AN EFFORTLESS WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY

“A surprisingly potent technique can boost your short and long-term recall – and it appears to help everyone from students to Alzheimer’s patients.”

By: David Robson

Published: BBC, 12 February 2018, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180208-an-effortless-way-to-strengthen-your-memory

Level of Difficulty: **

BEFORE YOU READ

·         Spaced learning and interleaving to improve student learning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaGbzCWVv8

·         How to master spaced repetition and improve your memory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5PLO4XAXhs

QUESTIONS

1.       What conclusion can be drawn from the first paragraph? Where else could the answer be placed?

2.       What natural inclinations should be resisted during time-out? Why? The inclination to….because…

3.       What is the significance of the new discovery concerning time-out?

4.       What significant conclusion was reached as a result of Muller’s experiment?

5.       Where would you place the following clause: "proving that undisturbed rest benefitted recall across the board"?

6.       Where would you place the following clause: "which goes to show what little sense long class hours with no breaks makes"?

7.       What bonus to the already proven advantage of time-out did Della Sala discover?

8.       Where would you place the following: The reason may be that this is too similar to a structured activity and not a rest?

9.       Why is the view that consolidation occurs during sleep misleading? Because consolidation…

10.   What general conclusion can be drawn from all that has been said so far?

11.   What is the potential problem with trying to work down time into daily life?

12.   A. What warning does the writer offer us all?

B. Students would do well to take the above advice seriously because…

WRITING TASK

Write an essay in which you discuss the tactics students can use to improve their performance. One of these tactics, uninterrupted down-time, you have just read about. Here are some more: overlearning, interleaving and chocking. Complete your research and write an essay in which you bring everything together.

·         Overloading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uypvJsjZWkU&vl=en

·         Overloading, Chocking, Einstellung, Interleaving https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/lecture/1MpwV/overlearning-choking-einstellung-and-interleaving  

·         Interleaved learning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbDpYMp8F6o

AN EFFORTLESS WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY, KEY AND TEACHERS’ NOTES

This wonderful text gave me the opportunity to focus on learning strategies and some of the mistakes that are made while studying. I thought it would be a good idea to bring overloading , chocking and the like into the picture as well so although the writing task draws on the text, the students will need to do more research before they can write. Hopefully, they will find all that they learn useful.

1.       We should pace our studies; right at the beginning of paragraph one

2.       The inclination to run errands, check your emails or surf the web on your smartphones; because you really need to give your brain the chance for a complete recharge with no distractions

3.       It may also offer some relief for people with amnesia and some forms of dementia.

4.       Our memory for new information is especially fragile just after it has first been encoded.

5.       After “… with no neurological damage” right at the end of the paragraph beginning “The impact of the small intervention…”

6.       After 10 and 30%, at the end of the paragraph beginning “The next results…”

7.       Short periods of rest can improve spatial memories

8.       Before the last sentence in the paragraph beginning “Even then,…”

9.       Is not limited to sleep, similar neural activity occurs during periods of wakeful rest too

10.   The brain takes any potential down time to cement what it has recently learnt – and reducing extra stimulation at this time may ease that process.

11.   It may be difficult to schedule enough periods of rest to increase overall daily recall

12.   A. Our smartphones aren’t the only thing that needs a regular recharge. Our minds clearly do too.

B. The 10-30% improvements recorded in these studies could mark the difference between a grade or two.