Memory / Forgetting

Over the past year or so I've become very interested in how people learn. I am particularly interested in the development of instruction that helps students learn how to learn. My assumption is that students could increase their rate of learning if they were to receive explicit instruction on the learning processes and techniques. Whether or not this is true, I don't know. I look forward to finding out. It is in this light that I really have enjoyed the readings for this class, particularly this section on memory.

In the Ebbinghaus reading I found the retention findings to be insightful. When considering the total time that it took to learn information, there was an interesting correlation to the complexity of the information being learned and long-term retention. The "up front" time it took to learn less complex information was considerably shorter than the more complex information. However, it seemed to take a longer period of time relearning that information in order to obtain long-term retentions. On the other hand, the "up front" time it took to learn the more complex information was greater than the less complex information. However, it look less time relearning the more complex information in order to obtain long-term retentions. In essence, it seemed that the total amount of time it took for long-term retention was almost the same regardless of the complexity of the information. This makes me wonder if there is a "tipping point" for the total time spent learning information that, when reached, would commit the information to long-term memory. If this "tipping point" exist, would it be independent of the complexity of the information?

Miller's writings of the number 7 plus or minus 2 was also very interesting.  I found his opening and closing statements on the magical number 7 to be somewhat amusing. These particular parts of the reading, for some reason, made me think of the number 7 in a religious context. I'm not much of a religious scholar but I do believe that within religion the number 7 has some significance… something to think about.

In his writing Miller argues that the number 7 is the optimum size of bits for optimal learning and retention. He says this about what happens when we start adding more bits then 7 to the equation: "The point seems to be that, as we add more variables to the display, we increase the total capacity, but we decrease the accuracy for any particular variable. In other words, we can make relatively crude judgments of several things simultaneously." He also gave a practical argument for why this might be true, based off of evolution. He said, "We might argue that in the course of evolution those organisms were most successful that were responsive to the widest range of stimulus energies in their environment. In order to survive in a constantly fluctuating world, it was better to have a little information about a lot of things than to have a lot of information about a small segment of the [p. 89] environment. If a compromise was necessary, the one we seem to have made is clearly the more adaptive." This caused me to think about the information age in which we live. Considering all the information that is now available to us as learners and the rate at which this information changes, is it better for us to be a jack of all trades and a master at none or to focus in on one thing?

Miller's discussion on "chunking" made me wonder about the development of "chunking" techniques to maximize learning. I'm sure there are some "chunking" techniques out there… I would be interested to know how effective they are.