As we start the new term, and staff and students navigate the curriculum together, teachers are using cognitive science strategies to ensure that our students know more, remember more, and are able to do more.
This is not a new idea in education, but recent research has focused on how students learn and retain knowledge. This focus on memory is now a whole-school mission for us, with the aim of ensuring that all students, regardless of their background, are able to fulfil their potential.
Some of the key principles of cognitive science relate to the processes by which we all commit information to our memories. In particular:
- Learning requires information to be committed to long-term memory.
- Information is processed through the working memory.
- The working memory has limited capacity and can be overloaded.
Here’s an example of how the process might work in practice:
- A student hears a teacher explain multiplication tables, the vast majority of which is forgotten (due to background noise, the clothes that the teacher is wearing, what is on the wall behind the teacher).
- A fraction of the explanation enters the working memory (for example, 2 x 2 = 4).
- Through attention and rehearsal, the information moves from the working memory to the long-term memory.
Many of the strategies we’re using focus on the best ways of ensuring that the working memory is optimised to focus on learning relevant content rather than distractions. Other strategies are more focused on the process of retrieving information from the long-term memory.
If anyone would like to know more about the body of evidence supporting this fascinating subject, we’d recommend reading Cognitive Science Approaches in the Classroom
We are keen to share some ideas and strategies with you so you can support your child in their learning this year. To that end, here are a few links for you to explore:
Six Strategies for Effective Learning
Free resources from Inner Drive
What’s Next for Cognitive Science in Education
Cognitive Load Theory in Practice
– Dr Menezes – Deputy Head
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