We will be discussing Memory in the next few weeks. This blog entry is due no later than 3:00 on Wednesday September 30.
"Attention and Memory are compatriots. When you are not concentrating, it is hard to remember. Therefore, measures used to improve attention will help with memory functions". Respond to the above quote and give examples to support your response.
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31 comments:
This quote makes me think about the importance of having mental energy in order to pay attention and concentrate, and concentrating is directly related to remembering. If a person cannot concentrate, they are most likely not going to retain much if any information. I feel that being the ACT program is a very good example of his. As we get further in to the semester and more assignments are due and our fieldwork, our mental energy seems to be decreasing. The result is difficulty concentrating and most likely a decrease in retention. I would imagine that during this time, we are depending on our strengths to get through the semester and year. For some of our students, their daily experience may be similar to what we are going through during this semester. Therefore, we can use this experience as a way of understanding our students’ experience and providing appropriate strategies to help them with their attention weakness by drawing on their strengths.
Adriana Gomez
This statement is quite true. Attention and memory go hand-in-hand. You cannot have memory without attention. How can someone remember something if she is unable to focus and absorb information that is being presented to her? Certain techniques can support a student's concentration, which will allow for greater absorption and understanding--and therefore, a greater ability to retain information. For example, tapping on a child's desk or shoulder to remind her that her focus should be with the teacher. I tried this technique with my student observation assignment, and it actually works. Like some other attention improvement measures, this one did not help for an extended amount of time, but perhaps mixing various techniques will provide a student who has challenges in concentration with a well-rounded system that enables her to increase her focus. Through techniques that are tailored to her situation, she will increase concentration, and therefore, improve some of the capabilities of her memory. Some functions of memory, however, are likely to not be improved by increased attention. Memory storage and recall, for example, don't have much to do with attention. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that attention and memory might be related, but they are not completely dependent on one another. (Melissa S.)
Our minds can only take in a certain amount of information and therefore, we select what information we are going to concentrate on. However, when someone has a weak attention control, there is a lot of information that is not even considered to be processessed and stored in our memory. In order for us to remember any type of information, our brain has to process it and store it in our long term memory so we can recall it later. Therefore, it is essential that strategies are used with students who have a weak attention control. This will increase the chances that a student pays attention to important information so their memory can recall it later. For example, if a teacher and a student are aware that the student has a weak attention control, then the teacher can look at the student and say "It is important that you pay attention for the next five minutes because I am going to explain your homework assignment." Then the student is alerted that it is important to pay attention because he/she will have to recall the information later when it is time to do their homework. The teacher might also outline important ideas or illustrate and important point of the homework. Unless the student has a memory problem also, the student should be able to recall the information later when he/she does their homework later. Measures taken to improve attention will indeed help memory functions.(Olga Collins)
I agree that attention and memory go hand in hand. When you are unable to actively listen, it makes the task of remembering difficult. According to Dr. Mel Levine the brain is similar to an extremely complex jungle of wiring and electrical currents traveling through the brain. When one wire is severed, then the information cannot get to where it needs to go and that starts causing roadblocks, which makes other currents unable to get to where they need to go. In order for our brain to work most effectively we need to help all the currents get to where they need to go. Attention and memory have a system of wires that in many cases is interwoven. When one area is not functioning well then the other area suffers. It’s like a one legged relay race. If one partner is not stepping at the right time then that team is going to move slower than the one that is in perfect harmony with each other. The trick is identifying each individual’s wiring pattern. If you know what the wiring is, then you can start to make adjustments to help bring about success.
Jason Justin
I can only agree with this quote, and with others who have said that attention and memory go hand-in-hand. Not only am I speaking from personal experience but even from observing other students, I have noticed that it is so much harder to focus and concentrate on something if you can't recall specific things (and vice versa). Staying focused builds your mental effort and by establishing a certain degree of mental effort, you can start to retain information and store them in your memory.
One of the ways my master teacher helped her students with their attention and memory skills was to play a game after learning about antonyms. The teacher passed out an equal amount of cards to the students, but in random order.
