Applying It All to the Classroom

The four topics discussed: Schemas, scripts, long-term memory and semantic memory have many applications to teachers and education.
When children are coming into my kindergarten class, I always assume that everyone knows nothing about being at school. Of course some have had pre-kindergarten, but none of them know what to expect. They have no schema for what kindergarten is suppose to be. We have to develop a script for them to follow for the day. Routine is very important at a young age. They have to understand what is going on and what is expected. They are developing their semantic memory and schemas of events each day. We learn how to behave in different situations and we also gain knowledge about the world through our lessons. In the end we hope they store this information in long-term memory for later use. That is the dream of every teacher though, that a student will gain the knowledge they need to succeed and store that knowledge to be successful throughout their life.

Schemas In Young Children

Could time out be promoting further disruptive behavior?

I posted this section to reflect on the article about young children’s perceptions of time out. After my first year of teaching kindergarten I was wondering what the effectiveness was of this strategy. I had tried it in my classroom but with little success in my opinion.

This article discussed the observations of fourty-two children that were interviewed after a time out experience. They worked with 11 different child care centers in this study. The article stated that "more children were observed to be isolated for reasons of noncompliance than for aggression." (Readdick and Chapman, 2000, p.81). They observed children when they were sent to time out, and after awhile they tried to talk to these children that were in time out. They asked them simple questions to get an idea of how they felt when they were sent to time out. Some of the students interviewed expressed the feelings of being alone, ignored or even the feeling of being disliked by their teacher. To a very young child they are viewing this as a punishment instead of a time to calm down and think about their actions. The article states that many children are not even able to tell you the reason they were in time out, which means they have not gained any knowledge or schema of the situation. It will do little to deter the same behavior in the future. Children's perceptions of time out may help adults weigh the appropriatness of using time out in their classroom.

With the child’s limited knowledge and experience (schemas of how things are suppose to be), they might even feel rejected or humiliated. The article goes on to suggest that because of their social inexperience they could internalize these negative labels and react accordingly. If this were true, we are developing the exact opposite schema that we had intended.

Sometimes children need time to think about what they have done wrong and need a “cool down” spot. I always talk with them after a few minutes of time out and see if they know why they are in time out. We talk about how we should be behaving and how to improve upon it in the future. With the difficult class that I had this year, I am not going to say time out doesn’t work, but I enjoyed little success with it. I found this article interesting because it touched on some of the reasons as to why timeout might not work for some young children. It also tied in with how young children do not have the semantic knowledge, schemas or scripts encoded in their long-term memory when they first come into my classroom. I must start from scratch, with some students, in building up their knowledge so that I do not humiliate a child when they are sent to time out.

Article Reference:
Readdick, C. A., & Chapman P. L. (2000). Young Children’s Perceptions of Time Out. Journal of Research in Childhood Education. 15(1). 81-87.

Long Term Memory

There is information being thrown at us from every direction every day. Some of it we can forget in a few minutes, some even in a matter of seconds. The information that we take in can be encoded into our long-term memory and retrieved later when it is needed, as shown in the diagram.

Long-term memory is very important. Without it we would not be able to recall things from the past or learn from any of the mistakes we made. Essentially, without long-term memory we would have anterograde amnesia for our whole life. Anterograde amnesia is where you cannot create new memories. The movie Memento depicts this type of amnesia very well. Recalling memory is not always as easy as it would seem. Have you ever been asked a question and you know the answer, but can’t quite find the words? This is known as tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Even though we might store something in our long-term memory, it does not necessarily mean that we will have an easy time recalling it. In the article by Katherine White and Lise Abrams they brought up some interesting points about tip-of-the-tongue phonomenons. Their report included a logical explanation as to why some things might be more prone to this phenomenon. "Words that are not activated frequently are more susceptible to TOTs. In addition, recent presentation of a word decreases the likelihood of later having a TOT for that word." (White and Abrams, 2002, 227)



















Long-term memory stores our experiences and our information that we gain over our lifetime. Why is long-term memory so important? We develop schemas and scripts on what we expect and what we are suppose to do in certain situations. These schemas and scripts are stored in our long term memory. Imagine what would happen if you could not recall what to do to in situations because you had no prior knowledge. Simple tasks such as stopping at a red light or knowing not to touch a hot stove could cause dangerous consequences.




Long-term memory lets us recall information when we need it most. We encode it into our memory in ways so that we can recall it. Sometimes we can recall it instantaneously while other times it takes a lot of work to remember. As teachers we are trying to give our students knowledge that will be stored into long-term memory, so that they can recall it when they need it. Some people develop an expertise for a specific skill or topic and are able to recall things easily. An example of someone who would have developed an expertise for a specific skill would be a master chess player. Experts have a strong connection to the memories that show the pieces on a chess board. They are able to search their memory and see when the pieces are in the right position to make certain moves.

