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The Association Memory Technique

The Association Technique can be a helpful tool to help you memorize many seemingly unrelated items or ideas. Association is a powerful memory aid. We all experience sensory stimuli that remind us of something else. The smell of fresh baked bread might remind you of your mom’s great apple pie. Hearing the end of the “Sesame Street” theme song might remind you of your wonderful pre-school teacher.

The Association Technique connects the items or ideas we want to remember to one visual theme. Recent hemispheric brain research has proved the power of associations. Our brains act as computer file folders, slotting newly learned information in the same file as already-learned information that fits within that same file. This Association Technique connects the new information you want to remember with existing information that you already know, much like our brain file folders do. If we take the time to organize new information in same way as our brains, we can improve our retention of that information.

Directions and Examples

Select a vivid image that represents the main idea or “title” of the majority of objects, or key words, to be remembered. For example, if you wanted to memorize the steps of the scientific method, you might sketch out a test tube as you vivid image. Place a number inside the image which represents how many items you need to remember: in this case “5” for the steps in the scientific method. Draw a separate concrete object around the image to represent each idea or fact you want to remember. Pick a key word that will help you remember the idea or fact: in this case a magnifying glass for Step 1 Observation; a question mark for Step 2 Questions; a light bulb for Step 3 Hypothesis; a puzzle for Step 4 Data Collection and Analysis; and a race finish banner for Step 5 Conclusion. If the exact order is important, connect each in clockwise order: in this case the order is important.

Lesson

Suppose you needed to remember the following errands for Saturday afternoon. Use the Association Memory Technique to draw pit amd remember these errands:

1. Pick up the cleaning.
2. Mail Kenny’s birthday package.
3. Buy a jar of mayonnaise.
4. Buy a three-pound can of coffee.
5. Pick up a dozen roses for Mom.
6. Call for reservations at Luigi’s Italian Restaurant.
7. Make a doctor’s appointment for your annual physical.

Here’s my drawing: Picture a large orange “seven” standing up in the middle of a green, grassy field. Picture yourself leaning up against the “seven” with a plastic bag containing your cleaning on your right arm and a birthday package with a bright red bow hanging from your left arm. Then, picture your right foot stuck in a jar of mayonnaise and your left foot stuck in a coffee can. In your mouth is a long stem rose. Hanging out of your nostrils is a few spaghetti noodles from Luigi’s and hanging around your neck is a doctor’s stethoscope.

Now prompt yourself to remember the errands by identifying each object. Works well, doesn’t it? A little rehearsal will place these facts into your long term memory.

Memorizing using the The Association Technique will enable you to retain the memory of many seemingly unrelated items. Useful for upcoming tests, lectures, speeches, shopping lists, and weekend errands? Of course.

Check out these other brief articles on helpful memorization techniques: catch sentences, catch words, linking, This Old Man, location, and grouping.

The author’s Essential Study Skills is the study skill curriculum that teaches what students need to know to succeed and thrive in

Essential Study Skills

school. Often, the reason why students fail to achieve their academic potential is not because of laziness or lack of effort, but because they have never learned the basic study skills necessary for success.

The 56 lessons in Essential Study Skills will teach your students to “work smarter, not harder.” Students who master these skills will spend less time, and accomplish more during homework and study time. Their test study will be more productive and they will get better grades. Reading comprehension and vocabulary will improve. Their writing will make more sense and essays will be easier to plan and complete. They will memorize better and forget less. Their schoolwork will seem easier and will be much more enjoyable. Lastly, students will feel better about themselves as learners and will be more motivated to succeed. Essential Study Skills is the ideal curriculum for study skill, life skill, Advocacy/Advisory, Opportunity Program classes. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning and practice. Contact the publisher for affordable site licenses.

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Grouping Memory Technique

The grouping technique (also referred to as the chunking strategy) can be an effective tool to help you memorize items that can be placed into categories. We know from recent hemispheric brain research that our brains act as computer file folders, slotting newly learned information in the same file as already-learned information that fits within that same file. If we take the time to organize new information in same way that our brains do, we can enhance our retention of that information.

