1. Understanding Working Memory
“Working memory is a much more important predictor of learning than IQ because it measures a child's potential to learn rather than having any link to environment or socio-economic background, which are closely linked to IQ” Dr Tracy Alloway, Durham School of Education

3. Assess your partner’s Working Memory

4. Assess your partner’s Working Memory

5. What is working memory?
Working memory is the term used by psychologists to refer to the ability to hold and manipulate information in the mind over short periods of time.

8. ‘Evaluate Kant’s criticisms of the Ontological Argument.’
The average person cannot hold more than 6 or 7 units of information in their working memory.
‘Evaluate Kant’s criticisms of the Ontological Argument.’

9. What does this mean for us?
Create a learning environment to support weak working memory.
Strive to shift information into students’ long term memory.
Look out for signs of poor working memory
Ask students
Use students as memory guides
Reduce working memory demand (don’t change expected outcome!)
Rehearse contents of working memory
Generate mental images
Organise information into chunks
Create personal links

10. EM notes – see purple pad
Working memory varies from person to person, typically weak in people with ADHD, Dyslexia and other SpLds.
It becomes fixed about the age of 14 15
Psychologists identify different types of memory – short term, working and long term. Working memory is like you mental workspace.
Working memory is a system – a combination of verbal and visual
Eg of working memory – following directions when driving, hearing an unfamiliar word and attempting to use it in a sentence sometime after, adding up your shopping as you take extra items off the shelf, after reading a recipe remembering the amount and combination of ingredients.
There is a limit to our working memory eg. Multiplying 452 and 891 is difficult to do in our heads (mental workspace) even though it does not require great mathematical knowledge. We can’t do it because we cannot store all the working out.
Cannot hold more that 6 7 units in working memory
Forward is short term memory, backwards is working memory
Working memory is closely linked to paying attention – this means 1) Focus 2) Shut out irrelevant info 3) Shift attention between activities