Learn to Teach Teach to Learn

Chapter objectives

Introduction: May I have your attention?

Have you ever wondered why your students can remember the jingle to every ad on television but have no clue about the lesson you taught them yesterday? My own personal version is: why can I remember the telephone number of a classmate I last called when I was in Year 10, but currently have no notion where I’ve put my sunglasses? It’s all to do with how we remember (that is, learn) or, so very often, do not. Let’s start backwards, however, with forgetting, rather than remembering.

There are two main processes in the human memory system: storage/encoding and retrieval. When these fail, forgetting is the result. The meaning of these terms is pretty obvious; but broadly, storage refers to the retaining of information and retrieval to the location and reactivation of the remembered material. Both processes are very important for learning and thus of particular interest to teachers. Research into memory provides some clues about how to maximise children’s learning. And maybe it can also help you to stop forgetting where you left your phone.

Attention and memory

The first place that memory can let us down is at the point of transfer from WM to LTM. Remember that WM has a limited capacity and that information held in it decays rapidly unless something happens to transfer it to long-term memory LTM. Failure to pay attention at the key moment means that information may not even reach the WM, but if it does it will disappear without trace. This explains your repeated failure to remember where your phone is and it also explains why your students have no idea about the instructions or information that you just conveyed, or tried to convey: attention was elsewhere at the key moment.