Memory Mnemonics

Teacher Implementation Kit

2 Overview Short, high impact sessions Elevate Education is an international Research shows that as the length of a study provider of study skills workshops to skills program increases, student senior school students, and works with implementation tends to decrease. Students over 1250 schools and 250,000 students are left with an overwhelming list of ‘52 every year across the UK, USA, South Africa skills’ which is so long that students don’t & Australia. know where to begin. These short, sharp sessions maximise student retention rates Founded in 2001, Elevate has spent more and isolate a handful of skills to implement than 13 years benchmarking the habits of immediately, encouraging student skill the country’s top students. This research has adoption. identified 17 areas where the habits and study processes of the top students differ from middle and lower performing students. Follow-up resources Elevate workshops introduce students to Most study skills programs are ultimately these 17 skills and show them how to adopt flawed in that teachers are not provided with them. materials to follow-up and reinforce the skills covered in the program. Study skills, like What makes us different any skill, are developed through repetition, practice and review. This teacher Young presenters students can relate to implementation kit is designed to be used in Elevate uses young presenters that have conjunction with the Memory Mnemonics recently faced and aced the final years of seminar to reinforce the skills covered in the school themselves. By using presenters that session. students can relate to, schools have found How to use this document the impact of the study skills message is increased. Young presenters are perceived as being credible as they have only just gone This teacher implementation kit contains a through the experience themselves. range of modular follow-up activities for staff to run in class. The focus of this Practical study skills students can use implementation kit is on getting students to Most study skills programs fail because use the skills while studying in a classroom they are dense on theory but lack the kind of subject. However, if this kit is being used in practical skills that students can use straight pastoral care time, the activities can still be away. All of Elevate’s material focuses on run using work the students have done while practical study skills modelled from the top in another class (e.g. English). students.

Page 1

Initial class time required: 30-35 minutes Follow-up time: Nil

Suitable subjects: Humanities subjects Resources required: Mnemonics - Activity 1 from Student Activity Pack (page 2)

Research Background

One of the major causes of stress and anxiety before tests is a poor ability to recall content. As you can see in the sample cohort below (year 11), most students typically use rote-learning as their primary means of memorising notes during term. This not only brings about diminishing returns very quickly (rote-learned notes are usually forgotten a few days later), but poor performance results when students forget critical information trying to answer a test question. The top-performing students know this, and typically use more advanced memory skills that have a much higher recall rate in tests. These skills also significantly reduce the time needed to memorise large volumes of information. By using these skills on a reducing stress before exams and tests. The need daily basis, students free up countless hours for to cram is also eliminated when students are safe the application of knowledge (rather than in the knowledge that their memories are unlikely repeatedly needing to rote-learn it), while also to fail them when needed most.

Student Context

In the Memory & Mnemonics seminar, students were shown a range of skills to boost their ability to memorise information. These included strategies to minimise distractions at home, the mnemonic peg-word method, as well as the mental journey method. Research has shown that these techniques are proven to enhance the encoding of memories and are presented to the students in a fun, engaging way. However, we have found that while most students who see mnemonic skills we cover in the seminar are likely to recognise their effectiveness, there is often a sizeable majority of students who will attribute these sorts of skills to the ‘gifted’ students. In other words, these students do not believe these techniques will work for themselves. The only way to get these students using the memory skills from the seminar is to expose them to the skills on a daily basis. This is where classroom activities such as this come into play.

Page 2

In the Memory Mnemonics seminar, students were shown how to use rhyming words to help them remember another random list of words. In the seminar students formed a list of 10 ‘rhyme’ words, which rhyme with the numbers 1-10. The rhyme words are easy to remember, and can be recalled instantly by thinking of the number to which they are attached. Once students have their list of rhyme words, they can link rhyme words to words they will struggle to remember, Pageby creating 1 a vivid mental image. Students should be fairly familiar with this process, but Copyright © Elevate Education 2015. Not for external distribution or posting on extranets. this activity should make sure they are 100% up-to-speed before we start to work with actual classroom content. Step 1 – Students to read Mnemonics Activity 1 from the Memory Workbook Have students form groups of 4-5, and ensure they all have a copy of the Student Activity Pack. Have students spend a few minutes reading through the introduction and instructions for Activity 1. Once they have finished, go around the room and make sure all students understand how the mnemonic process works.

