Research School Network: Making Connections #2 – fortnightly blog and one-sider PDF Connecting evidence to practice
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Making Connections #2 – fortnightly blog and one-sider PDF
Connecting evidence to practice
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by Unity Research School
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Unity Research School Director, Andy Samways, launches a fortnightly one-sider PDF designed to help link evidence-informed strategies with classroom practice.
The second one is all about working memory and dual coding, (other terms associated with this include cognitive load):
Making Connections Issue #2 – Working memory and dual coding
FACT: Working memory* plays an essential role in everyday life, especially in supporting learning in school.
*In simple terms, working memory can be described as holding short-term (i.e. temporary) information in your mind while using that information to accomplish a task.
Important characteristics to understand about working memory in humans are that:
- it can only hold a limited amount of information
- the information in working memory is transitory. It is only held briefly in order to attempt to accomplish a task or activity and then it is gone (unless other measures are taken to convert it into a more long-term memory).
ISSUE:
Working memory plays an essential role in everyday life, especially in supporting learning in school but is both limited and transitory (as shared in Making Connections #1)
HOWEVER, AS PAUL KIRSCHENER WRITES IN OLIVER CAVIGLIOLI’S ‘DUAL CODING WITH TEACHERS’:
- combining words & images (DUAL CODING) effectively facilitates learning; their impact is additive (from work of Paivio, 1971)
- if the same information is offered to you in two different ways, it enables you to access more working memory capacity
- in addition, you not only boost the information traces in your long-term memory – it also allows you to remember or recognise the information in two different ways.
- by combining an image with a complementary word (written or spoken) you are maximising capacity in development of long-term memory
SO … to what extent are you aware of:
- The principles underpinning DUAL CODING
- How effective DUAL CODING can result in more processing capacity within learning
- How you can utilise DUAL CODING within your teaching
- the fact that DUAL CODING HERO OLIVER CAVIGLIOLI is giving a keynote masterclass at researchED Ipswich on 16/11/19 … fewer tickets left by the day so snap your up HERE!
MAKING-CONNECTIONS-1-Working-memory-and-instruction.pdf
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