Helping our Students Remember Class Material

Puzzled why students cannot remember the steps necessary to complete a task?

Insight can be found in an article by Daniel T. Willingham where he discusses the issue from a cognitive psychology point of view. The article is full of ideas, examples, and suggestions on how we, as community learning instructors, can help our students.

The author’s position is that to remember something, one must have a memory of it. Further, he suggests there are three principles of memory. Helping the student develop those memories is the thrust of the following.

1. Memories are formed as the residue of thought. Help the students think about the class by clearly drawing their attention to what is important.

2. Memories are inaccessible, mostly due to missing or ambiguous cues. Provide cues (mnemonics, images, associations, etc.) and use them in class to help students connect with the important elements.

3. People tend to think their learning is more complete than it really is. Students can confuse familiar with the material for actually knowing it (italics added). Encourage the over- studying of important parts.