{"id":4771,"date":"2019-07-02T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=4771"},"modified":"2019-06-30T14:43:29","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T19:43:29","slug":"obsessed-with-working-memory-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/obsessed-with-working-memory-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Obsessed With Working Memory: Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I attended my first Learning and the Brain conference,\u00a0I had never even heard of working memory<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, I obsess over working memory. And, I think all classroom teachers should join me.<\/p>\n

Heck, I think everyone who cares about learning, curriculum, teacher training, and education should think about working memory. All. The. Time.<\/p>\n

In this series of posts, I’ll start by defining working memory (WM) today. And in succeeding posts, I’ll talk about using that knowledge most helpfully.<\/p>\n

Trust me: the more we think about WM, the more our students learn.<\/p>\n

Working Memory: An Example<\/h2>\n

As an example of WM in action, I’m going to give you a list of 5 words<\/em>. Please put those words in alphabetical order. IN YOUR HEAD. (That’s right: don’t write anything down…)<\/p>\n

Okay, here’s the list:<\/p>\n

Think of the five workdays of the week<\/em>. (Hint: if you live in a Western society, the first one is ‘Monday.’)<\/p>\n

Now, go ahead and put those five words into alphabetical order. Don’t peek. I’ll wait…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Probably you came up with this list:<\/p>\n

Friday, Monday, Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday<\/p>\n

I do this exercise with teachers often. For most everyone, that’s fairly simple to do. I’m guessing you got it right quite easily.<\/p>\n

Working Memory: A Definition<\/h2>\n

To succeed at that task, you undertook four mental processes.<\/p>\n

First, you\u00a0selected\u00a0<\/strong>relevant information. Specifically, you selected<\/em> the instructions that you read. And, you looked into your long-term memory to select<\/em> the workdays of the week.<\/p>\n

Next, you held<\/strong> that information. If you had let go of the instructions, or of the days of the week, you couldn’t have completed the task.<\/p>\n

Third, you\u00a0reorganized<\/strong>\u00a0the days of the week according to the instructions. You started with a chronological list (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…), and converted it into an alphabetical lest (Friday, Monday, Thursday…).<\/p>\n

In many WM tasks (but not this one), you might not only reorganize, but also\u00a0combine\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>information. If, for instance, you added up 7+12+4+18+6 in your head, you selected, held, and combined<\/em> those numbers into a new number.<\/p>\n

So:<\/p>\n

Working memory is a limited, short-term memory capacity that selects, holds, reorganizes, and combines<\/strong> information from multiple sources.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a later post, I’ll talk about some finer points in the definition of WM. For the time being, focus on those four verbs: select, hold, reorganize, combine.<\/p>\n

Working Memory: An Acronym<\/h2>\n

Because WM is so important, it would be great if there were a handy acronym. Happily, there is!<\/p>\n

S<\/strong>elect<\/p>\n

H<\/strong>old<\/p>\n

RE<\/strong>organize<\/p>\n

K<\/strong>ombine<\/p>\n

What does that get you? SHREK! (I know: I misspelled ‘combine.’ But: I lived in Prague for a year, so you can forgive me for that useful alteration.)<\/p>\n

Working Memory in the Classroom<\/h2>\n

Now, ask yourself: which of these classroom tasks requires working memory?<\/p>\n

That is: in which of these cases do your students have to select, hold, reorganize, and\/or combine information?<\/p>\n

Solving a word problem.<\/p>\n

Comparing W.E.B. du Bois and Booker T. Washington.<\/p>\n

Transposing a song into a new key.<\/p>\n

Applying a new phonics rule to various combinations of letters.<\/p>\n

Choreographing a dance routine.<\/p>\n

The correct answer is: ALL OF THEM.<\/p>\n

In fact, practically everything we do in school classrooms requires working memory. Often, it requires A LOT of working memory.<\/p>\n

To Sum Up<\/h2>\n

We use WM to select, hold, reorganize, and combine (SHREK) information.<\/p>\n

Students use WM constantly in classrooms, for practically everything they do.<\/p>\n

Simply put: no academic information gets into long-term memory except through working memory<\/strong>. It’s that important.<\/p>\n

Up next: we’ll highlight key facts about WM. Then we’ll talk about using that knowledge in your teaching.<\/p>\n

If you’d like some homework, here it is:<\/p>\n

Ask yourself: what work that students do in your own classroom requires working memory? Try to be specific: what are they selecting? What are they holding? And so forth…<\/p>\n

Also ask yourself: what work does not require WM?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I attended my first Learning and the Brain conference,\u00a0I had never even heard of working memory. Now, I obsess over working memory. And, I think all classroom teachers should join me. Heck, I think everyone who cares about learning, curriculum, teacher training, and education should think about working memory. All. The. Time. In this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-4771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-working-memory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4771"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4777,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771\/revisions\/4777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}