What did the
Hippocampus say during his retirement speech? “Thanks for the memories.”
It may be a
silly joke, but it’s a fact that once information is learned it stays stored in
the hippocampus as long-term memory, available for retrieval throughout our
lives. Information that we make a conscious effort to learn is more likely
to be retrievable from long-term memory, whereas information that is briefly
memorized using short-term memory will be quickly forgotten. This phenomenon is
seen frequently through student performance in our education system.
Students can
earn a 100% on an exam and less than a week later be unable to recall the main
concepts of the exam material. This is because they have been taught to master
the art of short-term memorization. In many instances, preparing for a test
means binge studying directly before taking it. This strategy works in the
short term, since the information is fresh in the student’s brain, but as soon
as he or she turns in the test, an involuntary purge seems to ensue and the
“learned” material is erased from the brain.
Other times,
however, students will spend all semester preparing for an exam by working
through examples in class, taking weekly comprehension quizzes, and immersing
in the material each class period. These opportunities are a result of
educators like Donald R. Tippit, principal of Junior High School 164 in the
Washington Heights area of Manhattan, who says that at 164 ''instead of
memorizing, we emphasize mastery of concepts and skills'' (para. 11) He adds, ''We
have fundamental goals to accomplish with our youngsters today. We have to
practice in dealing with ideas so that they can conceptualize and draw
conclusions,'' (para. 14) according to an interview in the New York Times
article Use of Memorization in Schools Fading. Students who are exposed to this
type of learning do not perform significantly better on exams, but they tend
to remember almost everything learned in class and are able to build on that
knowledge for years to come.
These
scenarios exemplify the difference between memorizing material and
understanding material. Many factors contribute to the focus on memorization in
the education system. In his article Teach Creativity, Not Memorization, Robert Sternberg claims
“admissions procedures, with their reliance on standardized testing, select for
a specific kind of cognitive and memorization-based intelligence.” (para. 2) Standardized
testing has become about memorizing how to take the test instead of about
understanding the material. This has lead to an almost obsessive mastery
of getting intended results instead of truly mastering course material. While
memorization seems prominent in students’ academic lives, other aspects of students’
time may lead to a more robust application of concepts and skills and the
ability to draw conclusions.
James Paul
Gee, author of the article High Score Education, contributes to the overarching argument regarding
memorization and understanding by analyzing the difference between memorizing
and understanding information in video games. He claims that to be successful
in games, players must manipulate the information they receive into a strategic
plan, similarly to how any adult would solve a problem at work. Exploring the
difference between absentmindedly taking in information compared to using
information strategically to solve a problem, Gee notes that, “Learning isn't
about memorizing isolated facts. It's about connecting and manipulating them.”
(para. 2)
A major case
that supports this notion is a recent study by Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. Muller and Oppenheimer have found
that it is more advantageous for students to take handwritten notes than laptop
notes. Most studies that explore the handwriting versus laptop argument only
explore which medium of note taking has a higher success rate, but Mueller and
Oppenheimer take it a step further by analyzing the different processes that
occur in the brain during laptop note taking and longhand note taking. This
approach provides us with interesting research to explore the general
differences between memorizing and understanding material.
While other
studies that focus on using laptops for note taking discuss the distracting
effects (such as access to the internet and social media) of using a laptop in
class, Muller and Oppenheimer suggest that, “even when laptops are used solely
to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results
in shallower processing.” (1)
There is a
psychological phenomenon in which a person who is not listening to what another
person is saying can still repeat exactly what the person said when asked, “Are
you even listening? What did I just say?” This is similar to what happens when
students use a laptop to take notes. Without actually paying attention to the
meaning of the words, students can type what the professor is saying verbatim.
This is often the case with laptop users because they can type quickly enough
to harness everything that is said. When students employ this technique, they
are not using the part of their brain that actually understands the material;
rather they are just coding the words into their short-term memory long enough
to type onto a document. (Muller and Oppenheimer 2)
Hand writing
notes, on the other hand, is much too slow of a process to be able to legibly
write everything a professor says. This forces students to quickly summarize,
generalize, and conceptualize whatever idea is being presented and write down
the processed material. Students who hand write note material have to mentally
grasp the subject matter in an instant before deciding what to put on paper
(Muller and Oppenheimer 8). This requires the use of a totally different part
of the brain than memorization and allows a part of the brain called the
hippocampus to translate the information to long-term memory.
Mueller and
Oppenheimer claim that, “Synthesizing and summarizing content rather than
verbatim transcription can serve as a desirable difficulty toward improved educational
outcomes”(8), supporting the idea that, in general, understanding trumps
memorization.
Muller and
Oppenheimer’s study can be used to make a much more general argument about the
nature of memorization and understanding.
Seemingly dependent
on instant-gratification, college students unsurprisingly prefer taking notes
using their laptops (Mueller and Oppenheimer 8). Laptop note taking is easier
both physically (it’s faster and generally doesn’t lead to wrist cramps) and
mentally (the brain merely has to regurgitate what is being said), but in the
long run students who take laptop notes will have a much harder time knowing
and grasping the material.
Although this
generation may prefer the instant gratification that comes with laptop use, our
society values knowledge and understanding highly. The societal importance of
knowledge and understanding makes applying concepts from these findings to
students’ actual learning processes worthwhile. Although hand writing notes
requires working a little harder in class every day, truly understanding the
material can be critical to students’ future success. For example, all physics
students memorize Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion, but if they do not
understand how to apply the concept behind that law, it could have detrimental
effects and they will likely be unsuccessful in their field. Some educators
recognize the importance of students’ true understanding of class material and
make strides to implement teaching methods that highlight conceptualization and
creativity. But lack of understanding is still commonplace. Conceptualizing and
strategizing should not be required only in video games. Rather than testing
students’ regurgitation abilities, all educators should strive to improve a
student’s ability to work through problems and concepts, emphasizing critical
thinking instead of memorization.
