{"id":6092,"date":"2021-03-23T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=6092"},"modified":"2021-03-22T20:21:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T01:21:31","slug":"what-and-why-should-students-memorize-confidence-and-fluency-for-the-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/what-and-why-should-students-memorize-confidence-and-fluency-for-the-win\/","title":{"rendered":"What (and Why) Should Students Memorize? Confidence and Fluency for the Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our profession,\u00a0memorization<\/em> has gotten a bad name.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The word conjures up alarming images: Dickensian brutes wielding rulers, insisting on “facts, facts, facts!”<\/p>\n

In a world when students “can look up anything on the interwebs,” why do we ask students to memorize at all?<\/p>\n

One<\/strong> answer from cognitive science: we think better with information we know well<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even when we can find information on the internet, we don’t use that information very effectively. (Why? Working memory limitations<\/em> muddle our processing of external information.)<\/p>\n

A second<\/strong> answer appears in intriguing recent research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reasonable Plans, Unstated Assumptions<\/h2>\n

As a classroom teacher, I might operate on this reasonable plan:<\/p>\n

Step one<\/em>: we discuss ideas and information in class.<\/p>\n

Step two<\/em>: students write down the important parts.<\/p>\n

And, step three<\/em>: when students need that information later, they look at their notes.<\/p>\n

This plan — the core of most high school classes I know — relies on unstated assumptions:<\/p>\n

Assumption one<\/em>: students’ notes are largely correct.<\/p>\n

Assumption two<\/em>: if students write down information INcorrectly, they’ll recognize that mistake. After all, we discussed the correct information in class.<\/p>\n

But what if that second assumption isn’t true?<\/p>\n

What if students trust external<\/em> information (their notes) more than internal<\/em> information (their memories)?<\/p>\n

Assumptions Thwarted<\/h2>\n

In 2019, Risko, Kelly, & Gaspar studied one version of this question.<\/p>\n

They had students listen to word lists, and type them into a storable file. After distraction, students got to review their lists. They then were tested on those words.<\/p>\n

On the final list, however, these scholars did a sneaky thing: they\u00a0added<\/em> a word to the stored list. Sure enough, 100% of their students<\/em> wrote down the additional word, even though it hadn’t in fact been on the initial word list.<\/p>\n

Students trusted their written document (external “memory”) more than their own actual memory. When tested even later, students\u00a0still<\/em> included the additional word, even though it wasn’t a part of their initial learning.<\/p>\n

In other words: the “reasonable plan” that teachers often rely on includes an assumption that — at least in this research — isn’t true.<\/p>\n

Ugh.<\/p>\n

Classroom Implications<\/h2>\n

This research, I think, reminds us that the right kind of memorization<\/em> has great value for students.<\/p>\n

We want students to know certain bedrock facts and processes<\/strong> with absolute certainty<\/em>. We want them, for instance, to define key terms and ideas fluently. Crucially, we want them to reject — with confidence borne of certain knowledge — inaccurate claims.<\/p>\n

For instance:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I just completed a unit on tragedy. My sophomores read August Wilson’s\u00a0Fences<\/em> and Shakespeare’s\u00a0Macbeth<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the very first day of the term, I went over a four-part definition of “tragedy.” (It’s a quirky definition, I admit, but it works really well.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We reviewed that definition almost daily, increasingly relying on retrieval practice. For instance, I might give them this handout to fill in. Or we might do that work together on the board.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over time, I started including\u00a0inaccurate<\/em> prompts in my questions: “So, tragedy ends in death or marriage<\/em>, right?”<\/p>\n

By this point, my students knew the definition so well that they confidently rejected my falsehoods: “No, you’re trying to trick us! Tragedy ends in death or\u00a0banishment<\/em>!”<\/p>\n

For an even trickier approach, I encouraged students to correct one another’s (non-existent) mistakes:<\/p>\n

Me: “T: what does comedy represent, and why?”<\/p>\n

T: “The marriage (and implied birth) at the end of a comedy implies the continuity of society, and in that way contrasts tragedy’s death and banishment, which represent the end of society.”<\/p>\n

Me: “M: what did T get wrong.”<\/p>\n

M [confidently]: “Nothing. That was exactly right.”<\/p>\n

Me [faking exasperation]: “S, help me out here. What did T and M miss?”<\/p>\n

S [not fooled]: “Nothing. I agree with them both.”<\/p>\n

Me: “Congrats to T for getting the answer just right. And congrats to M and S for not letting me fool you. It’s GREAT that you’re all so confident about this complex idea.”<\/p>\n

Because these students knew this complex definition cold — because they had memorized it<\/em> — they could stand firm when questioned skeptically. As a result, they did a great job when asked to apply that definition at the end of the term:<\/p>\n

“How does Wilson’s\u00a0Fences<\/em> fit the definition of tragedy<\/em> AND of comedy<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

To Sum Up<\/h2>\n

Despite all the bad press, the right kind of memorization can enhance learning.<\/p>\n

When students know foundational information and processes by heart, they<\/p>\n

BOTH process questions more fluently<\/p>\n

AND resist misleading information from “external memory” sources.<\/p>\n

Greater cognitive fluency + greater confidence in their knowledge = enduring learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our profession,\u00a0memorization has gotten a bad name. The word conjures up alarming images: Dickensian brutes wielding rulers, insisting on “facts, facts, facts!” In a world when students “can look up anything on the interwebs,” why do we ask students to memorize at all? One answer from cognitive science: we think better with information we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,23],"class_list":["post-6092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-long-term-memory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6092"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6101,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092\/revisions\/6101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}