Memory-Based Learning Model

Become Interested

In today’s world of overstimulation and constant sensory overload, it’s more important than ever to make sure students become interested in what is being taught so that they pay sufficient enough attention to absorb material. Paying attention can be made even more difficult for students who are experiencing stress – often caused by traumatic experiences at home, mental health problems, or other adverse situations – as the regions of their brain responsible for functions of memory are actually smaller. Furthermore, they usually experience increased anxiety, which can manifest in difficulty concentrating on academics, memory deficits, and increased irritability and distractibility. To ensure that learning is taking place, it’s helpful to consider the “pecking order”, or the filtering process that happens in students’ brains. Essentially, brains first pay attention to the stimuli with the strongest emotions attached, then to the newest or most novel stimuli, then to perplexing and curious stimuli.

Using this knowledge of sensory overload and the brain’s filtering process, teachers can employ strategies that ensure students become interested in learning. First, students must know that they are cared for. Providing positivity, holding high expectations while staying positive, being actively and dynamically present, and creating kind and respectful classrooms are all ways to ensure they feel safe and cared for. Other strategies to evoke interest include connecting learning with positive emotions, sparking curiosity, helping students activate prior knowledge, using structured academic controversy, and creating novelty by switching things up (Goodwin, Gibson, & Rouleau, 2020, p. 18-32).

Commit to Learning

Students inevitably will begin to wonder and ask why they have to learn particular things, and it’s important to help them find commitment, meaning, and purpose in their studies before they become unengaged and bored. This directly relates to the process of active learning detailed on a previous page. Any learning requires our brains to commit to focusing attention on information, processing that information, and reflecting on what we learned – which all requires effortful thinking. Because this also requires energy, students have to convince their brains that it is worth all this energy and effort by telling it that they want to learn, need to learn, or should learn something for one reason or another. Students have to value what they are learning and set expectations that they will be successful in learning things.

To motivate students, teachers can use strategies such as external and internal rewards, the latter of which is most effective. Intrinsic motivation is more powerful, long-lasting, and naturally rewarding, so fostering it within students is especially important. Strategies to help students commit to learning include: helping students understand the relevance behind why they have to learn something, guiding learning by framing it around significant big questions, providing learning expectations and objectives, connecting the dots between objectives and success criteria, encouraging meaningful personal goals, and helping students reach their goals by committing to effort (Goodwin, Gibson, & Rouleau, 2020, p. 33-45).

It is imperative that students focus on what they just learned in order for the brain to hold it in the working memory stage, which allows them to transfer it into long-term storage and recall it later. If not, after 5-20 minutes the information will simply decay. The working memory runs the risk of holding information for a short time, at which point we’re convinced it will stick around, before decaying. Actively focusing on new information allows for neurons to increase their firing rates and strengthen those connections.

Baddeley and Hitch’s 1974 model adds to the information processing model with three systems within the working memory – phonological loop (verbal and auditory info), visuospatial sketch pad (visual info), and a central executive that connects it all to short-term memory. This model exhibits the different ways we process streams of information, and though they can operate at the same time, too much information in one or the other or both can lead to difficulty processing. Effective strategies that support our working memories include pairing graphics with words, illustrating abstract ideas with concrete examples, combining examples with problem solving, cultivating self-questioning, and taking notes by hand. Instructionally, it’s helpful to supplement words with nonlinguistic representations, connect the abstract and concrete, use direct modeling to develop skills, alternate worked and unsolved problems, have students ask themselves questions, and teach active note taking strategies (Goodwin, Gibson, & Rouleau, 2020, p. 46-60).

Focus on New Learning

The next barrier to information making its way to long-term memory is the issue of encoding, or the process of turning those electrical impulses into memories. It becomes easier to recall information when connections are made between prior knowledge and new learning. For procedural memory (or skills-based learning), with enough practice and reputation it becomes automatic – like reading or driving, for example. Our working memory has a limited capacity though, and can only hold onto a certain number of information pieces at once. It operates by combining these many separate pieces into fewer, more meaningful pieces – mental clusters. This pattern-making comes naturally to our brains, which means you have to consciously avoid making misconceptions. Since our working memories have limited amounts of time they can devote full effort to, it’s important to change the pace of learning and provide mental breaks to allow for processing.

Strategies to support the process of encoding include providing opportunities to stop and process, ask deeper questions, provide wait time, employ cooperative group processing, use compare and contrast strategies, and ask students to summarize what they learn (Goodwin, Gibson, & Rouleau, 2020, p. 61-80).

Make Sense of Learning

Practice and Reflect

The retrieval of memories from our long-term storage can be tricky, as some memories seem to stick over time while others fade. One of the most important factors in making memories permanent is the repetition; returning to a memory reactivates neural networks and insulates the pathways with myelin coating. Furthermore, the repetition must be high quality and increase in complexity in order to create deeper connections and prevent decay. Cramming, though common, is not a productive way to store long-term memories. It is much more effective to space out retrieval and repetition over time to more deeply embed the learning and store it for long periods of time. Interleaving, or mixing up the type of practice, is also an effective way to develop deeper neural connections. Location can also be important, as encoding specificity studies show that context can assist in memory by giving cues that help improve recall.

Every time we ask students to rack their brain to remember something, that neural network is activated and strengthened – even more so than when students simply reread what they have already learned. This retrieval practice is incredibly effective at embedding learning into long-term memory. Strategies that help at this point in the learning process include observing and guiding initial efforts, checking for understanding, providing effective feedback, interleaving and spacing out practice, and teaching students the importance of practice (Goodwin, Gibson, & Rouleau, 2020, p. 81-103.)

Extend and Apply

The final stage of learning requires deep consolidation and developing multiple ways to retrieve information. Memory retrieval is assisted by making personal connections to the information, which involves a deeper level of processing and subsequently increased recall. Elaboration also makes retrieval practice more effective, as it asks students to ask deeper questions and extend upon what they have been learning. For procedural knowledge, asking students to explain the steps of the processes helps them think about what exactly they are learning and how they are doing it. When students create mental models, or coherent patterns of learning, they are able to extend their prior learning and apply it to new situations and problems. This is one of the best ways to engage students in critical thinking, a complex skill that will serve them in every discipline. The ability to think about thinking (metacognition) is also important for students to engage in as they attempt to learn information on a deeper level. Strategies that help students extend and apply their learning include providing challenges, asking students to pursue inquiries, encouraging them to show their thinking, developing critical thinking, engaging students in acts of writing, and assessing learning in meaningful ways. This last stage of the learning process is important when it comes to helping students attach meaning and purpose to their learning, ensuring that the information will remain useful far into the future (Goodwin, Gibson, & Rouleau, 2020, p. 104-127.)

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