Reflections Week 7
1. How can I summarize this reading in a few sentences?
Imagery is something we use all the time. I can see how both the analog and propositional code fit into the whole picture, but I would lean more towards the analog theory. There are several things that can affect our imagery – size, shape, and rotation. Visual imagery can interfere with visual perception. Cognitive maps are representations of the world around us and can be influenced by intervening objects, semantic categories, and landmarks. Things such as symmetry heuristics, rotation heuristics, and alignment heuristics also influence our cognitive maps.
2. How does it fit into what I have learned already in this course?
Right off the bat, the text talks about imagery being a top-down processing skill which refers back to chapter 1. This chapter tied in perception to this chapter. I also like how the author continually tells us how the themes of the book are tied into the current chapter we are reading.
3. What am I still not clear on?
I really didn’t understand what they meant by the masking effect when they were talking about it in relation to demand characteristics.
4. How would apply this to my own teaching/work?
I think it is important to imbed imagery and hands-on activities into my teaching. By adding the hands-on part, different parts of the brain are activated, making learning more all-encompassing.
5. What proof does the author offer that makes me believe this is valid? Do I believe it? Why?
The heuristic material was pretty convincing to me , not only because of the research but also because every demonstration that they had us do, I failed. I definitely have rotation and alignment heuristics.
6. Why is this important? What does it help improve or explain or predict?
The whole visual interference idea has me looking at things with a whole new perspective. As I mentioned in response to my discussion question, I think this might be part of the reason children cannot get punctuation in paragraphs. You know the old saying, “You can see the forest because of the trees.” I think that is what is happening many times in classroom lessons. We have children concentrating so hard on one little part of a concept that they miss the whole big picture. Or we have them concentrating on the big picture and they miss the little details. This tells me as a teacher that I need to break things down and build them up. I need to show the big picture and the little details. I also need to tell how they all relate to each other.
7. When would I actually use this – under what kind of circumstances and for what kind of students?
For instance, thinking about paragraph writing, I could first have the students write down their ideas and not really worry about the mechanics of the paragraph. Then I would have them trade papers and have another student put in the mechanics (because they wouldn’t be concentrating on generating the ideas).
8. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing that are faster, cheaper, and/or better?
I am just wondering if using more imagery would make learning faster. Since it seems that imagery is such an integral part of our learning, it would make sense to use imagery in our teaching more often. I know the elementary levels use lots of imagery, but once students reach middle or high school, imagery is not used as often.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Week 6 Reflections
Week 6 Reflecitions
1. How can I summarize this reading in a few sentences? There may be something to the old saying, “Practice makes perfect.” That seems to be what total time hypothesis is saying, as long as it is done in a deep processing level. Distribution of Practice Effect suggests that the practice will be more efficient if it is spread out over time. A mnemonics is a clever way to help aide memory. The Keyword Method is a mnemonics that uses mental imagery. It aides in remembering foreign language and people’s name by associating the word with an image. The Method of Loci is another visual mnemonic where you visually correlate places with new items to be learned. There are also four mnemonics that use organization to help us remember – chunking (putting small piece of info into larger chunks), hierarchy technique (classifying items – such as an outline, mapping or a story web), first letter technique (My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), and Narrative Technique (using stories). More recent research suggests more comprehensive approaches like Herrmann’s multimodal approach. The physical and psychological well-being of the person is important in this approach. It also suggests using several memory approaches instead of just one. Finally in the memory section they talked about two kinds of memories – retrospective (remembering things that have already been learned or that have already happened) and prospective (things to remember for the future).
2. How does it fit into what I have learned already in this course? I do like the way the text always refers back to previous chapters to help tie things together because my brain is old and I need these constant reminders so that these new concepts will eventually be retained in my long term memory (the more you practice, the more you remember). For instance, right off the bat, the text make three references to chapter 5 – self-reference, encoding specificity and autobiographical memory and to chapter 3 – divided attention.
3. What am I still not clear on? Does absentmindedness occur more often in adults than in children? If so, is it because we have more on our plates or because our brain cells are dying?
4. How would apply this to my own teaching/work? I think that Mr. Martinez has us right these reflections so that we are “pausing from time to time to summarize the material we have just learned.” In doing so, I think he is trying to help us deep process the information. I know I do the same thing in science this year. I have the children write their “personal findings” after each lesson. By putting what they have learned into their own thoughts, I am hoping they are making deeper connections than just listening or reading.