An article on long term memory that I found interesting was the article by Igor Sotgiu and Dario Galati. This article discussed the long term memory for traumatic events and more specifically discussing the memories of victims during the flood in Italy in the year 2000. The authors had members of the community complete a questionnaire three years after the flood to see how they remembered the traumatic events. The results came back with them recalling the most critical phases of the flood the most. “The emotions most strongly experienced by respondents – sadness, fear, and surprise – were associated with specific appraisals.” (Sotgiu and Galati, 2007, p. 91). Participants tended to remember the more personal experiences that occurred and especially the ones that occurred during the emergency phase of the disaster. They however did not remember as many experiences from the efforts of preparing for the flood. The efforts of preparing for a flood are not traumatic, but if you experience an event that causes such destruction and you are filled with a sense of surprise and fear, this is encoded into your memory. Flashbulb memory is your memory for the situation where you found out about something that was dramatic or surprising. Those that were actually there during the flood are going to have images that are stored into their memory that allow them to recall these events. I can remember certain events about the twin towers being hit in New York, but the long term memory of the events are going to be much clearer to those who had to experience it in person and saw the events unfold.

Just Some Interesting Information on Long Term Memory and Some Fun Memory Games

Flies and Long Term Memory

Your probably wondering why there are flies under the title “interesting information on LTM”. I came across this video about some scientists who are doing research on long term memory in flies. They explain the experiment they are doing, using shocks and odor to teach flies to go through a maze, and also explain what effects it could have on humans at the end. I found it interesting that they were researching ways to help with tramatic experiences.

Here are some activities and games to test your memory:

Simon Game

Face Game

Semantic Memory and Long Term Memory

Semantic memory -
“Human brains are storehouses of vast amounts of different kinds of information – about people in the neighborhood and in the movies, about places and how to look, reach or navigate towards them, and about things and what they look, sound, feel, smell and taste like.” (Federmeir, 2000, p. 463)



Long term memory is divided into two kinds of memory. One kind is semantic memory, which is our knowledge of the world. “Semantic memory includes encyclopedic knowledge. It also includes lexical or language knowledge. In addition, semantic memory includes conceptual knowledge.” (Matlin, 2005, p. 248) To put it in simpler terms this memory helps you to recall names, dates, important facts, that a rectangle has two sets of parallel lines, and which words are associated with each other.
The other kind of memory is episodic. This is the memory of our own events or experiences. Such events that might be stored in this memory are your very first date, the first time you bought a new car, or recalling the day you were married.

As educators we are always looking to increase the semantic memory of our students. With my kindergarten students, you know that their semantic memory is very limited. They have very little knowledge about the world. Each grade that they pass through we continue to build on this knowledge.

In semantic memory we are organizing our knowledge into categories to make it easier to recall. Sometimes when we loose those connections the memory is harder to recall. You might still have that memory somewhere but you have nothing to connect it to, so you cannot recall it. There are different models to help explain how semantic memory works.

One model is the feature comparison model. According to this model, ideas are stored according to their characteristics. The prototype approach says that you place and object in a category by comparing that item with a prototype. An example of this would be if I saw a corvette, I would place this in the category of cars because it matches what a prototypical car would be. The final approach is the exemplar approach. This approach is based on examples of objects that you have already seen. First you must learn the examples and then you may place new items into that category depending on how closely they fit your examples.

Obviously there is not a clear cut best choice or we would not be discussing the other two. Each approach has its supporters and those who oppose it. In kindergarten their knowledge of the world is vastly limited compared to adults. We are still building the foundations of knowledge that they will need to help categorize items. Discussing all of these approaches does remind me of a game that was taught to me this year. We use this game, Mr. Niehaus’ Farmhouse, as a fun activity. I would give them clues as to what animal I was thinking of, and they would have to make logical guesses as to what animal I had in mind. This forced them to connect their prior knowledge of animals to the clues that I gave them. It became obvious who had previous knowledge about certain animals. One time I said “this animal stands on two legs,” and while some immediately had ideas, others did not have this past knowledge and had to wait for other clues.



An interesting explanation and picture of where semantic memory might be taking place in your brain:



Schematic representation of (a) ventral and (b) lateral surfaces of the brain. Shown are the approximate locations of regions where information about object form, motion and object-use-associated motor patters may be stored. Information from an increasing number of sources may be integrated in the temporal lobes, with specificity increasing along the posterior to anterior axis. Specific regions of the LIPC and the polar region of the temporal lobes may be involved differentially in retrieving, monitoring, selecting and maintaining semantic information. (Martin and Chao, 2001, p. 197)

Jean Piaget was very influential in the area of developmental psychology. His main focus was on the biological aspects of how humans come to know things or form concepts. Huitt and Hummel (2003) explained that “Piaget hypothesized that infants are born with schemes operating at birth that he called “reflexes.”” Infants use these “reflexes” to adapt to the environment and these reflexes are replaced with schemes on how things are suppose to be.

