Memory

Today in class we begin the section on Memory.  I usually use this as an opportunity to have my students learn about how to better encode information (i.e., help with studying).  However, I realized last semester that saving this until midway through the semester is not effective.  So, we are trying it at the beginning.

At home, I asked my students to watch the very first video in a wonderful series by Dr. Stephen Chew at Sanford University.  The series is titled "How to get the most out of studying" and Dr. Chew goes through several key concepts involved in metacognition and also how to apply principles of deep processing to studying.

In-class, we will be doing the following (and the time I hope to allot to each one).

1. Finish up research methods "Bringing It All Together" hand-out. (15-20 minutes)
2. Reviewing the main ideas from the video (10 minutes)
3. Demo of how deep processing is the most important thing about studying (15-20 minutes)
4. Videos 2 (starting at 3:08), Video 3, and Video 4 (starting at 1:05) - total of 20 minutes
5. Have students review their study habits questionnaire they filled out at home and then make a concrete study plan - I am going to ask them to explain one new study habit they would like to adopt and why they think it will work. (10 minutes)
6. Collect study habit questionnaires.  

On Day 2 of our memory section, I will review basic memory concepts with students and, at the end of class, ask them to explain one study habit they would like to replace: what is the old habit? What is the new habit? Why will this change help them be successful?

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Class went ok.  They are eating me up like a pack of wolves over the use of PsychPortal.  Remind me not try new things in the Spring semester anymore.  I need time to really review them and understand how they work.

Also, the internet quit working.  WHAT?!?!?! Yeah I had planned to show all those videos and only was able in 2/4 sections yesterday.  So I had to teach it from memory.  That'll teach me to be better prepared.

Tomorrow, I am going to start out by giving my students some practice problems like what they will see on the exam.  I can't believe they have an exam in 2 weeks already.  It's just a short, 8-question quiz, over Chapter 1.  We will see how they do.  I was reading over my last semester student evaluations yesterday and overall students felt they really struggled to understand what would be on the tests.  I'm hoping this will help.

After that review, which I'm sure will take more than the 10 minutes I'm expecting it to, I want to provide my students with an outline for the day's concepts and ask them to recall as much as they can.  Here's a screen shot of the outline:

After I give them some time to work on that, we will go over individual parts of it.

**** How It Went:  Wonderfully! We had just enough time to review the quiz and have me teach the memory outline.