Understanding our memory
By Melissa Pfeffer
EDI 600 Psychological Foundation of Education
School of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March 18, 2009
Today’s class really kept my attention from beginning to end. The multitude of tasks we were able to accomplish in the short duration of one hour and fifty minutes was inspiring. At first we did a five minute lesson on learning Chinese. Even learning a few words of Chinese was a great experience for me because I work with a company where the majority of the people are based out of Hong Kong. Since I get so much exposure to the language I found it a fun exercise to get a little insight into what people are saying everyday. I mentioned the lesson to someone at my job and they were excited and curious to know about it. This task focused on how the brain and memory stores pieces of information. During the quiz part of this activity I found it curious that I had a harder time writing the Chinese equivalent of the English phrase than I had writing the English equivalent of the Chinese phrase (where I had a perfect score).
In the mornings I tend to become absent minded as I get in a total rush when I am getting ready to go to work. There have even been a few occasions when I had to quickly return back to my house to get a wallet or a phone that I left behind. However, this class made me see that I am not as absent minded as I thought. The memory registry typically takes 20 seconds to process. The problem is that in the mornings my mind is running so rampant that it holds these 7 bits of information for 20 seconds but I do not give my mind a chance to process what I am doing
I feel that this class did help me to understand why sometimes children as well as adults can forget things. Many times both teachers and adults criticize a child for being lazy or not paying attention because they do not remember something. However, it can be that the sensory registry is just not processing it as well in short term memory. We also broke up into groups to try to think of ways to teach a child a lesson in a fun and creative way which would encourage them to remember something. I liked the different ways the teacher used skits, songs, and rhymes to get a child to retain information.
For instance, the story of the butterfly lesson was very effective in how it used the song with a book the hungry caterpillar. The only problem I had was the fact they wanted nursery school children to keep a journal. From my personal experience I have seen 1st grade children have a hard time writing full sentences. This is why I have to ask the question: how exactly would it be possible for a nursery school child to change this fact? In my opinion I think the children should keep a picture journal detailing the process of how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.
Overall today’s class was a good learning experience as it allowed me to internalize new techniques to help me as a teacher when I teach a child to retain the knowledge I give to them.
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March 18, 2009
Today’s class really kept my attention from beginning to end. The multitude of tasks we were able to accomplish in the short duration of one hour and fifty minutes was inspiring. At first we did a five minute lesson on learning Chinese. Even learning a few words of Chinese was a great experience for me because I work with a company where the majority of the people are based out of Hong Kong. Since I get so much exposure to the language I found it a fun exercise to get a little insight into what people are saying everyday. I mentioned the lesson to someone at my job and they were excited and curious to know about it. This task focused on how the brain and memory stores pieces of information. During the quiz part of this activity I found it curious that I had a harder time writing the Chinese equivalent of the English phrase than I had writing the English equivalent of the Chinese phrase (where I had a perfect score).
In the mornings I tend to become absent minded as I get in a total rush when I am getting ready to go to work. There have even been a few occasions when I had to quickly return back to my house to get a wallet or a phone that I left behind. However, this class made me see that I am not as absent minded as I thought. The memory registry typically takes 20 seconds to process. The problem is that in the mornings my mind is running so rampant that it holds these 7 bits of information for 20 seconds but I do not give my mind a chance to process what I am doing
I feel that this class did help me to understand why sometimes children as well as adults can forget things. Many times both teachers and adults criticize a child for being lazy or not paying attention because they do not remember something. However, it can be that the sensory registry is just not processing it as well in short term memory. We also broke up into groups to try to think of ways to teach a child a lesson in a fun and creative way which would encourage them to remember something. I liked the different ways the teacher used skits, songs, and rhymes to get a child to retain information.
For instance, the story of the butterfly lesson was very effective in how it used the song with a book the hungry caterpillar. The only problem I had was the fact they wanted nursery school children to keep a journal. From my personal experience I have seen 1st grade children have a hard time writing full sentences. This is why I have to ask the question: how exactly would it be possible for a nursery school child to change this fact? In my opinion I think the children should keep a picture journal detailing the process of how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.
Overall today’s class was a good learning experience as it allowed me to internalize new techniques to help me as a teacher when I teach a child to retain the knowledge I give to them.
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