Welcome to this session where we will learn about memory – including different ways that scholars have parsed it, and how we can link what is understood about memory with how we go about teaching. We will briefly consider the case of an Algebra 1 intervention designed through a research-practice partnership for a concrete example of how to scaffold students’ working memory. This intervention is also used in other sessions as a lens through which to consider different psychological constructs. We also consider how one step in the processes of memory, recall, may play a much larger role in learning that generally thought.

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Memory is a many-splendored beast – and learning its secrets is an ongoing and lengthy challenge with extensive work in both animals and humans. The earliest efforts to systematically study memory are attributed to Ebbinghaus’s work in the late 1800s. He studied how well he himself could encode and recall nonsense syllables across different time periods up to 31 days, and described two major forms of memory. It is noteworthy that the distinctions Ebbinghaus drew more or less map on to what William James independently identified and referred to as primary and secondary memory. In turn, these ideas map onto what we call long-term and working memory. For the long-term type memory, Ebbinghaus described it as encoding specific, articulable memories that are reliably stable over long periods of time. What we would now call working memory he described as being more fleeting, useful in the moment but transient. Extensive work since Ebbinghaus has further differentiated both working memory and long-term memory, and identified other categories including short-term memory which has fuzzy boundaries and shares some features of both of the other types. Korsakoff’s methodological approach is worth noting - he studied individuals with memory disorders to infer principles of intact memory systems. This approach of understanding healthy functioning based on close analyses in cases where function is disrupted by developmental or acquired deficits is at the core of neuropsychological studies.

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Working memory supports the conscious manipulation or articulation of information, usually in service of a specific goal or task. Seminal work by Baddeley and colleagues beginning in the 70s, but spanning to the present day has broken this capacity into verbal-phonological and visual-spatial components with differing ideas about whether it directly involves executive function. This type of memory is thought to have a fairly specific range of capacity, something on the order of 7 “chunks” where a chunk is comprised of one or more items that can be automatically recalled. When remembering a phone number for example, a familiar area code is likely to be one chunk. For an expert chess player, a chunk might include many pieces organized in meaningful ways. Here, we briefly consider one example of how classroom materials can be designed to reduce working memory load except for specific targeted content or skills.

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AlgebraByExample, is a set of strategically designed classroom assignments. They were created in a partnership led by the Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute (SERP). Researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Temple University were the design and research leads and teachers and math administrators from district members of the Minority Student Achievement network played critical roles. We will return to this work in other sessions as well to help us think about the connections between research and educational practice . As you can see from this image, AlgebraByExample materials look quite different from typical assignments. In each AlgebraByExample assignment 50% of the items are worked out examples of how a fictional student has attempted a math problem. Each example item includes guiding prompts that draw students’ attention to specific features or characteristics of that work. In other sessions, the strong positive results from using these assignments are presented. Here, I will simply suggest that the combination of the example itself and the prompt, can act as a kind of external working memory drivem reducing the demands on student’s working memory in two ways: First, the step-by-step exemplar means that students do not have to hold procedures in their own working memory while they do the Your Turn item; and Second, when students check their work after they have completed it, or while they are completing the Your Turn item, they have a reminder available of typical difficult spots. They do not have to remember the kinds of trouble spots they should be on the look-out for since that information is highlighted in the worked examples and or the prompts.

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There is evidence for meaningful distinctions between working memory and other kinds of fleeting memories which are not manipulated in a conscious goal directed fashion. One place where the distinction seems to make sense is the Chamelon effect which is a phenomenon explicitly studied by Chartrand & Bargh. It describes the way that as people sit and converse they sometimes adopt similar body positions. Typically, this is not a conscious choice and we may not be aware that we are adjusting our position or why we are doing it. Yet, this action requires recognition and encoding at some level and is one example of what some scholars would call short-term memory or others might call sensory memory. Expect that in these areas of research, terminology is still in flux and different sources will sometimes use short-term memory interchangeably with working memory while others use it to differently. Sensory memory is the shortest-term element of memory – the ability to retain impressions when the original stimulus is gone or no longer attended to. As described by Sperling, it is a kind of sensory filtering system that tags incoming information according to whether it should be further processed and stored.

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Indicative of the still evolving conceptualizations of memory, what we call short-term memory also shares features of long-term memory, and both are considered to be more passive than working memory. Long and short-term memory forms can be considered to differ in duration and capacity. By duration I mean how long a memory remains or how quickly it decays. By capacity we mean how many items can be held. With a broad brush, we will say that long-term memory has greater duration and capacity than short-term. Long-term memory is further distinguished in the ways identified in this next slide.

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Here, it’s useful to note that long-term memory is directly related to different types of learning. For example, research has made distinctions between long-term storage capacities for learned items that can be declared or articulated vs. non-declarative or implicit memory which is supports a wide variety of behaviors and types of learning. For example, automatic skills like driving, or for a professional musician the ability to play their instrument with a level of automaticity that only comes from intensive practice. The fear you feel and the jump you jump when being startled by a snake are both linked to this non-declarative form of memory. This graphic presents other ways as well that long-term memory is differentiated. You’ll recall that working memory was broken down into sub components as well – though to a lesser degree. For research purposes and in the design of exceptional student materials, attaining a detailed understanding of memory forms is an important undertaking. This involves more than identifying different types of memory.

