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While it may be frustrating, especially to teachers, that most of what a person experiences is quickly forgotten, recent research actually suggests that not only is forgetting a natural phenomenon, but it is actually beneficial and an adaptive strategy for the brain to focus on information that truly matters. In order to help students remember what they learn, teachers need to use the brain’s natural memory mechanisms that help to sort information into useful and forgettable information.
The brain is constantly bombarded with a plethora of sensory information. The brain learns to focus on what matters using its attentional resources to attend to the most important sensory information and forget what doesn’t matter. Similarly, the brain can not efficiently process and encode every new idea it learns, instead it must decide which concepts should be encoded into the brain for later retrieval and which can be forgotten. Forgetting is an adaptive way for the brain to learn what information is useful based on the environment it is exposed to.
New Research on Memory
Research out of Trinity College Dublin, in association with researchers out of the University of Toronto, was done looking at the cell types and mechanisms behind the concept of “forgetting” and whether memories that are forgotten are truly gone or simply inaccessible for retrieval.
According to the definition used by the researchers, “Forgetting refers to the reduced retrievability of information that was once successfully encoded and is demonstrated experimentally when a cue that previously led to retrieval success now leads to retrieval failure” (Ryan and Frankland) Simply put, forgetting is when something that used to be able to be remembered no longer is able to be recalled despite being able to do so previously.
One of the important neuronal cell types in the brain is called Engram cells, which help to tag, organize, and recall memory traces. Rather than every neuron involved in a memory needing to be activated for a memory to be recalled, simply activating the Engram cells starts a cascade which recalls the entire memory trace that it is responsible for. This is useful because it makes recalling memories a lot more efficient as it is harder to activate many different cells all over the brain rather than just one.
Engram cells can be thought of as a sort of manager, which when given the task of pulling up information, calls on the neurons under it to get to work pulling up the information that the engram cell is responsible for. Having a single “manager” for each memory trace can be incredibly useful, but having only one set of cells responsible for all recall duties allows for a single point of weakness as well. If the Engram cells’ connections fade and weaken, the entire memory trace may become inaccessible.
When a set of Engram cells lose their connection to their memory trace, the memory may become irretrievable, but these researchers wanted to see if manipulated activation of these engram cells might be able to revive the lost memory. According to the researchers, “remembering is an active process that involves the ecphoric interplay between perceptual experience and these engram cells, with successful recall associated with increased probability of engram cell reactivation.” (Ryan and Frankland)
In other words, Engram cells actively decide which connections should be maintained based on environmental stimuli. When the environmental situation reactivates the same memory traces repeatedly or under a highly emotional state, the engram cell connection will strengthen itself and be easier to reactivate, recalling the associated information.
While it may seem bad to have an entire memory lost due to just the Engram cell activation, this isn’t exactly what the research showed. While remembering information without Engram cell activation wasn’t possible, “Engram cell activation was also able to induce recovery from amnesia.” (Ryan and Frankland) This means that while Engram cells have to be efficient and disconnect from unused memories, that doesn’t mean that when the Engram cell connection is gone that the entire memory vanishes. The memory traces are still present and can be reactivated with reactivation of the Engram cell.
How to Help Students Remember What They Learn
Teachers should take heart from this research as it shows that even when students fail to recall memories of what they’ve learned, that doesn’t mean all of the learning time has been wasted. Deep in the brain’s memory networks, the information is often still connected, even if only loosely. Later on in a student’s life, they may be in another situation which reactivates their Engram cells and recalls the information that had previously been forgotten.
In order to help students remember what they’ve learned however, teachers can work to activate these Engram cells more often and more efficiently to keep the connections strong. However, not all memories can be maintained, even with the best approaches, and so teachers will need to decide what information is most important and use one of the strategies below to help students’ brains see which information is most valuable to keep in mind.
1: Repeat it until it becomes a joke.
It is no secret that one of the ways to strengthen a memory is to repeatedly expose a person to the information. While the most traditional way to activate this memory pathway is to have students repeat information verbally multiple times or write something down over and over, this approach takes a lot of time and only helps students to remember one piece of information that has been repeated and isn’t very useful for transferring that knowledge into a useful context.
