What do “Elvis’ guitar broke down Friday”, “even George Bush dances funny”, and “every good boy deserves fudge” have in common? They are mnemonic devices memorized by two 10-year old girls (my daughter and her friend) in music class. A friend, Bill, who is a third grade teacher, mentioned the power of mnemonic devices recently at dinner, and my children chimed in with examples from science, math, and music. I remembered learning them in astronomy, but, as Bill pointed out, with Pluto’s demotion some mnemonics are no longer accurate.
Others are short-term; I made up one for my husband when he had trouble identifying Laura and Lauren on his soccer team (LaureN has No bangs) and it worked immediately. And Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective, used mnemonics to win memory games.
I still use “Thirty days hath September…” to know the number of days in a particular month (even though my cell phone has a calendar on it). When I looked up mnemonics online, I found countless examples I don’t remember seeing before (did I learn them and forget?) None struck me as useful enough to memorize now, but I did wonder if mnemonics are more easily taught in the classroom than online. Any thoughts?
Our brains aren’t good at remembering arbitrary information. Adding semantics makes that easier, hence the value of mnemonics. They should be useful anytime we need to remember things by rote, whether classroom or online.
I try to use external memory, myself, rather than trust even my recollection of a mnemonic. (Was it “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” or “in 1493, Columbus sailed the deep blue sea”?
Our brains aren’t good at remembering arbitrary information. Adding semantics makes that easier, hence the value of mnemonics. They should be useful anytime we need to remember things by rote, whether classroom or online.
I try to use external memory, myself, rather than trust even my recollection of a mnemonic. (Was it “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” or “in 1493, Columbus sailed the deep blue sea”?
I am not sure if they are easlier to teach online or FTF. Remember that online also has sync web conferencing and many ways to share lessons that you might give FTF. But I do think technology is overwhelming us with information and options for learning. Mnemonics can play a role in dealing with it all. As members of the human race, we have only so muhc info we can deal with at any pt in time. Frameworks, models, pithy sayings, and mnemonics can help with it all. That is my thinking anyhow. Teachers, when they have a framework, can consider online learning options more readily I think. That was the intent of my R2D2, TEC-VARIETY, and WE-ALL-LEARN models. My recent paper, Finding that SPECIAL PLACE on gaming principles (in Tech Trends) is similar in that regard.
So, to answer your question, mnemonics can help students learn more information than possible without them. Some mnemonics are for higher order thinking (such as sequencing or rating of information) but most are for factual info retention purposes. I think frameworks and models using mnemonics push to the higher levels of cognitive processing, Teaching how to generate such higher order mnemonics is not easy–this would be teaching one to be creative. It is not easy in FTF environments or online ones. To teach to retain facts is easier I guess. The environment you teach the method in does not matter given all the tech tools that can support you today.
I am not sure if they are easlier to teach online or FTF. Remember that online also has sync web conferencing and many ways to share lessons that you might give FTF. But I do think technology is overwhelming us with information and options for learning. Mnemonics can play a role in dealing with it all. As members of the human race, we have only so muhc info we can deal with at any pt in time. Frameworks, models, pithy sayings, and mnemonics can help with it all. That is my thinking anyhow. Teachers, when they have a framework, can consider online learning options more readily I think. That was the intent of my R2D2, TEC-VARIETY, and WE-ALL-LEARN models. My recent paper, Finding that SPECIAL PLACE on gaming principles (in Tech Trends) is similar in that regard.
So, to answer your question, mnemonics can help students learn more information than possible without them. Some mnemonics are for higher order thinking (such as sequencing or rating of information) but most are for factual info retention purposes. I think frameworks and models using mnemonics push to the higher levels of cognitive processing, Teaching how to generate such higher order mnemonics is not easy–this would be teaching one to be creative. It is not easy in FTF environments or online ones. To teach to retain facts is easier I guess. The environment you teach the method in does not matter given all the tech tools that can support you today.
Try Mnemonics Online again. This site teaches a technique using peg system and a set of symbols. TIM