Page 3

Once students have read the instructions, have groups complete the mnemonics table seen above (the first line is done for them). As mentioned previously, they will link the ‘rhyme’ word to the random word in the ‘memory’ word column by creating a vivid mental image. These mental images will then be jotted down in the ‘memory image’ column. If students get stuck, a few more ideas are shown on the next page which you may want to recommend.

Step 2 – Consolidate and test

Once groups have finished jotting down their memory images, ask groups to go down their list of mental images and get them to double check how the rhyme word and memory word fit into the image.

Once students have firmed up the mental images they made in their groups, it’s time to test their recall. Start this section by having students close their workbooks, and asking students what the second rhyme-word was. This should come very easily to the students (two – shoe). Next, ask a group what the mental image it created for the rhyme word was. For example, since the memory word was “path”, a group might have come up with a mental image like this:

Page 4

Copyright © Elevate Education 2015. Not for external distribution or posting on extranets. www.elevateeducation.com Each time a group recalls their mental image for the rhyme word, prompt them to isolate the memory word in the image. In this case, the rhyme word was shoe and the memory word is path. Keep going from group to group until all 10 memory words have been recalled using this method.

Alternatively, get students to re-write the list of words that they have memorized and get them to check how accurate their answer is. Even better, get students to re-write the list of words from last to first, and then again have them check their accuracy. The ability to recall words out of order, or in reverse order, is extremely difficult to do with rote-learned ideas or concepts, but as students will quickly see, almost effortless when using mnemonics. Outcomes

This module is designed to re-expose students to the mnemonic techniques covered in the seminar. In the next module, which can be run in the same lesson if there is time, students use this mnemonic process to memorise a page of notes they have written in class. Ultimately, this process will become ingrained for students once they have had a chance to realise its effectiveness in their next assessment.

Page 5

Initial class time required: 30-35 minutes Follow-up time: 15 minutes each week

Suitable subjects: Humanities subjects Resources required: Mnemonics - Activity 2 from the Student Activity Pack (page 4)

Research Background

Mnemonics are a powerful memory tool, and can increase students’ long-term retention of key knowledge. However, mnemonics in isolation are nothing more than a party trick. If students are to benefit from mnemonic exercises, they need to use them in an academic context and see the results. In our research, students who learn mnemonics and are not supported in using them for study tend to revert back to rote-learning strategies for all forms of content memorisation. The trick is to make sure students are clearly shown how to use mnemonics for memorising classroom content. This exercise shows students how to memorise a page of notes using the mnemonic rhyming method.

Step 1 – Interpreting notes

Have students form groups of 4-5 and read through the first page of Mnemonics – Activity 2 on page 4 of their activity packs. This activity provides students with a page of notes from a Business Studies subject which they will memorise using a mnemonics list. The page of notes they will be memorising is shown on this next page.

Step 2 – Create Mnemonic images

Groups will then use these notes to complete the mnemonic activity worksheet which is found on the next page in their activity pack. The worksheet will be completed in a similar way to the previous module, with students creating a mental image combining the points from the notes (in the ‘memory words’ column) with the rhyming words. For students not familiar with the terms found in the notes, some ideas for mental images are included in their packs.

Step 3 – Consolidate and test

Once students have firmed up the mental images they made in their groups, it’s time to test their recall. With their workbooks closed, go around the room and have each group go through a number/rhyme word/memory point in order. It is very likely students will have a high success rate if they have made compelling mental images for each word. At the end of the exercise, students will have proven to themselves that they can apply these powerful memory strategies to a broad range of notes.