This approach can still be useful for single pieces of very important information that students really need to remember exactly. Teachers can even have a bit of fun with the repetition, making a little joke out of the information to utilize humor as well as repetition in making a piece of information memorable. For example, if a teacher really needs students to remember to bring a certain item to class one day or they have a vital deadline to keep, the teacher could repeat the information several times and then go around the room having each student say the due date or what they will bring to class.
Making everyone say the exact same thing over and over will be silly, but that is exactly the point. While not fun, repeating the same information over and over actually does work for strengthening Engram cell connection.
With this silly approach, especially if the teacher is a bit dramatic and frames the repetition in a fun way where students can shout it out or say it in a funny voice, every student will not only have said the information themselves to ensure it has been encoded correctly, each student will also hear the information repeated many times over to strengthen that connection. Making them say what they need to remember as an exit ticket is also a great way to help students remember what they learn or need to remember.
2: Use various senses to activate Engram cells from multiple pathways.
Building on the advice from above, while repeating information over and over is technically effective, it will be even more powerful if that repetition is spread over multiple sensory pathways in the brain. Having students write down information as well as hearing that information will be beneficial in helping students remember what they learn.
Writing something down works to activate two pathways, the visual as well as the tactile pathways. Writing down information activates the tactile pathways when students actually do the act of writing down the information, but also works the visual pathway as students look at what they’re copying and then again at the information they have written down.
It is important to utilize multiple pathways as memory is most strongly activated in the way it was encoded. So if students have only heard a piece of information, seeing it written down won’t as quickly or effectively activate the Engram cells if they haven’t also written down or read the information as text. Similarly, if students have only seen something written down, hearing verbal questions about it or being used to utilize what they have learned in a project will be more difficult as the brain has to transfer the information from one sensory pathway to another.
Teachers can help students remember what they learn better by giving information not only repeatedly, but also in various contexts. That way, no matter how the information appears in the future, students will be able to quickly recognize and activate the proper Engram cell network. However, when time is short, teachers can also be mindful of how students will need to recall the information and attempt to encode the information similarly.
For example, if the teacher wants students to remember something for a written exam, the teacher should focus on encoding that information through students reading information and filling in blanks or multiple choice answers. As well, if students are to remember something for a speech, interview, or presentation, the teacher should help the student remember by having them say the information orally rather than just reading the information in a textbook or on the instructions sheet.
3: Put it to music or even give it a little dance to help students remember short content.
Another famous method of empowering memories is to put information to music. It often only takes a few notes at the beginning of a song for someone to be able to sing the lyrics of an entire song along with the accompanying melody. Similarly, teachers often use songs to teach facts or make learning more fun and memorable.
Music isn’t the only way to activate these rhythmic patterns of memory to strengthen memories however. Previous research has shown that physical movements accompanied by information are also fantastic to help students remember what they learn.
Using hand motions, a little dance, or even just a rocking of the body to a beat can help students remember lists of information or important facts. The famous example of this is when students use the rhyme “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” to help students remember when the important voyage of Christopher Columbus took place.
Despite there not being a melody to this rhyme, just having the rhyme and balanced beat of the sentence helps the information be memorable. This means that teachers don’t always have to research full songs to consolidate learning on various topics. Simply repeating information with a fun beat while bobbing their head or even hopping or bouncing can help students to remember important things.
Many English teachers also use the saying “I before E except after C” to help students remember spelling rules. Anyone who has used this approach will note their students mouthing the saying along with a little head bob during spelling tests.
4: Sneak learning into a fun context to help students remember what they learn.
While frustrating, some information, no matter how it is presented, will never pique students’ interests or seem valuable to their developing minds. Teachers can still target this information however, but they will need to do so by hiding this target from the students.
