Organization Strategy

The way students organize target information before they encode it in their long-term memories is an important determiner of their ability to retrieve it later from their long-term memories [1]. Organizing target information before encoding it is especially important when the target information is (a) is verbal, (b) is complex, and (c) is presented along with a lot of other verbal information that is not target information, such as in the typical textbook and lecture. Organizing connections between and among many separate items of target information before encoding them in long-term memory facilitates the later retrieval of that information because of the many connections created to each item of target information [2]. And it facilitates retrieval because of the many items of target information that can be accessed from other items of target information [3].

SUMMARY GUIDELINES FOR USING AN ORGANIZATION STRATEGY

STEP ONE: ORGANIZE TARGET INFORMATION

Tell of show students the target information and organizer and help them tell or show it back. Provide guidance.

ORGANIZATION TASK

Help students identify the target information and then organize it around one of two kinds of organizers. Practice encoding the organized target information.

1. OUTLINE

Use an organizer that shows in an outline format the hierarchical relationship of the different items in the target information.

2. MATRIX

Use an organizer that shows in a network diagram the relationship of the different items in the target information.

ORGANIZATION GUIDANCE

While students are performing the organization task, focus their attention on the organized items of target information. Provide confirming and corrective feedback.

STEP TWO: PRACTICE RETRIEVING TARGET INFORMATION

Have all students retrieve the target information from long-term memory without the organizer. Provide guidance.

RECALL-PRACTICE TASK

Use activities that require all students to retrieve the target information by itself, without the organizer.

RECALL-PRACTICE GUIDANCE

During and after all students perform the recall-practice task; confirm their adequate retrieval of the target information, and correct their inadequate retrieval. Vary the explicitness of guidance. When they are unable to retrieve the target information from memory, provide more explicit guidance that is intended to help them remember the organized target information, and then use it to cue retrieval of the target information.

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1. (For example). Mandler, G. (1967). Organization and memory. In K.W. Spence & J.T. Spence (Eds.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 1, pp. 328-372) New York: Academic Press.

2. (For example). Anderson, R.C., Spiro, R., & Anderson, M.C. (1978). Schemata as scaffolding for the representation of information in connected discourse. American Educational Research Journal, 15, 433-440.

3. (For example). Goetz, E.T., & Armbruster, B.B. (1980). Psychological correlates of text structure. In R.J., B.C. Bruce, & W.F. Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical issues in reading comprehension (pp. 201-220). Hillsdale: NJ: Erlbaum.

Elaboration Strategy: Mnemonics

This posting focuses on Steps One and Two of an Elaboration Strategy when the Elaboration Task in Step One uses Mnemonics. Mnemonics are contrived procedures for remembering target information. For example, this mnemonic jingle helps in recalling how many days there are in each of the twelve months: Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except February, which has 28. Many primary teachers and parents use the alphabet song to help children recall the names and sequence of letters: you probably still remember it with those catchy lyrics and melody, beginning with: A, B, C, D, E, F, G.... Those are mnemonics because they have been designed to help people retrieve certain information from long-term memory, such as the number of days in each month and the sequenced letters in the alphabet. Mnemonics have been used as elaborators for target information for over 2000 years. Greek orators used mnemonics to recall the vast amounts of information they planned to talk about in the public speeches they had to give without using any written notes to guide them [1]. Mnemonics are effective elaborators of verbal target information for students in school [2], students of all ages, from elementary school [3] to college [4], even elderly adults [5].

The effectiveness of a mnemonic as an elaborator depends in part on the plausibility of the connection between the mnemonic and the target information it is intended to elaborate [6]. For example, the mnemonic sentence, Every good boy does fine, is sometimes used an an elaborator for the notes on the lines in the treble clef of musical notation: E, G, B, D and F. It is effective, in part, because one can conjure up a picture of a boy playing a piano while looking at a page of sheet music. Substituting the word ball for the word boy (i.e., Every good ball does fine.) would likely reduce the effectiveness of the mnemonic because a ball doing fine has nothing to do with musical notation.

Four kinds of mnemonics have been identified as effective elaborators for verbal target information: Keywords, Acronyms, Mnemonic Sentences and Place Method [7].

