What College Teachers Should Know About Memory
and Attention
MICHELLE MILLER
CO-CHAIR, FIRST YEAR LEARNING INITIATIVE
PROFESSOR, NAU DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
DIRECTOR, NAU COURSE REDESIGN INITIATIVES
.
Memory Theory
Working memory
Multistore model/verbal WM
7+- 1?
Attention
the key to memory
Memory without attention?
Change Blindness
www.viscog.com
Daniel J. Simons
See also: Rensink, O’Regan, & Clark,
1997
Simons & Ambinder, 2005
Effortful, attentive practice:
Useful
Passive exposure: Not so much
Observing examples isn’t enough –
students need explicit explanation and
multiple opportunities to practice
Prior knowledge drives the
acquisition of new knowledge
(also, this is one of the main mechanisms of
expertise)
What does this actually mean?
An example
Basketball Memory Case Study
List of 20 top NBA players*
Bill Russell
Tim Duncan
Jerry West
Magic Johnson
Wilt Chamberlain
Moses Malone
Hakeem Olajuwon
Julius Erving
Michael Jordan
Kobe Bryant
* From Insidehoops.com
Bob Pettit
Elgin Baylor
Kevin Garnett
Charles Barkley
Larry Bird
Karl Malone
Lebron James
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Oscar Robertson
Shaquille O'Neal
Experts have better memories –
primarily because of rich,
meaningfully organized existing
knowledge.
1. They can organize incoming
information much more strategically
2. They have more cues for retrieval
It pays to know what students know
– before you add to what they
know.
Forget about traditional concepts of
short-term memory.
It’s not relevant to the vast majority of classroom
practice.
BUT: Working memory is
somewhat relevant to design of
learning activities.
Not in the sense of seven plus or minus
one…just keep an eye on competing demands
for cognitive resources.
Pay a lot of attention to the testing
and spacing effects
AND: Consider the reasons we
remember things in the first place
(and try to take advantage of those reasons)
Suggested Strategies
Strategy 1: Ask Students to
Respond
Strategy 2: Promote Practice and
Automaticity
Strategy 3: Stay Within Working
Memory and Attention Limits
Strategy 4: Discourage Divided
Attention
Strategy 5: Harness the Testing
Effect
Strategy 6: Encourage Spaced
Study
Strategy 7: Tie In to What Students
Know
Strategy 8: Tie In to What
Students Care About
Strategies, collected…
• Strategy 1: Ask Students to Respond
• Strategy 2: Promote Practice and Automaticity
• Strategy 3: Stay Within Working Memory and Attention
Limits
• Strategy 4: Discourage Divided Attention
• Strategy 5: Harness the Testing Effect
• Strategy 6: Encourage Spaced Study
• Strategy 7: Tie In to What Students Know
• Strategy 8: Tie In to What Students Care About
Thank you – and keep up the good work!
MICHELLE MILLER
michelle.miller@nau.edu
PROFESSOR, NAU DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
DIRECTOR, NAU COURSE REDESIGN INITIATIVES
http://nau.academia.edu/MichelleMiller
.
References and recommended
reading
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for Smart Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Atkinson, R.C. and Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In The
Psychology of Learning and Motivation: Advances in Research and Theory, Volume 2, edited by K. W. Spence and
J. T. Spence, 89-105. New York: Academic Press.
Baddeley, A. D. (1998). Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Chabris, C., and Simon, D. (2010). The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us. New York: Crown.
Chickering, A., and Ehrmann, S. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. AAHE Bulletin,
October, pp. 3-6.
Cowan, N.(2010). The magical mystery four: How is working memory capacity limited, and why? Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 19, 51-57.
Dickey, M.D. (2005). Engaging by design: How engagement strategies in popular computer and video games can
inform instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53, 67-83.
Mayer, R. (2009 ). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, M.D., Brauer, E., and Shaber, J. (2011). Getting to Carnegie Hall: Novel timed homework practice to develop
basic circuit analysis skills. Paper presented by E. Brauer, Annual Conference & Exposition, American Society for
Engineering Education.
Miller, M.D. (2009) What the science of cognition tells us about instructional technology. Change: The Magazine of
Higher Learning, 41, 71-74
Miller, M.D. (2011). What college teachers should know about memory: A perspective from cognitive psychology.
College Teaching, 59, 117-122.
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D. and Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological
Science in the Public
Interest, 9, 105-119.
Simons, D.J., & Ambinder, M.S. (2005). Change blindness: Theory and consequences. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 14,
44-48.
Nickerson, R.S., & Adams, M.J. (1979). Long-term memory for a common object. Cognitive Psychology, 11, 287-307.
Willingham, D. (2009). Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the
Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.