1. Lecture 3
Memory
“Memory Principles: Part II”

2. Continuing with Principles of Memory…
is Interest…demonstrated through
feelings of curiosity, fascination, enthusiasm, &
appreciation
1.Generate interest to
create enjoyment &
reduce stress.
2.Find a value or pur-
pose for knowing the
information.
3.On a personal level,
examine your
attitude and exactly
why you feel the way
you do.
If you’re interested,
learning is MUCH
easier.
Sorry, but you’ll have to
take some courses
which hold ZERO
interest for you, so what
can you do?

3. is the Big and Little pictures.
8th Principle
is the Big and Little pictures.
Learning requires the use of at least 2 levels of
information:
1. The BIG picture—the general concept or
category of info., also called “main idea”
2. The Little picture—info. that represents
specific details
Draw a big circle at the bottom of your slide. This is the
Big Picture/Main Idea/General Category of information.
Also called Schema
BIG PICTURE

4. Surround big circle with little circles representing details
related to topic in center circle. Label each circle.
Detail
Detail
BIG PICTURE
(TOPIC)
Detail
Detail
Detail
Detail
Detail

5. Learning new info. is similar to analogy of forest vs. trees:
Whole Forest
(= Main Ideas)
Single Tree
(= Detail)
VS.
Too much emphasis on details…you may fail to see their
connections to each other and to larger concepts.
Too much focus on main ideas…you don’t have the
specific details that prove or support your main ideas.
Categorize the following info. into 4 separate clusters
with the categories (BIG PICTURES) in the middle
circles:
Unclassified list of words:
golf, winter, summer, tennis, swimming, Kern, Mussolini, Danube,
Hitler, Rhine, autumn, boxing, spring, Stalin

6. Sample Clustering for One of the Previous
Word Groups:
Detail
autumn
Detail
winter
BIG PICTURE
Seasons
Detail
spring
Detail
summer

7. 9th Principle is Feedback…process of verifying
whether or not you’ve actually learned info.
*Best way is to use self-checking or self-
quizzing when you study
*Write summaries in your own words
*Draw mind maps showing the Big Picture vs. the Little
Pictures
*Make and then answer your own study questions.
See Student Packet, Memory Classification
exercise for Lecture 3.

8. 10th Principle is Organization…a meaningful,
logical structure or arrangement of ideas
When you retrieve
info. from long-term
storage, your mind
searches stored files.
If you sit at computer
keyboard & punch in
random commands,
computer may reject
If you tossed all your
knowledge into your
memory sloppily without
associating it with logical
clusters of info., what do
you think would happen
when you tried to retrieve
a piece of information?!!
what
you’ve entered.
Brain is similar…memory
can only become long-
term IF info. is organized
in a meaningful and
logical way.

9. Organization …continued Don’t rely on textbook to always present info.
in the most logical fashion.
Five Ways to Rearrange Info. for Effective Studying:
Put info. in chronological order to show sequence
of events over time.
Categorize info. into logical groupings.
Place info. alphabetically into lists or groups.
Rearrange info. into a visual study tool, such as a
graph, mind map, Svenn diagram, chart, etc.
Organize info. into Cornell Notes, outlines, or flash
cards.

10. 11th Principle is Time on Task…the amount of
time you spend involved in the learning process.
Studies show that students who “invest”
more time in the learning process earn
higher scores…kind of a no-brainer, eh?
Recommended amount of studying is
2 hours out of class for every hour in class.
Marathon studying (also known as “cramming”) is
usually ineffective.
Distributed study is best—during several
carefully scheduled time blocks spread
throughout each week.

11. 12th Principle is Ongoing Review…makes info.
much more accessible & easier to retrieve quickly
You should NEVER be
idle during one of your
study sessions or say…
I have
nothing to
do!!