It’s a Brain Thing!

Making the most of your memory & study timeBy: Ella Bogard, ABLE CoordinatorWashington County Career Center

Neuroplasticity:

the capacity for continuous alteration of the neural pathways and synapses of the living brain and nervous system in response to experience or injury

FACT: Learning causes growth of brain cells.

Information Processing

Encoding or registration—

Storage—

Retrieval, recall, recollection —

receiving, processing and combining of received information

creation of a permanent record of the encoded information

calling back the stored information in response to some cue for use in a process or activity

Five Ways to Improve Your Learning

• 1: Don't skimp on exercise or sleep• 2: Make time for friends and fun• 3: Keep stress in check• 4: Eat a brain-boosting diet• 5: Give your brain a workout

Don't skimp on exercise or sleep

Make time for friends and fun

Keep stress in check

Eat a brain-boosting diet

For mental energy, choose complex carbohydrates

 Give your brain a workout

It’s fun. The more interested and engaged you are the more likely you’ll continue doing it and the greater the benefits you’ll experience.

It’s new. The activity needs to be something that’s unfamiliar and out of your comfort zone.

It’s challenging. Like learning a new language, or sport, or tackling a crossword or Sudoku puzzle.

Exercising the brain is like exercising the body

Spacing vs. Cramming

Use a Variety of Learning Tools Over Time•Visual image •Acrostic (or sentence)•Acronym •Rhymes and alliteration•Chunking•Method of loci

Enhance Your Memory and Learning Skills

•Pay attention.• Involve as many senses as possible.•Relate information to what you already know.• For more complex material, focus on understanding

basic ideas•Rehearse information you’ve already learned.

5 Tricks to Sharpen Thinking and Memory Skills

•1. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat•2. Organize•3. Visualize•4. Cue•5. Group

Questions?

SOURCES

• from Harvard Health Letter: July 2014, a special health report published by Harvard Health Publications.• From “Caffeine has positive effect on memory, Johns Hopkins researchers say” by Latarsha Gatlin /  January 12, 2014 Posted in Science+Technology• From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia “A Definition of

Memory”.• from Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 2006 ‘Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning’ by Judy Willis