KEYWORDS

A keyword is a contrived acoustic and visual linkage between separate items of verbal target information, such as words in different languages [8], the names of artists and their paintings [9], and the definitions of words [10]. For example, the keyword lap, along with a visual image of a person holding diamonds in his lap, is an effective elaborator for the target information that a lapidary is a person who cuts stones. Surprisingly, keyword mnemonics are often more effective elaborators in remembering the definitions of words than presenting those words in meaningful sentences [11]. Mnemonic keywords are effective elaborators for all kinds of target information, such as cities and their products [12], states and their capitals [13], famous people and their accomplishments [14], and medical terms and their definitions [15].

Here is an example of a keyword card created by a paramedic to teach himself the medical terms and critical information about one of the 35 drugs he must know as part of meeting the requirement for an Advanced Life Support Certification. He made similar cards for each of the 35 drugs. The front side of the card has one word: ATROPINE. The back side of the card is shown below. It contains a visual keyword as the elaborator and the target information. The beating heart represents what atropine does, it increases heart rate.

The paramedic student carried out the first step of the Elaboration Strategy by using an Elaboration Task with the information on the back side of the card. He said the elaborator word heart, and that it increases heart rate, along with the target information, over and over, until he could recall them without having to look at the card. Then he began carrying out the second step of the Elaboration Strategy by using a Recall-Practice Task, which consisted of looking at the front side of the card and trying to recite the target information. If he could not recall all the target information then he provided Recall-Practice Guidance by trying to recall the elaborator and the target information connected to it. If that was still not enough, he looked again at the back side of the card and repeated the information a few times. He then moved back to the front side of the card and tried again to recall the target information. This back and forth process continued until he was able to recite the information correctly. Then he began with another drug. Periodically he practiced retrieving the information for drugs he had studied earlier. Eventually he could retrieve the target information for all the 35 drugs.

ACRONYM

When used in instruction, acronyms are mnemonic words formed from the first letter or letters of several words [16]. For example, the first letters of the five great lakes can be combined to form the mnemonic acronym HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Surveys among college students have found that mnemonic acronyms are well known and widely used [17]. In the first step of instruction, students practice repeating over and over the elaborating acronym, such as, HOMES, and the target information, such as the names of the five great lakes. When they remember that information, they practice recalling just the names of the lakes, using the acronym when they cannot remember.

MNEMONIC SENTENCE

A mnemonic sentence is an expanded acronym, where the target information is associated with a contrived sentence. Mnemonic sentences are effective elaborators with students of different ages [18]. There is some evidence that mnemonic sentences generated by students are more effective elaborators then mnemonic sentences generated by the teacher [19].

Here is an example of how a teacher might carry out at Elaboration Strategy that is intended to teach the ten characteristics of mammals. The teacher begins with an Elaboration Task and projects a chart onto a screen, shown below, that contains elaboration information and target information.

The elaboration information consists of (a) the mnemonic sentence shown across the top of the chart, (b) the words in the sentence arranged with the characteristics, under the column entitled, Words, and (c) the first letter of each word with its counterpart word in the target information, under the column entitled, Letter. The characteristics are the target information. The teacher points out and reads the sentence at the top of the chart and students copy the sentence. The teacher might also have students draw a picture for the sentence and place it beside the sentence. The teacher explains that the silly sentence will help them remember the ten characteristics of mammals. After explaining how the chart words, the teacher has students copy the information on the chart on one page in their science notebooks. Students could work on memorizing the elaboration and target information by themselves or in tutorial pairs. After a while the teacher begins the second step of an Elaboration Strategy with a Recall-Practice Task. The teacher has students form tutorial pairs and practice asking each other to name the ten characteristics of mammals. When students are unable to recall the characteristics they look back at their copy of the chart. They continue practicing for short periods of time over a number of days, until they are able to correctly retrieve the the characteristics from long-term memory without looking at the mnemonic.

PLACE METHOD

A place method (sometimes called a loci method) utilizes what appears to be a natural cognitive tendency to generate connections between and among encoded verbal information and encoded visual information of the spatial arrangements of that verbal information. [20]. For example, when a five-year-old girl was asked on a number of occasions to recall the names of the 23 students in her classroom, she consistently recalled them in the order of their seating arrangement in the classroom [21]. The place method is most effective as an elaborator when it utilizes students' mental pictures of familiar places, such as their own homes. They mentally assign portions of the verbal target information they are learning to different parts of a familiar place. For example, in learning the names and major characteristics of the planets in the solar system, students might imagine that each planet is located in a different room in their house. They then cue retrieval of those names and characteristics from long-term memory by mentally walking through each room and recalling its imaginary contents. Students using the place method are able to memorize tremendous amounts of verbal target information accurately and quickly [22]. And like most elaborators, mnemonic and otherwise, places generated by students are usually more effective elaborators than places generated by the teacher.