Then, the students had to find the antonym of the word that was just said (so for example- "I am happy. Antonym of happy is..." "I have sad. I am nervous. Antonym of nervous is..."). This game allowed the students to stay focus and pay attention to the last word that was said, along with the cards they have, to make sure that they have the antonym of the last word said. As well, this game allowed the students to remember what antonym meant and to retain that information in their brain by playing a game about it that required them to think about each word.
Attention and memory go hand-in-hand, providing service to each other and just simply improving attention and memory skills. (Julie Kim)
There seems to be a gray area at the interface of attention and memory. What exactly is the nature of this region of transference? Where does attention end and working memory begin?
As is true for the sensory register, both decay and interference may explain the short time span of working memory. I am wondering if some problems that seem to be attentional are due to the limited capacity of working memory. Cognitive processing may take up some of its capacity, leaving less room for information storage. Thus, the student begins working on her test, and forgets the directions to answer on her own sheet of paper!
Now let us say that measures are taken involving depth / detail of processing (one of the processing controls of Attention). By repeating instructions, or asking for the attention of students before just blurting out directions, then the issue of achieving enough intensity of focus to capture specific, needed data is not so crucial. The directions can be perceived and passed on to working memory. Student remembers to follow all of the instructions. (At this point, I refrain from introducing long-term memory.) I think feedback to student regarding her performance or behavior will help student to adjust depth of processing.
I really believe that this quote is true in many situations. There are times when I cannot recall a fact from a lecture that I listened to, because at that moment my attention and mental energy were not completely working. As people have already mentioned, our lives are filled with many distractions: school, work, family, the news and the list goes on and on. It is therefore easy to get distracted and as a result miss a piece of information, therefore, us not being able to recall the information. That being said, I still do see that there are isolated moments where memory, on its own, can affect a persons life. There are just some people who are really great at remembering facts from a history book and others who struggle with recalling the information. I do not think that this type of memory strictly coincides with attention. \
~Tova
I would agree with the link between attention and memory, and especially with the idea that someone who is not concentrating on any given thing (a lecture, a conversation, something they are reading, etc. ) is going to have trouble remembering whatever it is they are working on. If we agree that efforts to improve attention will help improve memory functions, does it then follow that efforts to improve memory will necessarily improve attention? Based on our discussions in class thus far, I anticipate facing many students with attention problems. It seems that every student has some kind of struggle, be it great or minor, with attention—it seems, in fact, that every person struggles with attention from time to time. I would, therefore, very much like to think that we as educators might combat weaknesses in attention via methods to improve memory and vice versa. I have seen this theory in practice in a classroom where I work. A student, after much resistance, began to work seriously on an origin story (they were to write their own modern versions after reading one in their language arts reader). His attention to the task was evident. The strategy by which he achieved this measure of attention was being given access to a computer so that he could type his story rather than write it, having a one to one aide to bounce ideas off of orally before committing to paper, and being able to take significant breaks during class. When we later discussed his story and the lesson it accompanied, his memory of said lesson was very strong, suggesting that our efforts to improve his attention also impacted his memory. Jenny Graham
On page 93 of "A Mind at a Time", Levine describes active working memory as the different components of what someone temporarily holds on to right now. He also states that active working memory sits "neatly between short-term and long-term memory". Levine's definition for active working memory bears an uncanny resemblance to what may be defined as attention. Isn't attention an active "attending to" information in real time?
To me, there seems to be very little separating attention from memory. Maybe attention is the qualitative processing of information and memory is the quantitative storage of this information. Maybe memory is like a computer's hard drive and attention is the active software. Attention and memory seem attached at the hip- sort of like Brangelina.
Michael Albert
Attention and memory must work together in order for brain archiving. As educators with the stresses of daily work, time constraints, and classroom management, not to mention testing, perhaps we forget of the delicate relationship between attention and memory. Out of necessity, we are forced to remember certain things (name, phone numbers, addresses/locations) while other things are remembered out of routine (functional). When we are interested in certain subjects or activities, we tend to remember more because of the connections we make. An example of attention and memory’s camaraderie is shown in our student observations. A particular child I am working with has a great struggle with attention in his class. His mind wanders, he seeks attention from others by disrupting the class, and takes much longer on class work. A very bright child with a gift for beautiful handwriting and highly artistic, literally beats himself up and puts himself down because his penmanship is (according to him) “ugly.” Because he cannot focus on the work at hand, he has trouble remembering the assignments and thus has difficulty academically.
