Working Memory & Digital Learning Innana Antley

IA
by Innana Antley8 views·Updated Dec 13, 2020
Create your own

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated

  1. this presentation is going to focus on working memory and
  2. its connection to digital learning.
  3. To begin, we're going to do an introduction to what
  4. working memory is working.
  5. Memory is made up of two different things.
  6. It's made up of, um, the process of pulling prior
  7. information and mixing it with a new skill, er, situation
  8. plus executive attention, which is what regulates our responses to
  9. situations. The biggest key to making sure we are tapping
  10. into working memory while going through our teaching virtually is
  11. to remember that repetition is okay.
  12. It might feel like, ah, lot of the time we
  13. are working in these digital spaces and expect our students
  14. to already know and understand all of the different learning
  15. tools that they are using.
  16. But the truth is, is that they're learning them along
  17. with the content.
  18. So repetition becomes extremely vital because it helps with e,
  19. um, executive attention.
  20. When students are stressed and feeling overwhelmed by things around
  21. them, they are going to dis regulate and not be
  22. able to put their working memory to use like it
  23. should be taking a look at the different frameworks that
  24. are currently the leading theories and how working memory is
  25. put together.
  26. Now we have the multi component theory, which consists of
  27. two different systems that work together the phone, a logical
  28. loop and the video space.
  29. She'll sketch pad.
  30. So this means that our working memory is built up
  31. off of the verbal information that we receive, as well
  32. as the physical information that we perceive, um, either in
  33. the physical world or through imaging.
  34. Now our working memory is also dependent upon our cognitive
  35. load. New information is processed by working memory, and there
  36. is a certain capacity that individuals have for their working
  37. memory. They only can process so much at a time.
  38. Um, through my research, I've discovered that the, uh, time
  39. by which Children have fully developed, um, and hit their
  40. load capacity, um, is quite young around seven years of
  41. age, so they already have the same capacity to process
  42. information that an adult does.
  43. At that point, it's that we can train how efficiently
  44. we process our information, not how much more information we
  45. can process.
  46. Now let's dig into the digital connection with this with
  47. the learning we need to shift our learning design style.
  48. It's an entirely different way to teach.
  49. And it's a way that not a lot of people
  50. are currently trained to dio.
  51. The biggest issue coming with this is that this is
  52. novel research.
  53. This is new to all of us.
  54. No one has ever taught in a fashion and circumstance
  55. such as this.
  56. Most of the digital learning research is less than 10
  57. years old.
  58. This is because there are major shifts in technology that
  59. lead to outdated practices fairly quickly, especially within the last
  60. decade to two decades.
  61. Um, specifically this year, Cove.
  62. It presents unique teaching challenges that have shifted the way
  63. that we present information and expect students to respond to
  64. that information.
  65. With that being said, one of the biggest things we
  66. have to think about when creating content is to think
  67. about overload.
  68. We want to prevent overload in students.
  69. Our cognitive load, as mentioned before, is limited.
  70. There's only so much we can take in at a
  71. time and have it be effective.
  72. Digital tools, however, are numerous.
  73. There are numerous ways that students can access this information
  74. and respond to this information, and we, as educators, have
  75. not necessarily taught all of these different learning platforms in
  76. explicit ways and overload could be extremely common in students
  77. because they are struggling with not Onley being able to
  78. understand the content, but also the platform they're trying to
  79. use. So something that becomes extremely important is making sure
  80. that your information is bite sized and that new components
  81. are introduced slowly, including the ways students will be responding
  82. to things, um, on different types of platforms.
  83. When our information becomes bite sized, we have a greater
  84. ability to process that information through our working memory and
  85. turn it into long term memory so that it can
  86. be helpful in the next time we're presented with a
  87. similar situation in order.
  88. Thio, add this into our practice.
  89. We really need to shift our design focus.
  90. We need to make sure that we're maximizing our working
  91. memory in our in learning that we are using our
  92. working memory as a learning tool, making sure we're not
  93. getting it overloaded so that the content representing two students
  94. gets absorbed properly.
  95. We also need to make sure that we are employing
  96. some different strategies.
  97. Thio assist with this Um, we want to be able
  98. to maximize our learning it input That means giving overviews,
  99. um, presenting contact content in order of complexity, Chungking information,
  100. revisiting critical information and encouraging reflection not on Lee with
  101. students but with ourselves as well.
  102. We can also do some other things to help us
  103. manage capacity.
  104. Ah, lot of these strategies are things that are used
  105. in the everyday classroom that we should continue to use
  106. in our digital classrooms as well.
  107. Because there is research behind these practices were just using
  108. them in a new space.
  109. So this information came from a, um, on line learning
  110. platform called Shift that focuses on helping educators create a
  111. platform for their students.
  112. Thio um, prevent overload.
  113. Um, the other big thing we have to remember in
  114. terms of our digital connection to our working memory is
  115. recognizing that our lessons should replace the face to face
  116. lessons that we would have otherwise been creating.
  117. We can't just take ah face to face lesson and
  118. throw it into a digital learning space.
  119. We have to make sure that we are making meaningful
  120. content that presents the information in a way that capitalizes
  121. on our students.
  122. Short attention spans with virtual content.
  123. Um, another big piece of that is making sure that
  124. screen text is being limited and that the graphics being
  125. used are meaningful, As exciting as it is to use
  126. the super creative and fun templates that are available with
  127. cute graphics, if it's not assisting the learning, it should
  128. be taken away.
  129. Um, that being said, we don't want to make We
  130. don't wanna put a round lesson in a square hole
  131. when we have digital content.
  132. It should be digital content and it should be designed
  133. differently from our content that we would use in our
  134. classrooms. So let's take this into our results.
  135. We want to bring it all together, um, to review
  136. working memory is when we take our new information and
  137. turn it into long term memory.
  138. Our executive attention regulates our responses to things.
  139. It is how students in particular respond to situations around
  140. them, and we need to be maximizing our potential to
  141. make sure that we're not encouraging our students to leap
  142. out of a window due to overload.
  143. A big part of this is to not be afraid
  144. of repetition, making sure that we are taking time within
  145. our lesson planning, Thio go over the process is that
  146. students are using thio, give us their information.
  147. This brings us a little bit deeper into the design
  148. aspect. We need Thio recognize that digital learning is a
  149. powerful tool and that means that the design process needs
  150. to be purposeful.
  151. Um, that way we can open differentiation and access to
  152. resource is for students who would not otherwise have had
  153. access to those such as digital libraries and online tutoring.
  154. In order to accomplish this, our training truly needs to
  155. be nationwide to help all of us improve our practice
  156. in creating digital content.
  157. Most of what's being done right now is being done
  158. on the fly.
  159. Are learning as educators for how to teach in this
  160. very specific way for most instances, is not something that
  161. has been explicitly talked.
  162. Uh huh, Yeah.
  163. That brings us to our final point maximizing.
  164. We need to maximize our potential as educators and as
  165. learners ourselves.
  166. We need thio.
  167. Make sure that we are engaging our working memory through
  168. repetition through Chungking information to reduce the cognitive load on
  169. our students and increase the executive attention, um, capacity.
  170. This means that our design should also be including video
  171. spatial and verbal media so that we're activating both feedback
  172. loops in our working memory.
  173. And most importantly, we have to make sure that we're
  174. sharing with our teams in order to improve our practice
  175. not only amongst teams in our own buildings, but with
  176. educators on a whole.
  177. It's so thank you for, um, listening Thio my research.
  178. And here is a list of the work cited Thank
  179. you very much.