meaningful learning.

Creating Retrieval-based Learning Activities

Perhaps the best aspect of retrieval-based learning is that it is free. Although there are sophisticated tools that can be used to implement retrieval practice, like classroom clicker systems (Roediger et al., 2011) and other computer-based learning systems (Grimaldi & Karpicke, 2014; Lindsey, Shroyer, Pashler, & Mozer, 2014), retrieval practice does not require special equipment or technology. The essence of retrieval-based learning is taking material you are trying to learn, setting it aside, and spending time actively retrieving the information.

Existing educational activities can be converted into retrieval-based learning activities. For instance, answering questions and taking quizzes are effective ways to practice retrieval. In some circumstances, students might answer questions on quizzes or practice worksheets by looking up answers in their notes or books, rather than by attempting to retrieve the answers. One study directly compared this type of open-book questioning to closed-book conditions in which students were required to retrieve the answers to questions rather than looking them up (Agarwal, Karpicke, Kang, Roediger & McDermott, 2008). Answering questions in open-book conditions led to more forgetting over one week than did attempting to retrieve the answers, closed-book and then studying the answers. In other words, closed-book quizzes, which required retrieval practice, were more effective than open-book quizzes, which did not require learners to engage in retrieval.

Another study (Blunt & Karpicke, 2014) examined the effectiveness of using concept mapping as a retrieval practice activity. In the experiment, students read texts about science topics and then created concept maps either with or without viewing the texts. In other words, some students created maps while studying the texts whereas other students had to engage in retrieval to create their maps. On a short-answer assessment one week after the learning session, students did better when they had learned by creating concept maps without viewing the texts, as a retrieval practice activity, than by creating maps while studying the texts. Thus, educational activities can be enhanced when they involve retrieval-based learning.

Take Home Points About Retrieval-based Learning

This article has made the case for four take-home points about retrieval-based learning:

Retrieval is a learning event. Practicing retrieval is a simple and effective way to enhance long-term, meaningful learning.

Some effective learning strategies, like retrieval practice, are underutilized. Conversely, the most popular learning strategy among college students - repetitive reading - leads to very limited levels of learning.

When practicing retrieval, retrieve more than once and space your retrievals, rather than massing them all together. Self-testing as a knowledge check is a good idea, but don't stop at just one successful retrieval (one-and-done). Two or three additional spaced retrievals will bolster long-term learning.

Retrieval can happen in a variety of ways, and many existing activities may be converted into retrieval-based learning activities. The key ingredient is to spend time actively retrieving when trying to learn something new.

References

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Balota, D.A., Duchek, J.M., Sergent-Marshall, S.D., & Roediger, H.L. (2006). Does expanded retrieval produce benefits over equal-interval spacing? Explorations of spacing effects in healthy aging and early stage Alzheimer's disease. Psychology and Aging, 21(1), 19-31. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.21.1.19.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or policies of APA.

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A powerful way to improve learning and memory

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Jeffrey Karpicke, PhD, is the James V. Bradley associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. He received a BA in psychology from Indiana University and a PhD in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. Karpicke's research sits at the interface between cognitive science and education, with the goal of identifying effective strategies that promote long-term learning and comprehension.

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Remember to be the kind of person who remembers to remember!

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Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do | TED Talk

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There are people who can quickly memorize lists of thousands of numbers, the order of all the cards in a deck (or ten!), and much more. Science writer Joshua Foer describes the technique -- called the memory palace -- and shows off its most remarkable feature: anyone can learn how to use it, including him.

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Trying to remember through visualization and Association

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Michelle Miller Building Memory Power Demonstration 1: Visualize It!

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This narrated slideshow teaches two techniques for memorizing items using a visualization or imagery strategy.

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Got it. Finally.

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Busted, Plausible & Confirmed - Self-Assessment

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connection between knowledge acquisition in the classroom and learning transfer to new situations both inside and outside the classroom

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The Science of Learning - How does learning transfer to new situations in/outside of the classroom?

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What is it and how does it help students?

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What Is ‘Transfer of Learning’ and How Does It Help Students?

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Recommended by Michelle Miller post workshop

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Downloadable Materials - The Learning Scientists

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Please use our materials and pass them along to others for educational purposes! We ask that you attribute us when you use the materials, and that you do not use portions of the materials or remove information from the materials. The materials may not be used commercially.