This simple memory technique will help students of all ages place many items into the long term memory. Using the grouping technique, the  specific details of a lecture or reading can be organized into meaningful and memorable categories. Grouping is an effective strategy for reviewing notes and chunking information into memorable categories for test preparation. Why not score core higher on tests and make study fun by learning the way our brains are organized?

The categories we develop to remember similar items don’t have to be organized by content. Any similarities can be used to classify items as a group. For example, a group of people could be classified according to sex, body size, color of skin, eye or hair color, introverted-extroverted—the possibilities are endless.

Let’s learn how to use the Grouping Technique to remember a list of nine items. You are driving into work and your friend phones to tell you that you’ve been invited to go on a backpacking trip next weekend. “Sure, I’ll remember what to bring,” you respond to your friend. The equipment list includes the following:

• tent
• flashlight
• stove
• matches
• sleeping bag
• fuel
• utensils
• ground cloth
• food

At first glance, the equipment items might appear to be quite random and you may be thinking that you will have to sacrifice your pride and call your friend back later to remind you of some of the items the backpacking list. After all, if you are responsible for bringing the food, you don’t want to forget that item! But, instead, you take a few moments to apply the Grouping Technique and you have the list memorized perfectly. You simply categorize the items into these groups:

Sleeping

• sleeping bag
• tent
• ground cloth

Light/Fire

• matches
• stove
• flashlight
• fuel

Eating

• food
• utensils

Works, doesn’t it? Notice that the categories do not have to contain equal numbers of the similar items. Also, a few exceptions would certainly be easier to remember than memorizing the entire list of information as random, un-related items.

For abstract concepts, try substituting them with concrete objects to place them within your groups. For example, it is easier to substitute and place the concrete Liberty Bell into a category than the concept of “freedom.”

Not only does the grouping memory technique help convert short-term memory into long-term memory, grouping also helps us organize and synthesize seemingly unrelated information. By comparing and analyzing details, we can form main ideas. Perfect for pre-writing and literary analysis.

Students using Cornell Notes and the AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) strategies will especially appreciate the grouping memory technique as a review and organizational aid. For example, from a lecture on Spanish colonization of the Americas, a student might organize the narrative notes into, say, these categories: explorers, discoveries, indigenous peoples, successes, failures. What a great way to organize notes for memorable test study.

Memorizing using the Grouping Technique will enable you to retain the memory of many seemingly unrelated items. Frequent rehearsal of the categories and their items will place the information into your long-term memory. Useful for upcoming tests, speeches, lectures, conversations, party planning, shopping lists? I should say so.

Check out these other brief articles on helpful memorization techniques: catch sentences, catch words, linking, association, This Old Man, and location.

The author’s Essential Study Skills is the study skill curriculum that teaches what students need to know to succeed and thrive in school. Often, the reason why

Essential Study Skills

students fail to achieve their academic potential is not because of laziness or lack of effort, but because they have never learned the basic study skills necessary for success.

The 56 lessons in Essential Study Skills will teach your students to “work smarter, not harder.” Students who master these skills will spend less time, and accomplish more during homework and study time. Their test study will be more productive and they will get better grades. Reading comprehension and vocabulary will improve. Their writing will make more sense and essays will be easier to plan and complete. They will memorize better and forget less. Their schoolwork will seem easier and will be much more enjoyable. Lastly, students will feel better about themselves as learners and will be more motivated to succeed. Essential Study Skills is the ideal curriculum for study skill, life skill, Advocacy/Advisory, Opportunity Program classes. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning and practice. Contact the publisher for affordable site licenses.

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Catch Word (Acronym) Memory Technique

The Catch Words Technique can be an effective tool to help you memorize many seemingly unrelated items. The Catch Word (Acronym) Technique connects the unrelated ideas we want to remember in the letters of a word or series of words that relate to each other. We know from recent brain research that our brains act as computer file folders, slotting newly learned information in the same file as already-learned information that fits within that same file. This technique connects ideas or items together, just like our brain file folders do. If we take the time to organize new information in same way as our brains, we can improve our retention of that information. Using catch words (acrostics) is a great way to review notes and to study for tests.

Catch Words Examples

Do you remember these catch words from school?