Previous research into motivation and memory has shown that people are much better at remembering things when they’re having fun and doing something self motivated rather than being told to do a boring school assignment or worksheet. This is why children seem to be able to remember vast amounts of information about their video games despite not being able to learn the simplest things in school. It is better to have some fun learning to help students remember what they learn rather than trying to do some content heavy teaching and have students forget it all.
While it isn’t a teacher’s job to entertain their students, using some of the tricks that get kids to learn mechanics and interactions in their video games will help them to also learn important academic knowledge and practical skills in school. As an example, students can find it incredibly boring to learn typing through copying down boring texts.
Simply covering over the boring façade of learning to type with a gamified approach can trick kids into having fun while still achieving the learning targets that the teacher needs. It may seem counterintuitive that having students focus on having fun instead of just what they are learning in order to help them remember information, but when students focus on objectives in games, they will still need to learn the skills required to achieve those objectives.
Mario Teaches Typing is a popular game and typing teaching tool that puts this approach into practice. Students will focus on getting through levels and breaking blocks to save the princess, but in order to do so they must type correctly.
Students learn to type correctly and quickly as they attempt to get through harder and harder levels. Just because students are having fun doesn’t mean that they won’t learn the practical skills involved. In fact, it is precisely because they aren’t focusing on just the learning objective and instead have a more fun and contextualized purpose for their skill that they learn it better.
5: Give students choice in learning materials.
Another key ingredient in making something memorable is giving it value to students. Students often don’t have the maturity or background knowledge to understand the value of what they are learning in school.
Teachers often use materials that they are comfortable with in order to teach learning objectives, but when possible it is better to let students choose their learning materials as long as they will work to help students achieve the class’s learning objectives.
Literature and social studies courses often struggle to get students to even complete readings let alone remember what they have read or be able to use it in a useful context outside of a simple essay or book report. Unless students are a part of an advanced literature course focusing on the literary traditions of a specific movement or nation, there is no reason for students to not have a say in what texts they will cover as long as they achieve the learning goals of the course.
General middle and high school language and literature courses have objectives like making students more critical readers and improving their writing abilities, but some teachers try to do this through books they value personally.
Often, most students will simply balk, finding the books boring and learn very little about literature or the learning objectives of being critical readers and better writers. While there may be one or two highly able students who are able to see the value in literature or history and hope to have careers in the field as writers or professors themselves, most students aren’t interested in this field and so teachers need to keep in mind what all students value and what all students will need in their futures and not try to enforce their own personal values on students.
If teachers let students choose their own texts, the advanced and academic students can be guided to choose texts that will prepare them for their futures, while other students can be allowed to choose works that help them get engaged and maybe prepare them for the more advanced texts later on.
Teachers can help students remember what they learn and gain skills by letting them do so in contexts that already interest them. Even if students choose “low quality” texts, the learning they gain from these lower quality texts is far superior to high quality texts going in one ear and out the other. In fact, research shows that students need good and bad examples in order to be able to truly analyze the quality of a work.
If students have never seen poor writing to compare to the high level writing, they won’t be able to recognize what makes the good writing actually good. Teachers can help students navigate the “lower quality” work that students bring in and help them see what makes a text great. That will help them remember the fundamentals of writing and reading better through something they chose themselves. Then students will be better prepared to actually recognize what makes great literature truly great.
Letting students choose their texts and project topics whenever possible will help them to remember information better than just relying on things the teacher knows are valuable. Then, perhaps later on in the year, teachers can introduce things that may have been out of reach for most students earlier. Because they were able to choose their texts before, they will have a better foundation and understanding to value the more difficult and academic texts the teacher wants to expose students to.
In addition to helping students remember what they learn better, this approach will also make learning a more positive experience. Instead of being forced to read things they find boring and seeing reading as a horrible punishment from school that they can’t wait to stop as soon as they graduate, they will learn why reading and writing about academic ideas can be useful and even fun. This will make them more likely to not only remember what they learned, but continue doing independently in following years and even post graduation.
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References
Ryan, Tomás J., and Paul W. Frankland. “Forgetting as a Form of Adaptive Engram Cell Plasticity.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-021-00548-3.