An Elaboration Task utilizing the place method might consist of a piece of paper containing a large floor plan of each student's home or apartment house. They then practice walking through the house and reciting the target information in each room. Eventually, as a Recall-Practice Task, they place the plan out of their view and try reciting the information in each room. When they have difficulty provide guidance having them take the plan out and reciting the information again. They then put the plan away and try to recall the information again. They continue practicing until they are able to retrieve the target information correctly. They continue practicing over a period of days.

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1. Yates, F.A. (1966). The art of memory. London: Routledge.

2. McDaniel, M.A., & Presssley, M. (1987). (Eds.). Imagery and related mnemonic processes: Theories, individual differences and applications. New York: Springer-Verlag.

3. Kulhavy, R.W., Canady, J.O., Haynes, C.R. & Shaller, D.L. (1977). Mnemonic transformations and verbal coding processes in children. Journal of General Psychology, 96, 209-215.

4. (For example). Borges, M.A., Arnold, R.C., & McClure, V.L. (1976). Effect of mnemonic encoding techniques on immediate and delayed serial recall. Psychological Reports, 38, 915-921.

5. Tchabo, E.A., Hausman, C.F., & Arenberg, D. (1976). A classical mnemonic for older learners: A trip that works. Educational Gerontology, 1, 215-226.

6. Kroll, N.E.A., Schepeler, E.M., & Anglin, K.T. (1986). Bizarre imagery: The misrepresented mnemonic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 12, 42-53.

7. Snowman, J. (1989). Learning tactics and strategies. In G.D. Phye & T. Andre (Eds.), Cognitive classroom learning. New York: Academic Press.

8. Atkinson, R.C., & Raugh, M.R. (1975). An application of the mnemonic keyword method to the acquisition of a Russian vocabulary. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 7, 126-133.

9. (For example). Franke, T.M., Levin, J.R., & Carney, R.N. (1991). Mnemonic artwork-learning strategies: Helping students remember more than "Who painted what? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 16, 375-390.

10.Sweeney, C.A., & Bellezza, F.S. (1982). Use of keyword mnemonic in learning English vocabulary. Human Learning, 1, 155-164.

11. (For example). Pressley, M., Levin, J.R., & Miller, G.E. (1982) The keyword method compared to alternative vocabulary-learning strategies. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 7, 50-60.

12. Pressley, M., & Dennis-Rounds, J. (1980). Transfer of a mnemonic keyword strategy at two age levels. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 575-582.

13. Levin, J.R., Shriberg, L.K., Miller, G.E., McCormick, C.B., & Levin, B.B. (1980). The keyword method in the classroom: How to remember states anad their capitals. Elementary School Journal, 80, 185-191.

14. Shriberg, L.K., Levin, J.R., McCormick, C.B., & Pressley, M. (1982). Learning about "famous" people via the keyword method. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 238-247.

15. Jones, B.F., & Hall, J.W. (1982). School applications of the mnemonic keyword method as a study strategy by eighth graders. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 230-237.

16. Bellezza, F.S. (1981). Mnemonic devices: Classification, characteristics and criteria. Review of Educational Research, 51, 247-275.

17. Blick, K.A., & Waite, C.J. (1971). A study of mnemonic techniques used by college students in free recall learning. Psychological Reports, 29, 76-78.

18. (For example). Lowery, D.H. (1974). The effects of mnemonic learning strategies on transfer, interference, and 48-hour retention. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 103, 16-30.

19. (For example). Rohwer, Jr., W.D. (1973). Elaboration and learning in childhood and adolescence. In H.W. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (Vol. 8, pp. 1-57). New ;York: Academic Press.

20. Bellezza, F.S. (1983). The spatial-arrangement mnemonic. Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 830-837.

21. Chi, M.T.H. (1985). Interactive roles of knowledge and strategies in the development of organized sorting and recall. In S.F. Chipman, J.W. Segal, & R. Glaser (Eds.), Thinking and learning skills (Vol. 2, pp. 457-484). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

22. Kulhavy, R.W., Schwartz, N.H., & Peterson, S. (1986). Working memory: The encoding process. In G.D. Phye & T. Andre (Eds)., Cognitive classroom learning (pp. 115-140). New York: Academic Press.

23. Brown, A.L. (1973). Mnemonic elaboration and recency judgments in children. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 233-248.

