Reflection 3

Reading chapter six, peer discussions and other information made me think about how we process information.  There was a slew of information in the chapter that was useful and that tied into my daily classroom experiences.  However, how exactly does some information make it into our long-term memory that we will never forget? While other information we forget seconds after we were exposed to it.   This was one of the major topics on my mind. The book and peer discussions talked about using the first minutes of class to expose important information, using hooks to draw them into the information, using all the five senses to tie the information together, as well as doing ext tickets (tickets out the door) to tie all the information together.  Using hooks can help by tying other senses into the information, using exit tickets can help tie the information together, and using all the senses can help in how the information is stored and processed. 


Working memory is fascinating to me because we go over tidbits of information and no matter how much we think that we can remember there are only a set number of “bits” that we can remember.  Slavin says “Working memory is believed to have a capacity of five to nine bits of information (Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, 2017a, 2017b; Purves,  2010), although some research suggests that the average is more like four bits (Radvansky  & Ashcraft, 2018).” This makes perfect sense to me as I know that my scholars will often only do what the last thing they heard was some of my scholars will only do what the first comment was.  I can ask them, "Did you hear all that was asked?” and they will tell me “No, I only heard the first thing”.  They are only able to remember a set of things and often they recall part of the information heard.  I not only see this in my scholars, but I see this in myself.  I have to repeatedly say things to remember, make notes, or pray that I can remember all that I am supposed to remember.  This impacts me in the classroom in a number of ways- I struggle with time management, executive functioning tasks, and becoming either hyper-focused or not focused.  I try to learn strategies that will help me and that can also show my scholars that we can learn and grow in every setting that we are part of. This is why chunking of materials and concepts can be so important.  If we chunk a detailed concept into multiple things, it may take longer to remember but they are being exposed to fewer "bits" of information thus improving their ability to remember the information.  I think this plays into what I want to improve in my classroom. 


One of the topics I can improve in my classroom is intention repetition and rehearsal which was mentioned several times by my peers and myself.  How do I develop methods for my scholars and myself to repeat and rehearse information thus increasing the likelihood of placing that information into long-term memory?  I used spiral reviews often to up the exposure to the material. This ups the repetition of the content.  I have the scholars "teach" myself or another peer to give them a chance to rehearse the information. These both help the information go from the working memory into storage, so I am doing this to some degree.  However, I never thought about it when I was doing this in my classroom setting.  I wonder now if it would be more effective to have this be the first thing that they do when they start that class period. Develop and work on strategies that improve retention, such as repetition, rehearsal methods, and meaningful connections. This can be done through the spiral review, but I also wonder if there are ways that I can incorporate more repetition.  Many of my scholars benefit from hearing the same information in different voices so I often have multiple assignments, videos, and computer programs all teaching the same concepts.  Working on having this be more intentional to make connections might help them store it in long-term memory and allow them to use it as background knowledge in other assignments and settings.   





References: 

Slavin, R. E. (2020). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (13th ed.).  Pearson Education.

Slavin, Robert E. Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice (p. 131). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition. 


AI was not used in this response.

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