This post is the second part in a four-part series on how education delivery is changing, and the set of literacies required in today’s world. Part 1 looked at the changing world of textbooks. This post looks at the oral equivalent of textbooks: direct instruction or lecturing.
Articles
Humans are the animals that manipulate their cognitive environment.
"I'm terrible at remembering names"
"I'm great with names, but I'm hopeless at remembering what I've read."
"I always remember what people tell me about themselves, but I'm always forgetting birthdays and anniversaries."
There is no such thing as a poor memory!
There will be memory domains that you are less skilled at dealing with.
Information comes in different packages
Think about the different types of information you have stored in your memory:
As we all know, we are living in a time of great changes in education and (in its broadest sense) information technology. In order to swim in these new seas, we and our children need to master new forms of literacy. In this and the next three posts, I want to explore some of the concepts, applications, and experiments that bear on this.
In the mid-seventies, Raugh and Atkinson had remarkable results using the keyword method to teach Russian vocabulary to college students. While later studies have not tended to find such dramatic results, nevertheless, a large number of studies have demonstrated an advantage in using the keyword mnemonic to learn vocabulary.
Some researchers have become huge fans of the strategy. Others have suggested a number of limitations. Let’s look at these.
There have been quite a few studies looking into the possible benefits of omega-3 fatty acids and fish (a good source of the oils), particularly for older adults. Several large studies have found that regular intake of oily fish is associated with lower rates of dementia, and some evidence that eating fish regularly slows the rate of 'normal' age-related cognitive decline.
What is it?
Frontotemporal dementia is a disorder of the frontal lobes and includes what was known as primary progressive aphasia. Although it occurs far less often than Alzheimer's disease, among dementia sufferers younger than 65 it is estimated to occur at about the same rate. In other words, frontotemporal dementia is, unlike the most common dementias, not a disorder of age. Most sufferers become symptomatic in their 50s and 60s.
Human memory is a complex and varied phenomenon, and we could delve into its mysteries every day for a hundred years and still have plenty to talk about. But if I had to pick one factor that was absolutely crucial to the operation of memory, I would pick the deceptively simple concept of similarity. Similarity.
We all think we know what that means. An orange is similar to a mandarin; a zebra is similar to a horse; a cup is similar to a glass; my son is similar to his brother. A car is similar to an elephant.
??
In 2002, a British study scanned the brains of ten "superior memorizers" — eight leading contenders in the World Memory Championships, and two individuals previously studied for their extraordinary memory accomplishments — all people that had demonstrated truly impressive feats of memory, in terms of the ability to quickly memorize hundreds of numbers or unrelated words. The ten "memory champions" were matched with ten controls, who had no memory capabilities out of the ordinary.
Some personal experience
I have two sons. One of them was a colicky baby. Night after night my partner would carry him around the room while I tried to get a little sleep. One night, for his own amusement, my partner chose a particular CD to play. Magic! As the haunting notes of the hymns of the 12th century abbess Hildegard of Bingen rang through the room, the baby stopped crying. And stayed stopped. As long as the music played. Experimentation revealed that our son particularly liked very early music (plainchant from the 15th century Josquin des Pres was another favorite).