Teachers can improve student information processing in several ways: 1. Focus on important concepts using physical techniques like underlining or saying ideas slowly, and psychological techniques like posing interesting problems. 2. Give students opportunities to overlearn basic skills through practice in a game-like atmosphere and repeated skills practice in lessons. 3. Provide meaningful practice to help students see connections between new and existing knowledge. 4. Provide distributed review and practice using a variety of examples to aid retention and transfer of information.

1. What Teachers Can Do to Improve
Information Processing
1. Focus specific attention on important concepts. Strategies
to accomplish this include both physical techniques (e.g.,
underlining important ideas, writing them on the
chalkboard, flashing them on the computer screen, saying
them more slowly or loudly) and psychological techniques
(e.g., arousing curiosity by posing an interesting problem).
2. Give students the opportunity to overlearn basic skills.
Strategies to accomplish this include practicing them in a
gamelike atmosphere and seeing to it that the skills are
practiced repeatedly as parts of subsequent lessons once
they have been initially mastered.
3. Provide opportunities for meaningful practice. Help the
learners see the connection between what they are currently
learning and what they already know.
4. Provide opportunities for distributed review and practice.
By using a wide variety of examples, you can facilitate
both retention and transfer of information and skills.
5. Assign homework and other supplementary activities that
will put into practice the preceding guidelines.

2. 6. Be aware of occasions when current information is likely to
be confused with previous or future information, and take
steps to prevent proactive and retroactive interference.
7. Anticipate what misconceptions are likely to occur and ask
questions to probe for them. Then help students overcome
these incorrect understandings.
8. Prompt students to go beyond rote memorization. Reduce
the incentives to memorize trivia and increase the
incentives to integrate and recall useful information. The
following are examples of ways to move toward
meaningful rather than rote recall of information:
o Ask questions during class that require the application
rather than recitation of principles. (When you do this,
you'll have to wait longer for an answer, since it's a
more complex task.)
o Allow students to use concept maps, diagrams,
outlines, or other notes when taking tests.
o Don't ask trivial questions that can easily (or only!) be
answered by rote memorization.
o Give credit for "wrong" answers that are accompanied
by truly plausible explanations.
9. Once students have completed a unit of instruction, review
that material at a later time. You can accomplish this by
using review questions on subsequent tests, but you can
also accomplish it by seeing to it that the prior subject

3. matter is discussed again and integrated into subsequent
units.
10. In general, follow the guidelines in the "What to Do"
lists accompanying each step of information processing in
this chapter.