Information Processing and Memory

1. Information Processing and Memory Chapter 6 Ergle

2. Think of two or three ways that you memorize needed information.

3. Meaning Maker “The human mind is a meaning maker. From the first microsecond you see, hear, taste, or feels something, you start a process of deciding what it is, how it relates to what you already know, and whether it is important to keep in your mind or should be discarded. This whole process may take place consciously, unconsciously, or both.” p. 136

5. Information Processing Model • Recreate this model on your own paper: • External Stimulus • Sensory Register • Initial processing • Working or Short Term Memory • Long-Term memory • Rehearsal and Coding • Retrieval

6. Perception • The sensory images of which we are conscious are not exactly the same as what we saw, heard, of felt; they are what are senses perceived. • It is mental interpretation of external stimuli. • Influenced by mental state, past experiences, knowledge.

7. Attention • Limited resource • Shift priorities that screens out other stimuli • Teachers? • Arouse interest • Have emotional content • Unusual, inconsistent, surprising stimuli • Cue for future importance or use

8. Short-Term or Working Memory • Limited capacity to hold information for a few seconds- about 30 seconds • Information currently being used • Organizes info for storage or discard and connects it to other information • P 39-140 • Can hold information in working memory by repetition

9. Working Memory Capacity • 5-9 bits • Each bit may contain a great deal of info • Background knowledge will enhance working memory • Can be taught strategies to organize information • Teachers: • Organize new information • Relate information to existing schema

10. Long Term Memory • 3 parts: • Episodic memory: images from our personal experiences/ stored in images based on when and where. • Semantic Memory: stores facts and general knowledge (most school information)/ organized by network of ideas. • Procedural Memory: Knowing how to do something like ride a bike or type/ stored as stimulus-response. • These 3 organize in different ways and in different parts of the brain.

11. Making Information Meaningful • Rote memory not all bad • Mental images; visual and auditory cues • Use Semantic mapping (p. 159- bison_ • Concepts are retained longer than names • Whatever is retained after 12-24 weeks is cemented • Active involvement increases retention • The more processing of the information, the better retention • Similar to John Dewey and Progressive Education!

12. Making Information Meaningful • Strategies: • Practice Tests • Note-Taking • Self-Questioning and Metcognition • Articulating Knowledge to others • Summarizing • Outlining, Concept Mapping • Underlining, Making S-T and T-T connections

13. Brain Research • Read p. 147 • 1. Brain capacity is not set at birth and neural connections are made in first 18 months • 2. After 18 months, the brain begins to slough off connections not used • 3. As a person becomes knowledge and skill, the brain becomes more efficient (reading example pg. 147)

14. What causes people to remember or forget? • Interference: information gets pushed aside by other information. • Not able to rehearse new information • Retroactive Inhibition: information lost because it is mixed up with new or similar information • Proactive Inhibition: one set of information interferes with learning another (like driving on right and left side of road)

15. Facilitation • Proactive facilitation: learning one thing can help learn another (English and Spanish) • Retroactive facilitation: learning something new that increases the understanding of something already learned (Latin for English)

16. Primacy and Recency • Primacy: learn the first things presented • Recency: learn the last things presented

17. Automaticity • Level of ease and rapidity that cause tasks to be performed or skills utilized with little mental effort. (Reading, soccer, chess) • Practice: • Massed practice: practice initially until learned • Distributed practice: a little over a long period of time • Long term retention greatly enhanced by distributed practice! (vs. cramming) • Doing better than just seeing.

18. Verbal Learning • Paired Associate (states and capitals) • Serial Learning (ordered like Pledge of Allegiance) • Free Recall (no order) • Methods: • Imagery • Mnemonics • Loci method from Greece • Initial letter • Pegword Method

19. Meaningful • Rote learning: facts that are arbitrary • Meaningful learning: relate to other information

20. Schema Theory: Structure for organizing and connecting information • Metacognition: knowledge about one’s own learning or about how to learn • Metacognitive skills are ways students can learn, study and solve problems • Self-questioning strategies can be taught to students to improve learning