Hello!
Recently, together with Nasima Riazat, co-author of What Teachers Need to Know about Memory, I appeared on a podcast. We spoke to host Jamie Thom on his podcast, ‘Beyond Survival’. The show is aimed particularly at new school teachers.
You can find a link to the episode on Spotify below, and it’s on the other major platforms too:
One part of the conversation focused on what a new teacher needs to know about memory. It’s a great question – what are the essentials, and where would you start if mentoring a new member of staff?
As with any area of knowledge, we can consider such learning as a curriculum, and ask questions like:
What are the key foundations?
Which things are less important?
What could wait until later?
With that in mind, here’s what I personally would prioritise.
1: The Concept of Memory
I think it’s necessary to explain what memory is. I would want to make the case that memorisation is not a bad thing! New teachers tend to hold ‘common sense’ assumptions about education, and one of these is the simplistic notion of what memory is for. They may see it as just about cramming facts.
I would challenge this simplistic assumption, explaining that memory is a system which is unavoidably involved in all learning. Hopefully I would make it clear that memory underpins all learning activities from knowledge to skills, and that it is not separate from understanding.
2: Memory is Relevant to Teaching
From there, I would try to make the case that a professional understanding of memory will help us as teachers. Expertise in memory falls within a teacher’s professional knowledge and skill set. We are trying to influence what people learn; knowing about memory is fundamental to this, just as a gardener needs to know about soil pH, or a dietician should understand the digestive system.
I would hope that most new teachers who engage with and think about this idea would quickly recognise that memory is going to be important to their practice, and that understanding it should therefore be a professional learning goal.
3: Forgetting is Rapid and Catastrophic
Forgetting is one of the most universal and problematic memory phenomena. New teachers will be aware that forgetting happens, but again, their ideas may be simplistic or inaccurate.
I would share the forgetting curve, and have the new teachers consider what a waste if time it would be to spend a lot of time learning, only for the new knowledge and skills to be rapidly forgotten! Hopefully, this would be easy to recognise as a problem.
Thinking about forgetting would set the scene for further ideas that I will discuss next week. In short, if we want to tackle forgetting and ensure that students learn successfully, we need techniques to help make things stick.
That’s enough for now! Next time I will look at what a new teacher needs to know (and doesn’t need to know) about the difference between WM and LTM, and other key ideas.
Bear in mind that these points are focused on teachers, rather than students/pupils. What I would explain to the learners themselves would be different, and would be highly dependent on age and other factors.
Hope you have a great week!
Jonathan
Last week: Working Memory
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