24. Weinstein, C.E., Cubberly, W.E., Wilcker, F.W., Underwood, V.L., Roney, L.K., & Duty, D.C. (1981). Training versus instruction in the acquisition of cognitive learning strategies. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 6, 159-1660

25. Montague, W.E., & Carter, J. (1974), April). The loci mnemonic technique in learning and memory. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago.

Elaboration Strategy: Episodes

This posting focuses on Steps One and Two of an Elaboration Strategy when the Elaboration Task in Step One uses Episodes. Episodes represent the sequential structure of events as narrative incidents or stories Learners recall episodes in temporal order, such as "First the person did this, and then did that." [1] During the many tens of thousands of years between the time we homo sapiens possessed language but not writing, we learned prodigious amounts of information about our culture by listening to the elder's stories containing that information. Our brains seem to be hard wired for episodic memory. It is a useful cognitive ability to employ in helping students learn target information.

STEP ONE: ENCODE TARGET AND ELABORATION INFORMATION

The purpose of instruction in Step One is for students to initially encode the target information and elaboration information together in long-term memory.

ELABORATION TASK (Episodes)

Episodes are an effective elaboration for verbal target information, whether written or spoken. Single words are remembered better when they are presented in meaningful episodic sentences than if the words are presented by themselves [2]. The more meaningful an episode is for a student, the greater its effectiveness as an elaboration. Sentences supplied by students that describe personal experiences are remembered better than sentences supplied by the teacher that describe someone else's experiences [3]. Students' retrieval of a sentence is enhanced when it is presented together with other sentences that tell a story [4]. And when stories in students' reading text are personalized by substituting familiar names and places for those in the story, students remember the target information presented in those stories better [5].

Episodic elaboration consists of a story containing the target information. The most natural subject for using episodic elaboration is history, which is, after all, a chronological account of events. For example, the target information might be a list of the major events occurring and actors involved during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency in the conflict between the Army Chief of Staff, General Nelson Miles, and Elihu Root, Secretary of War. Root wanted to "modernize" the military by promoting line and staff officers based on merit rather than seniority, and creating a general staff answerable to the civilian control of the War Department. The general liked things the way they were. Because of their opposition, the general wanted revenge on the President and the Secretary of War, and he thought he had found the lethal weapon, a secret report of atrocities perpetrated by American forces against the insurrectos in the Philippines. A shining example of target information woven into an engrossing episodic elaboration is found in in the book Theodore Rex in Chapter 6, entitled "Pilots Aboard, and Rocks Ahead." [6] The chapter begins with a quote that has a decidedly current ring to it: "It looks to me as if this counthry was goin' to th' devil." The stories could be presented as a lecture, or students could read it. If students were assigned to read the information, the teacher should spend some time in class reviewing the information, perhaps as post-adjunct questions.

ELABORATION GUIDANCE

If the information is presented by the teacher as a lecture, the teacher will want to keep students' focus on the task, perhaps by including some humor, or some references to current events, such as the feeling in 1902 that there was chaos everywhere, and how some people are expressing that feeling today.

STEP TWO: PRACTICE RETRIEVING TARGET INFORMATION

Have all students retrieve the target information from long-term memory outside of the context of the episodic elaboration. In other words, concentrate on the target information.

RECALL-PRACTICE TASK

Students should practice recall the target information by itself after they read or heard it along with the episodes. The teacher might ask adjunct questions that involve both summarizing the target information, and making analogies to other information, such as how the conflict etween Army Chief of Staff General Miles and Secretary of War Elihu Root during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt is analogous to the work of Senator Goldwater and others did in the 1960s in reorganizing the senior military commanders and their relationships to the civilians in the Department of Defense. Students might be asked orally in class, or they might be given questions to answer in writing.

RECALL-PRACTICE GUIDANCE

While students answer questions the teacher provides confirming feedback when students respond adequately. When students are unable to recall an item of target information, the teacher refers them back to pertinent episodes. For example, students might be unable to recall the details of President Theodore Roosevelt's involvement in the conflict between Army Chief of Staff General Miles and Secretary of War Elihu Root. The teacher could ask students to think about the letter President Roosevelt wrote to General Miles about how the so-called atrocities against the Philippine insurrectos was like how the troops under General Mile's command had killed many women and children during an earlier fight at Wounded Knee. The specificity of the teacher's guidance should vary as students' ability to retrieve the target information increases. For example, less specific teacher guidance than the one shown above might be to simply say, "Think about Roosevelt's letter to Miles." The way the teacher provides guidance provides students a model of how they can retrieve target information themselves from a remembered episode.

