Dental hygiene and dental assisting programs are fast paced. Students in these programs are required to learn many facts in a short period of time. I am always on the lookout for new ways to help faculty ensure that they provide their students with easy ways to learn and succeed in subjects such as anatomy, pathology and dental anatomy which all require memorization of facts for recall. Recently, in Faculty Focus, a publication that I often read, Dr. Michelle Miller suggested methods that can be used to help students remember these facts.
The following methods are a summary or Dr. Millers suggestion[1]:
- Emphasize context and purpose.A�Ask yourself why students are being asked to memorize these facts in the first place. If students can readily answer that question and if they can picture future situations in which they will use the information, they will be better primed to remember it.
- Break down new vocabulary words,A�especially those that are more than two syllables long. Allow time to rehearse and remember the first couple of syllables before tacking on later ones. Also keep in mind that this process will be easier for some students than others due to wide variation in phonological loop capacity; you may want to design in a a�?mastery learninga�? or other individualized approach for vocabulary so that students can move through at their own pace.
- Visualize information.A�For most people, imagery is highly memorable, perhaps because so much of the brain is devoted to visual processing. Memory champions, such as the ones populating the best sellerA�Moonwalking with Einstein,A�use elaborate visualization strategies to achieve incredible feats of memorization. Similarly, strategies such as the keyword mnemonic work by linking word sounds to images (such as using an image of a cowboy on a horse to remember the Spanish word a�?caballo,a�? which sounds a bit like a�?cowboya�?).
- Take advantage of the a�?Big Threea�? applied memory principlesa��testing, spacing, and interleaving.A�Briefly, these refer to the facts that quizzes are a great way to study and that we do best when we spread out our study sessions and alternate between different topics. Tackling a big memory project such as human anatomy means we need every advantage we can get, and dozens of research studies have supported these three as producing the biggest memory payoff for the time invested.
- Avoid the rereading trap.A�Students tend to fall into passively reviewing material, and in doing so they miss the key advantage of techniques such as testing: retrieval practice. Retrieval practice strengthens memory, but it works only when we actively challenge memory. Flash cards, a favorite student strategy, are fine as long as students use them to actively quiz themselves.
[1] Miller, M. (Feb 19, 2016). Helping student memorize: tips from cognitive science.A�A�Faculty Focus. Accessed from:A�A�http://goo.gl/TZlsZC.