Friday, November 11, 2005

Why Memorize

Many educators back away from having students do memory work and focus instead on helping students think. I, of course, and a strong supporter of helping students think and I understand why so many teachers don't like doing memory work - it is really really hard to do memory work with 40 students without a system like StudyTag!

Here is what I propose. For 5 minutes a day or less have your students do memory work on your given subject using StudyTag. If you have the students for an hour use the remaining time helping teach them how to think. Not only will the students remember more about what you are teaching, I think you will find they are better thinkers too. You can't think very interesting or creative ideas without fist having something to think about!

Friday, November 04, 2005

American Presidents

The first subject we are doing content development for in our pilot project is History. One reason we are focusing on History is that Americans are notoriously bad in being able to place the American Civil War in the correct century. Another reason is that I find it fun to write history questions. I have to admit that I do not know all of the American Presidents and when they were in office. However, as I study more and more about how we learn and remember I am becoming convinced that as an American learning the names and dates of the American Presidents would be really quite valuable.

The reason I believe that memorizing the American Presidents will become valuable is that I believe it will provide an excellent framework for remembering other facts about history. Also, when I hear of an event I will be able to associate it with a President and understand where it fits into the American History time line. I am authoring the lesson and will test it out. Over the coming year I'll let you know how it is going and if I still think it is worth really learning about the American Presidents. Of course, if you live in the UK you may want to write your own lessons on Kings.