READING EXAMPLE

Episodic memory can be utilized effectively when teaching beginning readers or low-ability readers of almost any age. The purpose is to help students learn to read the words in their oral vocabulary, the words they use when speaking. The target information for a student consists of all the words he or she uses when speaking but is unable to read. The teacher usually carries out the first step of the Elaboration Strategy with only one students at a time. In carrying out the Elaboration Task, the teacher elicits from the student a personal experience that has some chronological order. This could be accomplished a group of students once if they had a common experience, such as a field trip they took yesterday to the local bakery. A student draws a picture of the personal experience, possibly on a large enough piece of paper for a story to be written below the picture, so the pictorial representation of the story and the written story are in close physical proximity, which facilitates their being encoded together. When the picture for the story is completed, the student is asked to describe the experience; this elicits an oral rendition of the story. Then the teacher helps the student dictate sentences for the story, and the teacher prints them on the paper. The student is then asked to read each sentence in the story. If the students has difficulty with any word, the teacher says the word and prints it on another piece of paper or tag board. The students reads the sentences with the teacher providing guidance until he or she can read each word correctly.

The second step of the strategy, Recall Practice, can be carried out with a small number of students at one time even though students may have different words to learn. The Recall-Practice Task for each student is based on the words the teacher printed individually for the student on pieces of paper or tag board. The teacher shows the student a printed word and asks him or her to say it. If the students says it correctly, they go onto the next word. If the student cannot say it correctly, the teacher provides Recall-Practice Guidance by asking the student to think back to the story. If the student still cannot say the word, the teacher provides more explicit guidance by having the student describe the story. If the student still cannot say the word, the teacher brings out the story and picture and asks the student to read it and locate the word in the story he or she is having difficulty saying. Then the story and picture are taken away and the student is again shown the word in isolation and asked to say it. Then they go onto the next word card. The first and second steps of the Elaboration Strategy can be accomplished fairly competently by volunteer adults. The second step of the strategy can be carried out by cross-aged tutors or older adults. In order for them to carry out the strategy effectively the tutors, whether they be adults or older students, should be trained on how to carry out the strategy.

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1. (For example). Schank, R.C. (1975). The structure of episodes in memory. In D.G. Bobrow & A. Collins, (Eds.). Representation and understanding. New York: Academic Press.

2. (For example). Delaney, H.D. (1978). Interaction of individual differences with visual and verbal elaboration instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 306-318.

3. (For example). Ley, R., & Lacascio, D. (1977). Subject-generated and experimenter-supplied association as cues in recall of associatively encoded words and paralogs. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 10, 139-141.

4. White, R.T., & Gagne. R.M. (1976). Retention of related and unrelated sentences. Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 843-852.

5. Bracken, B.A. (1982). Effect of personalized basal stories on the reading comprehension of fourth-grade poor and average readers. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 7, 320-324.

6. (An interesting, 772-paged chronological account of episodes occurring during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. 1901 - 1909, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize) Morris, E. (2001). Theodore rex. New York: Random House.

Elaboration Strategy: Images: Examples

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

"si je t'aime, prends garde a toi," "if I love you, you'd better beware." This is Carmen's famous line in the first-act aria, Habanera, from the opera Carmen. I learned this almost a half century ago in my college French class, and have not forgotten it. My French teacher used a very effective Elaboration Strategy containing auditory images, although he undoubtedly did not call it that. Back then there was no research showing the strategy's instructional effectiveness. I guess he just intuited it. We spent some time in the class studying the opera's entire libretto, listening to the music and reading the words while attempting to reproduce different singers' accented French. The auditory images were the music and the words that were sung for that music. Today's DVD technology would have enabled us to add another elaborator, visual images of the opera. We would seen Carmen's sensuous movements as she sang, "si je t'aime, prends garde a toi." This activity helped us learn the target information, which consisted of French-English vocabulary, French sentence structure, and French pronunciation. The vocabulary words we learned the fastest and retained the longest were those from the libretto, as were the verb forms, such as "si je t;aime." The libretto activity activity also provided another kind of elaborator that made it even more effective, episodes: It told a story. We used the libretto music and words later as a "memory hook" for target information we had difficulty.

SCIENCE UNIT ON PLANTS

This illustration focuses on a small portion of a science unit on plants. The objective, target information and assessment task for this portion of the unit was shown in an earlier post and is repeated here. Also shown are the three modes of sensory experiences provided in this part of the science unit.

