Very interesting thank you! I think it's an unfortunate over simplification of working memory to view it as limited in terms of storage (or even in terms of storage at all). It's more of a limit of simultaneous disconnected items. If you present the information in a coherent and connected manner wm isn't an issue. You can watch a movie without getting lost if it's coherent. So if you're going on a real time exploration of an idea there isn't a wm issue as long as it's coherent. If you're expecting kids to memorise 10 arbitrary/disconnected things, even if they are very very simple things, then it's an issue.
Thanks, Toby – this is a really important point. Connected material collapses into fewer 'units', so is less of a load on working memory less. And that's where curiosity (and the movie analogy) comes in: it can supply the coherence that holds the information together.
Big fan of this idea from Nietzsche, thanks for this. Hadn't thought to connect it to children's working memory before though. A better understanding of the purpose of each learning activity would definitely support intrinsic motivation in the classroom
Thanks for this, Sam. I was struck, reading the literature, by the idea that how much working memory we can access depends on affect – including how curious we're feeling – and it made me wonder why I wasn't already trying to build that into lessons.
Just because lessons have structure, and sometimes a lot of it, doesn't mean we can't build intrinsic motivation into them too. As you say, how we communicate the purpose of a lesson feels like one of the most direct levers.
A hundred percent, I have also been very interested in the role affective action plays in memory formation. I read Immordino-Yang a couple of years ago which resonates nicely with your thinking here, although it is more concentrated on the neuroscientific level: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emotions-Learning-Brain-Implications-Neuroscience/dp/0393709817. Here's the full reference: Immordino-Yang, M.H., 2015. Emotions, learning, and the brain: Exploring the educational implications of affective neuroscience. WW Norton & Company.
Very interesting thank you! I think it's an unfortunate over simplification of working memory to view it as limited in terms of storage (or even in terms of storage at all). It's more of a limit of simultaneous disconnected items. If you present the information in a coherent and connected manner wm isn't an issue. You can watch a movie without getting lost if it's coherent. So if you're going on a real time exploration of an idea there isn't a wm issue as long as it's coherent. If you're expecting kids to memorise 10 arbitrary/disconnected things, even if they are very very simple things, then it's an issue.
Thanks, Toby – this is a really important point. Connected material collapses into fewer 'units', so is less of a load on working memory less. And that's where curiosity (and the movie analogy) comes in: it can supply the coherence that holds the information together.
Absolutely. Especially if it's being driven by the students and starting with their ideas.
Big fan of this idea from Nietzsche, thanks for this. Hadn't thought to connect it to children's working memory before though. A better understanding of the purpose of each learning activity would definitely support intrinsic motivation in the classroom
Thanks for this, Sam. I was struck, reading the literature, by the idea that how much working memory we can access depends on affect – including how curious we're feeling – and it made me wonder why I wasn't already trying to build that into lessons.
Just because lessons have structure, and sometimes a lot of it, doesn't mean we can't build intrinsic motivation into them too. As you say, how we communicate the purpose of a lesson feels like one of the most direct levers.
A hundred percent, I have also been very interested in the role affective action plays in memory formation. I read Immordino-Yang a couple of years ago which resonates nicely with your thinking here, although it is more concentrated on the neuroscientific level: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emotions-Learning-Brain-Implications-Neuroscience/dp/0393709817. Here's the full reference: Immordino-Yang, M.H., 2015. Emotions, learning, and the brain: Exploring the educational implications of affective neuroscience. WW Norton & Company.
I haven't read it so I'll certainly try and track it down; I've found a couple of her papers too - thanks for the recommendation!