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4.5 Remembering Course Materials - Coggle Diagram

- - - - “I need to remember Richard’s name” creates stronger links than just wishing you had a better memory for names.
    - - Ask yourself, “Why is it important that I remember this material?”—and answer it.
    - - especially the key themes of the course, and you will recall the data more easily. Ask yourself how this is related to other information you have. Look for ways to tie items together. Are they used in similar ways? Do they have similar meanings? Do they sound alike?
    - - By doing this, you are creating links, for example, among terms to be memorized. For example, if you have to memorize a vocabulary list for a Spanish class, group the nouns together with other nouns, verbs with verbs, and so forth. Or your groupings might be sentences using the vocabulary words.
    - - Picture the concept vividly in your mind. Make those images big, bold, and colorful—even silly! Pile concepts on top of each other or around each other; exaggerate their features like a caricature; let your imagination run wild. Humor and crazy imagery can help you recall key concepts.
    - - Studies have generally shown that we retain only 5 percent of what we hear, 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we learn from multimedia, and 30 percent of what is demonstrated to us, but we do retain 50 percent of what we discuss, 75 percent of what we practice by doing, and 90 percent of what we teach others or use immediately in a relevant activity. Review your notes, participate in class, and study with others.
    - - Memorizing the ten-digit number “3141592654” seems difficult, but breaking it down into two sets of three digits and one of four digits, like a phone number—(314) 159-2654—now makes it easier to remember. (Pat yourself on the back if you recognized that series of digits: with a decimal point after the three, that’s the value of pi to ten digits. Remember your last math class?)
    - - People usually learn best when they get the big picture first, and then look at the details.
    - - Every time you have to “reboot” your short-term memory, you risk losing data points. Multitasking—listening to music or chatting on Facebook while you study—will play havoc with your ability to memorize because you will need to reboot your short-term memory each time you switch mental tasks.
    - - Hear the information; read the information; say it (yes, out loud), and say it again. The more you use or repeat the information, the stronger the links to it. The more senses you use to process the information, the stronger the memorization. Write information on index cards to make flash cards and use downtime (when waiting for the subway or during a break between classes) to review key information.
    - - Test your memory often. Try to write down everything you know about a specific subject, from memory. Then go back and check your notes and textbook to see how you did. Practicing retrieval in this way helps ensure long-term learning of facts and concepts.
    - - There is often a strong connection between information and the place where you first received that information. Associate information to learning locations for stronger memory links. Picture where you were sitting in the lecture hall as you repeat the facts in your mind.
- - - - Acronyms work best when your list of letters includes vowels as well as consonants and when the order of the terms is not important.
      - If no vowels are available, or if the list should be learned in a particular order, try using an acrostic instead.
    - - But rather than using them to form a word, the letters are represented by entire words in a sentence or phrase.
      - To create an acrostic, list the first letters of the terms to be memorized in the order in which you want to learn them (like the planet names).
      - Then create a sentence or phrase using words that start with those letters.
    - - To start, keep your rhymes short and simple.
      - Define the key information you want to remember and break it down into a series of short phrases.
      - Look at the last words of the phrases: can you rhyme any of them? If they don’t rhyme, can you substitute or add a word to create the rhyme? (For example, in the Columbus rhyme, “ninety-two” does not rhyme with “ocean,” but adding the word “blue” completes the rhyme and creates the mnemonic.)
    - - Jingles are commonly used by advertisers to get you to remember their product or product features.
      - Anytime you add rhythm to the terms you want to memorize, you are activating your auditory sense, and the more senses you use for memorization, the stronger the links to the data you are creating in your mind.
      - To create a jingle for your data, start with a familiar tune and try to create alternate lyrics using the terms you want to memorize.
      - Another approach you may want to try is reading your data aloud in a hip-hop or rap music style.
      - Mnemonics are good memory aids, but they aren’t perfect. They take a lot of effort to develop, and they also take terms out of context because they don’t focus on the meaning of the words.
      - Since they lack meaning, they can also be easily forgotten later on, although you may remember them through the course.