How We Learn
A personal journey into how we learn and communicating the science behind learning.
Working Memory
(Short term memory)
What is Working Memory?
For simplicity we will talk about short term and working memory as the same thing.
Working memory is more of a process than a thing or place in the brain. It takes in new information, holds it, and try's to connect it to already built up understandings from long term memory.
It is better NOT to think of working memory as storage but a place to temporarily work with information as you try to connect it to information already in Long Term Memory. Lets look at the basics of working memory:
Working memory has several parts that are important to understand.
-
Central Executive: This controls what information gets into working memory.
-
Phonological Loop: This process deals with the audio input coming into working memory. This includes the voice inside our head when we read or think to ourselves.
-
Visiospatial Sketchpad: This is the process that deals with visual information coming into working memory. This can be coming from outside stimulus or from our long-term memory.
The phonological loop and visiospatial sketchpad are the reason why dual coding is such an important concept for learning.
When sensory information comes into the brain through the eyes (seeing), nose (smell), touch, ears (sound), tongue (taste), etc.. it is already being filtered before we even know it is there. This filter is called the Central Executive. It decides what information is important and what information is not important. It is already connecting information from your long term memory on a subconscious level. It will filter out MOST of the information it receives and decide what is important to focus on. This is one reason why a student's background knowledge and experiences play an important role in what they focus on, and why many students will be in the same lesson but get completely different information from that lesson.
The big idea here is that Working memory is extremely limited. Understanding how it works is extremely important for teaching and learning.
4 Chunks of Information
Working Memory is extremely limited. To really understand we can look at a popular example.
Directions: Hover your mouse over the example box 1 first for about 3-4 seconds. Only enough time to read the number, then move the cursor off the box. Try to repeat the number that was in the box. Next follow the same instructions for example 2
62345
Example 1
Hover the mouse over this box for 3 - 4 seconds
013146473450
Example 2
Hover the mouse over this box for 3 - 4 seconds
Determining what a chunk is, is a bit more complicated but that simple exercise shows that just a couple more numbers added to a list is enough to
But our working memory is not just a place where we hold information, like I said it is a place where we work on information. So let's go back to the easy 5 digit example.
Directions: Hover the mouse over the example again, just to refresh your memory. After 2-3 seconds take the cursor off.
62345
Example 1
Hover the mouse over this box for 3 - 4 seconds
Do you remember the number. Now add 1 to each of the digits in the number without going back to the example.
Hover your mouse for the answer
This was much harder. Why? Well this is working memory. Your brain not only needed to hold that "new" information, it needed to do something with it. This quickly fills up the space. It was pulling information from your long term memory connecting to schema you already had, about adding and number sense. It was connecting and changing the new information and old information at the same time.
But an important thing to remember, this is all happening while the real world is still going on around us. If the CE determines something else is more important, it will focus on that thing. This means your student won't successfully connect the information to anything in long term memory and therefore won't learn.