Memories begin as immediate sensory input before being used as working memory and then, as it is recalled on more and more, long term memory.

Episodic Memory

• Episodic memory allows one to recollect specific events and details pertaining to such. Themes events can be moments ago or even many years prior in one's life (Psychology Today, 2024).

• These memories are what form our life's story.

• Examples: how you felt at your graduation, details of a conversation with a coworker earlier

Semantic Memory

• Semantic memory is an individuals long-term knowledge that consists of facts and their related concepts (Psychology Today, 2024). These concepts can either be related to us as an individual or unrelated to ourselves.

• This is also the type of memory in which we distinguish the meaning and appropriate use of words.

• Examples: naming the 50 US states, telling the current date, knowing the meaning slang terms and colloquialisms.

Procedural Memory

• Procedural memory is the memory of how we do both physical and mental tasks (Psychology Today, 2024). This allows us to learn and hone skills.

• Examples: how to dial a phone, how to swing a bat, how to zip your jacket.

As educators we are tasked with helping students turn new information from short-term memory into long-term memory. We can do this by making sure to provide enriching activities that involve their episodic, sensory, short-term and working memories so that they are making as many neural connections as possible so that when they need to recall information in the future, there are a multitude of pathways to provide that access.

For instance, a student might not remember that you had on a blue shirt that day, but they'll remember reading "Bartholomew and the Oobleck", making ooblek and how it felt in their hands when they were learning about states of matter. That will trigger the thought process about solids, liquids, gasses and non-Newtonian fluids and the properties of each.

Educators should incorporate sensory stimuli into lessons to engage the precursors of memory retention and call upon prior knowledge before offering new information.

Because long-term memory is both durable and flexible, it can grow and change when new information is obtained (Harvard Medical School, 2023).

There are two distinct parts of transfer: 

• Transfer during learning is when past experiences or learning affects how new learning is processed and acquired.

• Transfer of learning is how and to what extent an individual uses new learning in the future (Sousa, 2022).

When transfer happens, individuals are able to cope with future situations better because they have already gained prior contextual knowledge (Sousa, 2022).

When your brain fails to cope with a stressful event, it begins to perceive any similar event as a threat as it is reminded of the past.

The brain's hippocampus can shrink and the pre-frontal cortex can become more dormant as an individual lives with more and more stress. Unfortunately those changes cause the brain to struggle with memory, logical thinking and information gathering as well (Lebow, 2021).

We can encourage life-ling learning for children by teaching how to seek out information and modeling how we ourselves are life-long learners (Harvard Medical School, 2023).

Keeping your brains busy can look like:

• traveling

• learning new languages and topics

• doing puzzles often

• playing board and strategy games

• having meaningful discussions with others

Mindful meditation has been found to reduce stress, anxiety and depression which can be useful for individuals who have experienced trauma.

Studies have shown that meditation increases blood flow to the brain and the density of the hippocampus therefor improving memory and learning.