ROY G. BIV

for the colors of the spectrum: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet

HOMES

for the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior

NEWS

for the chief points of the compass: North, East, South, and West

Directions

For each key word that you want to remember, use its first letter as one of the letters in a new word. Then select another key word and use its first letter as another one of the letters in the word, etc. Certainly add on additional words as is necessary, but try to relate the words together in a memorable phrase, such as ROY G. BIV in the above example. Substitute concrete objects for any key words that are too abstract to remember well. For example, substituting the concrete nose for the abstract smell would be a much more memorable object to use in the catch word(s).

Catch Words for the Causes of World War I

Let’s try to memorize some facts about for an upcoming history test on World War I. You need to know the causes of the war and the members of the Triple Entente and Central Powers alliances. Simple with the Catch Words Technique.

For the long term causes of World War I: Alliances, Militarism, Nationalism, and Imperialism, let’s rearrange this list, using the first letter of each cause in this order: MAIN. For the Triple Entente: England, Russia, and France, let’s rearrange this list as REF. For the Central Powers: Germany, Austria, and Italy, let’s rearrange this list as  A GI. Put them together and you’ve got the memorable MAIN REF A GI. Develop a picture of  MAIN Street with a A GI standing in the middle of traffic, next to a REFeree, and you will never forget these catch words. That’s ten key facts from World War I, organized in three categories!

Now prompt yourself to remember each fact by referring only to the above catch words. Works well, doesn’t it? A little rehearsal will place these facts into your long term memory and help you “ace” that history test.

Students using Cornell Notes and the AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) strategies can use the catch words memory technique as a review and organizational aid. For example, from a lecture on the causes of the Civil War, a student might organize the notes into, say, these categories: slavery, states rights, industrial v. agricultural interests, territorial expansion, diplomatic leadership failure. What a great way to organize notes for memorable test study!

Memorizing using the Catch Words Technique will enable you to retain the memory of many seemingly unrelated items. Useful for upcoming tests, names, essays, lectures, shopping lists? Easy and very memorable.

Check out these other brief articles on helpful memorization techniques: catch sentences, linking, association, This Old Man, location, and grouping.

The author’s Essential Study Skills is the study skill curriculum that teaches what students need to know to succeed and thrive in school. Often, the reason why

Essential Study Skills

students fail to achieve their academic potential is not because of laziness or lack of effort, but because they have never learned the basic study skills necessary for success.

The 56 lessons in Essential Study Skills will teach your students to “work smarter, not harder.” Students who master these skills will spend less time, and accomplish more during homework and study time. Their test study will be more productive and they will get better grades. Reading comprehension and vocabulary will improve. Their writing will make more sense and essays will be easier to plan and complete. They will memorize better and forget less. Their schoolwork will seem easier and will be much more enjoyable. Lastly, students will feel better about themselves as learners and will be more motivated to succeed. Essential Study Skills is the ideal curriculum for study skill, life skill, Advocacy/Advisory, Opportunity Program classes. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning and practice. Contact the publisher for affordable site licenses.

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Catch Sentence (Acrostic) Memory Technique

The Catch Sentence (Acrostic) Technique can be an effective tool to help you memorize many seemingly unrelated items. This memory trick is especially helpful for memorizing items or facts in an exact order.  Like the Catch Words (Acronyms) Technique, this memory trick forces you to remember each item or idea by prompting your recall of the first letter of each key word. Fortunately, you probably have heard a few of the most often used catch sentences (acronyms) in school or elsewhere. Use catch sentences (acrostics) to review notes and study for tests.

Catch Sentence Examples

Do you remember these catch sentences from school?

My Very Enthusiastic Mother Just Served Us Noodles!

for the order of the planets from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune

Every Good Boy Does Fine 

for the notes of the scale: E G B D F

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

for the order of operations in math: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction

King Henry Died by Drinking Chocolate Milk

for the units of measurement prefixes: Kilo, Hecto, Deca, base, Deci, Centi, Milli

Directions

For each key word that you want to remember, use the first letter of each word as the first letter of a new word that will fit into a memorable new sentence or phrase. You can add in other words to your sentence if they won’t confuse you. Substitute concrete objects for any key words that are too abstract to remember well.

Let’s use the Catch Sentences Technique to memorize the first ten presidents of the United States in exact order. Hint: Try adding in a second letter for one of the J and M names to avoid confusion.

