John Dunlosky’s (2013) article, Strengthening the Student Toolbox, gives study strategies that may be beneficial for teachers to give to their students. Dunlosky found that the strategy, self-explanation, to be beneficial. If a student was to use self-explanation, then he or she would try to explain how new information connects with prior information, that he or she already has acquired (Dunlosky, 2013). This strategy allows a student to connect new information with prior knowledge and this connection will allow the student to remember the information better. This idea of having a student connect the new information with prior knowledge, makes the information more meaningful. Eggen and Kauchak define meaningfulness by stating, “The extent
The first suggestion Leamnson offers to progress learning is to make notes instead of “copying what’s on a chalkboard or being projected on a screen” (3). The essence of Leamnson’s argument is that instead of simply jotting down everything the
We have been taught all throughout our years of school that grades are important. True, grades are very important, but are they the only quality we should be focusing on as we enter college? Perhaps we should look past grades and focus on things such as the adaptation into the college life. Patrick Sullivan shares college education is more than just tests and intelligence. He also shares tips on how to prepare for this life-changing move into adulthood. In his article “Essential Habits of Mind for College Readiness”, Sullivan discusses specific qualities that are crucial in college years and beyond, such as curiosity, openness, creativity, accountability, humility, and character. I believe these qualities are what shape a college student, because
The way he emphasizes the difference between acquisition and learning, brings a whole new level to education. Using this knowledge, we can develop an education system that will help our youth stay on track and understand what they’re learning and why they’re learning it. This could be particularly helpful with elementary education, when the children are still developing what it means to learn. By redefining the education system, we’ll be able to help our children reach their real potential. If we understand how to teach, it will be a million times easier to connect with the children. We can help our next generation become properly educated about the world that they’re
Plutarch deduces, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” A vessel is often cluttered with useless items while a fire kindles and is truly fascinating as it slowly starts to grow. The mind is always being filled with unnecessary information every single day. The student has the opportunity to mold the mind into storing information that is considered useful. In the academic sense, students should be able to use this information and apply it when they are learning. Students should strive to learn for the purpose of expanding the mind. Every single thing taught in school should be applied in life. That is the only way that anyone can become successful.
For example, when students are just learning about an unfamiliar topic, they need to develop strategies that will help convert the information into something they can easily store and accurately refer to and access whenever they want (Miller, 2011). Since students have different ways of accomplishing these tasks, each strategy will be unique. How each student stores information is also related to their age, for example, common strategy used by 7 years olds are mnemonics, which is when they repeat information taught to them that helps improve their memory. By the time they reach adolescences, students are now able to store information by elaborating on to what they already know since they have more knowledge of the world (Snowman & McCown,
The only way students retain information correctly is when they understand the reason behind a
On one hand, the regurgitation approach to education teaches students to dismiss analytical skills. When students regurgitate information, they memorize and repeat it. The kinds of information that students regurgitate on tests are historical facts, such as dates, places, and events. What motivates students to memorize information on which they will be tested is fear; before students have to take tests, they study out of fear of failure. Through the process of repetitio...
...t being tested by on the material leading before the exam results in better memory. In this research the students that were tested on the prose passage retained the information longer than the students who reread the prose passage. It is also beneficial to explain the study material that has been learnt to a person who does know about it, as it allows one to explain the material in their own words and therefore reinforcing the information in a different form (Goldstein, 2011).
There are many areas for potential failure in the learner-centered classroom. Doyle states that student resistance is the biggest obstacle to overcome. The student often doesn’t understand the concept and is not receptive to it. The greatest way to deal with this potential failure is to explain the ‘why’ to the students. Students that understand why they are to do a task and understand how to apply it are more likely to overcome it.
According to Spigner-Littles and Anderson new information must be related to the learners “goal, experiences, previous knowledge, values, beliefs and socio-cultural factors where learners then construct their own schemas.
Providing the explicit information they need through instruction is practical because it takes into account cognitive load theory, the link between working memory and long-term memory. Studies observing students in a classroom discovered that “when students learn science in classrooms with pure-discovery methods and minimal feedback, they often become lost and frustrated, and their confusion can lead to misconceptions” due to the lack of instruction (Kirschner et al., 2006). On the other hand, studies involving strongly guided learning showed that students learn more deeply and their quality of education is improved when they are given instruction and feedback on their work. Instructed learning provides a superior quality and amount of learning because it decreases cognitive load, provides worked examples that show students how to solve a problem, and employs methods such as process worksheets which assists students in providing more accurate answers than students who rely on discovery learning (Kirscher et al.,
Mnemonic instruction refers to instructional or learning strategies designed specifically to improve memory. Mnemonics are useful for improving initial learning and long term recall. Well known mnemonics developers, Mastropieri and Scruggs (1991)explain that they provide a means of specifically helping both in the aspects of increased information recall, and in providing effective strategies which, when applied, help in retrieving the information (as cited in Sener & Belfiore, 2005). Mastropieri and Scruggs have done extensive work with mnemonics and highlight their particular use in developing improved ways of taking in (encoding) information so that recall (retrieval) from memory is easier. A mnemonic strategy works to relate new information
In final analysis there is a prodigious unorthodoxness among knowledge and information when it comes to learning. What cramming the night before an exam illustrates is you don’t understand the subject due to lack of knowledge. The divergence from knowledge to information is knowledge is rather a practical understanding of the subject or in another words a justified true belief. Knowledge can be looked upon with rational reasoning as it connects fragments of information together .Exemplifying why it creates a mental map. Per contra information is a set of facts that either could be false or true but is an existent without knowledge. Knowledge is understanding until proven incorrect, information is not.
Among many teaching styles and learning theories, there is one that is becoming more popular, the constructivist theory. The constructivist theory focuses on the way a person learns, a constructivist believes that the person will learn better when he/she is actively engaged. The person acts or views objects and events in their environment, in the process, this person then understands and learns from the object or events(P. Johnson, 2004). When we encounter a certain experience in our life, we think back to other things that have occurred in our life and use that to tackle this experience. In a lot of cases, we are creators of our own knowledge. In a classroom, the constructivist theory encourages more hands-on assignments or real-world situations, such as, experiments in science and math real-world problem solving. A constructivist teacher constantly checks up on the student, asking them to reflect what they are learning from this activity. The teacher should be keeping track on how they approached similar situations and help them build on that. The students can actually learning how to learn in a well-planned classroom. Many people look at this learning style as a spiral, the student is constantly learning from each new experience and their ideas become more complex and develop stronger abilities to integrate this information(P. Johnson, 2004). An example of a constructivist classroom would be, the student is in science class and everyone is asking questions, although the teacher knows the answer, instead of just giving it to them, she attempts to get the students to think through their knowledge and try to come up with a logical answer. A problem with this method of learning is that people believe that it is excusing the role of...
One of my favorite quotes from Stacey Green states, that if we don’t make learning relevant to our students, then they just learn the answer from the test and forget when it is done. (Vaques, Sneider and Comer page 2) When students learn because of memorization and are not engaged and interested in what is taught, the information becomes a victim of your short term memory, where as when it is