Blog 3_Chapter 3&4_ Rigorous Researcher_ Melissa Lochner
I decided to research mnemonics. Although I have seen them before in classrooms, when Willingham first mentioned the word I forgot what they were. I wanted to see if the internet had any other ideas besides the one Willingham showed in the chart. There were lots of websites about using mnemonics to improve your memory but not as many about mnemonics in education. One website I found talked about how a girl classified as mildly mentally handicapped was helped immensely with a mnemonic device. Willingham talked about how it could help students but he never said how it may help students with disabilities even more. Although all methods of mnemonics are successful, the ones that have worked best for students with learning disabilities and other special needs is the keyword method, the pegword method, and letter strategies. The article talks about having the students creating their own mnemonic device as well, allowing them to connect with the information even more and help the learning process. However, “instruction may proceed at a much slower rate and students' performances may be lower than when teachers supply the strategies (Mastropieri, &Scruggs, 1998)” when the last suggestion is applied.
Go to http://www.ldonline.org/article/5912 to read the entire article.
Mastropieri, M.A., & Scruggs, T.E. (1998, March).Enhancing school success with mnemonic strategies. Retrieved from http://www.ldonline.org/article/5912
-Melissa
I like that researching this topic was a great idea. In fact it was also one of my vocab words. I think mnemonic devises are so important for memory. Half the stuff in school that I properly stored into long term memory and still remember to this day was done by using mnemonic devises. I really feel they are a great way to remember information. One that I still remember is for the order of operations and how to sort out the order or units of measure and what is larger or smaller in the metric system.
ReplyDeleteNatalie Gregorski
It's so funny that you picked the order of operations because that was the first thing that I thought of. Acronyms are something that every student can appreciate as a way to help them remember important information. Another acronym that I can think of is BEAD GCF (bead greatest common factor) for music. It was something that helped me.
ReplyDeleteStacey