1. Washington
2. Adams
3. Jefferson
4. Madison
5. Monroe
6. Adams
7. Jackson
8. Van Buren
9. Harrison
10. Tyler

For each president, use the first letter of each name as the first letter of a new word that will fit into a memorable sentence or phrase. The more personal or unusual the sentence—the better. How about this one? “Why are jerks making money always just very happy tycoons?”

Notice that “jerks” takes care of the confusion between Jefferson and Jackson by using “je” at the start of the word and “making money” does the same for Madison and Monroe.

Now prompt yourself to remember each name by referring only to the above catch sentence. Works well, doesn’t it? Remember that adding in a conjunction, such as “and,” or an article, such as “the,” won’t throw you off and may make the sentence easier to formulate.

Memorizing using the Catch Sentences Technique will enable you to retain the memory of many seemingly unrelated items. Frequent rehearsal of the categories and their items will place the information into your long-term memory. Useful for upcoming tests, names, speeches, lectures, shopping lists? Absolutely.

Check out these other brief articles on helpful memorization techniques: catch words, linking, association, This Old Man, location, and grouping.

The author’s Essential Study Skills is the study skill curriculum that teaches what students need to know to succeed and thrive in school. Often, the reason why

Essential Study Skills

students fail to achieve their academic potential is not because of laziness or lack of effort, but because they have never learned the basic study skills necessary for success.

The 56 lessons in Essential Study Skills will teach your students to “work smarter, not harder.” Students who master these skills will spend less time, and accomplish more during homework and study time. Their test study will be more productive and they will get better grades. Reading comprehension and vocabulary will improve. Their writing will make more sense and essays will be easier to plan and complete. They will memorize better and forget less. Their schoolwork will seem easier and will be much more enjoyable. Lastly, students will feel better about themselves as learners and will be more motivated to succeed. Essential Study Skills is the ideal curriculum for study skill, life skill, Advocacy/Advisory, Opportunity Program classes. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning and practice. Contact the publisher for affordable site licenses.

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Six Steps to Active Listening

As a middle school teacher, I’m quite familiar with the research showing that only 30% of my audience is actually listening at any one given point of a class lecture. Many of us can relate to the actor, Ben Stein, trying to engage his high school class in this clip from the 1986 movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Most teachers would not perceive themselves as being that boring, but our students might at times disagree. Through experience, teachers learn a variety of cueing strategies, such as the teacher’s lights-off/lights-on cue, the clap-once, clap-twice response, or the “Eyes on me!” techniques to get their students to pay attention.

However, something more than cueing strategies is needed to help students become effective listeners. As is often the case with many of the key study skills that students need to be successful in school, active listening needs to be specifically taught, not incidentally caught.

Surprisingly, there is little educational research on how to teach listening skills.

Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman completed a meta-analysis of what good listeners actually do in their article in the Harvard Business Review. Based upon data describing the behavior of 3,492 participants in a development program designed to help managers become better coaches, the authors identified those who were perceived as being the most effective listeners (the top 5%).  Zenger and Folkman arrived at these conclusions: 1. Good listeners viewed listening as a “two-way” activity in which listeners ask questions that promote discovery and insight. 2. Good listening included interactions that build a person’s self-esteem. 3. Good listeners tended to be cooperative, not competitive with the speaker. 4. Good listeners made suggestions and provided feedback to the speaker.

Despite the lack of listening research, we do know from life experience that there certainly are different levels of listening engagement. Generally speaking, we tend to classify the levels as active and passive listening. The listening behaviors described by Zenger and Folkman would be classified as active listening. However, in much of our daily experience, we tend to be passive listeners. For example, we frequently turn on the television not to watch, but to provide noise just to keep us company. While in the car, we turn on the radio to reduce the noise of traffic. If we are honest, we also tune out in some of our conversations. The problem is not the fact that we are sometimes passive in our listening. The real problem is that we have become so habituated to listening without real engagement that when we need to listen carefully, we are out of practice. So how can we turn the switch back on and replace passive listening with active listening when we really need to listen? And how can we teach our students to do so?

