Learning to Learn skills

2. Why is it Important?
• Stop and Record plays a crucial part in reading
comprehension because we have a limited
ability to hold onto information in working
memory.
• When we are not able to hold on to the
information we read, we cannot build a coherent,
meaningful sense of the text; we cannot
manipulate the information as we read; and we
cannot store the information for later retrieval.

3. Why focus on working memory?
• We are going to focus on working memory in
talking about Stop and Record for two reasons.
• First, it gives us the insight into how to
communicate to students why it is so important
to stop periodically while reading and somehow
makes “notes” to use later.
• Second, it gives us some insight into the
relationships between reading comprehension
and all aspects of verbal memory.

4. Memory and Reading
Comprehension
• There is a great deal of research that
addresses the relationship between
memory and reading comprehension.
There is widespread belief of the important
role that prior knowledge (stored in long-
term memory) plays in comprehension.
Furthermore, it is increasingly noted that
working memory has a significant impact
on reading comprehension..

5. What is working memory?
F. Toomey, (1990-2010)
Working Memory is a temporary
storage process whereby
information is both “held” and
“worked” on. The symbol of a
work bench is often used to
represent working memory.

6. The Work Bench

7. Working Memory Components
• Working memory is made up of three
components: a central executive, an
information base, and a “collection” of cognitive
skills that operate on the information. The
central executive is responsible for allocating
resources for problem solving through the use
of strategies. Information (facts, concepts, ideas)
is drawn from both short-term (temporary
holding) and long-term (permanent holding)
memory. Operation skills include a wide variety
of cognitive operations (inferring, integrating,
comparing, etc.).

8. Other definitions of WM
Milton J. Dehn, Working Memory and Academic Learning,
John Wiley and Sons, 2008. “In this text working
memory is defined as the management, manipulation,
and transformation of information drawn from short-term
and long-term memory.” (P. 58)
Torkel Klingberg, The Overflowing Brain: Information
Overload and the Limits of Working Memory, 2009,
Oxford University Press: “Working memory is used to
control attention, to remember instructions, to keep in
mind a plan of things to do, and to solve complex
problems.” (p. 45)

9. What we know about Memory
Working memory (hereafter WM) both holds information
and processes it at the same time.
WM has limited capacity (the number of units that what
can be activated at one time). Magic #7+/-2 for adults??
WM is “directed” by an Executive Central Memory
(Metamemory/Metacognition)
WM is inherently related to Long Term Memory
representations/schema of information/ideas.
WM must exert control over what is included and
excluded.
WM works best when there is a balance between demand
and ability: that is, there is a control for complexity.

10. Stop and Discuss

11. What do you remember so far?

12. Examples of WM tasks
Hold information and process it!
Mental arithmetic (93-7+3)
Chess (several moves ahead)
Making inferences while reading
Keeping tabs on parallel plots (continuing tv
show)
Listening and taking notes
Reading with a question “in mind.”

13. What does the literature say?
Klingberg: The Overflowing Brain
• Plasticity and structure: Both activation and
passivity (3 months) Use it or Lose It!
• Selected (Pay attention to small portion of
available information); vs. captured attention
• Must address both Stimulation and I nhibition
• If don’t focus, will forget it. (p 22)
• Training (function, intensity, frequency, optimal
balance of challenge and ability
• ^Function: Don’t train WM in the abstract
• ^Computer games vs. training Israeli fighter
pilots

14. Klingberg continued
• What constitutes a unit (chunking)
• High level of WM, better able to avoid
distraction; higher demands and lower
WM, more easily distracted
• Complexity (cognitively demanding tasks)
How do we measure complexity? WM?
• Optimal balance of demand and capacity
(sense of control vs. stress)
• Effort, working at capacity: Flow as ideal.

15. Stop and Discuss

16. Working Memory and Academic Learning
Milton J. Dehn
Does a very extensive review of
models of WM and research
on both measuring and
instruction of WM.

17. Baddeley’s Model of Memory
According to Baddeley (1986-2006) core functions of the
central executive include: (a) selective attention,
which is the ability to focus attention on relevant
information, while inhibiting the disruptive effects of
irrelevant information; (b) switching, which is the
capacity to coordinate multiple concurrent cognitive
activities, such as timesharing during dual tasks; (c)
selecting and executing plans and flexible strategies;
(d) the capacity to allocate resources to other parts of
the working memory system; and (e) the capacity to
retrieve, hold, and manipulate temporarily activated
information from long term memory.