Page 6

Initial class time required: 25 minutes Follow-up time: None required Suitable subjects: All Resources required: Activity 3 – Boosting Attention from the Memory Activity Pack (page 7)

Research Background

One of the major reasons students fail to memorise notes properly is a poor study environment. By working in an environment with poor lighting, distracting background sounds and other visual distractions, students can halve their ability to focus and encode memories. In the graph to the right, you can see a fairly standard year 11 cohort response to a question regarding concentration and attention. In this example, a majority of students find concentration to be an issue when trying to memorise information at home. This student-focused activity walks students through a series of questions to determine what areas they can work on to boost their attention levels when studying at home, principally by eliminating sources of distraction.

Step 1 – Complete the questionnaire

Have students turn to Activity 2 – Boosting Attention on page 7 of their memory workbooks. Instruct students to work through the questionnaire and score themselves for each of the three sections. The three sections of the questionnaire ask students about different aspects of their study routines, which were covered in the Memory Mnemonics seminar. These include:

The room Students are asked to assess the room they study in, taking note of noise levels, lighting and work surface.

Surroundings Questions are then asked to see whether students are surrounded by the ‘agents of distraction’ – phones, TV, music, and Facebook.

Physical state Finally, students are quizzed on their physical state while studying, which has a strong link to mental performance. Questions are asked on study duration, hydration, caffeine intake and exercise prior to study.

Page 8

Once students have completed the questionnaire, they are directed in their workbooks to write down 5 changes they are going to make to improve their focus when studying independently. Suggestions are provided after each section in the questionnaire to prompt students to consider which changes will work for them. Go around the room asking students to identify their major problem areas, and the top 3 changes they are going to make straight away to enhance their concentration.

Page 9

Initial class time required: 50-60 minutes Follow-up time: None required Suitable subjects: All Resources required: Activity 4 – The Visual Journey from the Memory Activity Pack (page 11)

Research Background

Besides Mnemonic rhyming techniques, students were also shown another memory technique in the Memory Mnemonics workshop that has a similarly high success rate. This technique, known as the visual journey method, has students link lists of things they need to remember to outlandish mental images which occur in a familiar environment, such as the family home. As students are usually very familiar with rooms in their houses, creating a mental event that takes place in the room helps students piece together long lists of content through this process:

Think of the room

Recall the weird scenario in the room

Isolate the word in the scenario

For example, if a student needs to remember the element Helium, she might imagine a bizarre scenario in the Hallway where there lots of balloons bobbing on the ceiling. In an exam, when she thinks of her hallway, she then remembers the helium balloons in the hallway. This mnemonic process works well with lists and processes needing to be memorised.

Page 10

Have students open their memory packs to page 11 and start on Activity 4. Have them read the introduction and complete the exercise below (up until the practice activity). This will re-introduce them to the visual journey method by getting them to create a visual journey for a list of random words. If they get stuck for mental images, on page 15 and 16 of their packs are examples they can draw inspiration from. Below you’ll see how the process works:

Step 2 – Application to notes

Once students have completed the introductory exercise, it’s time to practice with an actual set of notes. Have them complete the practice activity on page 12. This activity requires students to take key points from a page of notes and build a visual journey around them. The activity pack provides a sample set of notes taken from an English course. If students get stuck for ideas they can look on page 15 for some suggestions. Over the next page you can see how students will transfer the notes to a visual journey.

Page 11

Now that students are able to create a visual journey with a set of notes, have them produce another visual journey with a page of notes they have written earlier in class. You may want to break the class into small groups so students can bounce ideas off one another.

Follow-up

After this module, students should be very familiar with the process behind the visual journey method. However, it isn’t until students have used this skill in an exam that they truly appreciate its value. To really embed this process into their study toolkit, it is recommended that you spend 10 or 15 minutes each week having students build a visual journey for content that has been covered in class. If this is opened up to the class, with different students helping to create outlandish, vivid mental images, it can be a very fun and inclusive activity. Moreover when students see a broad spectrum of their peers getting involved, the process is normalised and appears more accessible.

Page 13