-Jennifer Pershes
No learning can happen without attention and memory working together. No higher order thinking can take place without attention and memory.
We need to assess where we can help our students and pick one or two of the constructs to alleviate the problem area. Sometimes it is difficult for young children to remember somethings but usually with a few hints children remember for example, in September when students start school, they have usually forgotten a lot of academic knowledge in their short term memory but after a few days of school they are better able to recall lessons from the previous grade, from their long term memory as they are becoming more fully engaged in school and less about the camping or video games they were playing all summer.
For children with attention and memory issues, we as teachers can try various strategies to help them focus and we can teach them strategies to remember whether it is use of tape recorder, note taking or having to Polaroid their world, the teacher has to give the child the tools they need to be successful in school or in life. As special educators, we not only help our students academically achieve but also help our students in life skills.
Silvee Islam
While attention and memory are certainly linked, it is valuable to understand and thoroughly examine the individual components of each. I am enjoying the opportunity to explore these differences within our student observations. The student that I am observing for this class has deficiencies in each, and it has been important for me to examine the common thread between the two in my approach to suggested accommodations and supports. I plan to first view each separately, but ultimately develop strategies that can work address each construct in harmony.
-Michael Crawford
I completely and utterly agree with this statement! If a person is not concentrating (paying attention) to the lesson, they are only acting as passive learners, where the lecture goes in one ear and out the other. I have noticed that this can be quite true in reading comprehension.
For instance, a kid is told that he will be able to go out to lunch early if he finishes reading the two paragraphs on his paper, so being the quick reader that he is; he finishes the two paragraphs in record speed. The teacher asks him to conceptualize what he had JUST read and the kid is completely speechless.
This is a classic example of students who do not pay attention to the things they are told to do. So they end up only going through the motions and simply wasting their time because they have not learned a thing. If the student in the above vignette had concentrated on the context of the two paragraphs he would have been able to remember what the paragraphs had said. Without attention, memory abilities are useless. A simple way to help these types of students is to ask them to be active readers and write little notes on the margins so that they can better conceptualize the reading.
By: Yesenia Almanza
This weeks statement is a strong proven fact. Studies have shown that when there is lack of attention their is a lack in ones memory. This fact I believe is experienced by many adults and children, with or without disabilities. As a full time teacher and student I myself have experienced this. When a lot is going on in my mind I tend to pay less attention to my surroundings whether in class or at work. When it comes to students with disabilities who can not pay attention for too long it is natural that they can't remember much of what is being taught or explained. Some of my former students have had difficulties with attention and memory. Sometimes I would pre-teach the lesson a day before, then I would teach it, and then I would re-teach it within a period of 3 consecutive days. Another thing I would do is to make sure I would connect my lesson to that students personal interest. Now I find myself using a lot of puppets to get that students attention as much as possible. Other students need the lesson taught in 10 minute intervals. These are some of the things I have done, I hope I learn some more as we continue studying mental energy in our class.
Having the ability to attend to new information is the crucial first step in processing information into long term memory. The person needs to receive the new information into the working memory and draw on information from the long term memory that is related to it in order to store the new information effectively in long term memory per Ormrod.People are able to best learn new information if it is presented in a way that best suits their unique styles of learning.Also even under the best of circumstances a person can only absorb a limited amount of information at one time.Using our experience in the ACT Program as an example,being given so much information in such a short period of time it is not possible to integrate it into our long term memory.I can read and understand a chapter in a text but because in the next hour I may be sitting in a lecture getting more information presented to me the text info doesn't get a change to be properly absorbed. Ormrod talks about this in Ch.8 Long Term Memory Storage.She states knowledge appears to require a consolidation period"perhaps a few minutes or a few hours,or perhaps even longer."So we are not given a long enough period to consolidate all the information being present-
ed to us.
