Understanding
“What” and
“How” Students
Remember
Connection Cognition to Effective
Instruction
Who am I?
Autumn Brueckmann
In 7th year of education
Pursuing doctoral degree at Southeastern
University
Who are you?
What do students
remember?
The key to creating neural
networks about critical
content
Two Keys
Make Sense
Have Meaning
6
You have 7 seconds to memorize as many letters as you can
(You may not write it down!)
•Ajklm topuz zyeras quertv
ioprajk wtr
Now, try to remember
these letters in 7 seconds
The Lord is my Shepherd,
I shall not want.
Example
Playing cards and
probability
Geometry in Las Vegas
It is important
Answers the question:
“Why do we need to
know?”
Fits in with prior
knowledge
Fits into neurological
networks
10
Making Sense Having
Meaning
What is the difference between making sense and having meaning?
Student construct knowledge
Sensory Register
Immediate Memory
Working Memory
Long Term Storage
Forgetting Forgetting Forgetting
Encoding
Retrieving
5 Senses
“The horse can’t possibly drink if you don’t at least lead him to the
water” (Ormrod, 2018, p. 191)
13
• Rote Rehearsal
• Simple Repetition
• Cumulative Repetition
• Elaborative Rehearsal
• Paraphrasing/Summarizing
• Elaborating
• Note Taking
• Predicting
• Making Questions
• Imaging
Rehearsal
•Leave Space
15
Summarize
What’s the big idea?
16
Elaborating
Facilitates connection to prior
knowledge
Note taking
18
Predicting
What could I ask you on your test?
Other contexts:
Predict lab result
Predict problems answer
Predict ending of story
19
Making Questions
Questioning the text
20
Imaging
Create a visual
21
Pick one of the six strategies and think of a lesson
where you can apply it to increase retention
• Paraphrasing/Summarizing
• Elaborating
• Note Taking
• Predicting
• Making Questions
• Imaging
Application
Sensory Register
Immediate Memory
Working Memory
Long Term Storage
Forgetting Forgetting Forgetting
Encoding
Retrieving
5 Senses
How do students remember?
23
Practice
Proper Motivation
Prerequisite Skills
Understood Application
Analytical Ability
24
• Get students interested
• Hold students accountable
• Give students feedback
Increasing Processing Time Through Motivation
“Every time we recall information from long term
storage into working memory, we relearn it” (Sousa, 2017, p. 144)
- Create active participation
- State question and wait
- Give clear and specific
instructions
- Randomize students you ask
26
Wait Time
• More student recall
• Increases neural
connections
• Increases accountability
• Strengthens neural
connections
27
• Try to think of one specific take away
What can we do to help students remember?
28
Supplementary Content Resources:Curriculum, D. (2014, August 29). The primacy/recency effect. Retrieved August 17, 2019, from Dataworks Educational Research
website: https://dataworks-ed.com/blog/2014/08/the-primacyrecency-effect/
How to be more interesting: 5 steps you can take today. (2019, February 8). Retrieved August 17, 2019, from Science of People
website: https://www.scienceofpeople.com/interesting/
Summarizing—Google search. (n.d.). Retrieved August 17, 2019, from
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=RDZXXZOgOajn_Qa9uJPwCg&q=Summarizing&oq=Summarizing
Paraphrasing text: Skim and copy no more. (2013, July 19). Retrieved August 17, 2019, from The Joy of Teaching website:
https://thejoyofteachingblog.wordpress.com/diy-3/paraphrasing-text-skim-and-copy-no-more/
Content Resources:Sousa, D. A. (2017). How the brain learns (Fifth edition). Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin, a Sage Publishing Company.
Ormrod, J. E. (2018). Human learning (Eighth Edition). Boston: Pearson.
THANK YOU
Autumn Brueckmann
Please take a moment to complete
the session evaluation form.
https://forms.gle/crHoU2CstcUPgFWH8