Learning Log Chapter 6

What?
This chapter gave discussed the different ways in which people obtain knowledge and store it. A person turns information into memory by receiving it through a sensory register and then giving it proper attention. If attention is given, the information goes to the working memory until it is processed enough to be put into long term memory. That transference into long term memory is only possible if best teaching and learning processes are followed.

So what?
It is important to provide the right, and varying, activities to students so they are able to turn the info we as teachers present to them into actual memory and knowledge. A student must be able to engage with the topic in order to really process it enough to really get it. Examples of this given are: rehearsal, meaningful learning, elaboration, and visual imagery. Some ways of connecting to the subject will make it easier for students retrieve the knowledge with mnemonics and memorization being fairly low on the scale compared with accessing prior knowledge.

Now what?
My job is first of all, to learn to use the different types of memory storage in my own learning, in order to understand the benefits of my options and to be able to know how to best help my different students in the future. It will be important to understand, and accept, what topics lend themselves to what kind of learning and be able to work within those limits (e.g. Mnemonics are important for some things that require real memorization and a connection to a topic might not be as possible to form in a spelling lesson as in a social studies lesson).