I do believe that attention and memory go together. And I also believe that there are levels of concentration and attention and that people pick up facts, experiences and gut-feelings in different ways. In academia, working to find different ways and routines to better a students' attention is a worthy goal. In order to have any energy for attention I believe that a person must get as much sleep as his/her biology deems necessary. That really affects how they bring themselves to school every morning and how long their attention lasts over the day. What they eat and if they take vitamin rich food at lunch and nutrition can also help continue attention through the day. If a student is able to give their attention to a lesson it is half the battle, but it also depends on how the child is fed the lesson and whether it holds any connections or interest to the child. I think mobility is also a big part of attention if a child needs that type of thing to continue learning- the permission to get up and move during a lesson or stretch a little plus even the temperature in a room can help retain attention and affect memory in the process.
Based on my own personal experience, I completely agree that measures used to improve attention will help with memory functions. In order to successfully graduate from college, I had to learn how I study best, which made me look at how I focus and how I retain information. I had to figure out that I study best when there are no distractions at all, and I need to highlight important information in order to remember it. I have tried listening to music (without words), but I found that it made me more distracted, which made me forget what I was reading. I have tried making flashcards while watching TV in the past, and while I accomplished the task by making the cards, I would never remember what I wrote.
As educators, we need to help students figure out how they can improve their attention while studying, which will help them with their memory functions. We also need to remember that most students have a short attention span, and we need to plan our lessons accordingly. If we plan lessons that are very long, we will lose students' attention, and they will not remember what we are teaching them. I see so many teachers try to cram an overwhelming amount of information into one day. By the end of the day, they have lost the students' attention, and have basically wasted their time by trying to teach things the students won't remember.
It is very hard to recall information if the proper attention was not given to it. If we use the dual model of memory, it states that information is lost from the sensory register as well as from working memory if the proper connections are not made in order to further process into long term memory. Therefore it is true that if you were not concentrating it would be hard to remember because the information is either not complete or it is lost. Knowing this we can employ a variety of measures that may help in maintaining attention, which in turn helps with memory. We need to be aware of the mental energy needed to facilitate memory retention and be able to use processing controls that let use know what information is important. Students are bombarded with information all day long and are expected to retain it but they are never shown any techniques on how to do so. We need to guide them in a way where they are aware of how to better store information. Laura Lozano
Memory and attention go hand in hand with one another. If a student has problems concentrating it is not possible for him or her to take in the information that is being presented. This does not always mean that a student has major memory deficits but that we first must be able to engage the student and find a way to insert the information into his or her memory. For example, a student may not be able to focus properly because he finds the noises around him too distracting, meaning that they cannot concentrate on the issue at hand because they are also captivated by the conversation at the opposite end of the room, the running outside the door, the water dripping from the faucet or a really bright colored poster on a wall. Placing the student in the proper environment or helping them compensate for their attentional deficits is a way of helping them focus. The next step then becomes to engage the student and find ways of helping them remember, this is where we consider the learning style of the student that is most effective for them.
In our everyday life imagine how can we learn things if we don't pay any attention to them. Imagine how much information passes over us that we ignore and on how little information we focus our attention. Attention and memory are not just crucial in academic situations but in every aspect of one's life. When we focus on something that we intend to learn we can learn it easier, faster, and store it longer in our memory. Even though it is very difficult for us to focus and hold all new information at one time, we need to choose what information is important then we just pay attention to and remember it.The process of paying attention or focusing is really not about concentration or some physical manifestation of stress that can somehow move one's mind. Paying attention is the removal of distractions which can be external or internal and the piquing of interest and engagement.
Hanh Tran
I have to agree with many that attention and memory go hand in hand. If you are not listening actively it is going to be difficult to remember the information. Active listening is part of the process of memory. In order to take in information and process it and file it away in you long/short term memory requires that you to be an active listener. I have observed students that tune in and out of the lesson. The students answer the question that relate to the lesson. However, when it comes time for them to do it on their own – they are lost. They are not able to apply what they just learned to worksheet at hand.
