Helping students remember
Remembering course material is alot like getting the body to do what you want thru muscle memory.
The only difference is training the brain to do the same thing. If you practice something correctly over and over it becomes familier. You can train the brain to do work the same way.
If someone says they hate math it's probably because they weren't taught math properly. You just need to find a way to make it easy and show how the results will help them. Money always gets their attention. I also use money when teaching students how to read a micrometer.
I use mnemonics that work well and tend to be passed down from generation to generation in the medical field. There is a reason why they have been around for so long. I also let my students know that they have to know the meaning behind the mnemonic and not just the words. By using real world examples, they get the opportunity to see how a mnemonic actually helps them in a task.
I have always found if you link your daily life or personal experiences, it helps them remember more clearly and even have given them some resources mnemonic.
There are many ways to make students memorize one of them is showing real parts eg anatomy classes and applying what they learned, also doing practices in urine testing, antre others, I firmly believe in the practice to consolidate the knowledge .
Peggy,
This is the kind of creativity that I like to see from instructors. These types of learning devices of effective, fun and as you say greatly enhance content retention. I am sure your students look forward to coming to class and hearing your latest version of a song with medical terms in it.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I also use funny stories... I like to find songs that relate to the subject that they can learn from. Example: the ST.Josephs song about the cardiovascular system...I sometimes make up funny words that sound like the original word and they remember those.
Totally agree with repetition. It helps ensure the students will be more likely to learned the material for the long run and are less likely to just dump the information on test day and forget the information.
It is very hard for student to remember things if the have a memory disability. You have to work with and show them over and over, and take your time with lots of TLC
I agree. I have been dealing with my learning disability for 40 + years, and I have developed stratgies to over come it. Picturing the numbers sequences in my head or, taking a mental picture of the page and it's content are two I use most often and sucessfully. But it takes practice.
I always try to find a way to make course content applicable in my students lives so that they can grasp the material better and retain it as well. I don't want my students to just remember and parrot information back to me. I need to know that they understand the theory behind what is being taught and that if necessary they can recall that information and apply it to real life situations as well.
Jeanette,
Plus, at least for my students they have fun with developing and then using mnemonics in the course.
Gary
I ,also, use mnemonics and funny stories as learning tools. I discovered a long time ago, that I could quickly remember a funny word or story so I applied that in my teaching before I even knew there was a name for it....so far it has really helped my students.
Traci,
Great way to connect the dots between the content and application. This way the students will have a higher retention rate of the content stored for use later on.
Gary
Mnemonics work well. I also try to teach processes in a story form, sometimes giving each step of the process a personal name related to the name of that particular process. Students enjoy the stories and seem to retain otherwise boring, hard to remember processess.
Lauren,
Right you are about the need to reinforce the material over and over so that it becomes a part of their cognitive processing. When it does it is stored in their long term and working memory areas, ready for use at a future time.
Gary
