Learning is quite a tricky task when you sometimes totally forget, while at other times it gets stuck somewhere in your head. The most important aspect here is not working memory. Working memory, short-term memory as its known in some aspects, enables children to think in the moment, process new information, make decisions, and solve problems. That impacts how someone grasps language, calculates mathematically, and comprehends everything that is reading the text. For an educator, working-memory coordinates the understanding.
These Constraints of Working Memory
To recognize those constraints of working memory, give a child a list of demands that are unreasonably large: “I need you to get your shoes and socks on, put your coat on, brush your hair, and bring along some water.” The usual thing that happens is, you give instructions, and a child skips one or more tasks. This does not lend itself too well to their affording what seems to be attention or effort, for working memory appears to be a limited thing. Members of the adult population face challenges holding speedily more than four pieces of information in working memory at once. For children, that number would probably be even smaller, making complexity difficult by introducing the added weight of multiple parallel tasks.
Of course, memory affects the amount of information a child can hold, but how this is done and learned is equally important. It is a natural grouping of related ideas, which affords children to remember and process things better. For example, if a child knows that water may exist in a liquid form, solid form, or gas form, he can learn the whole water cycle much better. The long-term memory propagates the effect on their working memory; thus, it aids smooth learning.
Learning through Visuals and Corresponding Verbal Information
When introducing new concepts, especially the more complex or abstract ones, it would be quite helpful for teachers to pair their verbal explanation with some visual aids. For example, while explaining the water cycle, a teacher could describe it while also showing a diagram or a picture. It uses different components of working memory, which include visual processing and verbal processing. It makes it easier for children to understand and remember new things.
To minimize the overload for a child’s working memory, the amount of verbal information at once has to be reduced. Instead, pictures or diagrams would augment verbal explanations so students would organize the material in a manner that relates to what they previously know. For example, this should conjure images in their minds of arrows circling in a diagram to picture the proposition of “things going round and round,” and relate it to the constant transformations of states in the water cycle, solid, liquid, and gas states.
Like attention, working memory is another very important element that determines how well information sticks in children’s minds. Working memory has two components: processing and retaining new information. We cannot do both simultaneously instead, we oscillate between processing and refreshing information in our memory. However, this is a very tricky phenomenon for the children.
Cognition usually seems very demanding when one has to take in the new information; children will always take longer to process. Too much seemingly demanding, and within the confines of high attentional demand, vital bits of data are forgotten. Thus they forget more easily.
In this period, time is what is meant as “thinking time” since these add more time for children to absorb something new, respond to questions or their queries, while improving a lot the memory of what they are learning. In terms of the teacher introducing a new concept or asking children to bring out something from memory, time during which the children can reflect and process must be incorporated to facilitate their working memory.
Elucidation of Further Knowledge to Prior-Existing Knowledge
While a child takes up fresh information, how working memory turns to long-term memory becomes very important. Children connect new material become such that they activate the relevant parts of their long-term memory to work in support of their working memory. An example would be if a teacher has to introduce a new scientific term. A familiar description such as what it is about, puts it more clearly for students to go with the meaning of the new word.
However, not all children have the same amount of prior knowledge coming to the classroom. This makes it certain that a piece of information might be easier for one child to grasp and harder for another. Some children have naturally stronger working memory capacity than others, which may impact their performance in the classroom. On the contrary, a child with a bigger working memory will hold and connect more information, giving a better advantage in learning. Another, however, may not retain with high capacity, which might therefore lose ground in peer competition, and struggles in effort and connects with new knowledge and the earlier one. This creates a vicious circle in which children with weaker working memory lag behind, not being able to take in new material quite as well.
Supporting all learners, not in theory, however, but in practice-integrating excellent practice into the delivery of learning by teachers.
There are many ways an instructor can support working memory in facilitating a learning environment that works for all children. The most practical, however, is to consider very carefully how activity learning could affect working memory and then break complex ideas into simpler and easy parts. For example, simplifying tasks, using familiar routines, and providing memory aids, such as cues and charts, can help students who have problems in working memory.
It also connects new information to what they know already. With it, students will better organize new material and thus lessen the burden on their working memory. For instance, pre-teaching would be short, focused lessons before a larger class lesson that might help students who may have memory difficulties understand the more complex information.
Inform students to “heads-up” before a challenging task or teaching, which will help them get mentally ready to ease anxiety and prep them for absorbing the new material.
Conclusion
Educators understand that the impact of working memory is influencing students’ leamings. Int providing information in small but manageable parts using visual aids together with the oral message and by connecting new things with prior knowledge, the teachers can be of great help to the children. This is because with processing memory, it can be given enough time for processing. Then, all the memory supports will motivate success to the classroom. As understanding working memory gives powerful insight into how learning takes place, teaching all children in appropriate ways can benefit all students.
