Difficulty: Challenger (Level 2)
With exams coming soon, students will be thinking about how to learn better. Memory is a big part of learning. There are three main types of memory.
Sensory memory is where we quickly hold a lot of new information from our senses. This includes things we have just seen, heard, touched or tasted. If we focus on that information, it goes into our working memory. If we don’t pay attention to it, we forget it.
Working memory is like the brain’s main office. It helps us remember things, do maths, plan, solve problems and make choices. But if we have too much to think about, working memory can get too full. That’s why it’s important to store what we learn and know in long-term memory.
Long-term memory is our brain’s library. When new knowledge or skills are well practised, they are “encoded” from working memory and into long-term memory. Here, they are stored in vast networks called schemas.
To use that knowledge and those skills again, we retrieve those schemas back into working memory. The more we encode and retrieve knowledge and skills, the stronger those memory pathways become. Well-learned schemas can be retrieved automatically, which creates space in working memory for new thinking and learning.
Now that you understand how memory works, here are some tips to help your memory before exams.
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Create the conditions for attention. Put your electronic devices away and remove distractions. Remember, your attention is needed to bring information into working memory and keep it there. Loss of attention can result in poorer learning.
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Take breaks. Even a five-minute rest break can help you stay focused. Resting helps your brain store and strengthen new memories.
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Don’t cram. You remember things better and understand them more deeply when you space your study time out. Six half-hour sessions are better for learning than one three-hour block.
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Mix up your study. Practise different questions and activities so your brain is forced to compare concepts and methods.
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Don’t skip sleep. Sleep is crucial for the consolidation of memory and making new ideas stick.
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Give yourself enough time. Each time you practise drawing specific knowledge and skills from long-term memory into working memory, you are making a memory highway. The more you do this, the better and quicker you become.
This article was first published in The Conversation. It was written by Penny Van Bergen, head of School of Education and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wollongong.
