Using Memorable Examples
Why are memorable examples valuable in helping students to remember course content?
I find that students are very eager to hear about real life experiences. Telling stories also helps them remember the material better and can recall the story when they need to apply it to the exam.
Examples help to connect the dots. Students can take what you are saying and put it together with what they already know. Examples help to create a visual.
I like to show videos of medical procedures to my medical billing and coding students. I believe that it reinforces their memories of the procedure, and ultimately will make more sense to them when they are coding the procedures.
Nicely put. It is important to validate the value of what our students have experienced and what they have to offer to their peers. It is also important to instill in the students the necessity to work on being successful together. Everyone is there to learn but they all need to know that they are all teachers as well. Together they will learn more and be better than learning in isolation.
both are helpful though as the instructor you speak with authority where their peers may be seen with suspicion or doubt.
your real world example lets them see themselves in that situation. It makes the future real and therefore what you are teaching relevant.
A memorable example gives students a peg to attach the information they are learning to. Pictures are much easier to remember than words so if you can associate the words to a picture students will be able to access the memory of the lesson easier. The trick is having an exciting picture to attach it to, i.e. a train wreck is more memorable than a mountain stream, but to work the picture/memorable experience has to be relevant to the content being taught.
As a technical instructor I feel it is very important to use memorable examples in my class. My institute prides itself on "The Real World Teaching" but sometimes it is hard to reproduce exactly what the students will be doing in the real world because of budgets and space constraints of the shop area. By telling them how it is and sharing stories about certain things I have done in a certain situation helps. They really grasp and take away more from the lesson.
It is helpful to both the student and the instructor to teach the key information. It can also help bring together different material into one example.
Teaching in the healthcare field, I will use examples of myself doing something wrong to show my students that I'm not perfect. I always will follow up that story with how to do that exact task the correct way. I feel if they see that I make mistakes it will make them less hesitant of asking questions or answering ones that I ask.
Memorable examples of lessons show the student that the course materials studied are actually used in the real world, these examples legitimize the course content.
Memorable examples are important because they stand out in the student's mind. It makes it easier for the students to recall important information. I always try to make the students laugh by telling an experiential story so that the students have fun and can apply the information to a real-life, comical, situation.
Everyone likes a good story and it can redirect the students attention back to lecture.
I prefer to use real life events as it makes for more interesting discussion and because its real life examples and will easily jog the student's memory
I still remember some of the real life examples that my instructors shared in the classroom. It helped me to remember the content and sometimes helped me from making the same mistakes myself. I often add stories from my career experience to my teaching in order to help my students remember key points and to give them some motivation to learn the material.
Shelby,
and when we do this & engage in simulations or experiments, labs, etc then we can truly learn together & create a safe environment for learning through the process.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Shelby,
and when we do this & engage in simulations or experiments, labs, etc then we can truly learn together & create a safe environment for learning through the process.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Nancy, I agree with your approach of "not perfect." Students appreciate that their instructors are human just as they are, and in turn, become open to suggestion and experiences of their instructors as specialist in their fields of study; and as a consequence, students open up to learning through lectures and examples their instructors have to offer.
As the lesson noted here in ED106, "memorable examples" are valuable in helping students to remember course content because students will better understand content material when an example that relates to them helps the student to understand the lesson, and also provide them with additional time to take notes.
In my experience, students tend to respond to "memorable examples" that relate to their individual lives. Hence, providing examples assists students in connecting their worlds to the lecture/content at hand.
As a consequence, when students are charged with reviewing content material, or, are charged with developing an independent thought based on the content material, students' tend to tap into their metacognition of "memorable examples" to retrieve lecture material shared during class time.
The question I have is, how do you know that the "memorable example" will be memorable for all students? As research continues to note, no two learners are alike, nor do they bring the same background with them to class.
