Getting closer to the opening of the Fall ’13 semester. Last year at this time, I was preparing to do two presentations at the Distance Learning Conference in Madison, WI. Crazy to think of all of the items that were involved in preparing for that event. Glad to have had the experience. It is also nice to be a year removed and think about how much more I can focus on getting the Fall ’13 courses ready to go.

Here is the Clark blog on Ebbinghaus. Below find a few quotes and my reflections.

Quote: “…within a month, nearly 80% of the learned content had been lost.”
Reflection: Always a good thing to reflect on. We forget more than we remember. It’s one of the reasons that I am writing this blog. At least, I’ll have some record of the thought in the future in case I need it. It’s also important to remember this as an educator. We get so focused on making sure that students remember content, but the reason that we remember the material ourselves is that we go over it again and again which reinforces the material in our memory. If the material that we present is important for learners, they will experience it in different ways and reinforce it over time.

Quote: “…successful learning had to push knowledge from short to long-term memory to be successful.“
Reflection: How this is done is important. Too many times we create contrived environments that do not naturally relay the information.

Quote: “Distributed practice is spread out over a period of time, whereas massed practice takes place in one session. The spacing out of practice seems to avoid fatigue effects and lead to more consolidation of memory. Consolidation seems to be optimal after about 20 minutes, suggesting that we should practice and reinforce learning after 15-20 minutes.“
Reflection: I can see why this does not happen in schools and learning. Most of education is based upon a time sequence. To maximize time, we start right into practice. Also, there are several classes going on, so students would leak their efforts into other subjects. Unfortunately, we don’t maximize our learning by using this approach. It definitely resonates with me that this approach would work. But I’m having a hard time seeing it put into practice with the way our society and its values have evolved over time.

Quote: “…people are far more likely to remember items at the start and end of lists.“
Reflection: Maybe we should consider making the list of things to learn closer to 2 so that students will remember better.