Homework answers / question archive / Context-Dependent Learning + Mnemonics/Heuristics Problem: Many students taking a standardized test such as the MCAT or DAT struggle with test taking strategies to help retain all of the information needed for a successful score

Context-Dependent Learning + Mnemonics/Heuristics Problem: Many students taking a standardized test such as the MCAT or DAT struggle with test taking strategies to help retain all of the information needed for a successful score

Sociology

Share With

Context-Dependent Learning + Mnemonics/Heuristics Problem: Many students taking a standardized test such as the MCAT or DAT struggle with test taking strategies to help retain all of the information needed for a successful score. Context-Dependent Learning Improved recall of speci?c episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. Study: Scuba divers learned materials either while on land or while underwater. Then, they were tested while on land or underwater. Performance was best if the divers’ circumstances at the time of test were matched to those in place during learning. Intervention Examples Practice exams in same clothes Eating the same food as test day Getting in same emotional state Waking up/sleeping at the same times Studying in a similar environment that simulates testing conditions Mnemonics + Heuristics Mnemonics Any device or technique used to assist memory, usually by forging a link or association between the new information to be remembered and information previously encoded. Heuristics Mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and ef?ciently. Examples of Mnemonics & Heuristics Hill-Climbing Strategy “FLAT PEG” Follicle-stimulating (FSH) Luteinizing (LH) Adrenocorticotropic (ACTH) Thyroid stimulating (TSH) Prolactin Endorphins Growth hormone (GH) Requires you to simply go with the upcoming option presented to you that seems like it will successfully lead you to your goal B A King Phillip Came Over From Great Spain K = Kingdom P = Phylum C = Class O = Order F = Family G = Genus S = Species D C Means-End Analysis Form of a step-by-step process in which you are constantly comparing where you currently are in your process of solving a problem to the state that you are supposed to be in once you reach your goal. Why is it bene?cial? Increases Test Scores Reduces Testing Anxiety Improves Attitudes Towards Exams Why is it bene?cial + Connection to Cognition ? Retrieval Paths ? Activation of a Node ? Recognition Thank You! Resources https://app.nova.edu/toolbox/instructionalproducts/edd8124/fall11/1 975GoddenBaddeley.pdf http://www.davidpublisher.org/Public/uploads/Contribute/550931d1 a5386.pdf Reisberg, Daniel. Cognition: Exploring the Science of the Mind. W W Norton, 2018. Context-Dependent Learning + Mnemonics/Heuristics Problem: Many students taking a standardized test such as the MCAT or DAT struggle with test taking strategies to help retain all of the information needed for a successful score. Context-Dependent Learning Improved recall of speci?c episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. Study: Scuba divers learned materials either while on land or while underwater. Then, they were tested while on land or underwater. Performance was best if the divers’ circumstances at the time of test were matched to those in place during learning. Intervention Examples Practice exams in same clothes Eating the same food as test day Getting in same emotional state Waking up/sleeping at the same times Studying in a similar environment that simulates testing conditions Mnemonics + Heuristics Mnemonics Any device or technique used to assist memory, usually by forging a link or association between the new information to be remembered and information previously encoded. Heuristics Mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and ef?ciently. Examples of Mnemonics & Heuristics Hill-Climbing Strategy “FLAT PEG” Follicle-stimulating (FSH) Luteinizing (LH) Adrenocorticotropic (ACTH) Thyroid stimulating (TSH) Prolactin Endorphins Growth hormone (GH) Requires you to simply go with the upcoming option presented to you that seems like it will successfully lead you to your goal B A King Phillip Came Over From Great Spain K = Kingdom P = Phylum C = Class O = Order F = Family G = Genus S = Species D C Means-End Analysis Form of a step-by-step process in which you are constantly comparing where you currently are in your process of solving a problem to the state that you are supposed to be in once you reach your goal. Why is it bene?cial? Increases Test Scores Reduces Testing Anxiety Improves Attitudes Towards Exams Why is it bene?cial + Connection to Cognition ? Retrieval Paths ? Activation of a Node ? Recognition Thank You! Resources https://app.nova.edu/toolbox/instructionalproducts/edd8124/fall11/1 975GoddenBaddeley.pdf http://www.davidpublisher.org/Public/uploads/Contribute/550931d1 a5386.pdf Reisberg, Daniel. Cognition: Exploring the Science of the Mind. W W Norton, 2018. we are going to be discussing context-dependent learning and mnemonics/heuristics for our presentation today. Hey arent you currently studying for the DAT exam for dentistry school right now? Yeah! I am. Oh I heard that these tests are very hard to study for and they require a lot of material for you to learn and memorize. How have you been dealing with all of this? Oh actually yea many people are on the same boat as I am currently. Many students taking standardized tests struggle with test taking strategies to help them retain all the information needed. Actually, I have been using this one method called context-dependent learning which is improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. Oh I have never heard of that. Yea it’s great, there is even a study about it that shows how it works. In one study, Godden and Baddeley asked scuba divers to learn various materials. Some of the divers learned the material while sitting on dry land; others learned it while underwater, hearing the material via a special communication set. Within each group, half of the divers were then tested while above water, and half were tested below. This data shows how when the learning environment and recall environment were similar, there was a greater total recall of words learned. That is really interesting! So how have you actually applied this concept to your studying? Yea these are some of the things that I have been doing while studying for the DAT that I feel can actually really help the problem that we addressed before. This includes taking practice exams in the same clothes I would wear during the test, trying to practice getting in the same emotional state I would during the test, eating the same foods, waking up and sleeping at the same time I would on a test day while studying, and finally, studying in a similar environment that simulates testing conditions. For example, my testing center will most likely be very quiet, so I try to study in quiet environments whenever possible. You know I actually just finished taking my MCAT and a couple of strategies that really helped me retain information effectively is using mnemonics and heuristics. And just so you’re aware mnemonics are any device or technique used to assist memory, usually by forging a link or association between the new information to be remembered and information previously encoded. Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. So here are some examples that may be helpful for you. The first two are considered spelling mnemonics. So the first one is FLAT PEG where each letter from the words expresses a different hormone from the anterior pituitary gland. Another one is King Phillip Came Over From Great Spain, which is very commonly used to explain taxonomy. The next two are heuristics, and the hill-climbing strategy tells you to go with the option presented to you that seems like it will successfully lead you to your goal. An example of this is signing up to take your DAT or standardized tests because it will bring you one step closer to your goal in education. The means-end analysis is a step-by-step process in which you are constantly comparing where you currently are in your process of solving a problem to the state that you are supposed to be in once you reach your goal. So this can be a situation where you want to go to dentistry school. So how do you do that? You take the DAT. In order to take the DAT, you need the testing material. How do you get the material? Well you need to take the undergraduate required classes. These strategies are quite beneficial, especially for standardized exams. Research shows that test-taking strategies such as context-dependent learning and mnemonics/heuristics are shown to increase test scores through the effective use of their time, effort, and test conditions, as well as reduce testing anxiety and improve attitudes towards exams. Wow these are actually very helpful I will try using them when I am studying right now. While you were talking about the benefits of all of these strategies, it also reminded me about how they connect to many cognitive principles. One of the connections to cognition is retrieval paths which explains how when you want to locate information in memory, you travel on paths, moving from one memory to the next until you reach the target material. When you’re learning, you’re making connections between the newly acquired material and other information already in your memory. These connections make the new knowledge “findable” later on. Specifically, the connections serve as retrieval paths. Additionally, thanks to these retrieval paths, we have unconscious associations between ideas that we might not even be aware of. All of the knowledge in our brain can be considered as a network of ideas, with each idea connected to the next. These ideas can each be thought of as an individual unit called a node. These links allow for us to jump from one node (idea) to another, because when one node is activated, it activates other nodes that it is linked to; the same way neurons activate one another. In other circumstances, you draw information from your memory via recognition. This term refers to cases in which information is presented to you, and you must decide whether it’s the sought-after information. The way our cognitive psychology works still baffles me to this day. There are so many principles and ways that can explain our cognition and how this benefits us when it comes to learning and memory. Thank you everyone so much for joining us today and I hope you learned something here to use in our upcoming finals. Paper should address the following: 1) introduce the problem that you plan to address with your intervention (10 points) 2) identify and describe the cognitive principles that relate to your intervention. Make sure that you cite at least one peer reviewed journal article reporting experimental results. (10 points) 3) describe your intervention (10 points) 4) be specific about how it would work and give an example (10 points) 5) explain why it would be beneficial based on what you know about cognition (10 points) Problem: Many students taking the MCAT or DAT struggle with test taking strategies to help retain all of the information needed for a successful score. Intervention: One of the advice could be to use the context-dependent learning approach, which is dependent on the state the learner is in during acquisition. Two other approaches are mnemonics and heuristics. Some advice we could give is to take practice tests or study in the same clothes you would wear during the test. Another thing to consider, is wearing your mask at all times since taking these standardized tests will require you to wear them. We will use research as a way to strengthen our points. Another intervention is Mnemonics https://app.nova.edu/toolbox/instructionalproducts/edd8124/fall11/1975GoddenBaddeley.pdf → well known paper about context-dep learning (read abstract) There are different ways to retrieve information from memory. Learning connects new material with existing memory. These retrieval paths help us learn new material.Those paths depend on the context for which you learn something. The context-dependent learning is dependent on the state the learner is in during acquisition. Researchers found that the level of learning depends on the context of the learning environment. Researchers found that when the learning and test circumstances matched, the participants scored better. This can also be beneficial if you were to re-create the context such as your thoughts, feelings, and even the music you were listening to while studying. So, since your midterm will be online, if you typically study on your desk in your room in a quiet and comfortable environment, try to match that when taking the midterm. http://www.davidpublisher.org/Public/uploads/Contribute/550931d1a5386.pdf Research shows that test-taking strategies such as the ones we discussed strategies help students increase their scores on tests through the effective use of their time, effort, and test conditions. Additionally, using them affects other factors such as reducing test anxiety and improving attitudes toward tests When you’re learning, you’re making connec- tions between the newly acquired material and other information already in your memory. These connections make the new knowledge “findable” later on. Specifically, the connections serve as retrieval paths: When you want to locate information in memory, you travel on those paths, moving from one memory to the next until you reach the target material. Context reinstatement: benefits the context-dependent method through this strategy since it leads to the same emotional state the person was in during the learning process (talk about how this helps our intervention) Applied Project Paper O O O ?? When you discuss the problem you are addressing, make it clear why this is important, why it needs to be solved. When you choose an article that relates to the principles that you are using. Make sure that it is peer reviewed. If you are unsure, ask me. It is fine to use an article cited in the textbook, but make sure to track down the original article and read it. Use APA style citations for the article. When you describe your intervention make sure to discuss how you are operationalizing the cognitive principles that you are using. Make sure that you are specific enough about how your intervention would work, that someone could implement it from your paper alone. Include information such as the number of sessions, the number of minutes for each session, how far apart sessions should be spaced (e.g. one day, one week, etc.). Obviously not all of these would apply to every intervention, but you get the idea. Don't forget to include a real life example of how it would work. Make sure to double space your paper. O o O