The Role of Memorization in Effective Learning
Memories are the internal mental records that we maintain, which give us instant access to our personal past, complete with all of the facts that we know and the skills that we have cultivated. While the mind’s capacity to store and recall information is truly wondrous, there are desirable and undesirable difficulties in learning. In the realm of education, the effectiveness of memorization as a learning strategy is a topic of ongoing debate. Is it a relic of traditional teaching methods, or does it still hold value in the modern classroom? This article explores the role of memorization in effective learning, examining its benefits, limitations, and how it can be integrated with other learning approaches to foster deeper understanding and critical thinking.
The Nuances of Memorization
Educators-and the general public-often scoff at memorization, usually coupling the word with the dismissive adjective rote. Former New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña summarized the prevailing view when she declared that facts are learned “maybe to take tests, but we learn thinking to get on in life.” This scorn for factual knowledge has been widespread for decades, but it’s grown even more entrenched in the internet era. “I ask teachers all the time, if you can Google it, why teach it?” another prominent school district leader said in an interview. “Because we have so much information today. How do you help kids navigate that? That’s critical thinking and problem solving.”
Memorization, often associated with rote learning, is a technique that relies on repetition to commit information to memory. It involves memorizing facts, concepts, lists, vocabulary, procedures, or factual knowledge. Rote learning is most effective when the primary goal is to memorize and recall specific information such as dates, facts, or figures. It can also be beneficial when learning music scales or chords, terminology, or historical dates. When students memorize math facts or spelling words, it will stay in their short-term memory. Rote memorization is great for students to learn quickly because of its repetitiveness. Since students are reviewing and reciting information repeatedly, it reinforces their retention, making it easier to recall information. Since this approach focuses on repetitive memorization, it can help lay the groundwork for understanding more complex information. One of the great benefits of rote learning is the boost of confidence students get when they can recall information accurately.
The Case for Memorization
Despite the criticisms, memorization plays a crucial role in cognitive development and learning. Having information stored in your long-term memory boosts analytical thinking, as demonstrated by results from an online learning platform. In fact, though, having information stored in your memory is what enables you to think critically. Many teachers don’t even try to get students to remember information they can Google. They’ve been trained to believe it’s best to go straight for “higher-order skills” like analyzing and synthesizing-rather than wasting time on supposedly “lower-order” ones like knowing and understanding information. Instruction in reading comprehension “skills,” such as “making inferences,” has pushed information-rich subjects like social studies and science out of the curriculum in many schools, on the theory that readers can apply those skills to any text. But scientists who study the process of learning have found something quite different: the more factual knowledge people have about a topic, the better they can think about it critically and analytically. A groundbreaking study published in 1946 showed that the reason expert chess players choose better moves than weaker players is not that they’re better at analytical thinking in general. Rather, they can draw on their vast knowledge of typical chess positions-which they’ve acquired through memorization. Similarly, a study published in 1988 demonstrated that supposedly “poor” readers outperform “good” readers in comprehending a passage when the “poor” readers have greater knowledge of the topic.
Foundation for Higher-Order Thinking: Memorizing facts can build the foundations for higher thinking and problem solving. Constant recitation of times tables might not help children understand mathematical concepts but it may allow them to draw on what they have memorised in order to succeed in more complex mental arithmetic. Daniel T. Willingham cautions, though, that we shouldn’t simply have students memorize random facts for their own sake: “Mindless drilling is not an effective vehicle for building students’ store of knowledge.” The facts, definitions, dates, formulas, etc. that we ask students to memorize should be part of a larger unit of study, connected in some way to other bits of knowledge. So, when asking students to memorize parts of a plant, for example, it is because they are using that knowledge to understand the plant’s role in a particular ecosystem, or how a plant’s vascular system differs from an animal’s vascular system. When students learn the definition of a new word, they use it thoughtfully in the context of our unit of study, but also in other arenas: They discover that interest can be compounded, but so can errors, illnesses, and sentences.
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Enhancing Working Memory: Another way of putting this has to do with “working memory,” which is somewhat like short-term memory. The important point about working memory is that it can only hold a limited number of items for a limited period of time. Long-term memory, on the other hand, is virtually unlimited. The more items you can simply withdraw from long-term memory-because you’ve memorized them-the fewer items take up precious space in working memory, leaving more space there for absorbing and analyzing new information. Just as chess players who have memorized chessboard patterns have more space in working memory to strategize their moves, students who have memorized facts about economics have more capacity to think critically about how to apply them.
Facilitating Comprehension: Imagine not knowing the definitions of the subject terms or even some of the action words used to describe what you are supposed to be learning. For those of us with no background in biology, we’re lost and slightly panicked. We will not join the class conversation, ask questions, or engage with content at a deeper level for fear others will discover and confirm our ignorance. If, however, we fully understood the terms amino acids, proteins, nucleotide, codons, catalyze, and peptide bonds, we have a healthy self-confidence. We make compelling connections, construct meaning, and engage.
