Week Three-Memory

This week's discussion focused on the importance of using various teaching strategies, as well as memory and its importance in regards to learning.  Throughout the past six years of formal education I have received the topic of instructional differentiation has been a reoccurring topic.  The essential reasoning for creating varied instruction is to engage and assist all students in their learning.  Every student who has entered my classroom has been different from their peers.  Whether it be different in terms of background knowledge, socioeconomic status, interests, or learning style each student was unique.  A teachers job is to ensure that each student learns.  It is by varying instruction that the needs of a variety of students can be met.  By having engaging lessons that appeal to kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners the entire class is given various options by which they may understand and interact with the content.  Another important reason varied instruction should be used in the classroom is that it helps support memory.  Students must be able to retain information to adequately make use of it and build upon it.  In the article, Attention, working memory, and long-term memory in multimedia learning: An Integrated Perspective Based on Process Models of Working Memory, the following is stated about how information is moved to long-term memory, "In the course of processing, knowledge in terms of a pictorial and a verbal model of the incoming information is constructed in working memory and then integrated with each other and with prior knowledge (represented in long-term memory). Once integration has occurred, the goal of learning has been achieved" (Schweppe & Rummer, 287).  In order to have students learn and retain information content knowledge must be transferred from working memory to long-term memory.  Having students engaged in learning and using various strategies for instruction will assist students in remembering new information and retaining it.  I myself can remember different lessons from school because of the level of interaction that my peers and I had with the content.  I am able to recite quadratic formula, because my math instructor made us break off into groups and create a song to remember the steps.  It is through using the senses and interactive activities that students can best remember content.  In the text, Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, the author Slavin discusses the importance of memory and learning.There are various ways by which student’s memory can be engaged with the content. Drawing students’ attention to the task at hand, not overloading the working memory by utilizing category lists, and implementing strategies that use imagery like mnemonics are all methods of teaching content in order to be remembered (Slavin, 2015). The aforementioned strategies differ from each other in method, but all serve to enhance the memory of the students being taught.  In my own classroom, I will keep in mind the importance of using various strategies to appeal to the varied learners in my room.  I will also strive to create engaging lessons that will assist my students in not only knowing the content for a short while, but retaining content knowledge in their long-term memory.


References

Schweppe, J., & Rummer, R. (2014). Attention, working memory, and long-term memory in  
       multimedia learning: An integrated perspective based on process models of working memory.    
       Educational Psychology Review, 26(2), 285-306. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10648-013-
       9242-2

Slavin, R. E. (2015). Educational psychology: Theory and practice. New Jersey: Pearson.