Mnemonics in Educational Research

Many educational institutes which provide Coaching to crack entrance exams takes help of mnemonics to pile up huge amount of information. 

These institutes have now adopted short tricks to teach their students which is not useful for long term memory access, this is bcoz of the pattern of the exam that is most of the questions are multiple choice that can easily be solved by remembering short trick methods. Now, students don’t want to get deep knowledge of the concern subjects, they only opt for the institutions which provide better mnemonics. Mnemonics can help to remember specific information but the fact of information is not accessed.

Teaching & Learning is always an art. But, when we take the traditional teaching & learning, knowledge loss is very high. As per our research, we have found that the knowledge loss is more than 60% for any subject on an average. Traditional Teaching & Learning is having advantage of more interaction, changing pace. But it failed to address the knowledge loss due to mixed crowd, personal motivation.

General methods to improve memory:-

·       Use Images

Images can provide a memory benefit. Using this way enhance memory problems & helps to remember things for long term.

·       Increase amount of practice

Students remember things better if they have practice using it more frequently.

·       Enhance meaningfulness

Use more examples for students to explore so the content becomes more meaningful a part of their experience.

·       Increase attention

Students will not be able to remember the things taught in the class, if they don’t pay attention.

·       Minimize interference

Emphasize only on the critical features of a new topic. Avoid irrelevant information that waste your precious time and not helping in building up a response that answer your problem.

·       Promote Active modifications

Student recall things better when they experience it for themselves. They must be given opportunity to modify the content and analyze it, and then only they can strengthen themselves.

·       Promote written ability

Many things that need to be recalled must be written down on a piece of paper which is called as external memory. For instance such as keeping a notebook of assignments and students calendar may leads to fruitful outputs.

Mnemonics helps to reduce stress, make free up cognitive resources for higher order thinking. It also helps students perform better in exams without fear. Practical demands are not met by mnemonics that’s why they are not widely used now, days in the education system. They don’t help with transfer of knowledge or long passages etc.

 Mnemonics requires practice and training on regular basis and may not lead to long time memory access without cooperation from other methods and techniques. It should be repeatedly used not just once because that is of no use if it has no application to relate it to the next higher study material. When we are deciding to use the learning techniques we must know how and where to use such methods. It does not revolutionalize education system level.   

AUTHOR:

ANJALI

(Assistant Professor ECE Department Geeta Engineering College, Panipat)