eduPirate

Creating “Flashbulb Memories” in your Teaching

Posted on 09. Apr, 2009 by Cap'n Ko in Education, Teaching

There’s a good reason why great teachers have students that learn more. First of all, they’re great, and that’s a given. Secondly, they create flashbulb memories for their students, which makes them remember more vividly what’s being taught.

Flashbulb memories are normally associated with really big events: 9/11, the Kennedy Assassination, when Bambi’s mom died… But did you know they can be used to your advantage in everyday life as well?

It was in this online memory class (you can take it tomorrow!) that I first learned how powerful these types of memories can be. They don’t have to be big, life-changing events. It does, however, take a very special teacher to teach their students in a way that creates flashbulb memories for their students during a lesson.

Making things weird

One way to create flashbulb memories is to make something bizarre and weird – really really bizarre and weird. The stranger something is, the better of a memory you’re creating. If you can take ordinary, boring lessons and turn them into something bizarre and fascinating, students will be more engaged, and it will help them learn. Sure, it’s unconventional to do a story problem with tomato monkeys adding and subtracting babies, but I guarantee the students will end up learning more on a whole, and stay engaged in the process (not to mention talk about it later, which is a big plus as well!).

Using your senses

Another important aspect of the flashbulb memory trick is to have students imagine that they are using more of their senses. If they can pretend to feel the sea urchin while learning about its habitat (ouch, the poison is swelling up your hand, and you can feel the pressure of the blood welling up as you become like a balloon!), or smell the tuna-fish shoes (think bizarre) on their feet, while associating it with the lesson, they’ll remember it so much better. The brain loves to associate one thing with another thing, so by giving students more ways to associate the new content (i.e. the lesson) with things (i.e. senses), they’ll be able to regurgitate this information more solidly.

Making lessons fun

This might just sound like common sense, but if you’ve been teaching for a while, you’ll know how hard it is to make a lesson that your class really enjoys. A lesson that students talk about after class. Something that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. I had one teacher like this in 5th grade. In order to learn about money, the economy, and so on, he created this giant 3d wooden board that we put on the wall. Each student had to figure out ways to make money, sell to the other students, buy from the other students, and get land. He then let us expand into space (bizarre, but memorable!). I owned several planets, a spaceship (which I had to design myself), and a volcano on earth, and did pretty well. That lesson took all year to complete, but it was so fun that I remember many of the lessons pretty vividly to this day. I learned all about money, writing checks, working with other people, competing with competitors, and so on. By putting in the extra effort to make a lesson interesting and memorable, you’re doing your students a huge favor!

What have you done?

Have you created lesson plans specifically with the purpose of creating flashbulb memories for your students, or do you just plod along teaching your kids normally? If not, how do you plan on changing?

Or, if you are student, have you ever had any teachers like this?

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