Improving your Memory

1. Improving your Memory Chapter 8

2. Memory and Learning • “there is no learning without memory” • But one needs more than a good memory to do well in college • Most material must be understood, not just memorized • College tries to foster “deep learning” (why?, how?, not just what?) • But, having a good memory is important

3. How Memory Works • Short-term memory • Information that is forgotten within 30 seconds unless “used” or moved to long-term memory • Example: noting the time on a watch, hearing a telephone ringtone • Not very useful for most college memory needs • Long-term memory • Extremely important in college learning • Increases amount that is learned in college • Important skill to develop for taking tests

4. Long-term Memory • Three types • Procedural – remembering how to do something (solve equation, play an instrument) • Semantic – remembering facts, meanings without knowing where or when you learned them (word meanings, birthdays) • Episodic – remembering particular events and their time and place of occurrence (vacations, opening of acceptance letter from college, first kiss) All three types are useful and necessary in college

5. Memory Myths

6. Strategies for Improving Your Memory Try to match your method of studying with your best method for learning • Visual learner? Read notes over and over • Aural learner? – read aloud, listen to tapes of lecture • Kinesthetic learner? – rewrite notes over and over (condensing as learn material) For most people some combination of the above works best

7. Specific Aids to Memory • Pay attention to what you are doing or reading • Stay alert in class; while reading • Do not rely on studying just once before an exam • Start to study early! • “Overlearn” the material! • When you think you know it  ask someone to test you • Study in Groups • See #3 above • Check out the Internet • Many other lectures on the Net • Remember the “Big Picture” • Go back and look at 1st (introductory) chapter or 1st lecture

8. Specific Aids to Memory (con’t) • Look for connections between courses and life • Try to make coursework relevant to your life • Work around what you are trying to remember • If “stuck”  think of related things to jog memory • Take notes on your notes • Condense, condense, condense! • Get Organized • Much easier to remember organized notes (my biggest problem in college = disorganized notes!) • Find the right place for you to study and memorize successfully • Find a place where you can learn and stick to it (avoid loud music and talkative friends)

9. Specific Aids to Memory (con’t) • Avoid all-night cramming • Cannot remember much when you are dead tired! • Talk to yourself • go over notes out loud over and over and over and… • Most time-tested technique • Try to reduce stress in your life • May be very hard to do but easier than flunking or dropping out

10. Mnemonics • Memory aids • Artificial strategy for remembering information • Four basic categories • Acronyms – new words created from the beginning letters of several words (HOMES, SWAT) • Acrostics – verse in which certain letters of each word or line form a message (Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge) • Rhymes – said or sung (“On Old Olympic Towering Tops A French and German Viewed Some Hops”) • Visual methods – visualization to associate words or concepts with remembered visual images (DNA forms a “twisted ladder” structure) • Mnemonics can be very useful but cannot be used to memorize everything