18. Inhibition, Switching, Updating
• Miyake, et all (2003) examined Baddeley’s
structure and identified three focused and
related central executive functions—inhibition,
switching, and updating. (p. 23)
• Inhibition, perhaps the most crucial function of
the screening out and suppressing the disruptive
effects of automatically generated and retrieved
information that is not pertinent to the task at
hand. Inhibition also discards previously
activated but no longer relevant information and
suppresses incorrect responses.

19. Inhibition, Switching, Updating
• Switching, or shifting, refers to the ability to
alternate between different tasks, sets, and
operations, such as switching retrieval plans.
• Updating which is similar to inhibition is the
ability to control and update information in
working memory, such as when attempting to
retain the last word of each sentence. Updating
is a constant process of revision whereby newer,
more relevant information replaces old, no
longer relevant information.

20. Stop and Discuss

21. Dehn: WM Capacity
• “It is also proposed here that the ultimate
capacity of an individual’s working
memory is partially determined by how
effectively the individual utilizes his or her
innate capacity. For example, the
development of expertise in a particular
knowledge or skill area will enhance
working memory performance by
increasing the size of the memory chunks
that are manipulated.” (p. 60)

22. Dehn: Wm & LTM
“Since long term memory is basically a
passive repository, most of the work of
encoding and retrieving information
falls on working memory operations.
The meaning-based encoding function
of working memory is constantly
required during the the initial stages of
learning.

23. Dehn: WM and LTM
Once an individual has
acquired schemas and other
long-term representational
structures, encoding of new
conceptual information
amounts to little more than
rearranging and adding the
new information to already
existing schemas…. Long-
term representations are
consciously used by
working memory to
reconstruct larger units of
information.” (p. 75)

24. Dehn: Integrating sentences into
ideas
“At the basic level, verbal working memory
facilitates reading comprehension by holding
words and sentences in consciousness until
there is enough information to complete an
idea. The number of sentences that can be held
in verbal working memory has been found to
relate to reading comprehension. The holding
process appears to be sub-vocalization, an
important form of inner speech.”

25. Dehn: Integrating sentences
“Despite the strong relationship, it seems
that the demands of reading
comprehension typically exceed the
limited storage capacity of verbal working
memory. Consequently, readers must
form some long-term representation of the
text or combine information in working
memory with existing long-term
representations.” (p. 105) Executive WM
is important here.

26. Stop and Discuss

27. Dehn: Executive WM
“In general, the most influential working
memory component when it comes to
academic learning is the executive.”

28. Dehn: Executive WM
“The development, capacity, and effective
use of executive working memory has
important consequences for academic
learning and performance. Children with
executive WM shortcomings have greater
difficulty monitoring resources, utilizing
effective strategies, and maintaining task-
relevant information.” (p. 124)

29. Dehn: Interventions
“Most of the interventions discussed herein can be
conducted by teaches and other school staff,
with only minimal training or self-study.
Keeping the strategies simple is not just for the
benefit of teaches. Higher Level, more
involved strategies demand greater working
memory resources to implement. For
individuals with impaired working memory
capacity, trying to use complex strategies can be
self-defeating…”

30. Dehn: Metacognitive Training
“The level of metacognition is highly correlated with success on
complex cognitive tasks, such as reading comprehension.” (p. 267)
^Use age appropriate language and concepts to teach the learner
about how memory works.
^Educate the learner about his/her memory strengths and weaknesses.
^Discuss the rationale for making an effort to use memory strategies.
D-P-C
^Conduct some simple memory exercises and ask the learner how he
or she tried to remember the information. Provide feedback on the
effectiveness of the strategy used and talk about how to self-
evaluate.
^Once the learners have acquired rudimentary metamemory, including
awareness of which strategies work for him or her, encourage the
learner to self-advocate for accommodations and methods that
minimize load on working memory.”(p. 269)

