Module 4: IP and LTM Retrieval

Memory is a very fascinating aspect of the human brain, and the more I have learned about it in this course, the more amazing and intricate it seems.  Foer’s (2001) article was incredibly interesting, as I had never heard of building memory palaces in order to remember strings of numbers or decks of cards.  I saw many connections with what he had to say with William James.  First, Foer said that “Attention, of course, is a prerequisite to memory,” an idea which James (1899/1962) posited.  Foer brought in the notion of how his memory palaces cause a deliberate sense of mindfulness, or what I think James would call voluntary attention.  Nevertheless, Foer and the other memory competitors’ tactics are mnemonic devices, which James thought “is clearly an excessively poor, trivial, and silly way of ‘thinking’ about dates (p. 63).  James would much prefer us to make meaningful connections and associations so that the memories last.  King-Friedrichs (2001) would also agree, as she cites scientific evidence that “when students are emotionally engaged with learning, certain neurotransmitters in the brain signal to the hippocampus, a vital brain structure involved with memory, to stamp this even with extra vividness (Cahill, 2000)” (p. 76).  As we saw from the memory videos this week, the hippocampus is an integral part of memory, so the fact that emotional engagement stimulates it means that the memory has a better chance of sticking.

Another interesting passage from James (1899/1962) that I was reminded of this week is his discussion of children learning the temperature of the Earth.  A visiting guest asked the class what they would find—hot or cold—if they dug into the Earth.  No one was able to answer, until the teacher asked “’In what condition is the interior of the globe?’ and received the immediate answer from half the class at once: ‘The interior of the globe is in a condition of igneous fusion’” (James, 1899/1962, p. 74).  The simple memorization of facts and phrases does nothing for us if we do not understand what it is that we are memorizing.  I think this shows that while memory is an enormous factor in the process of learning, it is not all there is; some sense of understanding is necessary so that we can transfer our learning to any situation, not simply one where the question is phrased in the correct way.

Another interesting article this week was that of Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006), that included their ideas on the ineffectiveness of constructivism.  Rather than comment on the entire article, I would like to point out some interesting connections I found.  First, Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark, in order to show that minimal guidance is not appropriate, stated that learners having “complete information will result in a more accurate representation that is also more easily acquired” (p. 78).  This may be true for later, once they have learned the material, but Marsh and Butler (in press) pointed out that while in the process of learning, it is actually beneficial to have “desirable difficulties,” which means that “instead of arranging the conditions of learning to be easier and faster for the learner, educators should introduce difficulties into the learning process in order to promote long-term retention of knowledge” (p. 5).  By this logic, constructivism could be an efficient tool for learning, as it is not always desirable to make learning as guided and easy as possible.

Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) point out that a constructivist view leads to the “rejection of instruction based on the facts, laws, principles, and theories that make up a discipline’s content accompanied by the use of discovery and inquiry methods of instruction” (p. 78).  This reminded me of something Skinner (1984) had said in The Shame of American Education.  He discusses how students

can discover only a very small part of the world. Mathematics has been discovered very slowly and painfully over thousands of years. Students discover it as they go through a program, but not in the sense of doing something for the first time in history. Trying to teach mathematics or science as if the students themselves were discovering things for the first time is not an efficient way of teaching the very skills with which, in the long run, a student may, with luck, actually make a genuine discovery. (Skinner, 1984, p. 951). 

There is so much that has been discovered by humans throughout our history that we have documented and preserved.  It seems inefficient and even wasteful to ignore the knowledge base that humans have built for thousands of years, which is now easily accessible through the internet, so that students can “discover” it all over again.  Constructivist teaching methods and minimally guided instruction can be beneficial in some instances, to gain attention or help reinforce learning (think back to Duckworth (1996) and her successful chemistry experiment with children), but it seems that some things should be taught to children directly, so that you can spend time helping them make relevant and meaningful connections, rather than forcing them to waste time and effort rediscovering it altogether. 

References:

Duckworth, E. (1996). "The Having of Wonderful Ideas" and Other Essays on Teaching and Learning.

Foer, J. (2011, February). Secrets of a mind-gamer: How I trained my brain and became a world-class memory athlete. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/20/magazine/mind-secrets.html?hp.

Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41, 75-86.

King-Friedrichs, J. (2001). Brain-friendly techniques for improving memory. Educational Leadership, 59(3), 76-69.

Marsh, E. J., & Butler, A. C. (in press). Memory in educational settings. In D. Reisberg (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of cognitive psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Skinner, B. F. (1984). The shame of American education. American Psychologist, 42, 947-954.