Canada recently announced it’s first ever  memory champion. Memory might seem an awfully limited field to become a champion in,  but memory studies–and studies of neuroscience and cognition–have all been uncovering some interesting, important, and relevant information about how the brain learns and remembers; information that is useful to brains of all ages.

While remembering the exact order of five shuffled decks of cards or a list of 100 random words might not be a particularly useful skill to the average student, the techniques that the pros use can help even the most forgetful student improve recall for important tests.

According to the experts, memory skills aren’t something that people are born with–like  any other skill they need to be practiced to become perfect.

Here are some of the take-away tips to beat the “Why Can’t I Remember?” Blues:

Tip 1: Visualize it

Create a mental picture for everything that is being studied. Create mental scenarios and imagine yourself moving around in them–a virtual “memory palace” where everything has a place. To recall something, go back into the mental room, locate the “object” and look at it visually.

Tip 2: Study in different spots

Memory uses cues from the external environment

Where studying and learning happens is an important part of the study process, as background sights and sounds can cue recall.   Studying a particularly challenging bit? Move to a new location to help this bit stand out in your mind.

Tip 3:  Move around

The same research also shows that movement can help a memory. Act out a scene with pantomime. Use hand gestures, or choreograph some footwork as you review. There are no rules that say that you cannot shuffle your feet at your desk while writing an exam!

This is also the same reason that creating studying notes is so effective.

Tip 4: Say it out loud

When reading over your notes, read out loud. Then again with eyes off the page. Keep reciting out loud. This is probably one of the oldest and best memory tricks—it existed even before writing did, when stories only existed orally.

Tip 5. Give yourself time to forget

First, give yourself time to memorize something, then wait a few days or a week, and try to remember.  Then, take note of what parts you forgot.  Pay attention to what was forgotten—that’s the stuff that you need to review again… by changing locations, walking around, writing it down, and reading it out loud.

Memory Bonus*

The process of committing something to memory—reading it over and over, writing it down, reciting it out loud, and thinking about it actually helps improve comprehension and understanding. And, understanding is better than memorization any day.

No tricks required.

That’s the question that we always ask, right? So much of the “stuff” that I learn in school makes no sense to me, and nobody seems to be able to answer my question about why its important, and when I will need this information. So, what’s the point of learning it if I don’t need it later? I mean, we have the ability to find pretty much any answer that we need in a couple of seconds courtesy of Google, a fact that seems to make the stuff we are learning silly. BUT, my real question is, why can’t anyone answer the question properly? Or, does what we are being taught need to change so we have an answer to the question? What are we learning in school, really? Is it important “stuff,” or is it simply how to follow instructions?

I think it might be more about the instruction than the stuff.

About me: I go to South Secondary School in London, ON and I have two younger siblings. I have always been a movie guy. But movies aren’t the only thing I enjoy. In the summer I love to bike with my friends down to the Thames River and ride along the trails. The sights and the entire ride are always beautiful. Anyway, hopefully you’ll enjoy my posts! Remember to leave feedback and comments at the bottom! – Dylan.

Kids forget stuff all of the time. Where they left their book bag. What day the next soccer game is. When Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.

Before writing kids off as hopelessly forgetful, consider that they may have simply never been taught how to remember.

As the World Memory Champions can tell you, there are tricks—simple tricks—that everybody can use to improve memory abilities.

So what’s the secret?

When it comes to improving your memory, the most important secret is … imagination.

And luckily for forgetful students, kids have a natural abundance of imagination.

Telling stories and visualizing details improves the ability to recall details. That’s because visual memory is larger and stronger than logical memory.

The main memory technique involves making visual associations. This is where imagination comes in. The associations do not have be logical or make sense. They only need to be relevant to the individual.

For students, it might be the only instance where being illogical, nonsensical, and random pays off in school.

Here are some of the best tips that filmmaker Josh Freed learned while filming his documentary
Where Did I Put My…Memory?

1. Numbers: Imagine numbers as shapes or common images. For instance, the number 5 could be a snake, the number 8, a snowman. Then, recall numbers by crafting a story around the numbers. This technique could be very helpful in helping young children remember phone numbers.

2. Placement: Always remember where you left something by imagining it blowing up. Rather than dropping off a book bag in the front hall, pause and visualize it blowing up. Or, maybe a less violent image for younger children—perhaps the image of taking a nap would work.

3. Names: Visualize something about a person’s name. Associate the first letter of the name with an object. For instance, the name Laura could be associated with a shamrock because she was wearing green when you met her, and shamrocks are lucky. Lucky and Laura both start with the letter L.

4. Singing. There has been much success with singing instructions and repeating the chorus. The Alphabet Song has been helping preschoolers learn the alphabet for years, while teacher Alex Kajitani has become known as the Rappin’ Mathematician for using rap to teach math skills to students.

