Dear colleague,
As I unpack in the first module of the Principles of Learning Course (and a bit in this YouTube video), one of the reasons learning is hard is because working memory is a limited resource.
Working memory is whatever we're thinking about at the moment. It's what we think with. Hopefully, your working memory right now is making sense of my words.
The trouble with working memory, I tell my students, is that it is limited. For everyone. No matter how smart you are, you've got less than a handful of chunks in working memory.
I give them lists of numbers to memorize and ask them to count how many numbers they remember. They notice the amount of numbers folks can memorize is pretty comparable…unless folks use methods for remembering more numbers (e.g., turning the list into chunks of numbers, turning the numbers into a story, etc).
This leads us into a little Woodenization mini-lesson: when my working memory starts getting overloaded, what can I do?
First off, let's picture a good description of what's happening when my working memory gets too overloaded.
- One picture comes from my mom. Picture your working memory as a small iceberg island, and each thing you're thinking about is a penguin. The island can only hold so many penguins. Add too many, and a penguin has to slip off.
- Another picture is of someone choking on too much food. This one's kind of gross and scary, but it's helpful in the sense that choking is not fun! It feels bad to overload your working memory, just like it feels bad to choke on too much food. This “choking” language is what Barbara Oakley uses in her bestselling A Mind for Numbers.
Next, what can we do to minimize this choking feeling, to keep more penguins on the island?
In another Barbara Oakley book, Learn Like a Pro, she gives three recommendations for accommodating your finite working memory:
- Simplify the information you're working with. Put it in your own words. Draw a diagram. Pretend you have to explain it to a child.
- Ignore complicated details at first; keep it basic. What are the main things happening in this chapter I'm reading? What's the gist of this mechanics lesson? What's this essay basically supposed to be about? Once you get the basic ideas solid in your mind, you can start incorporating more detail.
- Write things down. Systems of writing are THE greatest mind-expanding invention ever made by human beings. Whenever my students CAN take notes to keep penguins on the island, I tell them they SHOULD take notes.
On that third tip from Oakley, I always add this one-liner: “Paper is cheap, but learning is priceless.” At this point in the school year, my students have heard me say this so many times their eyes roll. Perfect. That means I've said it an appropriate number of times.
This is the stuff of a simple little mini-lesson. It's Woodenizing (explicitly teaching) how effective learners work smarter, not harder, with the limitation of their working memories.
This kind of work is pretty quick in the classroom, but what it's doing for the Effort and Efficacy (not to mention Credibility and Belonging) beliefs is not to be scoffed at.
Woodenizing right beside you,
DSJR
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