I recently finished reading Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer. This book recounts the author’s year long quest to improve his memory by participating in the USA Memory Championship. The journey is fascinating and includes disclosure of the strategies that champions use to remember huge amounts of information. The most common is often referred to as the Memory Palace technique. In this technique, a person uses a familiar room or rooms in a building and journeys through the space, linking key facts to locations in the room.
We decided to teach students how to use this technique to process and retain information from their science text. We had students begin by drawing an outline of their bedrooms. As we read through each paragraph, we stopped and discussed key points, and then directed them to place the information somewhere in their room, using words and drawings.
The following day we asked students to recreate their bedroom drawing, recalling as many features of it as possible. Their recall was impressive!
How do you use visual representations to assist students in understanding and remembering their new concepts?
We decided to teach students how to use this technique to process and retain information from their science text. We had students begin by drawing an outline of their bedrooms. As we read through each paragraph, we stopped and discussed key points, and then directed them to place the information somewhere in their room, using words and drawings.
The following day we asked students to recreate their bedroom drawing, recalling as many features of it as possible. Their recall was impressive!
How do you use visual representations to assist students in understanding and remembering their new concepts?
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