First of all, recognize that active listening is not a one and done teaching lesson. Improving our students’ active listening skills takes practice and plenty of reinforcement. Learning new habits to replace old ones takes time and patience. However, students can improve listening skills by applying the Six Steps to Active Listening, summarized as ED IS PC. A helpful memory trick students will remember. Who knows? Maybe you even know someone named Ed, who really is politically correct. Or go with Ed, the virtual reality computer. Display the graphic and get ready to teach!

E

Eye contact with your conversation partner is essential. One of our famous poets once said, “The eyes are the windows to our souls.” When we “lock in” to the speaker’s eyes, we better focus on what is being said. We all remember a parent demanding, “Look at me, when I’m talking to you” or a teacher saying “Eyes on me!” to the class. Experience teaches the fact that eye contact improves attention to what is being said.

D

Distractions must be avoided at all costs. Anything or anyone that takes you away from active listening must be identified and eliminated to the extent that you can control. In a classroom or in a workplace, sitting next to your best friend or someone who is not actively engaged with the speaker will distract you from listening fully. Time to move! Avoid having toys within arm’s reach that will challenge your ability to pay close attention. Think of toys such as cell phones, pens, reading materials—any external stimuli that distract you from the 100% listening task.

I

Interact with the speaker. Get into the speaker’s mind and think like the speaker. A good speaker will have an organizational plan to any presentation. A lecture, interview, and meeting all have their own patterns of organization. Identify this pattern as soon as you can, and anticipate where the speaker is going next. Common organizational patterns include the following: cause and effect, reasons for, compare and contrast, chronological, issue and action step, main ideas or points and their key details/examples, problems and solutions, questions and answers, argument/opinion and justification.

Practice these interactive actions to increase your active listening:

• Ask questions to clarify speaker points.
• Maintain an internal dialogue with the speaker about each of the main points.
• If appropriate, make comments or answer questions.
• Connect to prior learning. How does what is being said now relate to what has recently been said?
• Focus on the main ideas and don’t get lost in the details. Recognize when your speaker gets off on a tangent or “bird walks.”
• Write down summary notes at the end of key speaker points—not in the middle of the point. Jot down questions or points to clarify for later.
• Hear the speaker out from beginning to end. Predict where the organizational pattern will take your speaker next and check your predictions as you listen.

S

Signal words that identify main ideas must be identified. Pay attention to the key words that signal the introduction of a new idea. Each pattern of organization has its own signal words to transition between ideas. For example, the chronology pattern makes use of “first,” “next,” “then,” “finally” and many more. Listening to these cues will help you concentrate better.

P

Posture matters! Sit up straight with feet flat on the floor. Adjust your seat or desk so that you are looking directly at the speaker, not from an angle. Keep both hands on the table or desk to maintain this posture. A bit uncomfortable? Good. Perfect relaxation induces passive listening. A little stress promotes active listening. Try to sit as close as possible to the speaker—front and center gets the most speaker attention and your best position for interaction.

C

Concentrate on what is being said and don’t daydream. Listening is a full time job. Develop the mind-set that you must fully understand everything that is being said, how it is being said, and why it is being said. Practice the mind-set that you will have to remember each of the main ideas and be able to use or apply each of these soon. A good trick is to pretend that you will have to repeat the speaker’s presentation immediately following.

After using these active listening skills, help place this short-term learning into your long-term memory by completing a Quick Daily Review as the first part of your homework plan.

The author’s Essential Study Skills is the study skill curriculum that teaches what students need to know to succeed and thrive in school. Often, the reason why

Essential Study Skills

students fail to achieve their academic potential is not because of laziness or lack of effort, but because they have never learned the basic study skills necessary for success.

The 56 lessons in Essential Study Skills will teach your students to “work smarter, not harder.” Students who master these skills will spend less time, and accomplish more during homework and study time. Their test study will be more productive and they will get better grades. Reading comprehension and vocabulary will improve. Their writing will make more sense and essays will be easier to plan and complete. They will memorize better and forget less. Their schoolwork will seem easier and will be much more enjoyable. Lastly, students will feel better about themselves as learners and will be more motivated to succeed. Essential Study Skills is the ideal curriculum for study skill, life skill, Advocacy/Advisory, Opportunity Program classes. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning and practice. Contact the publisher for affordable site licenses.

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