5. What proof does the author offer that makes me believe this is valid? Do I believe it? Why? I hate to be the eternal pessimist but I disagree with the authors comments about personality types and background music. I know several people, myself, my daughters, my best friend, my college roommate, my fellow teachers who need a quiet environment when they are studying and they are definitely not introverts.
6. Why is this important? What does it help improve or explain or predict? One of the things that kind of stuck in my mind that I felt would be important for future lessons is – “both kinds of memory (prospective and retrospective) are less accurate when you have a long delay, filled with irrelevant activities, prior to retrieval”. This made me think of social studies and science units that are taught and then probably not thought of again until the next couple of grades when it is taught again. How can I as a teacher prevent such long periods of time before I ask the kids to retrieve that information again. One thing I do, is play Jeopardy with the categories being the subjects that I teach and then we asked questions from units that have been taught all year long. I tried to do this every month or so. But I still need to think about more ways.
7. When would I actually use this – under what kind of circumstances and for what kind of students? All this memory talk has me concerned about my ADHD kids (which are going in numbers every year). If we cannot get them to focus to begin with, how can we ever ask them to retrieve information that probably wasn’t stored to begin with since their attention is SO divided. That is what I think I would like to concentrate on.
8. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing that are faster, cheaper, and/or better? I know the text said that recent research wasn’t real hot on mnemonics, but I find that it works for me and it works for many of my kids. So in that case, I think that is a faster way to memorize things than the comprehensive approach.
1. How can I summarize this reading in a few sentences? There may be something to the old saying, “Practice makes perfect.” That seems to be what total time hypothesis is saying, as long as it is done in a deep processing level. Distribution of Practice Effect suggests that the practice will be more efficient if it is spread out over time. A mnemonics is a clever way to help aide memory. The Keyword Method is a mnemonics that uses mental imagery. It aides in remembering foreign language and people’s name by associating the word with an image. The Method of Loci is another visual mnemonic where you visually correlate places with new items to be learned. There are also four mnemonics that use organization to help us remember – chunking (putting small piece of info into larger chunks), hierarchy technique (classifying items – such as an outline, mapping or a story web), first letter technique (My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), and Narrative Technique (using stories). More recent research suggests more comprehensive approaches like Herrmann’s multimodal approach. The physical and psychological well-being of the person is important in this approach. It also suggests using several memory approaches instead of just one. Finally in the memory section they talked about two kinds of memories – retrospective (remembering things that have already been learned or that have already happened) and prospective (things to remember for the future).
2. How does it fit into what I have learned already in this course? I do like the way the text always refers back to previous chapters to help tie things together because my brain is old and I need these constant reminders so that these new concepts will eventually be retained in my long term memory (the more you practice, the more you remember). For instance, right off the bat, the text make three references to chapter 5 – self-reference, encoding specificity and autobiographical memory and to chapter 3 – divided attention.
3. What am I still not clear on? Does absentmindedness occur more often in adults than in children? If so, is it because we have more on our plates or because our brain cells are dying?
4. How would apply this to my own teaching/work? I think that Mr. Martinez has us right these reflections so that we are “pausing from time to time to summarize the material we have just learned.” In doing so, I think he is trying to help us deep process the information. I know I do the same thing in science this year. I have the children write their “personal findings” after each lesson. By putting what they have learned into their own thoughts, I am hoping they are making deeper connections than just listening or reading.
5. What proof does the author offer that makes me believe this is valid? Do I believe it? Why? I hate to be the eternal pessimist but I disagree with the authors comments about personality types and background music. I know several people, myself, my daughters, my best friend, my college roommate, my fellow teachers who need a quiet environment when they are studying and they are definitely not introverts.
6. Why is this important? What does it help improve or explain or predict? One of the things that kind of stuck in my mind that I felt would be important for future lessons is – “both kinds of memory (prospective and retrospective) are less accurate when you have a long delay, filled with irrelevant activities, prior to retrieval”. This made me think of social studies and science units that are taught and then probably not thought of again until the next couple of grades when it is taught again. How can I as a teacher prevent such long periods of time before I ask the kids to retrieve that information again. One thing I do, is play Jeopardy with the categories being the subjects that I teach and then we asked questions from units that have been taught all year long. I tried to do this every month or so. But I still need to think about more ways.
