Boost Your Memory and Concentration: Unforgettable Strategies

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Boost Your Memory and Concentration
Unforgettable Strategies

• Academic Success Seminar/Workshop
• College of Veterinary Medicine
• University of Minnesota
• Deb Wingert, Ph.D.
• Director of Educational Development

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Build Your Concentration

• Preview content
• Set specific goals
• Study in a good area
• Vary your activity (read, take notes, recite
  aloud, create questions)
• Prevent daydreaming (review what youre
  studying,stand up and walk for a minute)

• Connect what you are learning to what you already
  know
• Set a time limit for studying
• Pace yourself (not too much in one sitting)
• Organize assignments/study time into specific
  tasks (previewing helps!)
• Utah State University, 2008

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Barriers to Concentration

• Hunger
• Fatigue
• Internal distractions
• External distractions
• BUSTING BARRIERS
• Hunger _______________________________________
• Fatigue Regular routine of _____________________
  ___
• _____________________________
  _________
• Internal distractions ___________________________
  ___
• External distractions (Away from noise and
  stimuli)
• University of Waterloo, 2008

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Concentration Tips

• Ask yourself questions
• How does this relate to what I know?
• Whats the evidence for this?
• Whats a good example of this?
• Any unique points?

• Designate a study place.....for studying only!
• Good lighting
• Ventilated
• Comfortable (not too comfortable!)
• Divide study time into goals/blocks (such
  as.....finish 3 chapters, 4 case studies)
• University of Waterloo, 2008

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Concentration Tips

• To remember terms, __________________________
• The items you study first, you remember the
  longest.....start with ___________________________
  _
• Overlearn
• ______________________________
• Make your own examples
• Create many associations with the content you
  need to remember......the more associations leads
  to ________________
• Describe content to peer without using your notes
• Virginia Tech, 2008

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Habits of Good Listeners

• Listen between the lines
• (anticipate whats next!)
• Take good notes
• Sees lecture like a chapter
• Avoid _______________
• _______________
• Judge content,
• not ____________

• There is no such thing as an uninteresting
  subject there are only uninterested people.
• G.K. Chesterton
• Kishwaukee College, 2008

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Good Listeners Do NOT

• Avoid difficult explanations
• Find fault with _______
• ___________________
• Dismiss content as not interesting
• Show impatience
• Utah State University, 2008

• Interrupt (with a question, etc.) in the middle
  of an explanation.
• Share worthless info
• Believe that _________ is more important than
  _____________

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Listening skills

• Prune ___________________
• _______________________
• Maintain alertness (eye contact with speaker)
• Ask whats in it for me? (find areas of
  interest)
• Listen for central ideas (not facts)
• Write only ______________
• Exercise mind with difficult material
• Utah State University, 2008
• College of Saint Benedict, 2008

• Screen out distractions
• Background noise
• Language mistakes/accents
• Speaker habits
• Irrelevant info
• Daydreaming
• Organize info into main ideas and supporting
  details
• Avoid hasty judgments
• Remain neutral (not emotional)

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Listen Actively

• The more you think about what you ______, the
  more you will understand and remember

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Listen Actively (cd)

• Summarize
• Analyze
• Predict
• Mentally review what has been previously said

• Compare lecture to text
• Apply to your own experience
• Select most important
• Ignore ________________

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Memory and Learning StylesHow do you remember
best?

• A few stats
• We remember ____ of what we read
• We remember ____ of what we hear
• We remember _____ of what we see

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Memory and Learning StylesHow do you remember
best?

• Visual learners make up about _____ of the
  population
• Use notes, diagrams, color (!), printed
  materials.....charts...study guides/sheets........
  .images.......anything visual!
• Visualize these images

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Memory and Learning StylesHow do you remember
best?

• Auditory learners make up about _____ of the
  population
• Auditory learners remember best
• by listening and taking/using notes
• review notes by reading them out loud
• study partners.....teaching each other..
• consider taping class sessions
• When you teach someone else, you remember ___ of
  what you ______
• When you teach someone else, you remember ___ of
  what you ____________!

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Memory and Learning StylesHow do you remember
best?

• Tactile/kinesthetic learners benefit by
  ___________!!!!
• Create the notes, charts, etc.
• _________________!
• Study partners

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A Few Unforgettable strategies

• Take notes in class
• Review (even rewrite/organize.....the Cornell
  method is good here!)

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The Cornell System

• Step One ______________
• Write notes during class in a record column

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The Cornell System

• Step Two _________________
• After class, reduce ideas into a few words and
  place them in a recall column

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The Cornell System

• Step Three _________________
• Review notes after lecture. Connect main concepts
  in left (recall) column with details in the right
  (record) column.

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The Cornell System

• Step Four _______________
• In the bottom summary section, jot a few
  sentences , summarizing all main points and why
  this is important. Students are 31 more likely
  to remember content by doing this step!

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A Few Unforgettable strategies

• Choose techniques to help you remember
• Associate.....with personal memories or the
  meaning of the content
• Visualize...form mental images
• Apply
• Repeat
• Rhymes, abbreviations
• Acrostics/Acronyms.....words to help you remember
  terms (such as very active cat to remember
  veins, arteries and capillaries)
• Repetition...use the senses
• Read term out loud
• Read, rite, recite

• Study right before sleeping...wake _______
  minutes early and review material one more time.
• _______________________! This simple memory
  strategy helps you keep your cool and prevents
  panic from taking over. This also keeps your
  blood pressure down, your system oxygenated, and
  your mental stress protectors from overheating
  due to frustration.
• Cuesta College, 2008
• Softpedia.com, 2008
• http//www.memory-improvement- tipster.com/memo
  ry_strategies/

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Another Unforgettable strategy The LOVE Method

• Look See the item, write the name in your palm
• Overstate Think something ________________
• Visualize ______________________________
• ___________________________ on the movie
  screen right inside your forehead
• Engrave ____________________ ______________
• ________________ until it's firmly stored in your
  brain.
• http//www.memory-improvement-tipster.com/memory
  _strategies/

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A Few More Unforgettable strategies

• ______________ practice/review!
• Chunk your info......study in chunks
• Review notes _____________
• ___________ what you are learning....mental
  pictures......_________ your notes
• Visualize the lectures

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One final Unforgettable strategy

• Link Technique - make a link or association
  between pairs of words to be remembered by
  visualizing in ones mind an unusual or
  ridiculous association between the pair,
• e.g., to remember the _______________ lamp,
  typewriter, truck you need to form an unusual
  visual association between lamp and typewriter,
• e.g., picture a lamp with arms typing on a
  typewriter, then a link between typewriter and
  truck,
• e.g., picture a pickup truck hauling an
  enormous pile of typewriters. In this way, when
  you lamp this will trigger the mental image
  involving the typewriter which in turn will
  trigger the image of a truck and so on.

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Questions?

• Thank you!!
• Deborah A. Wingert, Ph.D.
• Director of Educational Development
• College of Veterinary Medicine (108 Pomeroy)
• Preparing Future Faculty Program Coordinator
• Early Career Program Facilitator
• Center for Teaching and Learning
• University of Minnesota
• 315 Science Classroom Building
• 222 Pleasant St. S.E.
• Minneapolis, MN 55455
• Phone [phone] at Pomeroy) or
  (612/625-3405 at CTL)
• Email winge007_at_umn.edu