I agree with Kristen Ann in that I too had to figure how need to study. I also tried music without words and it did not help. I found that I had to be in a quiet place without distractions. As educator we need to offer different strategies to students. They need to explore and figure out for themselves what works for them.
E. Chavelas
Blog entry
“Attention and Memory are compatriots. When you are not concentrating, it is hard to remember. Therefore, measures used to improve attention will help with memory functions". Respond to the above quote and give examples to support your response.”
This quote is so true. When I look back on study sessions where I spent hours staring blankly at my biology or chemistry textbook – reading but not registering the material – I think how much more efficient I would have been had I studied purposefully, with active reading strategies and focused attention. My mind was “there” but it was not engaged; it was not invested. My attention was on holiday. My mind takes vacations when I get bored. My definition of boredom is a lack of mental engagement, which describes me during my monotonous and disengaged hours of fruitless study.
I would have been much more efficient had I used active study strategies to engage my mind during times of ennui. I know that when I am engaged in a subject and my attention is focused on the task at hand, I can read through the material once and then can repeat it back. It is great! At times it is almost effortless. The reason for this is, again, that my mind is engaged (or even excited) by the material. I guess my mind is interested and so my neurons have taken it upon themselves to decide it is worth saving for future use. It is neatly arranged in my memory packets, ready for retrieval at a future date. When my attention is focused on the task at hand, I become exponentially more interested in it, and memories are formed effortlessly.
Samuel Johnson said, “The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.” When I am actively collecting my memories by paying attention to what I am doing, I make it easier for my mind to then distribute it. My mind is like a post office sorting box. If I pay attention to what I am doing, my mind finds the right places to store my memories. They are sorted efficiently. It is then easier to collect them for future use when they are needed. The “Tip of the tongue” phenomenon is a good example of memories being there but just not stored or assimilated efficiently. All memories and experiences reside in our minds. After passing through the short-term memory though, they need to be neatly placed in the long-term memory. Everything is there; it is just a matter of having the means to retrieve it. It is was Frederick Nietzsche who said, “The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.” Yes, that is true.
It is therefore incumbent upon the teacher to teach students effecting learning strategies so they will be able to retrieve their memories when needed. Paying attention is the first step. After that, come the study strategies. Reinforcement, repetition, repetition, repetition.
- Simon Shlosberg
This makes complete sense to me. It seems like common sense for me to think that if a student isn’t paying attention and fully absorbing the information then they will have a difficult time remembering what was presented. In school when I was younger I had this problem all the time, I would get bored so I wouldn’t fully focus on what was being presented in the class, and then would later have a difficult time recalling what I was supposed to have learned. I also think that when a child is paying attention, it usually means they are also interested in what is being said,, and will therefore have more of an impact. This will make the information more important, and will probably have a better chance of being retained by the student. In the classroom I worked in if the students weren’t interested in what was being said they would only half listen, and then not fully understand stand what was going on, so the teacher would engage the, and get them involved with what was being said by asking questions, and making the information relevant to the students lives. If she were reading a book about animals she would ask them about their own experiences and feelings with animals. This would get the students involved, and then they were able to recall information when asked later in the day.
Ashley Johnson
Posted comments have enabled me to focus in on some points of interest. A snippet from Jeffrey, "measures are taken involving depth / detail of processing (one of the processing controls of Attention). By repeating instructions, or asking for the attention of students before just blurting out directions," is a crucial step to improve working memory for use in classwork, such as test-taking instructions. My emphasis would be more towards alerting them to pay attention to the next instruction over repeating instructions, only because if they aren't alerted to focus they will miss the repeat as much as the initial iteration. All our texts emphasize the enormous amount of data we expect young students' minds to filter, process, retain and retrieve at any given moment of our choosing. If, as Dawn points out, environmental input like poor versus adequate diet, plays its part in one's mental energy, alertness and focus of attention, then successful processing of data is key to how much is transferred from short-term to active memory for use when remembering directions. However, the accuracy and amount of data stored in long-term memory needs to be adequate and retrievable with skill to pick and choose which to combine with data stored in working memory in order for proper long-term assimilation of new knowledge.
