Education Innovation: The Golden Moment of Learning: Brain Rules Part 7

The key to teaching is this…

“The first few moments of learning give us the ability to remember something.”

More from Brain Rules by John Medina: Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory

The first few moments of learning is where encoding takes place. In this age of high stakes testing, like it or not, we are focused recalling facts. The ability to retrieve what we know is the difference between good test scores and poor test scores. Retrieval of facts is the easiest thing for educators to measure. We give a test question that asks a student to recall some fact or piece of information. Either he/she can or he/she cannot.

The problem, as we all know, which was studied by Herman Ebbinghaus in the late 1800’s is that students forget 90% of what they learn in our classrooms within 30 days. So, what you taught in September is gone by October and certainly isn’t there in May. Yet we have built our entire system around once a year test scores that rely on recall or retrieval.

But there is hope, as Ebbinghaus found out.

“He showed that memories have different life spans. Some memories hang around for only a few minutes, then vanish. Others persist for days or months, even a lifetime. He also showed that one could increase the life span of a memory simply by repeating the information in timed intervals. The more repetition cycles a given memory experienced, the more likely it was to persist in his mind. We now know that the space between repetitions is the critical component for transforming temporary memories into more persistent forms. Spaced learning is greatly superior to massed learning.”

In other words, just because you taught it once doesn’t mean they got it. If you really want you student to get it, you must return to the idea, subject matter, concept, formula, etc. throughout the school year. To do so effectively, one should probably consider a schedule or pacing guides that includes frequent returns to material that had previously been taught. I am not talking about a one-time review before the big test, but a systematic plan that included repetition of those things you believe (or the tests ask) students must know and remember.

Encoding is the first moment of learning. “Encoding describes what happens at the initial moment of learning, that fleeting instants when the brain first encounters a new piece of declarative information.”

The book describes 3 common characteristics of the encoding process

1. The more elaborately we encode information at the moment of learning, the stronger the memory.

“When encoding is elaborate and deep, the memory that forms is much more robust than when encoding is partial and cursory.”

So, the more memorable your teaching, the more memorable the learning.

The key is, “to present bodies of information so compelling that the audience does this on their own, spontaneously engaging in deep and elaborate encoding.”

Somehow, I don’ think, “Class read this chapter and complete this work sheet.” would qualify as compelling.

2. A memory trace appears to be stored in the same part of the brain that perceived and processed the initial input.

What does this mean? Basically, every part of your students’ brains are involved in the storage of memory. The entire brain is collaborating and cooperating to store memory.

3. Retrieval may best be improved by replicating the conditions surrounding the initial encoding.

Your students are best able to recall information under the same conditions in which they learned it. If you taught your students the information in the library, then they would best be able to recall it back in the library. If you students sit in different seats each day, they would best recall information they learned on one day sitting in that same seat.

“This tendency is so robust that memory is even improved under conditions where learning of any kind should be crippled. These experiments have been done incorporating marijuana and even laughing gas (nitrous oxide). This third characteristic even responds to mood. Learn something while you are sad and you will be able to recall it better if, at retrieval, you are somehow suddenly made sad. The condition is called context-dependent or state dependent.”

So, if your student was high when they learned the information, they would probably score better on the test if they where high. Not exactly what we would want to see, but I think it makes the point. So, if students were in a classroom where they are constantly being yelled during instruction, they would probably do best if the teacher continued to yell at them. So for those teachers who are always loud and screaming to take a break a sit quietly behind their desk on test day, they are actually putting their student’s test scores at risk.

Crazy, but true!

More to come from Chapter 5.

Catalytic Questions:

In what ways could you develop a systematic plan for reviewing taught information?

How might your classroom environment and classroom management change based on the knowledge that the brain retrieves information best under the same conditions it encoded it?

In what ways are you ensuring your teaching compelling?

How might a better understanding of how the brain learns impact your teaching?

Are you cognizant of context dependent or state dependent learning in you end of year testing?