John Medina, a brain scientist and the author of Brain Rules, talks about the development of long-term memory in this interesting video.
According to him, it takes 10 years for long-term memories to become permanent – and even then knowledge needs active repetition for this to happen.
He tells the story of Boeing asking him how they can improve the memory of college graduates who join them because they’ve already forgotten alot of what they’ve learnt at college. And Medina said to them: “Everyone forgets alot.”
So what are the implications of this for educators? The key is to remember that it’s inevitable that all your learners will forget a great deal.
So the first thing you need to work out is what you need them to remember compared with the information they can easily go back and refer to in materials.
And I would suggest it is the core principles and processes of your learning model that you want people to remember whereas the detail of any action plans can be easily looked up.
So you need to make clear to your learners what is essential for them to remember and then, from time to time, you can give them what Medina calls “booster shots” so important knowledge is repeated regularly.
You can also give your learners A4 or poster-size diagrams or descriptions of important principles, processes or strategies and suggest they are reviewed regularly.
This will help to embed important information into their minds. And, doing this with a clear information structure will make the process more potent.
Knowing how the brain works and then implementing that knowledge is crucial for educators – so I’ll be returning to this area in future posts.