How to Teach Vocabulary

Begin with a story or explanation of the term. Modeling how you use the word in your life or in conversation may be helpful to students. Have students put information into their own words. This process, which I call “recoding,” is necessary to make sure students understand the word. This is a vital step in the memory process. Skipping this step can be disastrous as students may have a misconception that will be placed in long-term memory through incorrect rehearsals (Sprenger, 2005). Ask stud...

 Cognitive Load and Working Memory

The amount of information entering our consciousness at any instant is referred to as our cognitive load. When our cognitive load exceeds the capacity of our working memory, our intellectual abilities take a hit. Information zips into and out of our mind so quickly that we never gain a good mental grip on it. (Which is why you can’t remember what you went to the kitchen to do.) The information vanishes before we’ve had an opportunity to transfer it into our long-term memory and weave it into ...

 You Can Choose Your Memories

In the earliest days of research, memory was thought to be populated with socalled engrams, memory traces that were localized in specific parts of the brain. To locate one such engram—for the memory of a maze—psychologist Karl Lashley taught rats to run through a labyrinth. He then cut out various parts of their brain tissue and put them right back into the maze. Though the rats’ motor function declined and some had to hobble or crawl their way woozily through the twists and turns, the animal...