Did I Forget to Remind Myself?

My last education-related post dealt with memory. 

Dr. Judy Willis

This week I want to quickly recommend another expert in the area of learning and the brain: Dr. Judy Willis. I encourage you to check out her "Top 10" list on "How to be Your Child's Memory Coach". Her book, Learning to Love Math, was a terrific resource that impacted my teaching when I was in the classroom. I explicitly taught my students some of the concepts I learned in the book. You can read the Introduction and first chapter here.

Last time I wrote about the fact that the brain looks for patterns or relationships among the bits of information coming in to the brain. The truth is that so much stimuli is bombarding the human brain every second. The only way we can function is for the brain to instantly be able to filter all this incoming data. Dr. Willis talks about the parts of the brain responsible for that filtering process. Again, I want to stress that this is a part of normal human functioning. The brain must filter out boring, non-essential, un-emotional, irrelevant pieces of information for survival and thriving. The brain cannot and will not pay attention to such things.

It probably wouldn't hurt for us to slow down in our schools and reflect on that simple truth. How does this reality affect our practice? How do we get beyond theory?

Remember How to Remember

Let's face an obvious truth in education.
You can't learn what you can't remember. 
You can't reflect on what you can't remember. 
You can't apply what you can't remember. 

The prerequisite to being able to comprehend, analyze, evaluate, categorize, debate, or carry out any kind of higher-order thinking process is to first simply recall the information. 

Therefore, one of the critical pieces to learning is memory.

Fortunately, we now have an entire field devoted to the neuroscience of memory. We are able to identify practices that improve memory and those that hinder, or even prevent, it.
In fact, a great example of what we are learning on this topic can be found in a webinar from EdWeb, presented by Sandra Aamodt.

One of the discoveries about memory that makes a lot of sense is the realization that teaching concepts in isolation of other concepts is a sure fire way to keep kids from remembering them. The brain naturally looks for patterns and relationships among pieces of information. Retention always increases when facts are learned in context and when they are connected to one another.

In fact, according to Dr. Aamodt, all learning is "re-learning" in a way because of how the brain organizes information each time it processes it. When the brain does not see the relevance to future activity or a connection to previous learning, it does not see the value in retaining the new teaching despite how fabulous a presentation might have been given in introducing the concept. The brain will simply dump the information.

This is not a matter of weak willpower, negative attitudes, poor classroom management, student irresponsibility, or any other fault of the teacher or student. It is neuroscience. It is how our brains work! 

It is, therefore, problematic that we often teach a ridiculously overwhelming amount of content in our schools and don't allow the time and space for the brain to make connections and organize the information properly for later retention. It is also disturbing when we then blame students' lack of studying and label them as "not caring" when they cannot recall all this information on tests and assignments.

Are some students irresponsible? 
Sure. 
Do some students refuse to study, which leads to poor academic achievement? 
Of course. 

However, if we are going to be professionally honest, then we have to face the fact that it is equally irresponsible on our part as educators to ignore the reality of brain functioning when it comes to academic performance!

Perhaps our starting point should be to focus on the teaching/learning process itself. How do the things we have control over in our system affect memory?

If we know that what we do makes a difference in what and how children remember, then at what point does it become a form of systemic, professionally endorsed "child neglect" if it does not change our scope and sequence, assessment practices, and instruction?