Want students to remember something? Ask them to draw it.
Interestingly, this article (https://www.edutopia.org/article/science-drawing-and-memory) highlights recent studies where “researchers found drawing information to be a powerful way to boost memory, increasing recall by nearly double” #OpenBlog19
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I’m glad that there’s some more modern research around this general idea. Of course the reliance of humans on the power of visual memory goes back to ancient Greece with the method of loci and from the Renaissance (or earlier) with the mnemonic major system.
I know both systems intimately well since the age of about 11, though I haven’t written much about them on my site. (I should fix this, though there are some related tangents within my memory category.) I did notice a large overlap with the major system and Gregg shorthand a while back, which leads me to believe that they’ve got an even richer back history than most may presume.
I’ve always been confounded that these systems aren’t better known in modern culture, though some sources have indicated that religious influences tamped down their proliferation in the 1500’s.
The colloquialism “a picture is worth a thousand words” has reverberated through the decades, yet there is very little basic cognitive research assessing the merit of drawing as a mnemonic strategy. In our recent research, we explored whether drawing to-be-learned information enhanced memory and found it to be a reliable, replicable means of boosting performance. Specifically, we have shown this technique can be applied to enhance learning of individual words and pictures as well as textbook definitions. In delineating the mechanism of action, we have shown that gains are greater from drawing than other known mnemonic techniques, such as semantic elaboration, visualization, writing, and even tracing to-be-remembered information. We propose that drawing improves memory by promoting the integration of elaborative, pictorial, and motor codes, facilitating creation of a context-rich representation. Importantly, the simplicity of this strategy means it can be used by people with cognitive impairments to enhance memory, with preliminary findings suggesting measurable gains in performance in both normally aging individuals and patients with dementia.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418755385
I try to follow IndieWeb principles as much as possible on my site and use it as my central online presence and means of communication across the web. Take a look at how my website works (always a work in progress).
What I do
I work as Technology Enhanced Learning Manager in Graduate & Professional Studies at the University of Limerick, Ireland, where I’m involved in the design and production of flexible online and blended postgraduate and professional education programmes for distance and workplace learners.
My main interests lie in open and online learning, educational technology, instructional and learning experience design, the IndieWeb, web decentralisation, technology in general, and all associated literacies and competencies.
👓 Scientists rise up against statistical significance | Nature
Valentin Amrhein, Sander Greenland, Blake McShane and more than 800 signatories call for an end to hyped claims and the dismissal of possibly crucial effects.
📺 “The Americans” One Day in the Life of Anton Baklanov | Amazon Prime
Directed by Andrew Bernstein. With Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Lev Gorn, Annet Mahendru. Philip and Elizabeth's home and work lives collide in new and dangerous ways. Nina struggles to figure out her next steps. Arkady assigns Oleg and Tatiana to an operation with uncertain potential.
With Ryan Seacrest, Lionel Richie, Katy Perry, Luke Bryan. Aspiring singers in Louisville, Kentucky; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Los Angeles; New York and Denver see if they have what it takes to earn a coveted golden ticket to Hollywood.
The show has gone downhill a lot. They just haven’t gotten any chemistry at all. There isn’t anything interesting about any of the judges. The level of the contestants has slipped in comparison to prior years as well.
How journalists memorialize their interviews seems to be divided, in many ways, along generational lines, with older reporters relying more on their notebooks and younger reporters clinging to their recording devices, which were once clunky and somewhat forbidding but came into wider use around the end of the 20th century with the advent of digital technology. But it also depends on the person.
👓 The Worst Design Of 2016 Was Also The Most Effective | FastCo Design
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hat was pervasive, potent, and deeply misunderstood.
👓 Scientists Have Cracked the Code on ‘Wine Legs,’ and It Could Lead to Some Cool New Glassware | Food & Wine
Some people gaze at the tears of wine; other people dedicate their life to researching them.
🔖 Forensic Investigation of a Shawl Linked to the “Jack the Ripper” Murders | Journal of Forensic Sciences
A set of historic murders, known as the “Jack the Ripper murders,” started in London in August 1888. The killer's identity has remained a mystery to date. Here, we describe the investigation of, to our knowledge, the only remaining physical evidence linked to these murders, recovered from one of the victims at the scene of the crime. We applied novel, minimally destructive techniques for sample recovery from forensically relevant stains on the evidence and separated single cells linked to the suspect, followed by phenotypic analysis. The mtDNA profiles of both the victim and the suspect matched the corresponding reference samples, fortifying the link of the evidence to the crime scene. Genomic DNA from single cells recovered from the evidence was amplified, and the phenotypic information acquired matched the only witness statement regarded as reliable. To our knowledge, this is the most advanced study to date regarding this case. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.14038
👓 Does a new genetic analysis finally reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper? | ScienceMag
Scientists claim it’s the best evidence to date, but critics are skeptical
🔖 [1903.07456] Self-Organization and Artificial Life | arXiv
Self-organization can be broadly defined as the ability of a system to display ordered spatio-temporal patterns solely as the result of the interactions among the system components. Processes of this kind characterize both living and artificial systems, making self-organization a concept that is at the basis of several disciplines, from physics to biology to engineering. Placed at the frontiers between disciplines, Artificial Life (ALife) has heavily borrowed concepts and tools from the study of self-organization, providing mechanistic interpretations of life-like phenomena as well as useful constructivist approaches to artificial system design. Despite its broad usage within ALife, the concept of self-organization has been often excessively stretched or misinterpreted, calling for a clarification that could help with tracing the borders between what can and cannot be considered self-organization. In this review, we discuss the fundamental aspects of self-organization and list the main usages within three primary ALife domains, namely "soft" (mathematical/computational modeling), "hard" (physical robots), and "wet" (chemical/biological systems) ALife. Finally, we discuss the usefulness of self-organization within ALife studies, point to perspectives for future research, and list open questions.
👓 The ultimate guide to DuckDuckGo | Brett Terpstra
Disclosure: DuckDuckGo has sponsored this site in the past. This post is not paid for (or even authorized by) DuckDuckGo.
🔖 Where WordPress Meets Higher Education | WPCampus
Hello WPCampus friends! We’re excited to announce that our Call for Proposals for this year’s conference will be opening soon! We’re looking forward to another year of wonderful ideas, demonstrations, brainstorming, and benchmarking. Session Topics As in past years, we’re looking for a variety of topics on anything that might bring value to our community. …