retention
remembering information is one of the hardest things for students to be successful with. There are ways that I try to encourage students to do this. I suggest re writing notes, studying with a friend and organizing the information so it makes more sense.
Checking if students remember information is one of the most important measures of their learning.
Victor,
This is one of the challenges of learning for us all. We have to develop a system where we can sort through and realize what is important and what is not. That way we can retain the critical content for use later on.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
We leave in a society that is bombard with so much information on a daily base that in some way the brain has a harder time remembering it all. I believe that the brain is processing information and not using the cortex to create synapsis since most of the information knows will not be needed.
This creates a problem when we are trying to retain new information in addition to the overwhelming daily new data that the brain has to determined when to save or not.
Victor,
This is a great way to enhance content retention. If you can facilitate the connecting of content to student lives and experiences then they will be able to remember more of it and at a higher percentage.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
Most of the information that we need to learn at some point becomes boring or abstract and difficult to retain even in the short memory pool. What has worked for me is the association of the material to something personal or vivid and the exercise of bringing all the information back several times. The time use to memorize has to be in short segments in order for the brain to establish new synapsis and not to overload.
It's very important to help students connect the dots.
Victoria,
You are providing your students with some extremely valuable study skills. They are being asked to learn a lot of content so the more coding of this information they can do the greater their content retention will be.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I work in a learning resource center, so I do not present course content to students in class but rather work one-on-one with them afterward to help them retain the information. There are a couple of key words I end up using a lot: senses, and association. The more senses one can incorporate into learning, the easier a concept is to memorize. For example, if someone uses flashcards, I encourage him or her to use various colors of flashcards to group information. Writing the information in different colors further emphasizes this (i.e. bones on blue, muscles on red; bones of the arm written in green, bones of the leg written in pink, etc.). Association is also key, whether it involves association with a personal experience or association with action or meaning as opposed to rote memorization (whenever possible). I have students break down words into prefixes, roots, and suffixes frequently as well.
I agree with every approach listed.. With my new students I recommend these same study techniques..
Good points on retention. When students can experience success they are more motivated to to continuoe their education.
David,
The more we instructors can help students to "connect the dots" between content and application the greater retention is going to be. Good point about how to do it.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
Retention is necessary for learning to occur. By involving students in discussion, integrate practical examples with theory and discuss pros and cons helps to improve retention of information.
for retention acronyms and acrostics work very well,some students make their own and share with their group.
I try to repeat instructions on assignments often and in various ways.
I also advise the students to say it over and over atleast three times if they are remebering steps or more than one item at a time . I often say it with them without looking at the notes for further retention .
Gena, I too do the suggestion that you have mentioned. I also try to get the students to use pictures with definitions and play the matching game or concentration game in a group.