7. When would I actually use this – under what kind of circumstances and for what kind of students? All this memory talk has me concerned about my ADHD kids (which are going in numbers every year). If we cannot get them to focus to begin with, how can we ever ask them to retrieve information that probably wasn’t stored to begin with since their attention is SO divided. That is what I think I would like to concentrate on.
8. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing that are faster, cheaper, and/or better? I know the text said that recent research wasn’t real hot on mnemonics, but I find that it works for me and it works for many of my kids. So in that case, I think that is a faster way to memorize things than the comprehensive approach.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Week 5 Reflections
Week 5 – Reflections
1. How can I summarize this reading in a few sentences?
This chapter moved from working memory to long-term memory. New ideas, concepts, etc… are more likely to stay in the long-term memory if it has been processed in a deep meaningful way or if it can be related to yourself. Pleasant memories are remembered more accurately and quickly. When we go to retrieve long-term memory, we will have better luck if it is done implicitly rather than explicitly. This was also true for amnesia patients. In the previous mentioned items are quantity-oriented approaches to memory. Autobiographical memory deals with the quality. Flashbulb memory is what you remember in association to an emotional or surprising event. In memory schemas we tend to bring our past and present together. Source monitoring is trying to figure out where the memory came from. Finally there are a lot of things that influence eye witness testimony, making it not as reliable.
2. How does it fit into what I have learned already in this course?
This chapter answered a lot of my questions on the last chapter. Working memory isn’t necessarily increased; it just gets moved into the long-term memory. It brought up ecological validity from chapter 1 and proactive interference & memory expertise from chapter 4. It also talked about how the research done in chapter 4 was explicit memory tests.
3. What am I still not clear on?
This chapter was the easiest so far for me to understand, so I think I understand everything. One thing that I wondered though, do these processes work for special education students also?
4. How would apply this to my own teaching/work?
Some thoughts that went through my head as I was reading the chapter is to try to get the students to relate the subject matter to themselves, and try to associate the subject matter with pleasant items.
5. What proof does the author offer that makes me believe this is valid? Do I believe it? Why?
I had some a question about the validity in one section. When the authors were talking about “more accurate recall for neutral stimuli associated with pleasant stimuli” why was the study only done on undergraduate students? Would the data still be the same if the study had been done on younger children or older adults?
Although, I was impressed with their research about implicit memory and amnesia patients. That was pretty convincing evidence. It made me think of the research that has been done on coma patients also.
6. Why is this important? What does it help improve or explain or predict?
I think this is important for me as a teacher because it gives me some clues on how I might be able to help my students retain new concepts in their long-term memory. It also helps me understand the diversified eye witness reports we get from playground incidents. HA!
7. When would I actually use this – under what kind of circumstances and for what kind of students?
I would use this in all my subject and for all students. It will just take some time to rethink how I teach to make sure I am including implicit instruction, the Pollyanna Principle, self-reference effect and deep levels of processing.
8. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing that are faster, cheaper, and/or better?
As teachers would it be better if we just skipped explicit memory tasks and moved right into implicit memory tasks as a way for students to remember things.
1. How can I summarize this reading in a few sentences?
This chapter moved from working memory to long-term memory. New ideas, concepts, etc… are more likely to stay in the long-term memory if it has been processed in a deep meaningful way or if it can be related to yourself. Pleasant memories are remembered more accurately and quickly. When we go to retrieve long-term memory, we will have better luck if it is done implicitly rather than explicitly. This was also true for amnesia patients. In the previous mentioned items are quantity-oriented approaches to memory. Autobiographical memory deals with the quality. Flashbulb memory is what you remember in association to an emotional or surprising event. In memory schemas we tend to bring our past and present together. Source monitoring is trying to figure out where the memory came from. Finally there are a lot of things that influence eye witness testimony, making it not as reliable.
2. How does it fit into what I have learned already in this course?
This chapter answered a lot of my questions on the last chapter. Working memory isn’t necessarily increased; it just gets moved into the long-term memory. It brought up ecological validity from chapter 1 and proactive interference & memory expertise from chapter 4. It also talked about how the research done in chapter 4 was explicit memory tests.
3. What am I still not clear on?
This chapter was the easiest so far for me to understand, so I think I understand everything. One thing that I wondered though, do these processes work for special education students also?
4. How would apply this to my own teaching/work?
Some thoughts that went through my head as I was reading the chapter is to try to get the students to relate the subject matter to themselves, and try to associate the subject matter with pleasant items.
