The Risk of Teaching for Temporary Performance
Jonathan Firth's Memory & Metacognition Updates #88
Last time I wrote about how all learning (at least in education-relevant contexts) must involve working memory and long term memory. I also suggested that the reverse is not always true. A student can use their memory, take things in and process them – but soon forget the whole thing entirely!
Today I’ll address the major practical impact of teaching and learning when material has only a temporary impact on memory.
‘Like they’ve never learned’
In an article that really struck me when I first read it – and really made me think hard about my own teaching – researcher Henry Roediger put it this way:
“With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material when they move to a more advanced class. It’s like they’ve never seen it before” (Roediger, cited by Carey, 2010).
This is a devastating idea for any educator. All that effort, all those passed tests – and the students might just forget what they studied? Then what’s the point?!
Of course, this doesn’t always happen. Still, I think many educators will feel uneasy at how familiar the situation sounds.
Relatively permanent?
The idea of retaining something permanently probably sounds like a really high bar. But on the other hand, isn’t it reasonable to suggest that students could use what they have studied after a fairly long delay, and out of context?
Wouldn’t you hope, for example, that your students could have a conversation about the material they have been learning with a friend (or a teacher) six months or a year later?
And if they can’t do that, due to forgetting (see update #78), could we really count them as having ‘learned’ – even if they did pass their test or exam?
This, again, is about memory being necessary but not sufficient for learning. Sometimes, things make only a shallow, temporary impression, passing through working memory and then entering LTM, but not being well stored. In such cases, what they do in class is better seen as performance than learning.
I will write a longer post diving into the details and research on this issue next week, and consider the implications of this temporary performance – and the solutions.
For now, it’s worth reflecting on what evidence would show that our students can indeed retain what we teach after a delay!
All the best,
Jonathan
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