It may help to use auditory prompts to remind a student to pay attention *now*, but unless lessons in attention / memory are included as a personal skill with strategies that answer each student's needs and weaknesses, the results will not be enough for the ever increasing demands of higher education. I too recall, as KristenAnn pointed out, that success in college depended on how well I learned new study habits, revised old patterns to meet new demands and learned how to focus and choose what was the most important to pay attention to for the task at hand. For those reasons, I think tools for attending to the present task of the classroom will have better long term results and be more efficient than the time taken to pre-/present-/ and then post-teach each lesson. I worry that such a strategy might put too much of the onus on the teacher with less ownership of memory on the student. Students must be active in their understanding of how their attention strategies will enhance their memory and must also learn how best they can retrieve it for use when they need it.
--(Michael..."Brangelina?"lol)
I definitely agree with the quote from “A Mind at a Time”. It is quite obvious that attention and memory are compatriots. After learning about the neurodevelopmental constructs, it is clear that for some tasks more than one construct are at work to ensure that the task is performed. In the classroom, I see that students must definitely learn how to use their attention construct in order to be able to memorize what they have learned. While reading this quote, I began to think about two particular students that I work with that seem to be struggling with attention and memory. The first student shows many signs of struggling in the various domains of the attention construct. He is constantly fidgeting in class, can not maintain his alertness, can not process the information that is being given to him, and can not generate production efficiently. As a result of this I see that he can not remember or memorize what the teacher said while she was giving instructions for a task. He says “I understand” when the teacher asks the children if they understand, but then gets to his seat and raises his hand and asks what they assignment is because he forgot. The second student demonstrates his lack of attention/memory in simpler tasks such as speech. I will ask him a question, he begins to answer, looks at something that distracted him, then looks back at me and asks “What did you say?”. This is a constant problem with this child and it goes to show that attention does determine how well a child’s memory is. In cases like these it is clear that helping a child improve their attention will help them improve their ability to remember important facts and directions. This is why it is essential that as teachers we always have strategies in mind to help children strengthen their attention so that they can retain and remember with their memory.
Blanca Fonseca
I agree that information that is attended to will help memory functions. It is true that what you pay attention to, you will have a greater probability of remembering. But why are students’ not paying attention in class? Is it a deficit on the student’s part or is it that as teachers we are not concentrating on what engages a student. How about measuring a teacher’s capacity to engage a student in active learning versus rote learning? What teachers sometimes interpret as a child “paying attention” means that the child is quiet and looking at the instructor. I have seen many English language learners doing exactly this in class and not learning many new vocabulary words. Why wasn’t this new information processed? In this scenario the student is motivated to learn English. There was also personal significance to maintain attention. Yet at one point the teacher lost the student’s attention. I believe that as teachers our process of delivering of information will greatly improve student attention.
Antonia
I agree with attention and memory being partners to incite one another, though I am not sure as to whether attention practices will improve memory in all facets. There is some truth to that statement, but it is dependent on how the teacher perceives attention is regulated. I believe that lessons that engage the student’s affinities will draw the student into what is being taught so that they are paying attention. It will always be difficult to teach students who are not interested in what you are teaching. So I believe it is necessary to create lesson plans that play off of students interests so there is more likelihood that they will be participating in class. The use of pre-lessons and mini-lessons will gain the students attention because most students tend to be disengaged because there is no connection for them to draw upon prior knowledge. The use of art as a pre-lesson for reading I believe to be a great tool. Students don’t have the chance to express their understanding in alternative modes, other than writing or when they are called upon in class. Group activities I believe will also be a great way to have the students monitor the attention of their peers, so there is less chance for individuals to act out when they are amongst their friends. Today in class students were going over rounding, and a lot of the students were getting lost. For the student I am observing when the number was a 9 I applied it to a math problem that you carry over the number. This allowed him grasp the understanding that only one number can be applied to each unit place. He flew the rest of the problems as his ability to add was more than adequate and he had prior knowledge to draw upon. Two, when he wasn’t understanding he was disengaged and his head was down playing with his Legos instead of doing work. (Sherwin Kim)
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