Piaget had two processes to explain how humans attempt to adapt. These two processes are assimilation and accommodations. “Assimilation is the process of using or transforming the environment so that it can be placed in preexisting cognitive structures. Accommodation is the process of changing cognitive structures in order to accept something from the environment.” (Huitt and Hummel, 2003). Humans use assimilation and accommodation all the time. An example of assimilation in children would be knowing the rules on our playground and using them on other playgrounds. During the year we take field trips and occasionally stop at a park for a break. The children are using their knowledge of the rules they are suppose to follow at the school playground and having to apply that to the new playground. An example of accommodation that Huitt and Hummel (2003) used would be when a child needs to modify a sucking schema developed by sucking on a pacifier to one that would be successful for sucking on a bottle.

Early childhood programs have used Piaget’s theory to provide better instructional techniques. Using a variety of teaching methods can help the children to attain the knowledge they need. In my classroom I attempt to use many different methods. We work with different manipulatives, perform experiments, work in groups and even take the occasional field trip. By giving them different ways to attain the knowledge you give them more opportunities to succeed.

Schemas and Scripts

Long term memory is stored in networks of schemas.


Schemas and scripts are closely tied in with semantic memory and long term memory. Schemas are your knowledge of situations and events. Every new teacher has a pretty good idea of what a classroom looks like. They have a “schema” for the design of the interior of a classroom. When my students come into my room, I have the rules posted with pictures of what I expect (how to sit in a chair correctly, how to sit at carpet time, etc.). This is new to them, and they look up at the board to help them understand the rules. After awhile it is engrained in their schema of what should be done. When they have done it day after day they realize what they should be doing because it is in their long term memory. They have that picture in their head of what they should be doing and do not even need to look up at the board as a reminder.

"Scripts record the particular goals and activities that take place in a particular setting at a particular time." (Gallagher and Frith, 2003, p.77)

I think of scripts, the same way I think of a movie script. These are a sequence of events that are encoded into your memory on how to do something. An example given in Gallagher and Frith’s article was that of the restaurant script. Parts of this script would include reading the menu, ordering drinks and getting the bill. In addition they added that if you were to make a gesture of writing on your hand to your waiter, he would most likely know that script and bring you your bill. (Gallagher and Frith, 2003, p. 77) Many teachers set up routines in their classrooms. In my classroom I have a “script” for the children to follow when they come into the room. They are to put their coat and their book bags in their locker and take their folder to their desks. Then they are to sharpen their pencils and begin on an activity that I have prepared at their desk. They are used to following this routine after a few weeks of class. They follow this script, just like an actor has to follow a script in a play.

In my classroom, I sometimes model different scripts that I wish for them to follow. At times these scripts can conflict with the students already existing scripts. An example would be when we were modeling how to share our toys in my classroom; some of the students did not understand this very well. Some student’s scripts at home were their toys were their toys and no one else’s. We had to write a new script for those students so they knew how to participate in center time appropriately.

References

Gallagher, H. L., & Frith C. D. (2003). Functional imaging of ‘theory of mind’. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 7(2). 77-83.

Kutas, M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2000). Electrophysiology reveals semantic memory use in language comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 4(12). 463-470.

Ranganath, C., Johnson, M.K., & D’Esposito, M. (2003). Prefrontal activity associated with working memory and episodic long-term memory. Neuropsychologia. 41. 378-389.

Readdick, C. A., & Chapman P. L. (2000). Young Children’s Perceptions of Time Out. Journal of Research in Childhood Education. 15(1). 81-87.

White, K.K., & Abrams L. (2002). Does Priming Specific Syllables During
Tip-of-the-Tongue States Facilitate Word Retrieval in Older Adults?.
Psychology and Aging. 17(2). 226-235

Martin, A., & Chao L. L. (2001). Semantic Memory and the Brain: Structure and Processes. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 11. 194-201.

Matlin, M. W. (2005). Cognition. (6th ed.). New Jersey: Wiley.

Graham, K.S., Simons J.S., Pratt, K.H., Patterson, K., & Hodges J.R. (2000). Insights From semantic dementia on the relationship between episodic and semantic Memory. Neuropsychologia. 38. 313-324

Timperley, H.S., & Robinson V. (2001). Achieving School Improvement Through Challenging and Changing Teachers’ Schema. Journal of Educational Change. 2(4). 281-300.

Levy, B.J., & Anderson, M.C. (2002) Inhibitory processes and the control of memory retrieval. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 6(7), 299-305.

Logue, Mary. (2007). Early Childhood Learning Standards: Tools for Promoting Social and Academic Success in Kindergarten. Children & Schools. 29(1). 35-43.

Sotgiu, I., & Galati, D. (2007). Long-Term Memory for Traumatic Events: Experiences and Emotional Reactions During the 2000 Flood in Italy. The Journal of Psychology. 141(1). 91-108.

Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Educational Psychology Interactive. Retrieved June 18, 2007 from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html