Week 8: Information-Processing Theory

The question for this week is: What are some specific techniques that you would like to incorporate into your teaching based on information processing? Why do you think these techniques will work?

I would like to incorporate visual stimulation and memory aids. I would also like to incorporate peer tutoring. Visual stimulation will help students remember something by associating a picture with a concept. Memory aids will help students associate a concept with a rhyme or technique. An example of this is a “Rounding Rap” that I observed in a fourth grade class.
Mark the place, Look to the right.
Four or less are out of sight.
Five and up will buy one more
Before they too are out the door.
In those empty right-hand spaces,
Zeros keep the proper places.
It is a short little rhyme that helps the students remember the rules for rounding. When the students began their individual seat work, you could hear them saying the rap to themselves, and even now, several weeks later, they still remember the concept, even after having moved on to another concept.


A summary of what you have learned from the chapter readings.

Information-processing is an interesting topic. Understanding how people learn new information, how the information is stored and recalled from memory and how what they already know guides and determines what and how they will learn is what information-processing is all about. Our text says that information is processed in steps or stages, there are limits on how much information can be processed at one time even though the amount of information we can learn is limitless, and information processing is interactive. We have three memory stores; sensory register, short-term store, and long term store. Sensory register is the first memory store, and holds briefly, for possible processing, all environmental stimuli. Once information has been attended to, it is switched from sensory register to short term memory. STM can hold about seven bits of information for about 20 seconds. Long Term Memory (LTM) is unlimited and contains a permanent record of everything a person has learned.


Compare what you have learned from the reading with what you have experienced in life so far.

The best example I can think of is the rounding rap that I observed a teacher use in her fourth grade class. My son just told me he used this in his class, and still remembers it.


Describe how keeping this journal has helped you organize any ideas for teaching; come up with new ideas; etc.

This journal is giving me a great place to “Store” my ideas for each chapter of this class. So far, we have talked about psychosocial and cognitive development, age-level characteristics, student differences (intelligences), cultural and socioeconomic diversity, student variability (ability grouping, special education), behavioral learning (operant conditioning) and now information-processing (memory). Each topic is building on the previous concept, and putting it all together is fun.


A summary about the education blog that you have chosen.

He introduced me to a new source to help teach by using videos. For example, the video he used was teaching about the dynamics of flying. He used a video from Teachertube. It looks like a great site, one I look forward to looking into more. Technology is becoming a huge part of teaching, and there are just places (such as an airport) you can not take your students to as a field trip. This site helps with that issue. It brings the field trip to you and the class.