A memory strategy that gets things moving!

Just like any of us, our students get bored with sitting in their seats for hours at a time. We can use this to our benefit – incorporating movement can be powerful for enhancing retention and learning. Movement is an important memory strategy as it provides greater levels of oxygen to the brain and involves multiple areas of the brain in the memory process.

Ways to incorporate movement into your lessons include:

• Act out vocabulary words with your students.
• Create gestures that represent key people, places, or facts from the lesson.
• Teach sign language for learning vocabulary and spelling words.
• Using sports for memorization:
• If you can get access to your school’s gym or an outdoor basketball hoop – or even a “kiddie” hoop with Nerf balls in your own classroom – make a game out of stating a fact and then shooting a basket. The rules can be whatever you decide to be most appropriate and get all students involved. The important thing is the movement, fun, and challenge in the activity. If students are divided up into teams, they can help one another, enhancing the learning activity by having students teach each other – without even realizing it!
• If soccer or another sport is easier (for example, if you can’t get access to a basketball hoop, but you can get access to a grassy field), you can use that sport as the foundation of the exercise. As long as memorizing information is a part of the rules of the game, you can use whatever rules you’d like.

Here’s an example from my own experience: I had an adult martial arts student who was having trouble remembering the Kung Fu forms from one lesson to the next. As an experiment, I had him warm up for a half hour before the lesson. After he started walking the treadmill before each lesson, he started remembering the forms better and advancing much more quickly.

An oxygenated brain “remembers” better.

The post Using Movement as a Memory Strategy appeared first on Susan Fitzell.

Limit (Chunk) Information

The brain can only hold about seven pieces of information at a time in short-term memory. What this means is that, if we teach for 20 minutes and we’ve given students more than seven things to remember, it’s too much. The only way we might (sometimes) get away with more than seven facts is if they are written in a very large font, or if we ‘chunk’ related information by color.

The brain can process information quickly off an overhead or from a PowerPoint presentation if we’ve chunked it with color. For example, five facts about short-term memory might be green, five facts about working memory could be brown, and five facts about long-term memory could be black. We chunk related information by color.

Paraphrase Immediately

Another strategy to enhance short-term memory so information isn’t “gone” in two seconds is to have a student paraphrase what we just taught. For example, after you’ve taught something important, ask a volunteer to paraphrase that information for the class. Most likely, your students will not relate the information in the same words you used, which will be novel to the brain. This strategy takes only seconds to do, yet it lets your students hear the information again, in a different way, with a different voice. The brain likes novelty and will remember the information better.

Paraphrase One Hour Later

Ask your students to paraphrase information that was shared earlier in the day. When they take something that you taught an hour ago and bring it back into “play,” it returns to short-term memory and is then pushed into working memory. Using this paraphrasing strategy in your classrooms will help students to remember what you are teaching. Memory Tricks: Feed the Brain Small Chunks at a Time.

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Excerpted From Memorization and Test-Taking Strategies

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In fact, according to Eric Jensen in Brain-Based Learning (1996), we remember colors first and content next. Colors affect us on both a physiological and a psychological level. Therefore,using color can be a great way to help students study more efficiently.

• Add color to homework paperwork
• Print notes and alternate two colors for each individual point
• Hang colorful posters around the house to reinforce the concepts being learned

According to research, color communicates more effectively than black and white. How much more effectively?  Here’s what the research says:

• Color visuals increase willingness to read by up to 80 percent
• Using color can increase motivation and participation by up to 80 percent
• Color enhances learning and improves retention by more than 75 percent
• Color accounts for 60 percent of the acceptance or rejection of an object and is a critical factor in the success of any visual experience

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Pat Murray, from Greater Latrose High School in Latrose, PA uses power writing as a technique to help transfer information from short term to long term memory. She suggests that students power write about what they’ve learned for 3 minutes immediately following a 15 minute lecture. Visual learners could also add stick-figure drawings to provide memory cues and enhance what they write.

Power writing can also be used as a way to improve writing skill. Mr. Smiddy, of Staunton Elementary, defines power writing as “a method of writing designed to improve students’ writing through a three step process.

The beginning step teaches word power, sentence power (structure) and basic paragraph structure.

The middle step focuses on stronger paragraphs with elaboration.

The advanced step combines what students have learned into a multiple paragraph essay” For more power writing tips and techniques from Mr. Smiddy, check out his website.

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