Reflective Journal Entry #3

Analysis

            Chapter six starts off listing and describing the three types of memory that a person has: sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory.  Sensory register is all of the information being processed by one’s senses at any given moment.  If it is not automatically used, it is forgotten.  Short-term memory, also known as working memory, is the capsule for thoughts that are happening in the moment.  While someone is thinking these certain thoughts, this part of one’s memory decides if it will be stored forever or forgotten.  One example of short-term memory is rehearsing a thought.  If someone is trying to remember a name or number, saying it repeatedly to oneself is a way of helping it stay in the short-term memory bank until they need it.  The third type of memory discussed is long-term memory, which covers all of the information that someone has stored over time.  Researchers believe that humans may never forget anything stored in the long-term memory bank; instead, they may just lose the ability to retrieve it (Slavin, 2015, p. 129).

            There are multiple strategies that go into helping someone remember or forget a thought.  The first is inference, which is when information that someone is trying to remember gets pushed aside by other information that they are dealing with at the moment.  If someone is not solely focused on the major thought, it could be forgotten.  The next are retroactive and proactive inhibition.  Retroactive inhibition is when information gets confused with similar information.  For example, if a teacher tries to teach two similar concepts very close together, she could confuse the students.  Proactive inhibition is when something that has already been learned interferes with learning something new.  There are also proactive and retroactive facilitation.  These two are quite the opposite and help the learning process by combining new material and previously learned material (Slavin, 2015).

            Slavin (2015) notes that repetition and practice are beneficial to learning and remembering something.  There are multiple strategies to help someone remember information.  A few examples are paired-associate learning, imagery, serial and free recall learning, and letter strategies.  Paired associate learning links an object with a concept; this symbolism can help students grasp concepts more easily.  Imagery is fairly straightforward – a picture is paired with information to help better remember.  Serial and free recall work with remembering information in a certain order.  Letter strategies are used to help individuals remember groups of information by associating a letter to a word or phrase and adding all of the letters up to mean something memorable (Slavin, 2015).

            There are two types of learning mentioned later in the chapter: rote and meaningful learning.  Rote learning deals with the strict memorization of material – not necessarily true learning.  Although memorization is not always the best form of learning, it can be helpful in certain situations – for example, if a student has a text the next day, they may study information heavily the night before in hopes of performing rote memorization.  Meaningful learning is what most teachers strive for.  This not only teaches the students the information at hand, but it also helps them learn it in a way that they could use it to help solve real world problems as well.  The information could be used in their lives.  Slavin (2015) writes, “Many problems in life arise not from a lack of knowledge but from an inability to use the knowledge we already have” (p. 146). With meaningful learning, a person has the knowledge and has the ability to use it effectively, solving issues that arise.

           

Reflection

            Teaching special education students, I believe that the concept of memorization and learning is an incredibly significant topic of concern.  Just because a teacher can teach the information does not mean that they are teaching it the most efficiently so that the students can remember and learn it.  I always thought that teaching topics that were alike together was a good strategy, but after reading this chapter, my mind is changing.  If the topics are too much alike and taught too closely together, the students may be easily confused and not grasp either task.  I had not thought about this concept before reading about retroactive inhibition; I will be sure to think about this moving forward with my lesson plans.  Instead, I should probably pair different concepts together so that students can analyze the differences and help identify each concept independently.

            Another point mentioned in the chapter, one that stood out to me, was the fact that students need to perform a task at hand and not just watch the teacher work.  Of course, having a student actually complete a task instead of just take notes about it is a pretty obvious idea, but the discussion on this in the book really resonated with me on two levels.  As a coach, I would not just show drills repeatedly and expect the athletes to know what to do going into a game.  I show them what I need to show them and then let them practice again and again until they grasp the concept at hand.  Some people say that practice makes perfect, so it is important to allow students the opportunity to practice working on a concept repeatedly until they prove that they have mastered it.

            Slavin’s (2015) quote, “Many problems in life arise not from a lack of knowledge but from an inability to use the knowledge we already have” (p. 146), is my favorite from the entire chapter.  Students may know the information that a teacher has taught them but might have no clue how to actually apply it in a given circumstance.  I come across this issue with my students fairly regularly in teaching math.  My students learn formulas and work with equations, which is challenging enough, but the second that I give them a real-world word problem and ask them to solve it, they go blank and seem to forget what they knew just a minute before.  If it does not specifically ask for the answer, they have no clue how to make the connections.  As teachers, we need to make sure that we are letting our students individually practice the task at hand and use real-world scenarios and ask them to problem solve using what they know.  After all, the point of an education is to help students grow as self-sufficient, productive people, so if students are not given practice using real-life connections, then the material can be disengaging and difficult for them to (want to) learn.

References

Slavin, R. E. (2015). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (11th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.