5. Making up stories. Making lists and writing things down is a tried and true way to avoid forgetting, but when these sorts of memory aids are not available, making up stories can not only help people remember important tasks and details, it can actually help make the brain stronger, and less reliant on outside tools to aid recall.

Check out the article The Secrets of Mastering Your Memory for more information and for information about how technology will help memory in the future.

Quick, what was the last thing that somebody asked you to do?

Can’t remember? It’s not easy to keep track of all the things that we’re asked to do in a day. That’s why it’s important—for young and old alike, student and non-student—to use an agenda.

We’re bombarded with information throughout our day. Studies have shown that the short-term memory is capable of holding roughly 4-9 items, and only for a short period of time.

So don’t rely on your memory. Write it down. That’s why schools hand out agendas to students. It isn’t to doodle in during a boring lit class. It’s to keep track of assignments, homework, social activities, birthdays, and tests.

It’s there so that students don’t have to rely on imperfect short-term memory.

Students receive a lot of information during each school day. Using an agenda helps them sort, categorize, and remember that information.

Whether they realize it or not, and agenda helps students develop organization skills. It helps them to keep their priorities in order. It even helps them learn how to prioritize their responsibilities.

It also helps to reduce stress.

The trick, however, is to actually use it. The agenda can’t just stay in the locker during class, or in the book bag after school. To be effective, students need to make using the agenda part of their daily routine.

Oxford Learning has a great program that helps students learn how to use an agenda effectively. The “Get Organized Bootcamp” helps students learn to use an agenda, take notes in class, manage projects, and set goals.

Ask your local Oxford Learning about the “Get Organized Bootcamp.”

How to Study For Long-Term Memory

There’s a big test this week and you stayed up all night last night cramming all the information that you need to remember to ace the test.

Now it’s a week later and you’re wondering what happened to all those facts, figures, and dates that you spent so much energy studying? You did great on the test, but now that some time has passed you barely remember what class you were studying for.

All those eleventh hour study-a-thons and the eventual and inevitable forgetting should be giving credence to what you suspected all along—that when it comes to studying and long-term recall, cramming doesn’t work.

Developing top-notch study skills is one way of combating the so-called forgetting curve. Skills such as starting early, paraphrasing, and active learning can help you avoid a last minute cram-a-thons and hopefully help you remember what you’ve studied for longer than one week.

Planning, organizing, time management, taking notes—Man, studying is a lot of work! Wouldn’t it be great if a computer could tell you when to study so that you never forgot? According to Wired Magazine such a program exists.

The program was developed in response to decades of research into memory and optimal learning. What researchers found was that there is an ideal moment to review material that you have learned so that you don’t forget it. It’s called the spacing effect and it’s the best-known way to remember what you have learnt so that you never forget.

You don’t need a computer to master this skill (although a computer program can help). The trick is to be able to recognize the moment when you are about to forget something and review at that moment so that you don’t spend too long studying something that you might only forget later. If you wait too long to review, then you’ve forgotten the material. Too soon and there’s no point.

Practice the spacing effect and improve your study skills. Here’s how:

• Look up a word that you’ve never heard of
• Write down the word and the definition on a piece of paper
• Wait a day or so and try to see if you can remember
• If yes, choose another word and wait longer
• If no, choose another word and shorten the length of time
• Keep track of how much time passes before you begin to forget

The theory is that if you study at the moment that you are about to forget, you will remember better and for longer periods of time.

Having a great memory can help your child do better in school and on tests and get better grades. Here are 10 ways that you canuse to help your child improve his/her memory, including remembering facts, concepts, ideas, formulas and more:

1. Make certain your child really understands the concept or formula he/she is required to memorize. Understanding a subject means that he/she is halfway to remembering it. Encourage your child to ask questions in class when he/she is unsure of an idea or fact.
2. To remember something such as a name or math formula, exactly, word for word, get your child to make a rhyme or song from the information. Because humans are wired to remember music and its associations, setting facts to music can help children remember them.
3. If they aren’t already, help your child become interested in the subject they need to memorize. Check out books, stories, videos, movies or music on the subject. Or visit a museum or gallery. If your child gets interested in the material he/she is learning, he/she will surely remember it more easily.
4. Make sure the first thing that your child studies is the thing(s) he/she wants to remember the longest.
5. Whenever possible, encourage your child to use mental images to help him/her remember information. Suggest that your child close his/her eyes and get a picture in his/her mind of how the information looks in the textbook or notebook. Ask your child to visualize the notes on the page and see key words that he/she has underlined.
6. Have your child make his/her own examples and illustrations. When your child creates his/her own system for organization (using specific colors for headers, making numbered lists of facts to be memorized, putting information into charts and graphs, etc.) he or she will be more likely to remember the information.
7. Teach your child use a specific picture to represent an idea or concept. Another way is to create a mind map of various ideas and how they relate to one another.
8. Have your child make a list of key words to explain an idea or subject. Then, form associations among the items they need to memorize. The more distinct the associations, the easier they’ll be to remember.
9. Encourage your child to explain the information he/she is memorizing to a parent, sibling or friend without referring to notes. Make it a challenge to see how much he/she can remember. Then go back and study the information again and again to memorize it totally.
10. Your child should study notes by reading them through from start to finish, then focusing on the parts that he/she doesn’t know as completely.

