Sie sind auf Seite 1von 4

Tallon Nielsen

Tamara Neff
Biology 1615
April 1st 2015
Memory in Elementry School Children is Improved by and Unrelated Novel Experience
Introduction
To make a memory, it takes time and practice and will stabilize within time. This
Hypothesis is called Memory Consolidation and was proposed over 100 years ago. The
researchers hypothesized that if you have a fun lesson a few hours before or after the lesson you
need to focus on, your memory improves and you do better in school. Researchers found that
stress arousal, motivation, and reward all play a part in cultivating or weakening our memory.
Current research done by Fabrico Ballarini and his team had a goal to study the effects of
different teaching techniques on long term memory. Fabricio chose this subject because he
wanted to prove that there are better ways for individuals to create better long term memories
and retain information.
This topic has value because there are always better ways to learn. Learning in school is
the most common way for us to build and improve our memory. With school being the most
common way for us to expand our minds, it is important to find new avenues to improve the way
we are taught things. If we can tailor our teaching to the way our minds work, then we will retain
more information and life will be easier.
The researchers want to help the human race grow in new ways of learning and
education. Current methods of teaching are not as effective as they can be with our current
technology. Our brains should be able to keep up with everything we need to learn. People all

over the world are taught so many things, and so little is retained, thus we are wasting not only
our education, but also our brains. If we can change the way children are taught from more
traditional ways to more entertaining, children will retain more information and require less work
to memorize information.
Materials and Methods
To perform the study, the researchers collected information from 1,676 students ages 7-9
from 8 different schools in Buenos Aires Argentina. Information on long term memory was
evaluated using statistical analysis of tests given to different groups after the reading of a story
and having an entertaining yet different lesson. The researchers also set up a music lesson and a
science lesson. A memory index was created and analyzed using easy, intermediate, and hard
questions relating to the story. The students were given specific times to be read stories and to
have lessons which were then calculated to determine long term memory. The easy questions
were used to make sure the students were focused on the task, the intermediate and hard
questions were used for finding the mean of the individuals test scores. A chart was also
implemented in which the students would copy the chart and tested the next day to see how
much information was retained.
Results
When the stories were not related with a novel lesson, there was no difference between
the scores obtained for the group. The group who was tested with the novel experience was
observed to have enhanced memory. Researchers found that when a student was instructed with
an innovative or unique way of teaching, they retained more information. This showed that the
way we are being taught currently is not as effective as novel means of instruction. If students
were familiar with the science or music lesson being taught, there was no observed improvement

in the test scores. This shows that the enhancing effect is specifically related to the novel nature
of the music lesson and not the lesson itself. (Ballarini)
Discussion
These results confirmed that students who are taught with unconventional ways of
teaching retain information better then students taught with more traditional means. Therefor this
inexpensive method of including some novel teaching practices can improve long term memory.
The data proved to be conclusive of the initial hypothesis, even though there were
specific time windows for the lessons to take place the fact that students who had the novel
lessons did better in testing then the students who had the traditional method shows that the way
we are currently teaching students can be improved with a greater success rate. Finding different
teaching strategies is important for the future of humanity so we can evolve to a better way of
learning.

Bibliography
Ballarini, Fabricio. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?
id=10.1371/journal.pone.0066875. 19 June 2013. 2015 February 2015.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen