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!
