Learner Memos
By Doug Buehl
Scribblings on a notepad next to the telephone. Lists stuck to the
refrigerator door beneath colorful kitchen magnets. Appointments jotted
onto the monthly calendar or entered into a digital planner. Sticky
notes affixed to a document or article. Stray scraps of paper, harboring
snippets of information – addresses, phone numbers, errands to
be accomplished, items to be purchased. In a variety of ways, we have
all developed routines, from the mundane to the latest technology, to
remind ourselves.
We all know how flickering a thought, an idea, a recollection, an
insight can be. We are driving along a busy street, we are in the midst
of teaching a lesson, we are drifting off to sleep, and something we
need to remember suddenly darts into our consciousness. And then, of
course, we invariably lose it – unless we have a system for tracking
these fleeting but important mental “flashes.” For most
of us, this means writing things down.
Reminders – much of our learning is predicated on our ability
to remind ourselves of new ideas and recently encountered information
so that we can return to it, again and again, to think it through, to
continue to develop our understanding, to gradually integrate it into
our accumulated wisdom of how the world works. Otherwise, much of what
we encounter during reading, during listening, during interacting, is
quickly forgotten. We need reminders to eventually build memories.
Yet in our classrooms, students generally rely on us, the teachers,
to be their reminders. Strategies that prompt students to experiment
with their own systems of reminders – reminders to themselves
– need to be integrated daily into classroom activities. Students
need to develop the habit of writing memos about their learning to themselves.
The strategy
Memos, of course, can assume a variety of forms, from highly detailed
documents of several pages to brief snatches of words on a phone message
pad. Helping students personalize creating memos for themselves as learning
tools will mean that students become increasingly comfortable with a
range of methods that can serve as reminders of what they need to remember.
Step 1: Initiate discussions with students about how their memories
work. David Sousa (2001), in his synthesis of brain research, recommends
the term “working memory” for understanding how the brain
operates in learning contexts. Sousa relates that the model of memory
that consists of only short-term and long-term retention is missing
a middle category – working memory. (See Model of Memory below.)
Sousa refers to short-term retention as immediate memory. This is
what we pay attention to as we read and listen, and this memory overloads
quickly. Research confirms that we can hold at any one point about seven
items, give or take a couple. Then as new information comes in, these
items began to drop out. Most thoughts remain in immediate memory for
a few seconds or perhaps a minute or two. As a result, we remember only
a smattering of things from a reading or listening experience.
Long-term memory contains what we retain over months and years. This
memory represents our background knowledge, referred to by researchers
as schema. Learning that is stored in long-term memory is accessible
long after classroom instruction, and an individual can return to it
time and again to add to it, revise it, and continue to think about
it.
Sousa’s in-between category is termed working memory. Working
memory contains items that are wired into a unit of study, for example,
but they tend to leak away once the instruction is over. These ideas
and information are not remembered months or years later; they are forgotten
once instruction has proceeded on to new topics.
Discuss with students the implications of this brain research:
- Paying attention is necessary to learning, but what we pay attention
to is usually forgotten almost immediately unless we do something
to remind ourselves of these ideas and information.
- Understanding is necessary to learning, but we promptly forget many
things that we have understood as we read and listen.
- Reminders help us hold ideas and information in working memory so
we can think about them over several days, allowing us to process
deeply enough to store key items into long-term memory.
- Many of the ideas and information held in working memory are gradually
forgotten after lessons have been completed and assessments on the
material have been successfully taken.
Sousa argues that much (perhaps most) of our curriculum never gets
beyond working memory. Students do not learn new material so much as
“warehouse” it for a period of time, but then lose it as
new material takes center stage.
Step 2: Establish with students that reminders are key to holding
ideas and information in working memory. A reminder brings back items
that a learner paid attention to while reading or listening. Students
should be aware that there are two types of reminders: classroom redundancy
and self-reminders.
Classroom redundancy are reminders that surround students during instruction;
they are reminders provided to students by others. Teachers are a primary
source of classroom redundancy. Teachers state ideas and information
multiple times during learning episodes. When teachers review key ideas,
they are presenting reminders. Textbooks and other reading materials
also contribute to classroom redundancy; ideas and information surface
again and again in materials over a unit. Instructional activities and
assignments also serve as reminders, as do classmates and class discussions.
Videos, classroom displays, items written on the chalkboard –
all remind students of the important content. As students read and hear
ideas and information that are repeated over several days, they think:
“I remember that.” But their memories – working memory
– are prompted each time by someone else, a teacher, an author,
a classmate.
In contrast, self-reminders are created by learners themselves. Students
rely on themselves to remember key ideas and information. Self-reminders
are more powerful because students are processing the learning themselves,
and they are taking responsibility for tracking their own thinking.
Self-reminders are more likely to transition ideas and information into
long-term memory.
Step 3: Introduce the concept of learner memos as an array of
methods for students to remind themselves of material they are learning.
Learner memos are notes students make to themselves, to help them keep
new material in working memory so they can return to it, over time,
to practice, use, and refine their understandings. Examples of learner
memos include:
- Sticky notes fastened to text pages. These compact little memos
can inventory key ideas and information that is being read. After
finishing a chapter or passage, these notes can be removed and rearranged
on notebook paper as part of a notes section that can be consulted
again and again in the future.
- Learning logs kept in a class notebook. These entries can be statements
of personal understandings of key ideas and information. Sousa calls
these individual paraphrases of learning “cloture,” because
students experiment with expressing their understandings in their
own words.
- Marginal annotations and highlighting or underlining. On texts that
can be marked, students can be taught to select key ideas and information,
and jot notes, thoughts, questions, and comments in the margins to
remind themselves of what they deemed most important to remember in
a reading.
- Text coding. Students use of variety of text codes to signify their
thinking about their reading. Codes such as R (this reminds me of
something I already know), * (this is a key idea), or Q (this is something
I am wondering about) remind students of their thinking while learning.
- Notetaking systems. Systems like two column notes or double-entry
diaries are typical and essential ways learners remind themselves
of new ideas and information. Students need to conceptualize notetaking
as creating elaborate memos to themselves about new material. Not
all material included in notes is likely (or worthy) of storage in
long-term memory, but notes allow a person to return to ideas and
information over time to continue to guide our thinking about important
topics.
Advantages
Provide daily experiences for students to create variations of learner
memos as reminders of ideas and information that need to be revisited
to be learned.
- Students begin to assume personal responsibility for their learning
and to rely less on classroom redundancy for retaining ideas and information
in working memory.
- Students are more likely to truly learn key aspects of new material
if they generate their own self-reminders.
- Students develop habits characteristic of independent learners and
they fine-tune systems that can be adjusted to the demands of a variety
of content areas and tasks.
Further Resources:
Sousa, D. (2001). How the brain learns (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Corwin Press.
Doug Buehl, teacher, Madison East High School
Wisconsin State Reading Association.
Reading Room archives
Posted December 5, 2005