Improving your memory
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Transcript of Improving your memory
http://library.midchesh.ac.uk
http://pcbooker.midchesh.ac.uk
http://librarycentralmcc.blogspot.co.uk/
Any queries please contact:
01606 720646
01606 720652
Improving your Memory
MCC Library Central
Study Skills Series
Memory is the ability to understand, store and recall information. All learning
depends upon memory. Everything we do such as eating or reading depends on
memory. Without it, everything we do would be a new experience.
Your brainwaves move at over 150 mph! Each hemisphere of your brain receives
them and sorts them appropriately. It will disregard what it doesn’t need. 70% of
what we learn in a day is gone in 24 hours…. unless you intend to remember it and
practise it.
The three stages of memory:
1. Immediate Memory - This holds information for a few seconds or passes on to
your short-term memory which is sometimes referred to as working memory.
2. Short-Term or Working Memory - This holds 7 items at one time. If information is
not rehearsed immediately, or ‘is not seen’ in your head, it will be forgotten within
30 seconds. Your short-term memory sifts, rejects or selects information to be
stored in your long-term memory.
3. Long-Term Memory - This is the storage system and holds millions of pieces of
data for life. You have several long-term memories – including a visual memory
for what you see, an auditory memory for what you hear, and a motor memory
for what you do.
Your memory and your senses
We can all remember past events by recalling the smell, touch, taste, sound and
sight of something. We store memories coming from all our senses. Some people
prefer to learn through their visual channel because they have strong connections
to their visual memory. Others prefer to learn through their auditory or hearing
channel because they have a good connection to their auditory memory and
others learn best by doing because they have a good motor memory.
However, by learning in a multi-sensory way, that is, taking information through all
your senses to your different memory areas, learning and remembering are
improved.
Why do we forget?
A number of factors affect our ability to remember and recall information. These
include:
Poor reception of information – we have to ‘put it in’ clearly
Concentration on other things – we think about too many things at once
No memory ‘trigger’ – no cue word, vision, sound, action, to unlock the memory.
http://library.midchesh.ac.uk
http://pcbooker.midchesh.ac.uk
http://librarycentralmcc.blogspot.co.uk/
Any queries please contact:
01606 720646
01606 720652
Improving your Memory
MCC Library Central
Study Skills Series
Tips to help improve memory
Some of these suggestions will work for you but not all of them. You will need to try
each out a few at a time in order to identify which ones are most useful to you.
Knowing your preferred learning style, whether you are a visual, auditory or
kinaesthetic learner will help you identify the techniques which are best suited to
you.
Find a purpose and create interest “Why is this useful?”
Use multi-sensory learning techniques. See it, hear it, do it.
Understand it. It’s much harder to learn if you don’t fully understand what you are
reading or what is being explained.
Be determined to learn and pay attention to the information.
Organise information or ‘chunk it’. Put information into sequences or categories
e.g. 3 numbers together, types of food, and colours.
Create associations. It’s much easier to learn things that are linked together,
especially to something you know already.
Create visual images. We learn much better if we can form a picture in our
heads.
Remember the unusual. If something is funny, strange, spooky, bizarre or even
rude, it’s more memorable. Try it out! Perhaps visualise it in cartoon form. It works,
it’s quick and it’s fun!
Record your own information. Read out and record on to tape perhaps.
Listen to music while you work. Try soft music with no words in the
background. Vary the music. Listening to music can help to trigger your memory,
rather like a cue card.
Create images in your brain. Try using Mind Maps or Spider-Diagrams displaying
key ideas and facts only. Highlight any errors, and add omissions in a new
colour. Then test yourself, from memory, see if you can create an image of the
information in your mind.
Try using flash cards. Use key words on one side and meanings/explanations on
the other. Test yourself on each card and set aside the ones you know well.
Repeat this process. The pile of cards you know well should gradually get bigger
until you feel you know all the information.
Draw the information. Cartoons, thumbnail sketches, maps, graphs, pie or flow
charts, tree diagram can all be useful.
Label, number, underline to highlight important information. Divide your whole
topic into easy to follow parts using your own note-taking style.
Try writing your notes out, them and check your knowledge by asking yourself
questions about the information or seeing how much you can recall from
memory.
http://library.midchesh.ac.uk
http://pcbooker.midchesh.ac.uk
http://librarycentralmcc.blogspot.co.uk/
Any queries please contact:
01606 720646
01606 720652
Improving your Memory
MCC Library Central
Study Skills Series
Try reading in different ways. Try reading the information out loud or step-by-step
so you have time to process what the information means. Try Skim reading it-
read over the information quickly to get an overview, then go over it again and
highlight the important parts with coloured pens.
Remembering more complex information
The Think and Link System: Create a vivid image in your mind. A mental movie using
objects like: an elephant; a jelly; an umbrella; a Bus Stop; a frog etc.
The Room-Information System: You choose a room and get an image of it in your
head. Then give this room a “fact” you want to remember. You then associate the
fact with that room. Remember the room and the “fact” returns.
Rhyming Mnemonics
These are rhymes / sentences which are created to contain information that you
want to remember e.g. ‘Thirty days has September, April, June and November’; ‘I’
before ‘e’, except after ‘c’
Acronyms
There are two types of acronyms:
1. Initial Letter Sentences: e.g. Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain = red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet is used to help recall the order of and the
colours of a rainbow.
2. Initial Letter Words e.g. HOMES = Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior (5 Great
Lakes of America).
From the Website Box of Ideas: http://www.boxofideas.org/ideas/?page_id=2827 © The Dyscovery Centre 2010