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By Michelle Miller

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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I was wrapping up a presentation on memory and learning when a colleague asked, "How do we help students learn in courses where there's a lot of memorization?" He explained that he taught introductory-level human anatomy, and although the course wasn't all memorization, it did challenge students' capacity to retain dozens of new terms and concepts.

The question itself is tricky because most teaching professionals are heavily invested in the idea that learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam. We also worry, and with good reason, that emphasizing rote learning steals time and effort away from the deeper thinking that we want students to do. But in my work I've come to realize that memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, acquiring content knowledge doesn't have to detract from critical thinking, reasoning, or innovation-rather, it can complement all these. Cognitive scientists are making new discoveries all the time about the connections between memory and processes such as drawing inferences, making predictions, and other skills that make up the ability to think like an expert in a discipline.

So what techniques target this specific teaching and learning challenge? We're all familiar with mnemonics such as the first-letter technique-using a word such as RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) or a catchy phrase (Every Good Boy Does Fine) to remember a sequence of information. Mnemonics are one good tool, but what else can we offer?

Learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam, but memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise

For starters, we should convey to students (and keep in mind ourselves) that memorization challenges nearly everyone because the mind simply isn't set up to take in reams of disjointed facts. Our memory systems evolved to be picky about what we remember, selecting the information that is most relevant to our goals and discarding the rest. Understanding this helps us and our students have realistic expectations about the level of effort needed to succeed.

It also helps to understand how we create memories for words, because many memorization tasks involve scientific terms, foreign language vocabulary, and the like. How we do this has been hotly debated among researchers, but one view is that we rely on a special piece of mental machinery called the phonological loop that holds speech sounds.

If you've ever muttered a phone number to yourself while you ran around looking for a pencil to write it down with, you've experienced the phonological loop in action. But recycling phone numbers isn't the phonological loop's main reason for existing. Rather, its real job kicks in when we run into a word we haven't heard before. When this happens, the phonological loop grabs onto the sequence of sounds and keeps it fresh while other memory systems set up representations of what the new word means. The catch is that phonological loop capacity varies fairly substantially from individual to individual. This means that words of three, four, or more syllables overwhelm some people's ability to learn new words on the fly.

With these two points in mind-that memory doesn't handle disjointed facts well and new vocabulary hinges on one sometimes-shaky mechanism within memory-here are some ways to help students manage memorization:

Emphasize context and purpose. Ask yourself why students are being asked to memorize these facts in the first place. If students can readily answer that question and if they can picture future situations in which they will use the information, they will be better primed to remember it.

Break down new vocabulary words, especially those that are more than two syllables long. Allow time to rehearse and remember the first couple of syllables before tacking on later ones. Also keep in mind that this process will be easier for some students than others due to wide variation in phonological loop capacity; you may want to design in a "mastery learning" or other individualized approach for vocabulary so that students can move through at their own pace.

Visualize information. For most people, imagery is highly memorable, perhaps because so much of the brain is devoted to visual processing. Memory champions, such as the ones populating the best seller Moonwalking with Einstein, use elaborate visualization strategies to achieve incredible feats of memorization. Similarly, strategies such as the keyword mnemonic work by linking word sounds to images (such as using an image of a cowboy on a horse to remember the Spanish word "caballo," which sounds a bit like "cowboy").

Take advantage of the "Big Three" applied memory principles-testing, spacing, and interleaving. Briefly, these refer to the facts that quizzes are a great way to study and that we do best when we spread out our study sessions and alternate between different topics. Tackling a big memory project such as human anatomy means we need every advantage we can get, and dozens of research studies have supported these three as producing the biggest memory payoff for the time invested.

Avoid the rereading trap. Students tend to fall into passively reviewing material, and in doing so they miss the key advantage of techniques such as testing: retrieval practice. Retrieval practice strengthens memory, but it works only when we actively challenge memory. Flash cards, a favorite student strategy, are fine as long as students use them to actively quiz themselves.

It's okay to expect students to learn the facts and terms needed to become experts in a discipline. With an understanding of memory and some strategies to share, we can make this side of learning productive and maybe even painless-but certainly at least less painful.
Michelle Miller is a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Northern Arizona University.
Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 28.9 (2014): 3. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved.

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Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

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Although there is more to learning than regurgitating facts on an exam, memorization is an important route to building content knowledge and expertise.

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Smashing (IMO) book

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Neuromyth

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online learning consortium institute: workshops: log in to the site

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Online Learning Consortium Institute: Workshops