The way an instructor presents material has a great influence
on student retention of what is being taught. Trauma is proven
to be the absolute best way to fix memory. You will never forget
where you were during a tornado or an earthquake. This storage
is subject to overload when too much material is fed into the
memory bank without the shock of an associated trauma. Some presentations
of stalls are made memorable. However, the recovery lesson loses
something in the memory bank. Over powered by the trauma of the
stall the instructional input of the recovery dissipates and is
erased even from the short term memory.
Only significant information gets admitted into the short-term
memory. The retention is only brief as significance is weighed,
discarded, or entered into long term memory. Only the important
is processed again and again into the long term memory until it
is 'learned' forever.
An instructor must tailor both the material and the presentation
to the student. The first presentation will only be in short term
memory unless the instructor can tie to the material a tag of
sorts. I use a story or event to relate what is being taught.
The story will act as a memory trigger for the student just as
it does for me. The story aids the teacher's memory in making
reuse of the original material and aids the student in his recall.
The difficulty of this is that stories, especially mine, take
time. It is necessary that material be re-presented in a new situation
and in a different manner to provide additional associative tags
for the student memory bank. Only through repetition can the ability
to recall information function on demand. The more meaningful
the material to the needs of the student, the more likely it is
to be tagged in some way by the student's memory. All memory needs
a trigger, a word, a sound, a smell or a view. The more a student
participates in the learning situation the more senses are called
into play as memory tags.
Written by Gene Whitt
