Information Processing

When I think of using specific techniques to teach kids in middle school my immediate reaction is to ask what kind of kids are we talking about? What are their interests? Where do they come from? So much of the answer is determined by these question I hesitate to leave anything off the table, I think you have to connect every task or topic to their immediate surroundings. If they can see the effects of what you are teaching on their own lives it almost guarantees they will remember it and hence be able to put it into long term memory.
Combined with that Storytelling and the use of mnemonic aids are also great ways to improve the recall of students of history.

The main points I can immediately recall from the chapter involve the memory process, Information is stored short term into the sensory, it is then either stored when attached to another stimulus or it is disposed of... if processed it moves to short term memory where it is either attached to another stimuli and eventually moved to long term memory or is eventually lost.

In my own life I can honestly say I'm a sucker for a great story, if a teacher could ever tell a great story and keep my interest I not only enjoyed it but I also retained the information. I also remember teachers who used mnemonic devices to spur recall, I still remember some of those and use them regularly. I would never be able to remember musical scales without them.

Again this blog is giving me a great place to take notes and store the information we are learning, it will be even more useful in the future when I am actually looking back and trying to find ideas for class.

My edu blog, well he's a little done right now. It's apparently the end of the unit exam time and this is what the did this week.

• 1,560 short answer test questions which included a lot of detailed math problems
• 585 pages of lab reports (130 reports which had on the average 4.5 pages)
  

This is not to mention it's parent/teacher conference week for him. Good lord, the title for this week was : Definitely not an 8-5 job. Guess not