OBJECTIVE

Recall knowledge: Know about the three parts of leaves.

TARGET INFORMATION FOR THE OBJECTIVE

1. Chlorophyll gives leaves their green color.

2. The lamina is the flat blade of the leaf.

3. The petiole is the stalk that supports the lamina.

4. Chlorophyll makes sugar from carbon dioxide and water.

5. Veins carry sugar between the cells in the lamina and the petiole.

6. Veins support the lamina.

ASSESSMENT TASK

1. What gives leaves their green color?

2. What is the lamina of a leaf?

3. What is the petiole of a leaf?

4. What does chlorophyll do?

5. What two things do veins do?

MODES OF SENSORY EXPERIENCES

Symbolic Sensory Experiences

Written information from the textbook:

___________________________________________________________________

Leaves on plants have three parts. The lamina is the flat blade of the leaf. The petiole is the stalk that supports the lamina. The veins are the small tubes that branch out from the petiole. The main job of leaves is to make food for the plant. They make food by using the sun's energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar. The sugar is then taken to the rest of the plant and used as food. The lamina contains chlorophyll, which is what makes sugar from carbon dioxide and water. Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their green color. The veins carry the sugar between cells in the lamina to the petiole. The veins also support the lamina. The petiole connects the lamina to the rest of the plant. It carries sugar from the veins to the rest of the plant.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Iconic Sensory Experiences

Drawings from the textbook:

Enactive Sensory Experiences

As part of the science unit, students are growing plants and conducting experiments, such as varying the amount of light and water plants receive, and are recording the results in their science notebooks.

STEP ONE: ENCODE TARGET AND ELABORATION INFORMATION

Elaboration Task

The teacher has students read the pages in their science texts that deal with plant leaves. When they finish the teacher assigns students to write, draw and display the information about leaves in their science notebooks. They collect actual leaves and paste them into the notebooks with the parts and functions labeled like in the textbook. They also draw pictures of leaves and label them.

Elaboration Guidance

The teacher circulates around the room as students work, keeping them on task and helping them when they have difficulty. The teacher looks for errors students make and corrects them. If many make the same mistake, such as the way the leaf makes sugar for the plant's nourishment, the teacher directs their attention to the relevant written and drawn information in the text.

STEP TWO: PRACTICE RETRIEVING TARGET INFORMATION

Recall-Practice Task

The teacher has students take an open-notebook practice test about plants. The practice test contains at least one question about each item of target information. They write their answers on blank pieces of paper.

Recall-Practice Guidance

If students are unable to answer a question, they are allowed to look at their notebooks, but not in their science texts. The teacher walks around the room, keeping all students on task and making certain that they are making sincere efforts to answer each question before looking in their notebooks. Whenever the teacher notices that a number of students have difficulty with the same question, the teacher reviews the teachaer reviews the relevant item of target information with them.

SUBSEQUENT PERIODIC PRACTICE

Recall-Practice Task

Periodically, the teacher has students take a closed-notebook practice test about plants. These tests contain the same questions as the Assessment Task. Students are to write their answers without looking at their notebooks or texts, or asking other students.

Recall-practice Guidance

When students are unable to answer a question, they raise their hands and the teacher comes to help them. The teacher guides them to think back to what they wrote and drew in their science notebooks, and then using that to cue retrieval of the answer to the question. If they are still unable to recall it, the teacher has them look back at their notebooks.

MATHEMATICS

When instructing students for multliplication facts, the teacher can use cards like that shown below.

The front side of the card contains the Recall-Practice Task that also serves as the Assessment Task. The back side of the card has an Iconic Sensory Experience as the elaborator, a drawing. The teacher could also provide an Enactive Sensory Experience as an elaborator by using objects such as chips. The back side also contains the target information (4 x 3 = 12). When beginning instruction for multiplication facts the teacher works with small groups of students, helping them understand the relationship between between the grouping of actual chips and how they are represented in written multiplication problems. Students are likely to have difficulty encoding the multiplication facts unless they understand that the algorithm (4 x 3 = 12) represents a certain grouping of objects of objects, such as chips to fit different algorithms, such as (5 x 4 = 20). Taking the time to make multiplication facts meaningful for students will greatly increase their ability to encode and retrieve them.

