Wellington College Belfast
Learning and Teaching
Revision support bulletin
Dual Coding
This is the fourth in the series of Revision Bulletins with the aim that you can further understand how to support your child in their revision for upcoming exams.
Previous bulletins can be found on the school website: https://wellingtoncollegebelfast.org/parents/revision-support-bulletins/
This bulletin will focus on Dual Coding
To understand the science behind dual coding it is important to be aware of how our brain stores information.
Working memory: We can think of it as the mental workspace where we process the information we perceive. Our working memory has a very limited capacity, we generally can only process around 5 things at once.
Long- term memory: Our long term memory has no limit to the amount of information it can store. The key thing to remember is that it can be forgotten. Therefore, the goal is to ensure there is high retrieval strength (being able to remember something easily).
The aim with learning is that we are able to not overload our working memory and be able to access information from our long-term memory easily.
What is Dual Coding?
Key point to remember: Dual coding is not the same as being a visual learner. You may have been told or taught that everyone has a different type of learning style. This theory has become a myth.
Dual coding is beneficial for every learner.
The simplest explanation for Dual Coding is combining words and images together. Images and words together work better than one or the other.
The science behind dual coding explains that our brain can take in both the visual and written information about a topic together into our working memory and link them in our long term memory. This actually doesn't overload our working memory when the information is structured correctly - in a diagram, timeline or mind map.
How to do dual coding?
When looking over notes from class or working on revision notes for a test:
Explain the visual in your own words- when reading through class notes, find visuals that link to the works. Ask yourself how the visuals link to the words in the information as well as asking how do the words describe what is happening in the visual.
Draw out your own version of the visual and make brief notes around or beside it. The presentation of the sketch doesn't matter- the focus is the clarity and structure of it.
In the previous bulletin we covered retrieval practice. After you have compared visuals and words describing the idea you are trying to learn, it’s time to start retrieving the information on your own. Work your way up to the point where you can put away your class materials and both write out the ideas in words and draw pictures, diagrams, or other graphics to go along with them.
Dual coding examples
Timeline: Dates alongside the key information that happened
Graphic organiser: could cover a whole topic on one page
Diagram / Drawings: linking key elements together
Comic book strip- to show the sequence of events
What can you do?
Watch the video above then discuss with your child where they feel dual coding could work for them in their revision
Remember this should work alongside retrieval practice - complete their visuals and text then try to retrieve the information
This may not be a preferred way of revision for your child as they may not be confident in their drawing skills but will be really helpful for subjects where diagrams and timelines need to be learnt e.g. science, geography, history and technology.
Dual coding can be used at different stages of the learning process, for example, it can be used to record new information or as a retrieval practice strategy writing and drawing relevant information and images from memory.