Chapter 6 Learning Log

What?
I enjoyed learning about what cognitive psychologist believe about the way we learn and commit information to memory. During the lecture, we had the opportunity to work together to diagram how it is believed we remember things. From the five senses, the information is taken into the brain to the Reticular Activating System. From the RAS, the information goes to the thalamus. Next, the thalamus sends the information to the regions of the cortex which are responsible for the senses. For example, sight goes to the occipital lobe, spatial goes to the parietal lobe, touch goes to the frontal lobe, hearing goes to the temporal lobe, and smell goes to the temporal lobe. The information then goes to the hippocampus for cataloging and filing. If there is emotion involved, the information goes to the amygdala instead of the hippocampus. Next, the information returns to the cortex to the region that is responsible for the sense for long term storage. The RAS is the gatekeeper, deciding if we are going to pay attention to information and let it in to our brains or not.

The model of human memory includes a sensory register, working (short-term) memory, and long-term memory. First the input goes to the sensory reception center where it can be attended to or lost. Next, it goes to the short term or working memory center. Some information can be lost here as well. Next, if great detail is paid to it then it goes back and forth and eventually ends up in long term memory. There are not just three areas involved in memory storage as this model may suggest.

In comparing the two ideas, the RAS is similar to the sensory register and it decides whether to pay attention to the input or not. The process of information going from the thalamus to the cortex is similar to the working memory. The process of information going from cortex to the hippocampus and amygdala is similar to in depth processing, and sending the information back to the regions in the cortex is like long term storage.

Apparently, our long term memory is capable of infinite storage; however, are we capable of retrieving all of this information? The more you use information, the easier it is to retrieve. The hippocampus brings all the information back together when we need to remember information. Decay and interference are reasons we might not be able to remember some things. Several things we can do to help learning are rehearsal, meaningful learning, organization, elaboration, visual imagery, enactment, and use of mnemonics.

So What?
Understanding the process the brain undergoes in order to learn and remember information enables me to make choices that will enhance my own skills as a student as well as my teaching skills to better help my student learn and understand. I understand that if I want to remember information, I need to use skills to help encode the information well in the first place. It will be useful to review information I would like to remember so that I can strengthen pathways to the information.

Now What?
As a student I realize that if I want to learn a subject well, I must think of ways to make the information make sense for myself. In particular I need to try to use my prior knowledge to connect the new information to in order to make it useful. It would be wise to get as many senses involved in the learning process as possible if I want to understand and use what I am learning. As a future educator, I need to give my students as many learning opportunities as possible that allow for use of many of the senses. I need to help my students connect their prior knowledge to new information to allow them to apply the new knowledge. I will need to make sure I create lessons of useful information and provide students many methods of connecting to the information. I will need to teach the students useful techniques that will help them encode information properly for future use.