Students can provide each other Recall Practice in tutorial pairs. The tutor shows the student the front side of the card and asks for the answer. If a student cannot retrieve the answer from memory, the tutor asks that the student think back to the picture for the fact. If the student still cannot answer, the tutor shows the back side of the card and asks for the answer. The pair continues practicing a group of cards over and over until the student can retrieve the answers correctly and quickly. Speedy, almost automatic, retrieval of the basic multiplication facts from long-term memory is important so that students will be able to use those facts when solving complex mathematics problems. Periodically they exchange roles so both can practice as students.

Elaboration Strategy: Images

This posting will focus on Steps One and Two of the Elaboration Strategy when the Elaboration Task in Step One uses Images. Images consist of sensory experiences that are encoded in long-term memory as representations that correspond more or less directly with the configurations of elements in concrete things and actions [1]. The sensory experiences may be visual, auditory, olfactory, touch, taste, kinesthesis, temperature or any combination of these. Images can be encoded from sensory experiences of concrete objects (e.g., looking at and touching a real door). And images can be retrieved from long-term memory by words (e.g., hearing the word "door" makes one think of the large, green, squeaky door in the classroom) [2].

STEP ONE: ENCODE TARGET INFORMATION AND ELABORATION INFORMATION

The purpose of instruction in Step one is for students to initially encode the target information and elaboration information in long-term memory.

ELABORATION TASK (Images)

Visual images are the most instructionally effective elaborators for learning verbal target information [3]. Regardless of their age and the subjects they are studying, students' encoding and retention of the verbal target information they are reading about is enhanced when that information is associated with pictures [4], illustrations or diagrams [5], or maps [6]. Even simply asking students to "think about" the pictures that might be related to the verbal target information they are reading about enhances their encoding and retention of that information [7]. Visual images are powerful elaborators for verbal target information because they are more easily retrieved from long-term memory. Pictures of objects are encoded more quickly and retained longer than the names of those objects [8]. Words that naturally evoke visual images of concrete objects and actions are encoded faster and retained longer than words that are not so naturally visual evoking [9]. For example, students remember the pronunciation of a visual-evoking written word like cat longer than a relatively less visual-evoking written word like cute, and the written word cute longer than an even less visual-evoking written word like come. The most difficult words to remember are those that evoke no visual, such as to and the. Students remember the more visual-evoking words better than the less visual-evoking words regardless of whether the words are presented singly, in sentences, or in paragraphs [10]. Images are more effective as elaborators when students supply their own than when teachers or publishers supply them [11]. Visual images are effective as elaborators for written target information only to the degree that the visuals illustrate the written written target information [12]. In addition, when visuals illustrate only some of the written target information given in a passage, students remember the illustrated written information better than they remember the written information that was not illustrated [13]. To often textbooks provide pictures that make pages more attractive but do not illustrate the written target information, and so those pictures do not facilitate the learning of verbal target information.

Sensory experiences can be used as elaborators for target information in three modes: Enactive, Iconic and Symbolic [14]. The modes differ in their effectiveness as elaborators for target information. Enactive sensory experiences are usually the most effective elaborators for target information [15]. And iconic experiences are usually more effective elaborators than symbolic experiences [16]. Each mode of presenting sensory experiences can result in the encoding of quite different images even when it is for the same written words, such as the words red apple.

ENACTIVE SENSORY EXPERIENCES

The teacher provides actual objects and actions, enabling students to encode images directly from perceived sensory experiences. Because actual objects and actions often contain such a wide variety of possible sensory experiences, many of which are not suitable as an elaborator for the target information, the teacher often needs to focus students' attention on the particular sensory experiences that are to be used as the elaborator. For example, the teacher shows students actual apples, cuts them into pieces and gives each on a piece to eat. The teacher focuses their attention by having them describe how the apple looks, feels, smells and tastes.

ICONIC SENSORY EXPERIENCES

The teacher provides models, photographs and drawings of objects and actions, enabling students to encode images that are based on the limited sensory experiences provided by the icon. The closer the icons are to the actual objects or actions,the more complete and realistic students' encoded sensory experiences are likely to be, and the more effective they will be as elaborators. For example, the teacher shows students a a photograph of an apple. The sensory representation students encode for this limited sensory experience represents the color and two-dimensional shape of an apple, but not its smell, feel and taste.

