It’s a Brain Thing! Making the most of your memory & study time By: Ella Bogard, ABLE Coordinator Washington County Career Center
Neuroplasticity: the capacity for continuous alteration of the neural pathways and synapses of the living brain and nervous system in response to experience or injury FACT: Learning causes growth of brain cells.
Information Processing Encoding or registration— Storage— Retrieval, recall, recollection — receiving, processing and combining of received information creation of a permanent record of the encoded information calling back the stored information in response to some cue for use in a process or activity
Five Ways to Improve Your Learning 1: Don't skimp on exercise or sleep 2: Make time for friends and fun 3: Keep stress in check 4: Eat a brain-boosting diet 5: Give your brain a workout
Don't skimp on exercise or sleep
Make time for friends and fun
Keep stress in check
Eat a brain-boosting diet
For mental energy, choose complex carbohydrates
Give your brain a workout It’s fun. The more interested and engaged you are the more likely you’ll continue doing it and the greater the benefits you’ll experience. It’s new. The activity needs to be something that’s unfamiliar and out of your comfort zone. It’s challenging. Like learning a new language, or sport, or tackling a crossword or Sudoku puzzle.
Exercising the brain is like exercising the body
Spacing vs. Cramming
Use a Variety of Learning Tools Over Time Visual image Acrostic (or sentence) Acronym Rhymes and alliteration Chunking Method of loci
Enhance Your Memory and Learning Skills Pay attention. Involve as many senses as possible. Relate information to what you already know. For more complex material, focus on understanding basic ideas Rehearse information you’ve already learned.
5 Tricks to Sharpen Thinking and Memory Skills 1. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat 2. Organize 3. Visualize 4. Cue 5. Group
Questions?
SOURCES from Harvard Health Letter: July 2014, a special health report published by Harvard Health Publications.Harvard Health Letter: July 2014 From “Caffeine has positive effect on memory, Johns Hopkins researchers say” by Latarsha Gatlin / January 12, 2014 Posted in Science+TechnologyScience+Technology From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia “A Definition of Memory”. from Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 2006 ‘Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning’ by Judy Willis