31. Dehn: LTM Interventions
“Most LTM strategies are designed to
facilitate retrieval by attaching effective
cues or to provide a more efficient and
more meaningful way of encoding
information, such as associating it with
existing knowledge. LTM interventions
can be classified under 4 general
categories: rehearsal (repetition),
organization, elaboration, and
visualization.” (p. 186)

32. LTM Interventions
Rehearsal includes practice techniques, such as
distributed practice and frequent review.
Organizational strategies support and align with
the structure of semantic long-term memory,
which is thought to be organized into hierarchical
schemas.
Elaboration is a process of enhancing
meaningfulness by relating the new information
to existing schemas.
Visualization involves connecting auditory or
verbal input with a visual image that will cue the
correct verbal response. (p. 286)

33. Stop and Discuss

34. Dehn: WM & Reading
Comprehension
“Presumably, most of these (rc) strategies work because they promote
more effective utilization of wm resources. The element these
strategies have in common is that they all increase the active
processing of text. Unlike mnemonics and other working memory
strategies that can be used in isolation, the simultaneous use of
multiple comprehension strategies may be necessary for successful
reading comprehension…following general guidelines for teaching
strategies (systemic, explicit).” (pp. 293-294)
^Monitoring
^Look Backs
^Verbal Rehearsal
^Visualization
^Previewing

35. Dehn: Principles for Reducing WM
Load in the Classroom
1. WM strategies can be taught in the classroom.
2. Retention will be enhanced if the input is simple,
structured, and redundant.
3. Remembering information while engaged in another
activity is difficult.
4. Ample exposure to material while demand on WM are
minimal.
5. Many teaching practices recommended for children
with ADHD are effective with students with WM
deficits.
6. More learning occurs when students have sufficient
time to process new information…to rehearse and
apply wm strategies.
7. Most teaching practices identified as effective or as
direct instruction support the storage and capacity
limitations of working memory. (pp 298)

36. Stop and Record
Defining Knowledge
*Review Self-Management and Talk about Stop
and Record as being related to managing
memory during and after reading.
*Explain both how working and long term memory
work and are related. (*Wiki Forthcoming, I hope)
*Discuss the importance of Purpose, Organization
and Knowledge Building as the bases for
knowing What and When/Where to stop and
record.
*Generate ideas about How to record based on the
literature, your experience, and the students’
experiences.

37. Stop and Record
Practicing Knowledge
*Using several simple texts, show, through color coding or
marking of some kind, how P and O and K contribute to
knowing What, Where/When to stop and record.
*Using the same text, model how they might translate their
“notes” into some kind of graphic form or summary.
*Using, short, easy, familiar texts, introduce students to
two or three formats for recording notes as they read:
underlining, post it notes, two column notes, etc.
Discuss how useful their formatted notes are or might be
for class discussion, writing assignments, tests. Have
students test out their preferred format in class while you
circulate and then later have them use their notes in a
discussion of the topic.

38. Stop and Record
Practicing Knowledge
Give students partially completed formats (anticipation
guides, semantic/concept maps, graphic organizers, two
column notes, key W/Wh qs) for recording; have them
choose one, then use their notes to explain to a partner
who has read a different text what the information was
about. Critique the format chosen for accuracy and
completeness as a class. Variation: See if the partner
can then use the notes to explain the information to a
third student.

39. Stop and Record: Practicing
Have student choose two different recording
formats on two different topics for a test.
Discuss which formats might work. Ask
them to choose a different format for each
topic. Give them a short test. After the
test, have the students decide if one
format was better than the other and if
different, why that might be the case.

40. Stop and Record
Contextualizing Knowledge
Have students review strategies they have
effectively used for Purpose, Organization,
and/or Knowledge Building to determine
which one(s) might work best for S and R.
Discuss different Situations to
predict/determine when a strategy might
work in one situation but not in another
situation. Experiment and report on which
strategies worked in which situations.

41. Stop and Record
Contextualizing
Knowledge
*Establish a personalized routine and
format for recording while reading.
*Have students regularly evaluate (a)
whether or not they are using the
format/method for recording; (b) if it is
working; (c) evaluate how they know if it is
working; (d) what they will do if it isn’t
working.

42. Hooray!
We did it!
• Thank you everyone for a great semester.
Fran and George