The Hybrid Approach: The author proposes a hybrid approach, where development of understanding takes place alongside or in conjunction with intentional encoding and strengthening of information in memory. One version is to develop understanding, followed by memorization. In this approach, students develop a deep understanding of the material (through what we might call elaboration), and then students practice that information so that they can remember it accurately (through what we might call retrieval practice). However, it is important to note that we encourage students to use retrieval practice in a meaningful, elaborative way rather than "just" for memorization. An alternative version of the hybrid approach is that students memorize some information first, and then over time come to understand it more and more deeply. Although this example is not used in the paper, I immediately thought of multiplication tables. There is a big debate in teaching regarding whether children should or should not memorize their multiplication tables. Briefly, those who argue against it hold that this is meaningless memorization and does not lead to understanding (3), whereas those who argue for it maintain that it decreases working memory load so students can later concentrate on more advanced math without having to perform additional mental operations to multiply numbers (4). For example, if you want to teach a child how to "solve for x" and the equation you give them is 12x = 144, they could concentrate on solving the equation (i.e., rearranging it to x = 144 / 12 ), rather than laboriously doing the arithmetic. By the time children are able to solve these equations, they understand more about how numbers work. In this case, it can be said that memorization came before understanding.
The Pitfalls of Rote Learning
The flipside of rote learning is that it’s not very popular. Relying too heavily on rote learning can also limit a student’s understanding of a concept. One primary limitation of rote memorization is the information retained is only temporary. Rote learning prioritizes recalling facts or details instead of understanding concepts or applying critical thinking skills. Today’s classrooms aim for students to be meaningful thinkers and challenge what they are learning or prove where they got their answer.
Lack of Deeper Understanding: Memorization without understanding can lead to superficial learning, where students can recall information but cannot apply it in new contexts or solve complex problems.
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Limited Retention: Information learned through rote memorization is often forgotten quickly, especially if it is not reinforced or connected to other knowledge.
Passive Learning: Rote learning can encourage passive learning, where students are simply receiving and memorizing information without actively engaging with the material.
Effective Memorization Techniques
Fortunately, though, memorizing is not just for an elite group of people born with the right skills-anyone can train and develop their memorizing abilities. Competitive memorizers claim that practicing visualization techniques and using memory tricks enable them to remember large chunks of information quickly. Research shows that students who use memory tricks perform better than those who do not. Memory tricks help you expand your working memory and access long term memory. These techniques can also enable you to remember some concepts for years or even for life. Finally, memory tricks like these lead to understanding and higher order thinking. In addition to visual and spatial memory techniques, there are many others tricks you can use to help your brain remember information. Here are some simple tips to try. Check out this video from the Learning Center for a quick explanation of many of these tips.
Understanding First: Try to understand the information first. Information that is organized and makes sense to you is easier to memorize.
Linking Information: Connect the information you are trying to memorize to something that you already know. Material in isolation is more difficult to remember than material that is connected to other concepts. If you cannot think of a way to connect the information to something you already know, make up a crazy connection. For example, say you are trying to memorize the fact that water at sea level boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and 212 happens to be the first three digits of your best friend’s phone number. Link these two by imagining throwing your phone into a boiling ocean. It’s a crazy link, but it can help that fact to stick.
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Spaced Repetition: Use distributed practice. For a concept to move from your temporary working memory to your long-term memory, two things need to happen: the concept should be memorable and it should be repeated. Use repetition to firmly lodge information in your memory. Repetition techniques can involve things like flash cards, using the simple tips in this section, and self-testing. Space out your studying and repetition over several days, and start to increase the time in between each study session. Spacing it out and gradually extending the times in between can help us become more certain of mastery and lock the concepts into place.
Active Recall: Self-test. Quiz yourself every so often by actively recalling the information you are trying to study. Make sure to actively quiz yourself-do not simply reread notes or a textbook. Often, students think they remember material just because it is familiar to them when they reread it. Instead, ask yourself questions and force yourself to remember it without looking at the answer or material. This will enable you to identify areas that you are struggling with; you can then go back to one of the memory tricks to help yourself memorize it. Also, avoid quizzing yourself immediately after trying to memorize something. Wait a few hours, or even a day or two, to see if it has really stuck in your memory.
Writing it Out: Write it out. Writing appears to help us more deeply encode information that we’re trying to learn because there is a direct connection between our hand and our brain. Try writing your notes by hand during a lecture or rewriting and reorganizing notes or information by hand after a lecture. While you are writing out a concept you want to remember, try to say the information out loud and visualize the concept as well.