5. What proof does the author offer that makes me believe this is valid? Do I believe it? Why?
I had some a question about the validity in one section. When the authors were talking about “more accurate recall for neutral stimuli associated with pleasant stimuli” why was the study only done on undergraduate students? Would the data still be the same if the study had been done on younger children or older adults?
Although, I was impressed with their research about implicit memory and amnesia patients. That was pretty convincing evidence. It made me think of the research that has been done on coma patients also.
6. Why is this important? What does it help improve or explain or predict?
I think this is important for me as a teacher because it gives me some clues on how I might be able to help my students retain new concepts in their long-term memory. It also helps me understand the diversified eye witness reports we get from playground incidents. HA!
7. When would I actually use this – under what kind of circumstances and for what kind of students?
I would use this in all my subject and for all students. It will just take some time to rethink how I teach to make sure I am including implicit instruction, the Pollyanna Principle, self-reference effect and deep levels of processing.
8. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing that are faster, cheaper, and/or better?
As teachers would it be better if we just skipped explicit memory tasks and moved right into implicit memory tasks as a way for students to remember things.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Week 4 Reflections
1. The working-memory approach was proposed by Alan Baddeley and contains four components. The phonological loop deals with the audio part of our memory and only has a capacity for a certain number of sounds. The visuospatial sketchpad deals with the visual part of our memory and is once again is limited in capacity. The central executive is the brains of the operation and filters, plans and organizes information. The episodic buffer is like the pantry where you can mix and match items from the previous components and our long term memory. All of these components work together with our long term memory to give us our working memory.
2. Just like with attention, our memory components can only handle a certain number of items at a time. Also the mapping of the brain seemed to fit in with what was said in Chapter 3.
3. Why do some people have a better working memory than others? Can working memory be increased?
4. I would like to know how to increase working memory because my students (and myself at times) could use it. It thought it was interesting that working memory is related to measures of reading ability. Which makes sense, but I have kids who are poor readers (hence poor working memory?) and yet they have a great mechanical memory. Are there two different kinds of working memory? Because while these kids may be poor readers, I know they could be great mechanics or electricians. In my classroom, I will continue to teach to the different learning styles in hopes that one of the components of working memory will be engaged.
5. Instead of talking about proof this time, I am going to talk about lack of proof. It seems that the evidence for the episodic buffer is weak. It was added in 2000 (?) and the book even says that it is not sure about the details of how it works or how it differs from central executive. So I do question the validity of this component.
6 & 7. Working memory is important because we all use it every single day. As the book says, it impacts our learning processes. I guess preschool teachers could perform working memory tests as a predictor as to what kind of learner a student will be. Then early interventions could be put into place for those whose working memory is poor.
8. Since both Miller and Baddeley say there is a limit to the number of things our working memory can retain, wouldn’t it be easier for teachers/text book publishers to build lessons around the 7 +/- 2 theory. I know there are some who can retain more, but it seem that the majority cannot. So why do we put it?
2. Just like with attention, our memory components can only handle a certain number of items at a time. Also the mapping of the brain seemed to fit in with what was said in Chapter 3.
3. Why do some people have a better working memory than others? Can working memory be increased?
4. I would like to know how to increase working memory because my students (and myself at times) could use it. It thought it was interesting that working memory is related to measures of reading ability. Which makes sense, but I have kids who are poor readers (hence poor working memory?) and yet they have a great mechanical memory. Are there two different kinds of working memory? Because while these kids may be poor readers, I know they could be great mechanics or electricians. In my classroom, I will continue to teach to the different learning styles in hopes that one of the components of working memory will be engaged.
5. Instead of talking about proof this time, I am going to talk about lack of proof. It seems that the evidence for the episodic buffer is weak. It was added in 2000 (?) and the book even says that it is not sure about the details of how it works or how it differs from central executive. So I do question the validity of this component.
6 & 7. Working memory is important because we all use it every single day. As the book says, it impacts our learning processes. I guess preschool teachers could perform working memory tests as a predictor as to what kind of learner a student will be. Then early interventions could be put into place for those whose working memory is poor.
8. Since both Miller and Baddeley say there is a limit to the number of things our working memory can retain, wouldn’t it be easier for teachers/text book publishers to build lessons around the 7 +/- 2 theory. I know there are some who can retain more, but it seem that the majority cannot. So why do we put it?
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