Ritisha Saxena- Week 14- How does Memory and Language Shape Education?
Have you ever wondered why certain words or lessons are easier to remember than others or why some lessons may be stuck in your head while others disappear as soon as you hear them? The relationship between both language and memory is vital in how we are able to learn and process information. This is especially highlighted in classes that teach a new language or recall historical events. The way we process information and store it is closely connected to how we use and process languages.
Language isn’t just tied to communication it also shapes our thinking process and speed. Studies have shown that bilingual individuals have much stronger memories since switching between languages usually enhances your brain’s flexibility. And in turn this makes it easier for them to memorize/remember things.
Techniques teachers use help us process information more effectively such as associating a specific word with an event like mnemonic. Also techniques like repetition, active recall and spaced learning have scientifically been proven to enhance memory and make learning much more effective. This is the reason why some things stay in your head; because you’ve associated them with something that is easy to remember.
My favorite way to memorize and study for tests is in fact by using mnemonics! I’ve found that they help me quickly memorize an abundant amount of information and it’s very easy to recall the next day! I use this technique often for our vocabulary tests! If we all started using these techniques to study it would benefit us immensely not just now with our grades but also long-term, so that even when we get old our memory will be good!
Hi Ritisha! I love your blog, it was so informative! I also often use mnemonic for studying although I never knew there was a name for it. I am also a big fan of active recall and repetition. I would do sets of flashcards for big tests and break them down into smaller parts so I can study a little bit everyday. It is a bit hard for me to keep the discipline to want to study something everyday, but it is so much easier than doing it all in one night. The pomodoro technique is also a popular and effective method for studying although it does not really suit me. One really useful way I found out for studying for our vocabulary quizzes specially is to make a scenario for each vocabulary word and make each one distinctable to better remember the difference between each vocabulary word.
ReplyDeleteHi Ritisha! I completely relate to being able to memorize only a select few lessons and forgetting the rest. I never made the connection between language and memorization techniques, despite me struggling less to memorize definitions instead of formulas or scientific concepts. I definitely utilize repetition as a study technique through Anki Cards; that helped a lot when I had to memorize elements in the Periodic Table last year.
ReplyDeleteIt’s great that mnemonics work for you! I’ve personally had trouble coming up with my own and memorizing them; the only one I consistently use is King Henry Died Unusually Drinking Chocolate Milk for metric conversions. Other acronyms like PEMDAS or SOHCAHTOA have lodged themselves in my mind as just a series of letters.
ReplyDeleteHello Ritisha, I loved reading your blog about study techniques, specifically I would like to share a technique that I use to study. There was a book that I bought on memory and it has a lot of techniques, one of the especially weird ones was using a story to set up a plan for memorising things. But my favorite one was compression, like you can compress the entire periodic table into XAio219Woqsiosd5 and If you memorise how to decompress this string, you can slowly rediscover the original string. Yet the old tired and tested methods, as you stated was mnemonics; they are unequivocally the best method and the king of all memorization technqiues