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In addition to characterizing and differentiating between types of memory we can also think about the different steps or phases involved in memory. Memories must be encoded, consolidated, stored, and recalled. Here again, there is debate. How separable are these steps? For example, consolidation is considered by some to part of the encoding process. Others consider it to be independent and in fact separable itself into synaptic consolidation – occurring within a few hours after encoding and system consolidation which occurs over the course of years and reconsolidation – where long-stored memories are reactivated and made flexibly useable again. For all types of memories, there are ways to interfere with the different steps. Interruptions during or just after encoding can prevent storage for example. And once stored, memories can decay which influences our ability to recall them. An absence of contextual cues may also affect how well memories can be recalled. Next in the presentation, we will consider the Karpicke & Blunt reading. Their work suggests that how students recall information is at least as important as how they initially encode it. We also speculatively consider their results in terms of some ideas from Skinner and Piaget and then imagine what hurdles might exist before such study findings could inform classroom practice.

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In a study that attempted to tease apart whether and how different studying methods vary in terms of their effectiveness at promoting retention and understanding, Karpicke and Blunt (2011) determined experimentally that practice retrieving stored information using a free-recall approach was more effective for conceptual learning than the combined use of concept mapping and elaborative studying. Independent studying conditions across either one or two sessions (total durations were equal) were also included in the experiment. In a follow-up study reported in the same publication, they further explored the benefits of free-recall vs. concept mapping across two different types of materials – those with enumeration structures (they give the example of a text that describes properties of muscle tissues), text with sequence structures (their example is a text that provides information about the sequence of events involved in the process of digestion). Two different knowledge assessment tests were used in the second experiment both administered 1 week after the original study activity. The first measure was comprised of short-answer tests that were thought to be somewhat similar to students’ output for free recall. The second measure was the creation of a concept map. In both cases students worked individually and without access to any of the studied materials. In this well-designed and rigorous study the amount of time students spent studying the materials was kept constant for all conditions. Additionally, in the second experiment, the same students participated in multiple conditions so that for each student the researchers were able to determine if one approach or another worked better.

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I’ll let you review the results on your own for details, and will simply indicate here that results were strongly in favor of free recall. Let’s concentrate instead on the researchers’ thoughts about why they got the results they did. Then we’ll consider how those ideas might be connected to operant conditioning ideas and what Piaget’s thoughts were about the relationship between schema and new learning. Karpicke and Blunt suggest that the reason their results are so strongly in favor of free recall has to do with the importance of recall in the process of learning. They argue that common conceptions of learning erroneously focus too much on the encoding phase of memory. In educational settings this is evident in the emphasis paid to enhancing the approaches that support students to encode knowledge, (i.e. the initial efforts to get information into students’ long-term memories). In contrast, they suggest their results demonstrate it is critical we understand and better explore the active retrieval process. This is a provocative and key idea. They suggest that active retrieval is essential to learning and that the act of retrieval becomes an opportunity to more effectively reconstruct knowledge and understanding. In their view, while concept mapping supports students to encode knowledge that includes detailed representations, it does not actively facilitate later recall. In contrast, in order to complete the free recall task, students must establish an organizational retrieval structure and then associate specific concepts and terms within that structure. This process, they argue, strengthens the links between retrieval cues within that structure and the specific items of knowledge which need to be recalled. It may be surprising to you that the rich, interactive approach didn’t win this

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comparison and that instead free recall, or simply practicing the retrieval of information was more effective. I speculate here that free recall demonstrates how stimulus and response linkages are critical, just as Karpicke & Blunt say and further that this reinforces one aspect of operant conditioning. You’ll recall that in Skinner’s operant conditioning external rewards or punishments are used to shape behavior so that specific stimuli result in particular responses. Skinner set aside the question of why linking stimuli and behavior was critical. I now return the favor by setting aside the idea that these links are fostered via external means. Instead, the Karpicke & Blunt findings suggest that free recall is a highly effective way for individuals to create meaningful and lasting linkages between internally generated stimuli (their organizational retrieval structure) and responses (specific items to be recalled). Let me also speculate here about how this study can be considered in terms of Piaget’s idea that schemas must be in place before new learning can be constructed. I’ve always felt this was a bit of a chicken and egg proposition – as one wonders how a schema comes to be without new learning. The Karpicke & Blunt study may suggest that through free recall one is quickly and iteratively simultaneously creating both the schema (organizational retrieval structure) and the new learning (specific items to be recalled).

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I’ll suggest to you that the Karpicke & Blunt study has significant implications for educational approaches that should be further explored. Their work suggests that simply practicing the retrieval of stored information helps students effectively consolidate their memories – this seemingly simple approach may face significant challenges before it is commonly promoted by classroom teachers. What hurdles can we imagine for widespread adoption of their implied recommendation to minimize concept mapping approaches and rich elaborative studying in favor of encouraging students to practice retrieving stored information? I note that this list is representative and I’m sure we could add to it.

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As we consider possible hurdles we have to ask, can results be replicated in a variety of school-based settings? If yes, how can we anticipate and address teachers’ concerns. Particularly as some may have preferences at odds with the results, or concerns about how to evaluate the process of free recall. In classroom-based replication studies do important factors emerge about student engagement and motivation, and if so, how might they affect fidelity of implementation over time? Would studies replicate across different science content areas and for different ages? The described results are indeed provocative and in closing, I leave you with these challenges to consider. - Although it was published relatively recently in 2011, already, hundreds of articles have been published that cite this one. I invite you to explore some of those papers to see what the research is saying about any of these issues or others that may be important to you. Another challenge is that you consider in your own school settings, or in your own efforts to learn, how you balance attention paid to the encoding of new information compared to the attention spent on what Karpicke & Blunt call retrieval practice, i.e. the process of recalling. Does this study make you want to pause and do a little free recall? If so, by all means, be my very encouraged guest!

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