Marilee Sprenger, the author of ASCD's How to Teach So Students Remember and Learning and Memory: The Brain in Action, has taught at all levels from prekindergarten to graduate school. Now, as a professional development consultant, she works with schools on using brain-based teaching strategies and memory research in the classroom. In this interview, Sprenger discusses the role memory plays in learning.
Q: Teachers often tell you that they're concerned about how quickly students forget information, not to mention their homework, supplies, and so on. Isn't this just the perennial forgetfulness of students?
A: For years, in my workshops, teachers have been saying that they have to do more and more to get their students' attention. Media bombardment, especially the rate of visual and auditory change that children experience with TV or when playing video and computer games, has raised the stimulation threshold for children. Some teachers fight back with novelty.
I'm the Mr. Rogers type; I like to slow things down. He had all these little rituals to start his show. He talked as if he were speaking directly to just one child. This is one way to lower stress so that students' brains will be more receptive to new information.
Q: Why is memory important for learning?
A: Students are faced with high-stakes testing, and we have to help them succeed on those tests. Teachers need to share organizational skills, study skills, mnemonics, and other strategies for deeper understanding to help students succeed in school. But it's more than just testing. Memory makes us who we are. It is the only evidence we have of our own existence and participation in society—even the only evidence that we have learned. Kids will need to take the information they learn in school into the real world so they can use it. The sum total of the memories that kids have in school will help inform what kind of citizens they will become.
Q: How is the kind of remembering for learning that you talk about different from rote memorization?
A: Although rote memorization may be useful for multiplication and lists of states and capitals, real understanding comes from using elaborative rehearsal that helps the brain make connections.
We need to help kids make memories. We want to create episodes of learning that include the students with whom they are learning, the setup of the location of learning, and the lesson itself. Memory is a process. The type of memory most called for in school is semantic memory—that is, the text, lecture, reading, and audiovisual content that we receive through words. These memories include concepts, ideas, word meanings, and understandings that may not be related to personal experience or specific events. For this information to be stored in long-term memory, it must be appealing enough to proceed through immediate memory, where it's acknowledged; into working memory, where it may be attached to prior knowledge; and then into long-term memory. For this route to be successful, brain-compatible strategies, such as setting up episodes of learning, need to be employed.
Q: In your bookHow to Teach So Students Remember,you designate seven steps for the learning/memory cycle: reach, reflect, recode, reinforce, rehearse, review, and retrieve. If a teacher makes these stages explicit for their students, can that help them learn?
A: I believe that the more a student knows about how she learns, the better learner she may be. I always teach my students about how their brains work, how memory works, and how to get information into long-term memory in a retrievable fashion.
The seven steps are not new; they just are often lumped together as learn/store/retrieve. By breaking these down, teachers and students can see which steps are missing.
Q: Why is it important that no steps be left out?
A: Each step helps in the long-term memory process. We begin by reaching and teaching the students. This may be the presentation of a concept or big idea. Because neural networks fatigue, a good protocol for providing information is (a) begin a topic with a story, (b) introduce facts, and (c) link conceptual information back to the original story. This uses some different brain areas and allows each area some time of rest.
Reflection on this information allows each student to search for prior knowledge and begin to make connections. Going over the material mentally is a rehearsal. Recoding gives the student the chance to put his perception of the material in writing, which may crystallize and clarify it in his own words. Teachers and students reinforce this "translation" by providing feedback. This allows the student and teacher a chance to determine if the student understands the material before it is further rehearsed and placed in long-term memory. Combining rehearsals with reviews creates varying ways of manipulating the new knowledge. These are the "dress rehearsals" that show everyone is ready for the opening night—the assessment.
Retrieval is the final step in the process and should be successful if the previous steps have been carried out.
Q: Are there any steps in the memory process where educators might typically shortchange students?
A: Reflection and recoding appear to be the steps most often skipped in the memory process.
Q: In an era of high-stakes testing, what retrieval strategies can students use to cope with such assessments?
A: Explicitly teaching memory strategies improves student achievement. Students have fun with mnemonics and can apply them to more than lists of things. A mnemonic such as an acrostic or acronym may cue the student for key words that will then trigger deeper meanings and concepts.
Assessments that require recall don't offer many triggers for memory. Because recall is the most difficult task for memory retrieval, it's necessary to manipulate the information in different formats during the rehearsal and review steps. If the information learned is going to be assessed via an essay, recoding as a review strategy may be critical. If the assessment uses recognition, as in a multiple-choice assessment, the student must be familiar enough with the information to recognize it.
In either case, the number of rehearsals, amount of feedback, reflection time, and reviews will make retrieval easier. For instance, every time students write and recite ideas, they hold the information in their working memories for several seconds. Then, the information goes back into long-term memory stronger than it was before. Every time you recall information you have a better chance of recalling it again.
Q: What can a teacher do to help a student who seems unmotivated to make that effort to learn and retain information?
A: Success breeds success. Students need to believe that they have good minds and good memories. I give students simple memory tests, teach them visualization techniques, and show them how effective mnemonics like peg systems can be. By starting with such simple methods, students build confidence in their memories and are willing to put forth the effort to retain new information.
ASCD Resources on Brain-Based Learning
<BIBLIST> <HEAD>Books</HEAD> <CITATION> How to Teach So Students Remember. (2005). By Marilee Sprenger. Stock #105016. Price: $19.95 (ASCD members); $25.95 (nonmembers). </CITATION> <CITATION> Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from a Neurologist and Classroom Teacher. (2006). By Judy Willis. Stock #107006S. Price: $16.95 (ASCD members); $21.95 (nonmembers). </CITATION> <CITATION> Teaching with the Brain in Mind, 2nd Ed.(2005). By Eric Jensen. Stock #104013. Price: $21.95 (ASCD members); $25.95 (nonmembers). </CITATION> </BIBLIST> <BIBLIST> <HEAD>Multimedia</HEAD> <CITATION> Teaching the Adolescent Brain. (2006). Three 30-minute programs and one 15-minute program on one DVD with a comprehensive facilitator's guide. Stock #606050. Price: $429 (ASCD members); $539 (nonmembers). </CITATION> <CITATION> How the Young Brain Learns. (2000). Three 45- to 60-minute audiocassettes. Stock #200292. Price: $29 (ASCD members); $39 (nonmembers). </CITATION> <CITATION> The Brain: Memory and Learning Strategies. (2002). Professional Development Online course. Stock #PD02OC18. Price: $99 (ASCD members and nonmembers). </CITATION> </BIBLIST>