SYMBOLIC SENSORY EXPERIENCES

The teacher describes objects and actions, with the intent of enabling students to mentally abstract from their previously encoded images those particular sensory experiences that they are to mentally synthesize into a new image. Whether a particular sensory experience is an effective elaborator for target information depends on (a) students' already having previously encoded the images from which certain sensory experiences will be abstracted, and (b) their ability to mentally analyze and synthesize sensory experiences. For example, the teacher explains that an apple is usually red, about the size of a baseball, and is good to teat. The image students are likely to encode from this limited symbolic experience is that an apple is like a red baseball that can be eaten. This image is so limited that students who have encoded it probably would not recognize a real apple when they saw it, and it will probably not be effective as an elaborator for target information.

Teachers can use a Rehearsal Task in helping students encode together the target information and elaboration information. The two kinds of information are presented and repeated together.

ELABORATION GUIDANCE

While students are performing Elaboration Tasks the teacher focuses their attention on the target and elaboration information, and provides confirming and corrective feedback.

STEP TWO: PRACTICE RETRIEVING TARGET INFORMATION

Have all students retrieve the target information from long-term memory without the elaborator being present. Provide guidance.

RECALL-PRACTICE TASK

Use activities that require all students to retrieve the target information frequently and by itself, without the elaborator. Unless students are given tasks that require them to retrieve the target information apart from the elaboration information, they are unlikely to to be able to retrieve the target information later if the elaborator is not present [17]. In effect, if retrieval of the target information is not practiced by itself, the intended elaboration information becomes part of the target information. For example, if students are helped to learn to read the word cute (target information) by associating it with the picture of a cute dog (elaboration information), and never practice reading the word cute by itself, they may not be able to read the word cute in this sentence: Did you see the cute hat Mary was wearing,? unless a picture of the cute dog is located by the word. Recall-practice tasks, like assessment tasks, ask only for the retrieval of target information.

RECALL-PRACTICE GUIDANCE

When students perform recall-practice tasks adequately the teacher provides confirming feedback. When students are unable to perform recall-practice tasks adequately, the teacher provides corrective feedback by helping them to think back to the elaborator "Do you remember the picture we looked at before? What was it it? Good. What sentence was beside the picture?" The teacher varies the explicitness of this corrective feedback according to students' changing ability to retrieve the target information. The teacher might even have to repeat the elaboration task. Teachers' patient guidance here is very important because the teacher is also modeling how students might later use the same method the teacher is using to retrieve the elaborator in order to "hook onto" the target information.

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1. Anderson, J.R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

2. Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

3. (For example). Arlin, M., Scott, M., & Webster, J. (1978/79). The effects of pictures on rate of learning sight words: A critique of the focal attention hypothesis. Reading Research Quarterly, 14, 645-660.

4. (For example). De Rose, T. (1976). The effects of verbally and pictorially induced and imposed strategies on children's memory for text. Madison: University of Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service, No. ED 133 709).

5. (For example). Anderson, R.C., & Kulhavy, R.W. (1972). Imagery and prose learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 63, 242-248.

6. (For example). Dean, R.S., & Kulhavy, R.W. (1981). Influences of spatial organization in prose learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 57-64.

7. Schallert, D.L. (1980). The role of illustrations in reading comprehension. In R.J. Spiro, B.C. Bruce, & W.F. Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical issues in reading comprehension. (pp. 503-524). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

8. Levie, H.W., & Levie, D. (1975). Pictorial memory processes. AV Communication Review, 23, 81-97.

9. (For example). Borges, M.A., Lewis, L.K., & Lillich, Jr., J.W. (1997). Effects of verbal study strategies on the free recall and retention of concrete and abstract nouns. Psychological Reports, 49, 147-156.

10. (For example). Anderson, R.C. (1974). Concretization and sentence learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 179-183.

11. (For example). Ley, R., & Lacascio, D. (1977). Subject-generated and experimenter-supplied association cues in recall of associatively encoded words. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 10, 139-141.

12. (For example). Mayer, R.R., Bove, W., Bryman, A., Mars, R., & Tapangco, L. (1996). When less is more: Meaningful learning from visual and verbal summaries of science textbook lessons. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 64-73.

13. Peeck, J. (1974). Retention of pictorial and verbal content of a text with illustrations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 880-888.

14. (Identified by Bruner). Bruner, J.S. (1961) The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31, 21-32.

15. Westman, A.A., & Delprato, D.J. (1974). Effect of presentation mode on organization and recall. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 2, 415--416.

16. Denis, M. (1973). Comparative stability of learning pictorial and verbal material. Psychologice, 18, 47-59.

17.(For example). Singer, H. (1980). Sight word learning with and without pictures: A critique of Arlin, Scott and Webster's research. Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 290-298.