memory - scabw Wbacs on Diigo

28 Nov 09

13 Nov 09

BBC - Radio 4 Memory Experience - Cramming

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memory radio bbc 4 cramming learning notes words list space catch phrase spaced review reviewing discussion

I also reduce the facts to be remembered to notes. Then later use the notes to help recall the lot. When I can do that I make a list of one word for each note and use that to recall the notes to recall the lot, then invent an easy to remember catch phrase to recall the list.
The way to cram is to filter your notes down to key bullet points and facts, and then learn these.
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- Cramming enabled me to pass my degree with a first........ memorising model answers and simply writing them up in the exams!
- blind cramming can be useless but cramming with proper understanding can be very very useful.
- Having learnt a lot of lines as an actor, learnt a foreign language fluently, and taught a lot of people English as a foreign language, I would tend to disagree with this. Learning words takes endless repetition. It isn’t just a mental activity, but also physical. It is similar to learning a musical instrument. When you learn an instrument, you repeat almost until you have the sensation that your hands or fingers are acting of their own accord. Learning words is a similar experience. This is particularly true when you are training your mouth to pronounce foreign words. However, taking a break and then returning to the activity is also crucial.
- I always learn new foreign language vocabulary by saying the word or phrase six times over for each word or phrase. This has worked for my MA in French, for GErman and for Japanese.
- Cramming is ok, i find repetition improves things if you have time and if it's done in chunks.
  
  While cramming for exams isn't really a good way to gain understanding, it does work in helping to pass i'm afraid.

How to Memorize Anything

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howto learning memory study lifehacks education article oldschool repetition notes review memorization

- Look at the first sentence in your notes and read it out loud. Then, close your eyes and say the sentence without looking at it.
- Repeat the step above, this time with the first 2 sentences.
- Next, try it with 3 sentences. Then 4. Repeat until you have memorized every sentence in your notes.

28 Oct 09

Putting the Pieces Together

Incremental Blogger: Taking note of Bill Gates taking notes

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bill gates note-taking notes quadrants questions quadrant thoughts thought memory information amount incremental blogger blog

27 Oct 09

Falling asleep on the job can improve your memory, study shows : Health

14-Day Plan Improves Memory | LiveScience

Brainteasers, crossword puzzles and memory exercises that emphasized verbal skills
Memory Training
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- Healthy Diet
- Five meals daily
- prevents dips in blood glucose
- Physical Fitness:
- Stretching and relaxation exercises
- Stress Reduction
- a five percent decrease in brain metabolism in the dorsal lateral prefrontal region of the brain, which is directly linked to working memory and other cognitive functions.
- using their brains more efficiently

Moving Your Eyes Improves Memory, Study Suggests | LiveScience

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information aesthetics - Information Visualization & Visual Communication

How do I take notes on big books? | Ask Metafilter

When you are reading a book, take a few notes on the inside back cover (stick a post-it on there if you don't want to write on the actual cover).
These notes should include page numbers (very important) for the crucial points in the book.
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- a system where he would flag passages in a book to come back to when he was reading, and then when he ended the reading session he would copy the passages out of the book and into his notes
- it sounds like it might cut down on the frustration of switching out of reading mode to type
- If it's your book, make marks in the margin. If not, take notes on index cards (much handier than notebooks).
- Fewer books to consider simultaneously mean that more material from those books will stick in long-term memory, which cuts out time wasted looking up things over and over again in books you don't really remember because you read them too quickly the first time.
- quality of reading trumps quantity of books read
- I read straight through with minimal note-taking, only making marks in the margins to remind me of a useful passage. At the end of the book, I go back and look at all the marginalia again and then write notes on whatever turned out to be important. Passages I identify as important before finishing the book more often than not are insignificant, so it's a waste of time for me to take notes as I go.
- a digital camera can be your personal portable scanner with good light and high resolution
- Just make a note about the picture number with the author, title, and a short description.
- 1) write down items/quotes/entire passages verbatim/citations/whatever into a SINGLE notebook which i took with me everywhere
- 2) at least once a week i would type all the still relevant information into my laptop into one large text file
- 3) at least once a month i would then arrange/re-arrange these bits and pieces to reflect my skeletal thesis outline [which of course was an everchanging/evolving monstrosity]
- 4) i would email this file to myself for a back up copy
- Also keeping a queue of emailed versions allowed me to return to particular thought patterns that I might have dis-integrated as I moved forward.
- I found that keeping the processing of information routine kept things fresh and integrated instead of continually having to revisit what I did 6 months ago.
- It sounds like you need one of those pens that works like a digital highliter - you run it over the text you want, and it saves it digitally to be input into a computer later.
- I suppose that this solution is anti-memory retention, though.
- I read somewhere that the process of writing something down, and not typing it, is a better technique for remebering things. Something about the neuro-motor connection.
- Long-hand seems better for retention and for working out ideas in my head as I go.
- I put all my notes into a single sequence -- and instead of arranging them by subject, I just left them in the order in which I'd made them. This meant that, if I was searching for a particular reference ('now where did I put my notes on Foucault?') I didn't have to waste time rummaging through fifteen different files; I could be certain that the reference would be somewhere in the main sequence, and all I had to remember was roughly when I'd made it ('ah yes! I was reading that book sometime last summer'), instead of having to reconstruct the index heading I might have filed it under.
- The key to this system was not to worry too much about subject arrangement -- to keep the subject-headings as general as possible -- and to concentrate on the physical control of the files.

How do I take notes on big books? | Ask MetaFilter

25 Oct 09

Writing and Remembering: Why We Remember What We Write - Stepcase Lifehack

www.lifehack.org/...we-remember-what-we-write.html - Preview

remember remembering learning learn write writing brain memory fix visualizing visualziation visual do doing

When we take notes, though, something happens. As we’re writing, we create spatial relations between the various bits of information we are recording. Spatial tasks are handled by another part of the brain, and the act of linking the verbal information with the spatial relationship seems to filter out the less relevant or important information.
students remembered around 40% of the information covered in the lecture
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- But the students who had taken notes remembered a higher proportion of key facts
- when we write — before we write, although indistinguishably so — we are putting some degree
  of thought into evaluating and ordering the information that we are receiving. That process, and not the notes themselves, is what helps fix ideas more firmly in our minds