“I freeze up when I write exams! I study hard and think I know my stuff, but I freeze up and get low marks!”

Hundreds of high school students have shared this concern with us over the years When students “freeze,” their low grades do not reflect their true potential. Since the first step in beating something is understanding it, we began to ask students why it was so difficult to overcome “freezing.” Their answers surprised us.

We found that many students who had been exposed to study skills programs were not using these skills because they did not know how to apply them to their own lives. Often when students learn a skill, such as study skills, it is just memorized — not understood.

In order to be effective, study skills must be a new way of thinking! A new way of considering information. A student who truly knows how to study also knows what he or she wants out of school and life.

Students experience difficulty with organization, memory, planning, studying, listening, and writing tests for reasons that cannot be overcome by memorizing a bunch of new rules. The magic of a successful study skills program lies in the way it unlocks the emotional and motivational issues that are blocking success.

Many students arrive at exams in a state of mild anxiety, which grows until the teacher tells them to turn over their papers and begin. The first question looks a little familiar but they don’t remember exactly how to do it, so they go on to the second, promising themselves, “I’ll come back to the first question as soon as I remember.”

The Trouble Begins

Each question looks more and more like a foreign language. Remembering only a little of each, they try to fake it. That is called “freezing.” The struggle to remember actually locks the information farther and farther away. Their struggles “freeze” them up even tighter.

Feelings of fear and apprehension are not the problem! The real problem is that students “freeze” when they ask their memory to recall information that they have learned and filed incorrectly. The way most students file information for retrieval is similar to blindfolding a filing clerk and then asking that clerk to find a very important file.

What would your chances be of getting the correct file? Zero. But this is how most students use their memories. They learn information and then file it in their memories incorrectly. When sitting for an exam, they begin to search frantically for the missing files. When this happens, the memory often does not associate well. Mix a little anxiety in and you get the classic exam “freeze.”

An effective study program will address the emotional and motivational issues that are blocking academic success. The secret to overcoming “freezing” is shifting from a passive mind set (” I’ll just sit here and wait for the teacher to teach me”) to an active process of questioning, summarizing and integrating information.

Here are the procedures for active learning:

• Study Notes: Spend 10 minutes per subject every night and summarize the day’s lessons into study notes. Break the information down into Main Idea, Supporting Details and Sub Details. Make these notes short and in point form, in your own words.
• Review: 48 hours later, review your study notes. Don’t memorize; just make sure you fully understand what they mean and what the information is about. Turn the notes into a story or a complete picture — use visualization if possible.
• Keep Track: Keep a small student day book so that you can keep track of assignments, tests, homework and personal information. Make your entries in class as you get the assignments or test dates and look at your book every night before beginning your study time.
• Learn About Yourself : What things distract you? Noise? Movement? Crowds? When you discover what makes it hard for you to pay attention, make sure you change your environment as much as possible. If noise bothers you, don’t study with a radio on or at the dining room table. Find a quiet place instead.
• Set Long-Range Goals: Stop expecting school to entertain you. When you learn to stop blaming school for not meeting all your expectations and learn to keep your eye on your long-range goals and dreams, you will begin to feel more control and power over your life. Forget about blaming others; it’s your life! Take the responsibility to get the most out of it.

Enjoy!

Every day counts. Do a little review and studying each day. Schedule time for your homework and study. Have a plan and work your plan. No homework? Work on assignments; review and correct mistakes from class or tests; plan your study schedule for next week; memorize the “tough” stuff. Here are some tips to get you started:

Listen and Hear

• Start every class by deciding to pay close attention. Whisper a reminder to yourself that you will understand everything that the teacher says.
• Every five minutes or so, quietly summarize the lesson to yourself.
• Jot notes of the main ideas as you listen. Underline or highlight key words.
• When you don’t understand something, make a note and ask someone to explain it to you later.
• Notice what distracts you in the classroom. Take steps to make sure that it does not happen again. If you find that you are daydreaming, bring yourself back to task and try to fill in the parts you have missed.

Remember What You Hear

• Everyone has a good memory if it is used properly.
• Take your main idea class notes home every evening and expand them into a study note. Include subordinate and sub-details. At first you may have to use a text or your classroom notes. Eventually, with practice, you will be able to remember these details.
• Review these notes to make sure that you understand them within two days and once more before you begin to study for a test.

The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams!

Continue reading Part 2