Building a Strong Foundation

Building a Strong Foundation
February 24, 2015 - Angela's PLC

"What do children need to help them remember?"

This was a question asked during our discussion and I found it to be vital to our role as 

teachers. There are various answers to this question. Yet, there is not just one simple

answer. Memorization is very dependent on each child and the ways they learn best. As 

teachers, it is our job to build a strong foundation of learning so that our students may have 

a successful future. 

Overall, most students pull information out of their prior knowledge. Their minds make 

connections between subjects, ideas, and concepts. School and parents both play a vital

role in building a child's foundation for learning. Students who do not have support either at 

or at home will most likely struggle to remember ideas and make those necessary 

connections.

One way we can help students understand their learning is by going over tests with the 

students. Instead of simply grading a student's work and moving on, the teacher should

walk through the test results with the students and show them where they may be 

struggling or excelling. Encouraging students to understand the "why" behind an 

incorrect/correct answer is vital for their intellectual reasoning. We also discussed how 

repeating orally and using flashcards is a great way to help students memorize information.

Students are certainly sponges when it comes to learning! It is our job to make sure that 

we are giving them the pieces with which to build a permanent foundation.

The Power of Role-playing

The Power of Role-playing

February 10, 2015 

Angela's PLC

This week, we discussed how children often learn best and remember activities through "doing". Having students talk about an idea and then act it out is a great way to increase their memory! As teachers, we realized that role-playing needs to have some scaffolding, especially in whole group activities. Letting children use their imaginations is something we often stifle in the classroom because of the many standards and the subject matter we have to cover in our teaching. However, the book showed how role-playing triggers students' memories and is engaging for our students. We should model what effective role-playing looks like so that our students will know how to engage in the activity. 

Another thing we need to remember is that practice truly makes perfect. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Students in lower elementary tend to forget things easily. If we come up with actions, songs, or visuals, this will have a more lasting effect on their memory. 

We also discussed what we think our students go home and tell their parents about school. Taking time to process and reflect with the students on what they have learned will help the information stick in their minds as well. 

Stretching our memory

Stretching our memory

This week we discussed memory skills and how we can improve our students' memories. The book gave us several examples of how our memory works and how our brain triggers different memories through words, pictures, movement, etc. We realized that one little distraction can change or make us lose our working memory. The only way to remember is to have your brain start again. 

Since we all teach young students, we agreed that the younger they are, the more easily they are to get distracted and forget something they learn. They need to practice a skill over and over in order to master it. Also, we discussed the topic of whether students are easily distracted or if they just have different levels of attention. We did agree that younger students remember things more easily when they are "doing" and "experiencing" something. This helps improve their working memory.

Today, our memories are not very strong because we have quick access to technology. We do not practice our working memory because our phones memorize people's numbers, our computers contain our passwords, etc. This technology makes us think that we do not need to use our memory, when in fact, our memories are an essential part of our lives.

At the end of PLC, we reflected on how our brain breaks went and decided that our task for next week would be to play a memory game with our class to improve their working memory.