Mnemonic Devices: Use mnemonics. Mnemonics are systems and tricks that make information for memorable. One common type is when the first letter of each word in a sentence is also the first letter of each word in a list that needs to be memorized. For example, many children learned the order of operations in math by using the sentence Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (parentheses, exponents, multiply, divide, add, subtract).
Interleaving: Practice interleaving. Interleaving is the idea of mixing or alternating skills or concepts that you want to memorize. For example, spend some time memorizing vocabulary words for your science class and then immediately switch to studying historical dates and names for your history class. Follow that up with practicing a few math problems, and then jump back to the science definitions. This method may seem confusing at first, but yields better results in the end than simply spending long periods of time on the same concept.
Visual and Spatial Techniques: Visual and spatial techniques are memory tricks that involve your five senses. They utilize images, songs, feelings, and our bodies to help information stick. Humans have outstanding visual and spatial memory systems. When you use visual and spatial memory techniques, you use fun, memorable, and creative approaches rather than boring, rote memorization. This makes it easier to see, feel, or hear the things you want to remember. Visual and spatial techniques also free up your working memory. When you group things together, you enhance your long-term memory. Using visual and spatial techniques helps your mind focus and pay attention when your mind would rather wander to something else. They help you make what you learn meaningful, memorable, and fun.
Desirable Difficulties in Learning
In 1994, Robert Bjork coined the term desirable difficulties in learning to capture a set of paradoxical findings that continue to fascinate researchers today. The concept helps us to understand the wrong intuitions of students about the effectiveness of learning strategies. The basic finding comes from experiments that vary a method of learning and then report a strong (cross-over) interaction between performance on an immediate test and on a delayed test. That is, Condition A produces better performance than Condition B when the test is given soon after learning, but if the test is delayed even a day or two, Condition B leads to superior performance. Thus, the condition that at first seems to work more poorly produces better learning for the long term: the difficulty that Condition B initially seems to present is advantageous in the long run.
Spacing vs. Massing: Spacing of practice is one; its benefit was discovered by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885 and has been replicated countless times. If people are given a passage to learn and are asked to read it twice, massed practice (back-to-back readings) will lead to better recall on an immediate test than will spaced practice (reading the passage twice with time between devoted to other activities). Cramming, in other words, works in the short term.
Interleaving vs. Blocking: A related issue to spacing is interleaving, and it has a similar effect to spacing. If students are learning to solve geometry problems, the typical method of instruction has them learn to do one type of problem (e.g., finding the volume of a particular type of solid such as a wedge) with repeated practice, then addressing the same problem with another shape, such as a spherical cone, and so on. Thus, instruction on finding volume of solids is blocked by the type of solid in classroom learning and in homework in math classes. A different way to teach from the blocked method just described is called interleaving of problems (also known as “shuffling” of problems in math education). Here, students learn the rules for all types of solids and then Intersperse their practice with different examples, so they solve for one type of problem, then a different one, and so forth. Not surprisingly, students find this method hard and learn more slowly. On a test given immediately after instruction, students who learn by interleaving solve new problems more poorly than those trained with blocked practice.
Retrieval Practice vs. Rereading: A third variable exhibiting desirable difficulty is retrieval practice, i.e. recalling or recognizing information when tested (either by testing oneself or by a teacher in a classroom). In one experiment, Roediger and Karpicke compared repeated testing of recently studied information to repeated studying of the same material (what students usually report that they do). They gave college students a short passage to read about the sun and sea otters. In one condition, students followed their initial study of the passage with three additional study periods (SSSS, where S is for study). In a second condition, students studied the passage two additional times and took one test (SSST). The tests were free recall, which means that students were told to recall everything they could from the passage they had read. The subjects who were tested during a learning period recalled about 70 percent [of the units] of information on each of the tests, but students who reread the passage were, of course, re-exposed to 100 percent of the ideas on each reading. Repeated (massed) studying led to best performance on the immediate test, but increased testing caused better recall on the delayed test.
The Importance of Context and Application
Memorising facts can build the foundations for higher thinking and problem solving. Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Virginia, Daniel T. Willingham cautions, though, that we shouldn’t simply have students memorize random facts for their own sake: “Mindless drilling is not an effective vehicle for building students’ store of knowledge.” The facts, definitions, dates, formulas, etc. that we ask students to memorize should be part of a larger unit of study, connected in some way to other bits of knowledge. So, when asking students to memorize parts of a plant, for example, it is because they are using that knowledge to understand the plant’s role in a particular ecosystem, or how a plant’s vascular system differs from an animal’s vascular system. When students learn the definition of a new word, they use it thoughtfully in the context of our unit of study, but also in other arenas: They discover that interest can be compounded, but so can errors, illnesses, and sentences.
What role does rote learning play in education today? While it may not be the most popular learning approach in schools today, it still does have a place in the classroom. It can help youngsters memorize the alphabet or learn their phone number and address. Rote learning remains an effective learning approach. However, its role in today’s classrooms is evolving.
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